Bakker 亀 Anarcane Turtles All the Way down

[Sci-2]

@HE:

But these passions are used as instruments of control. It’s Bakker’s “solution” of the Strong AI problem: if you build a race of Strong AIs, you better make sure you can control them.

It seems to me the Inchies were limited in their means of control, so they made the weapon races share in their proclivities.

The question IMO isn't that the passions are a leash - the question is whether the weapon races hunger for violence is something the Inchies used themselves as a template for.

They forget, but they have a way to find out. Just repeat the exposure to terrible torment by actually implementing some terrible torment. This, from a scientific point of view, makes perfect sense. (It’s utterly devoid of empathy, but real human history is rich with examples, so it’s completely within our ken; not magic or aliens necessary to explain this.)

Hmmm, I like this idea as it makes the reasoning far more sound.

The only thing is that Shae seems to recall all to well the experience of the IF?

@Madness:

I really don't understand what's so hard to understand. They experience something horrible and so nothing else, certainly no worldly guilt, horror, shame, can compare

Okay, so they experience something horrible. And this motivates them to torture others because? I don't see how (Experience Hell) -> (Torture Others) is so obvious.

What is the knowledge they seek? HE's idea that the Consult can't genuinely recall what they experienced makes sense of this, but outside of that I don't see what the torture accomplishes.

[Happy Ent]

What is the knowledge they seek? HE's idea that the Consult can't genuinely recall what they experienced makes sense of this, but outside of that I don't see what the torture accomplishes.

In Shae’s own words: “some scant knowledge of Hell.” Which, if we assume that IF indeed gives knowledge of Hell, makes no sense, unless you forget it. Which would make sense.

I like my theory.

[Hello World Alt]

They forget, but they have a way to find out. Just repeat the exposure to terrible torment by actually implementing some terrible torment.

They experience something horrible and so nothing else, certainly no worldly guilt, horror, shame, can compare:

If nothing worldly can compare to it, then what's the point of subjecting others to worldly torment to find out more about it?

[Ayx]

I'm re-reading the whole series from the beginning, and noticed a detail in the scene description of the Cishaurim surprise attack on the Scarlet Spires, it was a flashback by the head of Scarlet Spires after his near-confrontation with Akka.

Don't have the book in front of me, something like "with the flapping sound a bird makes when caught in the net, a three figures materialized out of the thin air"

Do Cishaurim have their own version of the teleportation? Or had this been explained.

[Madness]

Okay, so they experience something horrible. And this motivates them to torture others because? I don't see how (Experience Hell) -> (Torture Others) is so obvious.

What is the knowledge they seek? HE's idea that the Consult can't genuinely recall what they experienced makes sense of this, but outside of that I don't see what the torture accomplishes.

If nothing worldly can compare to it, then what's the point of subjecting others to worldly torment to find out more about it?

Because, as HE is saying, the Mangaecca can doubt their IFExperience. If causing pain through debauchery (or any experience at all, really) to themselves or others were worse than the IFExperience, then they could safely declare the IF false...

But since nothing they do or try compares...

Do Cishaurim have their own version of the teleportation? Or had this been explained.

Unexplained.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

No teleportation that we know of - remember that in all the world no one other before Kellhus could actually teleport - but it seems reasonable that they would have spells of concealment. The most plausible explanation is that the three Cish assassins magically concealed themselves and then walked straight past the various mundane and magical defenses. The mundane defenders didn't see them, and the magical defenses must have been tuned to those with the Mark.

Re: torture - I see no evidence that the Inchies hold any delight for torture. Their sexual appetites and um, physical attributes, might make the act of their coupling seem like torture to an outside observer, but the actual participants don't seem to mind (see: Esmi, the tribesmen at the end of TWP). Now clearly they are not above using psychological torture, but there's no reason to believe that they enjoy causing pain in others.

As for the IF, I like HE's explanation, though I do still like my own take :). I don't think they are incompatible - they tortured in order to grasp some recollection of hell and lost their remorse and hesitation due to the knowledge that they were damned equally one way or the other.

[Francis Buck]

Yeah, I agree with HE's explanations here for pretty much everything. I also don't think the IF being a good recruiting tool is a coincidence whatsoever, considering what the device actually does.

This just seems too far fetched to me. The IF just happens to work so well that everyone who sees it decides to join up with the Consult?

I guess we'll see when Mimara and/or Kellhus gaze into it.

It's not that it automatically makes people want to join the Consult specifically. It just makes people realize that they really, really don't want to be Damned, and they'll do anything to avoid it. The Consult just happens to be the group that's working towards that goal at the moment. This is also why I think Seswatha looked into the IF, but didn't join the Consult. He had a better way of avoiding (or forestalling) Damnation that didn't involve joining up with his most hated enemy.

I personally don't get any rationale for the IF being anything other than something that genuinely shows what's inside of your soul. It's basically a plot device that lets people experience Damnation without actually dying. The way the Inchoroi treat it, and even refer to it, is far more akin to being the object that drove their war across the cosmos and showed them the truth of reality, as opposed to just a brainwashing device. It's almost reverent to them, and even the skin-spies refer to themselves as the "Keepers of the Inverse Fire".

ETA: This is, of course, ignoring the fact that a major driving part of the story is that Damnation is real, and really, really fucking sucks. I mean that's what the stakes are all based around, and the IF is a plot device to show those stakes (and serve as real motivation for the Inchoroi, and later the Consult).

Oh, and Happy Holidays my fellow Bakkerites. :)

[Hello World Alt]

Because, as HE is saying, the Mangaecca can doubt their IFExperience. If causing pain through debauchery (or any experience at all, really) to themselves or others were worse than the IFExperience, then they could safely declare the IF false...

But since nothing they do or try compares...

You're point is that they do it to determine whether the IF is real or not? That's fine but it's not what HE was saying.

Now, after having seen the Inverse Fire, the Mangaëcca are naturally curious to remember what they saw. Why? Remember, they are best understood as scientist. They want to defeat or avoid damnation. To do so, they must understand damnation. They remember that it was bad, but in which way was it bad? Was it like having your skin peeled off? Your fingernails pulled? Vogon poetry? Goodkind?

They forget, but they have a way to find out. Just repeat the exposure to terrible torment by actually implementing some terrible torment.

Not to put words in anyone's mouth but what I got from this is that they don't doubt the IF experience or that it was that bad, they just forget why it's that bad. The torture is a way to understand what damnation truly is and then avoid it. That would be impossible if damnation is -as you say- so bad that nothing worldly compares to it (including the consult's torture). In other words the Mangaecca's attempts at understanding damnation (not determining whether it's the IF is real or not) through torture are futile.

[Sci-2]

I think HE's idea that there is something to recollect is very different from the idea that torturing others can disprove the IFExperience or that a lack of remorse leads one to torture others as a past time.

As for the possibility that the IF is fake, it's most likely not but Bakker does give us cause for doubt. Titirga is the one who mentions the possibility of the IF being a goad after all, and there are numerous instances of not taking one's feelings as proof.

And, as Kalbear notes, it is worth of note that Neuropath features a machine based on science aka The Tekne that can give someone an afterlife experience.

Additionally, the IF need not be a complete fake. It might show the expected afterlife of a genuine sinner, which may not be the same thing as having a deep mark. Shae may have experienced the afterlife of an Inchie and assumed it was his own post-death future.

[Francis Buck]

DP

[Happy Ent]

Is there a mystery about Sasheöka’s death? It certainly requires no teleportation: the Scarlet Spires were blind against the Cishaurium, because their Wards are not triggered by any Mark.

Now, we’re told, the Scarlet Spires used saffron- and henna-sniffing hounds.

[Sci-2]

The Cish also walk in that In Between place that separates the Inward and Outside.

That might be how they evaded the hounds but IIRC the SS only brought in hounds *after* Sasheöka died.

[Hello World Alt]

@ Francis - What are you saying is Seswatha's alternative?

I think he's talking about the idea that Seswatha like Shae avoided damnation by trapping his soul to his heart.

TFS spoilers if you haven't read it:

He either had what we thought was a better method, or he's buying time for himself until one comes along (which is why I think he's not

actually dead..much like Shaeonanra, he found a way to indefinitely post-pone death -- and thus damnation -- by somehow making his soul "locked" into his mummified heart, with those Mandati who Grasp it becoming inherently linked to the soul).

I'm not sure why Seswatha would think this is a better way to avoid damnation because according to Achamian, from the excerpt of chapter 1 TUC:

“So to have your soul caught...” She trailed, frowning.

“Is to be twice-damned...” he said, trailing at the behest of a queer reluctance. Few understood the monstrosity of sorcery better than he. “To have your hungers enslaved in the World, while your thoughts are tormented in the Outside.”

Although I am not sure I understood what Achamian was saying there very well. From the point where he says “How Shauriatas survived all these years. How he managed to cheat Death...” And damnation. to what I quoted above.

[Happy Ent]

That might be how they evaded the hounds but IIRC the SS only brought in hounds *after* Sasheöka died.

Yes, the hounds came after the assassination.

[Kalbear]

We’re back at square one then.

From where do you get the idea that torture is an Inchoroi trait? In particular, torture for the sake of scientific curiosity? Or, if you do disbelieve Shae’s rationalization, for the sake of sadism? (To the extent that we suspect the Inchies like torture – which I in fact disbelieve –, we seem to agree that the Inchies would do it for some perverse pleasure. The Consult, explicitly stated, feel nothing.)

We have not seen the Inchies do anything like what you implicitly describe them as, nor have any reports of it. It is, as I stated upthread, a misconception that we’ve built on this board.

Actually as stated the Consult does not feel 'nothing'. They do not feel remorse:

"They had conjectured, the Mangaecca. They had experimented. They had taken captives and inflicted every possible agony simultaneously all in the name of some flimsy purchase, some scant knowledge of Hell. Drawing toenails, while crushing genitals, while setting afire, while murdering children, raping wives, strangling mothers, blinding fathers… They had visited lunatic misery on innocents, and they had found themselves utterly impervious, immune to the least remorse. Some of them had even laughed."

And as I brought up earlier, we have at least one example of an Inchoroi causing deliberate wounding during sexual intercourse. This also speaks to the odd definition of sadism; it's perfectly acceptable to mind control someone into fucking you as that's not somehow sadistic (but is completely without remorse or empathy and is entirely sociopathic) but as long as you're not deliberately getting off while causing pain, it's not sadism? In any case, there's very little evidence to indicate that the Inchoroi even enjoy sex. They say they're a race of lovers, but so far the only times we've witnessed them having sex acts of any kind are to torture for information, attempt to control others or control their minions. Honestly, when we have 4 pages to go on as far as actual acts by an inchoroi it's hard to make definitive conclusions about anything. If you want to go fact based and action based instead of what they claim to be:

We have them having sex with a female while cutting her in order to torture information out of her. No indication of pleasure from the Inchoroi.

We have them having sex with a male in order to torture information out of him. No indication of pleasure from the Inchoroi.

We have them having sex with Shae for an unknown reason. no indication of pleasure from the Inchoroi.

Everything else we have is either some form of mind control (with again no indication that they actually enjoy it), a glamour, or some odd other dream.

What makes you think they're hedonists?

[Hello World Alt]

Well, the Incû-Holoinas is listed as number 2 on the list of most crazy evil spacecrafts. So yeah the Inchoroi are evil.

Seriously though, while looking at number one on the list, The Vogon Constructor Fleet from The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy (who want to destroy Earth), this description came up:

The Vogons, you see, don't regard the people of Earth with any ill will -- they hardly regard them at all. As author Douglas Adams puts it, the Vogons are "not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous."

That's kinda the Inchoroi right there.

[Callan S.]

But Shae saying they tortured their captives to gain some knowledge Hell is just bizarre to me.

It makes sense to me, in as much as it's trying to get a handle on it. Remember Bart Simpson saying 'Wouldn't hell be like a hottub - eventually you'd just get used to it?'.

They were trying to figure some way of managing this hell thing.

But the scumbags could barely emulate it.

[Callan S.]

Well, the Incû-Holoinas is listed as number 2 on the list of most crazy evil spacecrafts. So yeah the Inchoroi are evil.

Seriously though, while looking at number one on the list, The Vogon Constructor Fleet from The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy (who want to destroy Earth), this description came up:

That's kinda the Inchoroi right there.

More clinging to the concept of evil, yet dabbling in relativism as it suits.

[Madness]

What makes you think they're hedonists?

Aurang says so for one, which is corroborated in the cultural artifacts describing the Inchoroi and their various interactions (I can think of maybe two epigraphs off the top of my head)...

But wouldn't this be the most obvious example:

They coupled on the smoking slopes, Man and Inchoroi, their silhouettes entangled, arching against a skewed, perpetually setting sun. They grunted for wonder, wheezed with ecstasy. They gazed in delirium, cried out across the great bowl of ruin, over flames arrayed in descending echelons, like teeth growing out a shark’s throat.

Perhaps, everyone is getting caught up on the suffering aspect (which may be most vile to us)... Yeah, they seem to get off on suffering but they get off on everything else as well (and really I don't know why the reactions of the Consult Mangaeccan are even an analogy for how the Inchoroi might have reacted to or generally treat the IF). The real difference here is that Shaenanra is a willing participant.

You know, in writing this I have to wonder if Bakker's not suggesting that hedonism is the inevitable reaction to damnation or nihilism. I don't personally support the contention but it makes a sort of sense that if one cannot be more or less damned for future actions, then one might start trying to enjoy everything... but neither here nor there.

Sloppy, sloppy thread.

[Sci-2]

Sloppy, sloppy thread.

Huh?