Bakker 亀 Anarcane Turtles All the Way down

[Sci-2]

Guess I don't understand your point or Bakker's, then. How does reductionism imply that the aporetics lead to a platonic world?

Firstly, let me just state that Bakker is not an Orch OR advocate, and this is solely about the fictional world of the books.

That said, IF he's used Penrose's ideas as the foundation of the Bakkerverse then consciousness exists with other fundamentals at the Planck Scale. So I'm suggesting the Inchies applied the reductionism that science depends on as they advanced further and further. Sadly, for them, they'd already become uber-rapists by the time they found that beyond subatomic particles lay the Platonic Realm and that written into this realm was undeniable moral proscription against all their favorite past times.

Whoops.

Similarly, I think the Aporetics figured out a way to express (break down) language via strings and grammars. But as I see it that's just another kind of reductionism, and thus when they began to tinker with paradoxes in relation to onta-manipulation they also discovered the Platonic realm with Its inherent moral commandments.

By then, of course, Nonmen were keeping men as abused livestock in their underground kennels, convinced they could simply cast their souls into oblivion.

Again - Whoops.

[Sci-2]

It seems to me like we're supposed to believe that the Consult pretty much lost the tekne when their race was decimated and that the remaining Inchies and new other Consult members have been laboring to get it back for a long, long time. The skin spies are one step, and Moe's interrogations telling him the rebirth of the No-God is nigh is another suggestion that they're making progress.

Maybe the Skin Spies think the No God is coming back because their understanding of the Tekne is even more limited than that of their Consult masters.

Perhaps the goal of the Consult is to fake defeat at the hands of the Ordeal, at which point the heroes return to the lands of Men and spread the second Womb Plague.

Since Kellhus cannot even conceive of the microscopic world, he wouldn't be able to anticipate this. He might suspect some kind of gambit but will he really sacrifice the entirety of the Ordeal and himself, especially if the higher ranking members of the Consult are nowhere to be found? He might need the Schoolmen at least [if he believes some future conflict is imminent].

So someone in the Ordeal makes it back to the Empire. Infection spreads. 144,000, just like that.

BOOM.

*Aurax drops his microphone.*

[Callan S.]

Sci, your 'Woops' are both funny and tragic! But why the anonymity? Why is the settings of this platonic realm somehow just 'what is' rather than 'what it was set as'?

[Callan S.]

How would you distinguish it from science then?

It's sufficiently advanced.

[Sci-2]

Sci, your 'Woops' are both funny and tragic! But why the anonymity? Why is the settings of this platonic realm somehow just 'what is' rather than 'what it was set as'?

Ah, sorry, I wasn't trying to reject the God. (I retain my two scimitars - "one for the Unbeliever, one for the Unseeing Eye...")

I just think the Inchies never encountered God. The Aporetics may have encountered the Abyss by looking deep into their chorae, but I think it requires a Judging Eye to recognize the Abyss as "the false foil that it is".

Also glad you see the tragedy. The Inchies, via all the empirical evidence offered via by their advanced science, really figured all sentient beings were mechanisms, and so treated others like they'd treat their machines. They felt as justified as the Cartesians who cut up animals, as warranted as Big Moe blinding himself.

And then, at the apex of scientific understanding, they found out the moralizing theists - who'd long been driven to extinction among their kind - had been right all along.

Perhaps they'd even started with nobler pursuits than satisfying their carnal hunger. Maybe they tried to make Neuropaths out of themselves, freed from all the emotional defects that would see a Dunyain's face peeled off and his (or her?) skull made into a pin cushion.

Of course that would mean all the breeding efforts of Ishual, all the culling of the young in the Labyrinth, will only yield beings like Neuropaths. And as noted in that book, the inner animal of Neuropaths climbs into the spaces where the better angel of one's nature has been hollowed out:

'You've doomed yourself,' Neil croaked. 'You realize. Every Neuropath who's engaged in violent sexual behavior has gone serial. They fall into some kind of obsessive loop. Once they start, they can't seem to get enough.'

'Threshold compensation?' Sam asked.

'Exactly. Once the volume goes up, there's no turning it down.'

'Crank it, I say...'

If Kellhus knew the mission of producing a Self Moving Soul was impossible, would that be enough to break him? He told Big Moe he was more than Dunyain, but does that mean part of him is Dunyain still?

eta: Big More to Big Moe in last line

[Goodbye World]

Triskele,

Why did you have to revise the assumption that it's Aurax?

[Borque]

On some level, I think the series can be analysed as a very twisted Bond parody, where Aurax is Q and Aurang is James Bond.

Sil was M, Shaeönanra is miss Moneypenny, and Kellhus is Blofeld.

[Shryke]

Was the mention of some Scylvendi worshiping the No-God meant as a red herring? Or does anyone else think that Mog-pharau is the resurrected body of Lokung?

It's not a red herring. I think it's mostly just a comment on Scylvendi beliefs.

[Larry of the Lawn]

On some level, I think the series can be analysed as a very twisted Bond parody, where Aurax is Q and Aurang is James Bond.

Sil was M, Shaeönanra is miss Moneypenny, and Kellhus is Blofeld.

Loving this.

[Chun-Li]

Ah, really good point.

Explains what did seem like an odd affectation for bloodlines, but if they had an inkling about breeding plants and animals they probably realized they needed to breed men in the same fashion.

Going back to this, I can see why bloodlines could be important at the beginning of their program, but after 2,000 years? And besides, do we really know if their selective breeding program actually relies on bloodline? IIRC their tests are of the thousand thousand halls type, where people are thrown in their and are supposed to survive, not this guy is the son of that guy so he moves to the next level.

Could it be that they kept the Anasurimbor line for a reason?

[sologdin]

well, obviously they knew about the dead king's dying declaration and went to ishual to save his rotter and fulfill the prophetics.

[Goodbye World]

Maybe the Skin Spies think the No God is coming back because their understanding of the Tekne is even more limited than that of their Consult masters.

Perhaps the goal of the Consult is to fake defeat at the hands of the Ordeal, at which point the heroes return to the lands of Men and spread the second Womb Plague.

I think they are about to resurrect the No-God but they need to use someone for that like Nau-Cayuti in the 1st apo., probably Mimara or Moenghus.

[Sci-2]

I think they are about to resurrect the No-God but they need to use someone for that like Nau-Cayuti in the 1st apo., probably Mimara or Moenghus.

As bio-weapons go, the No-God pales before a contagious Womb Plague.

Though I suspect the Inchie Bros may be at the level of prog[r]ammers writing code for flesh weaving machines already in the Ark arc, rather than master biologists.

[Kalbear]

At this point I think the inchies are the equivalent of people writing programs that are slight variations on example code found in the help files. Bugs and all.

One thing that really vexes me: how does a skinspy get a soul? Are there also souled sranc? That, to me, is one of the greatest metaphysical mysteries: somehow, there is a way to attract a soul to something.

[lokisnow]

At this point I think the inchies are the equivalent of people writing programs that are slight variations on example code found in the help files. Bugs and all.

One thing that really vexes me: how does a skinspy get a soul? Are there also souled sranc? That, to me, is one of the greatest metaphysical mysteries: somehow, there is a way to attract a soul to something.

My crackpot answer to that is the ensouled skin spy at Atyersus that Maithanet conveniently knows about was ensouled by Moenghus (wathi doll esque magic) and once ensouled Moenghus was able to condition it to work his will without the Inchies even knowing it existed.

Is there anything to suggest that the Inchies know what's happening at Atyersus? I'm not sure. But Maithanet knew he was there, and in exposing the skin spy was able to bring the Mandate into the war at the crucial moment.

Because if it wasn't Moenghus, why wouldn't the Inchies have the Atyersus skin spy destroy seswatha's heart? You do that, and you've ended the Mandate in future generations, it would cause the gnosis to weaken and die out (because as Achamian mentions a lot of Mandate are lazy about magic since the Seswatha homonculus handles most of the discipline) which would massively reduce the threat the Mandate may pose to the resurrected No God.

Unless, of course, the Mandate are part of the Consult's plan, and the Consult is keeping them around for their own opaque reasons.

[Sci-2]

Is there anything to suggest that the Inchies know what's happening at Atyersus?

The Mandate's spies are being hunted down and killed.

[Borque]

Quality Moe crackpottery, lockesnow.

Because if it wasn't Moenghus, why wouldn't the Inchies have the Atyersus skin spy destroy seswatha's heart? You do that, and you've ended the Mandate in future generations, it would cause the gnosis to weaken and die out (because as Achamian mentions a lot of Mandate are lazy about magic since the Seswatha homonculus handles most of the discipline) which would massively reduce the threat the Mandate may pose to the resurrected No God.

Risky. I imagine heart security is quite high, with all kinds of wards and stuff.

Also, there would be quite a few Mandate schoolmen left that would be able to teach the Gnosis in the regular way.

ETA: And it would alert other parties that just maybe the Mandate are correct.

Unless, of course, the Mandate are part of the Consult's plan, and the Consult is keeping them around for their own opaque reasons.

I don't think so. Aurang ruminates at some point (TWP I think) about "embers" from way back that annoys him, of which the Mandate is one.

[lokisnow]

The Mandate's spies are being hunted down and killed.

D'Oh! How could I forget that!

Though how do you know it's not Moe and Maithanet doing that, making the Consult look bad?

;)

[Borque]

Would it be possible to construct one grand unified crackpot theory that unites the major strands of Moe, Maitha and Cnaiür crackpottery? I imagine so, if we put enough brainpower on the case.

D'Oh! How could I forget that!

Though how do you know it's not Moe and Maithanet doing that, making the Consult look bad

;)

Well it started a couple of hundred years before Moe left Ishuäl and sired Maitha if I recall correctly. So the turtles don't really go all the way down with that theory, I'm sorry to say.

[Kalbear]

You can't do magic without a soul. Clearly if they're going to place a spy as a sorc they have to know that he has a soul too.