Bakker XXII: All Aboard the Damnation Express

[Happy Ent]

But it will actually be the WLW because Achamian can't kill Kellhus without some White Luck.

Stretching a bit: Was Akka’s fortuitous killing of Cleric an instance of White Luck?

[Borque]

Stretching a bit: Was Akka’s fortuitous killing of Cleric an instance of White Luck?

Could have been the world that conspired, too.

Now, what would happen if the world conspires against the White-Luck? Unstoppable force meets immovable object?

Or is the Conspiring World and the White-Luck merely two names for the same phenomenon?

[Sci-2]

But how does that make the IF seem false? To me it makes it all the more likely. The Inchoroi peered ever deeper into the fabric of the World until they tore it apart, inadvertently creating the Inverse Fire, which showed them the truth of their Damnation. It did not show them why they were Damned -- all of that is inference (and mostly quite logical on the part of the Inchoroi, really). That's what drove them to their xenocidal rampage across the universe, trying to find the Special Place where shit actually mattered (Earwa). The idea that it's just some "goad" doesn't really fit in for me. What's the goad? All it does is reveal how bad Damnation actually is, to the point that it psychologically scars someone enough that they will do ANYTHING to avoid it.

Assume haunted houses and cursed burial grounds in on Earth are topos. How could any of our tools, or extrapolation of our tools to some post-Singularity future, discover commandments like "Do not rape". (Feel free to posit the Inchies as a Culture-level civilization, or a race on the verge of Subliming.) How could anything designed to gather communicable objective knowledge even provide any certainty about damnation or a way to avoid it?

I know I posited that after digging into the sub-quantum universe that the Inchies were hit by some revelation, but this feels like a leap. Seems more likely that Inchie-Wights simply explained to them what Hell was and why they were going there.

Otherwise the IF is something you look at and it confers personal gnosis about the nature of reality. Yet this kind of conviction/revelation has been challenged at every turn. Even Kellhus's revelations are made suspect within the text - examples of which Lockesnow's been providing - and that's despite the near certainty that he didn't fake the heart-pulling miracle.

eta:

The goad is you suddenly find yourself believing you are damned. And then, hey, here are the Inchie Brothers happy to explain how to avoid it. Unsurprisingly, your sense of compassion now matches the very beings damned for their own lack of compassion b/c the IF alters the pathways of your mind in the same way Cants of Compulsion fucked up Xin's thinking even after the spells' durations ended.

[unJon]

Assume haunted houses and cursed burial grounds in on Earth are topos. How could any of our tools, or extrapolation of our tools to some post-Singularity future, discover commandments like "Do not rape". (Feel free to posit the Inchies as a Culture-level civilization, or a race on the verge of Subliming.) How could anything designed to gather communicable objective knowledge even provide any certainty about damnation or a way to avoid

d.

what if hell as shown by the IF is feeling a bunch of Ciphrang violating the "boundaries of your skin" and for the first time in your Inchie life you realize wow this shit hurts and is really bad. Oh wait a scone this is just like the shit I've been doing to others.

Doesn't seem like a big leap to assume that the reason you are dammed is for violating the boundaries of skin as it matches up to the punishment and causes the realization that it ain't fun being a victim.

[Kalbear]

What do you mean? The rules of Damnation are clearly anthropomorphic. That's the entire conflict between the Inchoroi and humans. If the rules of Damnation are anthropomorphic, that means one of two things to me: The Rules of the Universe are inherently anthropomorphic, and humans just fit into that mold for some reason, or Earwa is special, and whatever ensouled being dominates that world is the one who dictates the nature of Damnation and the Universe. I think the latter explanation makes far, far more sense, for all the reasons listed above.

I'm curious why you think Damnation being subjective in some way is a "cop out". I don't even get what that means. The whole point, to me, is that objective morality is inherently nonsensical in Earwa. That's why the Inchoroi fight against it.

I don't think that the rules of damnation - if they exist - are clearly anthropomorphic. They're certainly not human shaped; snakes being holy doesn't make any sense as to why rape is bad. Women being less than men is also not an anthropomorphic thing. But that's not what I objected to. I objected to damnation being subjective. And the implication you were making is that it was someone's decision that was shaped largely by the human values on Earwa.

I think that's a cop out. I think it's a copout because it just takes a very cool premise (What if spirituality was objective?) and turns it into a really simple story that's been done a lot (what if the gods are out there and they're assholes - and what if you can change the world to being awesome?).

I think there's a third way that you didn't mention that makes a lot more sense to me - but more importantly tells a more interesting story. That is that damnation is objective in the universe. It is arbitrary and unfair the way gravity wells are unfair to those who want to travel into space, but it isn't chosen. It's not influenced by anyone or anything. It simply is in the way that hydrogen bonding is. If you have a soul, when you die that soul goes to the Outside. Your soul carries with it the physical, mental, and spiritual damage that you caused to other souls. That damage is detectable in the same way we can detect the carbon 14 that still exists in a dead thing.

And that's it.

The rules of the universe don't have to be anthropomorphic for this to be the case. Pain isn't anthropomorphic. If you like, think of the scarring of your soul as a swazond, one you get every time you cause another souled creature pain. The more you do this, the more you are scarred. If it is done a whole lot an entire area gets scarred (A topoi). The more scars you have, the more visible you are in the Outside.

Now here's the other theory I have. The gods and demons in the Outside ARE anthropomorphic because they are largely other souls that have used their Will to change reality to their liking. And their liking is influenced by their morality and desires - which are largely human, though there's no reason they couldn't be alien. The reason damnation is bad is because it makes you even more attractive to these things which treat you like so much buttfloss if you're lucky. These creatures don't influence what causes damnation and scarring. They can't decide that sorcerers are holy all of a sudden, any more than humans or Kellhus can. They can decide that sorcerers are especially tasty - or decide that they want to save sorcerers. But that doesn't change the scarring, only the result of that scarring.

The nice thing about this is that it fits every single thing we know about the Outside and all the witness arguments. It fits what Psatma says, what Ajenics says, what Meppa says. It fits the notion of an immanent God and that the Godlings are not really gods, just powerful demons. It fits the ancestor worship of the Zeum. It entirely fits what Mimara sees. And it fits the issue with the Inchoroi - that they fight against damnation and not the gods. They don't try to change the world's views to let them not be damned because that would not do anything. They are damned because their entire existence is devoted to causing others spiritual damage. They want to kill the humans - the souled creatures - because that destroys the pathway to the Outside for a soul. No longer can souls travel to the Outside (or vice versa), which means they cannot either.

But that only works if damnation is objective. If damnation is subjective, influenced by one race or another, all the Inchoroi had to do was convince everyone that they were holy. And they could have done it fairly easily; they almost did it with the nonmen. Their entire plan makes zero sense if things are subjective. It also makes it very easy for Kellhus to make the world change; all he has to do is convince everyone that he's right. He can just as easily make the Inchoroi holy, just like that. And they're saved. (note that the Inchoroi laugh at him when he suggests this bit of fraud). It then becomes basically a story like Preacher, where Kellhus is going to confront God because he's got some splaining to do. That's an okay story - but it's not the groundbreaking idea that I hope Bakker had.

[Anatúrinbor]

The rules of the universe don't have to be anthropomorphic for this to be the case. Pain isn't anthropomorphic. If you like, think of the scarring of your soul as a swazond, one you get every time you cause another souled creature pain. The more you do this, the more you are scarred. If it is done a whole lot an entire area gets scarred (A topoi). The more scars you have, the more visible you are in the Outside.

So damnation is determined by the idea that some actions scar a person's soul and others don't? And the ones that do scar it coincidentally are the same actions that humans think are bad?

what if hell as shown by the IF is feeling a bunch of Ciphrang violating the "boundaries of your skin" and for the first time in your Inchie life you realize wow this shit hurts and is really bad. Oh wait a scone this is just like the shit I've been doing to others.

I'm not sure if this explains anything. If merely being subjected to pain makes them understand that it's bad and other creatures shouldn't be subjected to it, then they should have understood that concept a long time ago without any need for the IF, just the same way we did.

[Sci-2]

So damnation is determined by the idea that some actions scar a person's soul and others don't?

Well, it appears the JE shows virtues as different colors, whereas sin always appears the same, so Kal may be on to something [about sin being a scarring or proof of some other damage to the soul].

Though one thing to consider is the tortured Emwama phantasms that still appear in the cages of Cil-Aujas when the Skin Eaters cross through it. Are those just the Outside creating thought forms in the image of those slaves, or were even the innocent men-as-livestock the Nonmen kept also damned when Cil-Aujas became topos?

Does the virtue Mimara sees on souls matter at all, or is everyone just damned?

[Kalbear]

So damnation is determined by the idea that some actions scar a person's soul and others don't? And the ones that do scar it coincidentally are the same actions that humans think are bad?

It's of course not coincidence.Is it a coincidence that throwing a ball up and down corresponds to newtonian mechanics? Is it a coincidence that freezers keep things below 0C? You're mistaking the cause. You're saying that because you expect the ball to come down, the ball comes down. I'm saying that the ball has come down so many times in the exact same way that you should expect that to continue and behave as such.

Every soul goes to the Outside. Every soul is marked with the stain of the damage that person caused during their life. Damnation is simply other things reacting to that stain and having power over you. The stains are seen by the Judging Eye, which has existed for a long, long time; thus people have a clear understanding of what causes the stains and the sin, for it can be actually perceived and observed. It's not perfect because it's not a commonplace observation, but it certainly can be communicated. Plus, communication with godlings and ciphrang is a two way street; you can simply ask what makes you attractive and what doesn't. The information has been there for a while.

So it's not a coincidence any more than it would be a coincidence about how you walk or breathe. It is a natural obvious outcome of living in an objectively spiritual world with objective sin.

Does the virtue Mimara sees on souls matter at all, or is everyone just damned?This is one of the most interesting questions left to be answered. Is virtue simply being without sin? Can you make your soul better looking instead of worse? And is there a different place? Since there have been books and books about damnation and hell, stories about what happens, and none of them mention once that there is any kind of Heaven - I'm inclined to believe that it doesn't matter - or if it does, what it does is allow you to exert more power when you are in the Outside. That the godlings were the most virtuous in those specific ways and thus could gain a foothold of power.

[Spring Bass]

So damnation is determined by the idea that some actions scar a person's soul and others don't? And the ones that do scar it coincidentally are the same actions that humans think are bad?

I'm not sure if this explains anything. If merely being subjected to pain makes them understand that it's bad and other creatures shouldn't be subjected to it, then they should have understood that concept a long time ago without any need for the IF, just the same way we did.

I think the idea is that violation is ultimately what determines "sin", specifically violation of other people's bodies and souls. That fits with what the Inchoroi talk about when they say that they were damned over "boundaries of skin" - violation is their essence, considering the whole "rape-alien" thing they've got going. It also explains why sorcery, with good or bad intent, is a sin - it's because it violates the Onta. That also wouldn't necessarily be humanocentric even if Earwa is cosmologically special, since "violation" can exist with aliens as well.

Here's the list of sins that Mimara sees upon the Skin Eaters with the Judging Eye in WLW:

Lashed and bone-sore, she breakfasts with charcoal-scabbed demons. Even the old Wizard sits with his skin blistered, his edges haunted by the shadow of his soul's future thrashing. Galian glances at her and mutters to the others, and laughter jumps through them in small, peevish squalls. And it seems she can see it, the piling on of sin - wickedness in all its bestial diversity. Thievery and betrayal, deceit and gluttony, vanity and cruelty, and murder - murder most of all.

Some of those stretch the boundaries of "violation" a bit. Murder obviously is a violation, along with presumably rape (AKA Galian), thievery, betrayal, and cruelty. But vanity and gluttony? I guess if they cause others pain, but they don't necessarily have to.

[Anatúrinbor]

If we create a computer simulation with it's own physics/logic and virtual characters with their own simulated consciousness, is it possible for those simulated characters to use their simulated tools and science to somehow build a device that can show them 'us'? or anything outside of the computer program?

@Kalbear,

It is a natural obvious outcome of living in an objectively spiritual world with objective sin.

I thought your point is that there is no such thing as sin/morality, but there are some actions that leave a mark on the soul (due to some physical property) making it more attractive to the gods and thus damnation, even though from the gods pov those actions are neither 'good' nor 'bad'. So my question was, why these actions and not others? For example why doesn't getting murdered/raped scar your soul? But I may have misunderstood your previous post...

[Kalbear]

I don't know what makes one thing a sin and another not. I don't know why snakes are virtuous. One possibility is as I said - sins are harms against other souls.

But there doesn't need to be a reason. Any more than there's a reason that hydrogen has one proton and no neutrons. That's what the laws of the universe are.

[lokisnow]

I think it means any physical harm caused by direct contact. Does intent matter?

Yes. Intent matters extremely. It's a deliberately intentional world.

here's bakker talking about that (and fantasy in general), happily, the quote also informs Kal and Francis' debate as well as being rather suggestive about the nature of the inverse fire.

The question of epic fantasy's SPECIFIC appeal, it seems to me, is primarily a social, historical, and psychological one.

So getting back to your question regarding worlds and laws. Humans are hardwired to anthropomorphize. Among the many specialized inference systems possessed by our brains, we have 'intentionality detection' systems, which we use to track various kinds of agents as opposed to natural events, which have their own inference systems. Our brain literally has modules dedicated to understanding events according to the modalities of intent or according to the modalities of cause. The thing is, our intentional inference systems are (and this is an uncomfortable fact) hyperactive: they regularly impute intent to events which are in fact causal.

Now before the institutionalization of science in the Enlightenment, we really had no way of knowing this, so as a result, we universally understood the world at large in intentional terms. Only as science provided us with its astonishingly reliable and powerful picture of the ways that causal processes monopolize natural events (the so-called 'disenchantment of the world') were we able to recognize the kinds of wholescale anthropomorphizing underwriting our worldviews. In other words, the institutional dominance of science is what allowed us to see these kinds of worlds as FANTASTIC.

Thus the connection of fantasy worlds to the worlds of scripture (myth that is believed) and myth (scripture that is disbelieved). It's no accident that Middle-earth, Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Vedic India all share such similar ontological structures. They all use the same inference systems to interpret the 'world' - the signature difference is that Middle-earth is a classic example of what psychologists call 'decoupled cognition,' which is just a fancy way of referring to the capacity to think 'as if' that underwrites all fiction. Middle-earth is, in a very real sense, 'scripture otherwise.'

The laws of these worlds are quite literally social and psychological as opposed to natural. This is one of the keys to their appeal, I think. Fantasy worlds are intrinsically meaningful worlds - this is what makes them fantastic. They are not worlds of things, but of AGENTS and ARTIFACTS. There's literally not a 'thing' - understood in the strict sense - to be found in fantasy or scriptural worlds.

Since this is our default way of understanding the world (the scientific worldview requires oodles of training), the primordial way, the 'escapism' of fantasy is not so much an escape as a return to worlds that make immediate sense. And this is part of what makes fantasy the antithesis of modernism, if you define the latter as narrative forms involving the struggle of a protagonist trying to find coherent meaning in an apparently meaningless world. (The Prince of Nothing, btw, tries to turn this toothless saw on its head.) The 'great clomping foot of nerdism,' as Harrison puts it (at once evincing and reinforcing the general bias against forms of decoupled cognition without obvious utility), is nothing more than the 'as if denial' of the scientific worldview, a return not to happier times, but to more comprehensible ones. In epic fantasies, we often like our illusions to run deep.

I can go on and on about this - there's many parallel stories to be told here.

In terms of content, the laws of fantasy worlds are CONCEPTUALLY different, which is just to say they engage different inference systems. In terms of composition, where hard SF uses what I call pseudo-cognitive transition rules to build speculative versions of the stochastically mechanistic world we've gained thanks to the Enlightenment, epic fantasy uses 'associative elimination rules' to build alternate versions of the intentional worlds we've lost thanks to the Enlightenment.

http://www.sfdiplomat.net/sf_diplomat/2007/02/the_aesthetics_.html

[Larry of the Lawn]

Could also be that damnation isn't real, that the Inchies and Nonmen and humans have simply constructed/adopted it. Sure, there are gods/demons/what have you, but that doesn't mean that damnation has to exist. How did anyone find out about it? Is it just something that the mind comes up with, as sort of Jungian construct?

Otherwise I tend to go with the idea that it's objective, and that it's unlikely that no one (Inchies, Human, nonMen, Judging Eye, what ever) have actually figured out what actually gets you damned or not. That First and Second Apocalypse were brought about by agents acting on unsound information and superstition.

[Anatúrinbor]

But there doesn't need to be a reason. Any more than there's a reason that hydrogen has one proton and no neutrons. That's what the laws of the universe are.

So what if it's a law of the universe? It's not like we don't spend so much of our time trying to understand the laws of physics. A question of why some actions lead to certain results while other actions don't should almost certainly have an answer, even if it's not known.

[Kalbear]

So what if it's a law of the universe? It's not like we don't spend so much of our time trying to understand the laws of physics. A question of why some actions lead to certain results while other actions don't should almost certainly have an answer, even if it's not known.

My point is that I don't know it - but it doesn't mean there needs to be a 'because' answer. It can be that it is a property of the universe, or the property that corresponds to General Relative Love and is a second order issue. But there doesn't need to be a conscious decision to make it thus. And there is another difference - we try to understand the laws of physics but science doesn't tell us why the laws of physics are the way they are. You can understand that certain actions are damning without knowing the cause.

And this is part of what makes fantasy the antithesis of modernism, if you define the latter as narrative forms involving the struggle of a protagonist trying to find coherent meaning in an apparently meaningless world. (The Prince of Nothing, btw, tries to turn this toothless saw on its head.)

I wonder what he means by this. My guess would be that he's talking about Kellhus (as modernity) attempting to impose meaninglessness in an actual meaningful world, where objective right and wrong do exist and he is willingly trying to suppress them.

[Anatúrinbor]

How did anyone find out about it? Is it just something that the mind comes up with, as sort of Jungian construct?

Otherwise I tend to go with the idea that it's objective, and that it's unlikely that no one (Inchies, Human, nonMen, Judging Eye, what ever) have actually figured out what actually gets you damned or not.

Prophets? Although if the gods want to feast on the souls of sinners, then why would they send prophets telling people not to sin?

[lokisnow]

I wonder what he means by this. My guess would be that he's talking about Kellhus (as modernity) attempting to impose meaninglessness in an actual meaningful world, where objective right and wrong do exist and he is willingly trying to suppress them.

that's what I've always figured.

[Kalbear]

Prophets? Although if the gods want to feast on the souls of sinners, then why would they send prophets telling people not to sin?

who said the gods want to feast? It might be that the gods give a decent type of afterlife to their followers - at least compared to the buttfloss ciphrang. And they don't want sinners that sin too much because it's way harder to fight all the others who want to punish.

Also, it may not be the gods that send the prophets. The prophet fane thought that god was immanent and the gods were demons; he wasn't sent by any gods. In a world of intention and meaning, a prophet is nothing more than a brilliant theoretical scientist. Fane isn't the equivalent of Muhammad; he's the equivalent of Einstein.

[karaddin]

Not been keeping up on the thread, so going back a bit for this reply:

There was also the School of Contrivers, whose siqu Emilidis made - or helped make - both the False Sun and the Barricades.

They seemed to primarily use the Gnosis to build artifacts.

Right now teleportation is the only spell we know of that requires a third inutteral. I think every so often we've tried to think about what other spells Kellhus could create using the "meta" magic but AFAIK nothing has really stuck as a definite possibility.

Yeah, Kellhus destroys thousands of Sranc as he hammers the ground with sorcery. He single handedly comes to the aid of the now eviscerated Army of the South.

Destroying Ishual would be a cake walk.

I thought it was speculated that this destructive walking Kellhus did may be a metagnostic form of skywalking where the tiny concussions of his footfall is massively amplified through the air to the ground as explosions?

And why did they pose such a great threat before Kiyuth? This is something I don't really get. As far as I remember, they're a horde of horsemen who don't wear any armor (except for trophies worn by their chieftains), have no sorcerers and aren't that numerous. The Fanim are the same horde of horsemen with no armor (except for padiraja's guards), but their numbers are enormous and they have Cishaurim. And still the Fanim get massacred in every pitched battle against the Inrithi knights. Couldn't the Inrithi do the same with the Scylvendi to get rid of this pain in the ass at some point in history?

In addition to the other answers, I also had the impression that the Scylvendi are noticeably larger/stronger than the Nansur etc. I know Cnaiür is a particularly imposing figure even for them, but thought that it applied generally.

And this is my problem:given what we know about the IF and y'know, logic, this makes no sense, for Mek or Cleric.

I dunno, it's been ages since I read it but the short story from the Erratic perspective didn't leave me expecting any logic at all from other Erratics. Since he's confessed it was a mistake I guess it doesn't matter, but Mek switching back and forth seemed in character to me.

[Anatúrinbor]

who said the gods want to feast? It might be that the gods give a decent type of afterlife to their followers - at least compared to the buttfloss ciphrang. And they don't want sinners that sin too much because it's way harder to fight all the others who want to punish.

Really? You object to the idea that the gods feast on souls and then you come up with something even more outlandish and baseless?

I mentioned prophets as a possible answer to the question of how the people of Earwa could have learned about the outside and damnation.