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Bakker XXIII: Priapic Godlings and Whoresome Folks


lokisnow

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The simplest explanation as to how the Inchies discovered damnation is that some part of their world became a topos and their dead brethren returned as Wights to let them know what's up. This gets around the issue of how the Tekne, which is basically technology gained through the sciences, manages to make a window to the Outside.



Additionally, the IF may be keyed to show the damnation status of the Inchoroi to anyone who enters its confines. That's another way it's a goad.


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Their initial meetings with the Nonmen were peaceful enough that it should have been the first thing they do

At first they thought they could sweep in and kill everyone the way they did on every other planet. After things became bloody however, they couldn't just say come with us into the Ark, we have something to show you. Besides, I'm pretty sure they didn't want all the Nonmen on their side because together they make up a lot more than 144,000.

If the IF is a goad then they probably use it to lure in individuals, not whole nations.

It seems convoluted and unnecessary without really adding anything to the plot.

It's not beyond Bakker to do exactly that.

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The simplest explanation as to how the Inchies discovered damnation is that some part of their world became a topos and their dead brethren returned as Wights to let them know what's up. This gets around the issue of how the Tekne, which is basically technology gained through the sciences, manages to make a window to the Outside.

Additionally, the IF may be keyed to show the damnation status of the Inchoroi to anyone who enters its confines. That's another way it's a goad.

Well, no, the simplest explanation is just that the IF is real. It requires a lot less extra speculatory B.S. then trying to figure out a way for it to be a goad. For starters, we don't even know that a topos can exist outside of Earwa, but even assuming they do, it's still only half the problem. The whole point behind the Consult -- Inchoroi included -- is that they're utterly driven to stop Damnation by whatever means necessary. We've been shown that that the mere knowledge of Hell isn't enough (otherwise the IF as a goad would be unnecessary to begin with -- just show someone a topoi), it's the experience of Hell that really matters. Once you experience it, there's no turning back. You can't live a normal life anymore. That's the whole point I'm trying to make -- the Inchoroi are under this same spell as all the people they've shown the IF to. The IF is what explains how an entire species could band together to achieve a singular goal. So, if the Inverse Fire is a goad, then it's a goad that's tricking the Inchoroi as well. And so, who's tricking them? What's the point? In addition, what we've seen of topoi and Wights so far really doesn't give the impression of something that would motivate an entire species. Gin'yursis didn't seem like he was very interested in helping his descendants out -- we're explicitly told that those in Hell desire nothing more to bring others into their frame, to push the horror of hell onto others. So the idea that the Inchoroi's entire mission was based on that is pretty damn shaky to me. Ultimately the point is, the Inchoroi's entire backstory and motivation doesn't make any sense unless they have something just like the IF motivating them. Which again, brings us to who's doing the tricking and why? I think that's what Trisky was implying (though he's welcome to correct me if I'm wrong) when he asked whose goad it is, because it doesn't really make much sense that it's the Inchoroi's.

We also have no reason to assume that the Tekne can't make a window to the Outside. That's just an arbitrary rule you're placing on the metaphysics, and in fact the series has already shown us that it isn't true; we've already seen the Tekne interacting with the metaphysics of the universe via the No-God, as well as the Inchoroi grafting of the onta. In particular, we're being told that both of these have to do with the soul, and if the IF is real, then it's clearly a technology based around showing one the nature of one's own soul.

As to the whole, " the IF may be keyed to show the damnation status of the Inchoroi to anyone who enters its confines,"...again, this is more baseless speculation required to explain how the IF is not exactly what the Inchoroi purport it to be. Occam's Razor at work.

At first they thought they could sweep in and kill everyone the way they did on every other planet. After things became bloody however, they couldn't just say come with us into the Ark, we have something to show you. Besides, I'm pretty sure they didn't want all the Nonmen on their side because together they make up a lot more than 144,000.

If the IF is a goad then they probably use it to lure in individuals, not whole nations.

That's not quite how it happened though. When the Inchoroi crashed, massive amounts of their numbers were lost. Then two emissaries were brought before the Nonman King. If the IF was nothing but an Inchoroi goad, then that would have been the perfect timing to set the trap. I think having the King of the Nonmen instantly on your side would be pretty damn beneficial to your cause, no? After all, if it is just a trick to convince people to join the Inchoroi, then he would have no motivation to do anything but work with then in order to save his soul, his people be Damned or not. Again, these events give the impression not that the IF is some instant turncloaking device, but rather a dangerous and powerful tool of genuine revelation.

It's not beyond Bakker to do exactly that.

Not beyond him to do what? Unnecessarily muddle his story with no meaningful additions to the plot? Why could he possibly want to do that?

Personally I think people just got too wrapped into this whole "goad" thing. To me, the addition of it in TFS served two simple purposes: A), Add ambiguity, because Bakker likes making everything in the series as ambiguous as humanly possible, and B.) Show the perspective of someone of like Titirga, and how an outsider would view a person that witnessed the IF. It's a method of showing the audience just how horrible Hell is, and just how fundamentally it alters the feeble mortal mind that encounters it. It makes them seem insane, driven to the point of obsession and madness.

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I'm missing something in the syllogism: my friend on a hallucinogen thought reincarnation is real, therefore the IF is a goad.

Also remember that it is only your cultural bias that makes you so readily equate Tekne with Technology/Science. Bakker might be lulling you for another revelation in TUC.

Also Titgura suggesting IF is a goad is necessary to establish that people could believe the IF exists yet not join the Consult. Just like Elez didn't realize the joke was on him re: damnation until TTT.

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Unnecessarily muddle his story with no meaningful additions to the plot? Why could he possibly want to do that?

Because to him it seems like a good idea? :dunno: Why else has he been doing it ever since he started writing books then?

To be clear though, I was only playing devil's advocate there; I don't think the IF is a goad.

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question: WHAT AM I?

answer: I AM.

But if your theory is correct, then what about the time it takes Kellhus to register the thought after it forms in his soul? Is it something like this for example?

1. Thought forms in Esmi's soul.

2. Thought reflecting Esmi's thought is formed in Kellhus' soul.

3. Facial muscles reflect thought and action is initiated from Esmi.

4. Kellhus' conscious mind perceives of thought from No. 2 (but he thinks that he has read Esmi's facial muscles).

5. Esmi's conscious mind perceives of thought No.1.

So why can't he do it without looking at the person's face?

being able to see skin spies is an accident of training for facial muscles.

And yes, that one two three four five progression should be correct. and if the theory is correct he should be able to read souls without reading faces once he realizes the progression.

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@Francis

Well, no, the simplest explanation is just that the IF is real. It requires a lot less extra speculatory B.S. then trying to figure out a way for it to be a goad.

I was avoiding the meta-narrative perspective.

Gin'yursis didn't seem like he was very interested in helping his descendants out -- we're explicitly told that those in Hell desire nothing more to bring others into their frame, to push the horror of hell onto others.

The motivation of the wights doesn't matter, so long as the Inchies know there is a Hell and all signs point to them going there.

As to the whole, " the IF may be keyed to show the damnation status of the Inchoroi to anyone who enters its confines,"...again, this is more baseless speculation required to explain how the IF is not exactly what the Inchoroi purport it to be.

Hey, if Bakker hadn't brought up the possibility I'd be willing to accept the IF is what it was originally purported to be. But since he did I'd hardly call it baseless speculation. I just try to wrap my head around how you could use the principles of our sciences and make something like the IF. Maybe a nuclear bomb could rip open the veil between Inward and Outside, which has come up before in fantasy, but a reliable piece of non-magical technology that forecasts your afterlife?

Just seems like if the Inchies could produce such an item they should've already had some knowledge of sorcery.

We also have no reason to assume that the Tekne can't make a window to the Outside. That's just an arbitrary rule you're placing on the metaphysics, and in fact the series has already shown us that it isn't true; we've already seen the Tekne interacting with the metaphysics of the universe via the No-God, as well as the Inchoroi grafting of the onta.

We don't yet know how the No-God works or even what it is, so I'd wait to use it as an example of anything.

As for the grafting, that was for the apprehension of the onta. What makes the Inchies capable of magic is that apprehension and having a soul.

@UnJon:

My point was if a real drug can make you certain of metaphysical truths, the Inchies could have a technology that does the same.

@Trisk

That being said, it's also hard to figure out what it is even if it's not a goad. Even if it's a totally legit recreation of the experience of damnation, the question of what exactly it is or where it comes from exists.

Yeah, I don't see how the IF works in the way the Inchies claim. Is there anyone who isn't damned who has looked into it? How does anyone know it's even reliable?

I mean, you look into it and you know that you're damned in the future. The IF is the technological equivalent of the Judging Eye. Just seems like a hard thing for a non-magical civilization to pull off. What are the principles of the Tekne - meaning all our scientific disciplines - that allow for that?

It seems to me that, at best, post-Singularity civs in the Inward could peer into the Outside. Yet we know from the extra-planar travels of Kellhus and other Earwans that simply going Outside doesn't grant the personal gnosis that you're damned - thus simply seeing Outside shouldn't do so either.

Thus the IF is given giving you a future experience in the present. Seems better to assume it gives you a damnation experience, but that experience isn't necessarily yours.

eta:

Hmmm....the Ark is a dead womb...the Judging Eye is the Eye of the Unborn...Aurang thinks Mimara is connected to "false" prophecy...

....calculating ultimate crackpot, please stand by....

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I re-read the Judging Eye (my second re-read) today. Whatever we say about Kellhus' and Akka's scepticism directing us away from the immanent presence of Gods in the first trilogy, it is quite clear from the Judging Eye that Akka in the TJE knows full well which Goddess is pushing him on this path- it is Anagke, the Whore of Fate - indeed he thinks she is responsible for his dreams of Ishual and the conversation with Celmomas and Nau-Cayuti.


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Sci2 you are in super crackpot mode. Easiest explanation is that IF is basically the judging eye looking in a mirror. We have in story explanation that is simple. That you cannot imagine science replicating it is your failing. This is not our universe.[/] This is a universe where magic exists. Where the Outside exists. For Bakker, science is the only reliable method for determine the truth. You know this since I know you read Three Poind Brain. In a universe like Earwa's, of course science will eventually uncover the Truth. I just turns out that the Truth is insane: everyone is damned because some strange religion on an unknown planet says that's how it is. (Or rather because agencies that exist in another dimension are powerful and want to eat your soul when it gets there.) Whatever. Bakker believes science would eventually uncover Truth no matter how weird and scary.

For crying out loud he Tekne is able to graft the ability to see the onta. You can't dismiss this point. The ability for the Tekne to cross to the even otherwise magical seeming truths is right there in the text to read.

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Sci2 you are in super crackpot mode.

Most definitely. But surely less out there than people who think Big Moe is due for a comeback? :cool4:

I just try to think what Dawkins and Hitchens would think if confronted by someone claiming to have invented the IF in our world. The arguments IMO would be similar to why the commonality of DMT visions in RL isn't definitive proof of realms beyond the material world.

Perhaps the JE manifested on the Inchies homeworld, but those females were dismissed as defectives for their insanity and possibly their birthing of still-borns. Finally, as the Inchies descended into further depravities, parts of their world became a topos and they began to see those bearers of the JE were in fact right. This made them look back to their old religions, where they came upon the 144,00....which suggests their depopulation plan might be horseshit...

Or maybe the Ark suggests "females" of the Inchies are sub-sentient leviathans birthing the males and thus could never vocalize/communicate what the JE was telling them. But there had to some impetus to build the IF in the first place, so if not the JE then we go back to the possibility of wights.

Man, Bakker should do an Atrocity Tale about the Inchie home world....

Easiest explanation is that IF is basically the judging eye looking in a mirror.

I'm actually thinking the comparison between the IF and the JE, and the Ark as a dead/dying womb, might be really important. It would get around the pesky issues of the Tekne having to evaluate souls and see if they are damned or not.

Some So maybe there's fetal Inchies under the skin of the Ark in proximity to the IF, constantly conceived and then dissolved until you get back the JE when a particular fertilized egg in the morass of zygotes is destined to be stillborn...and then you use that instance of the JE to sustain the IF. Would explain what the skin-spies are keeping.

[Or maybe the Inchies are able to keep the special fetus from development conception all this time.]

For Bakker, science is the only reliable method for determine the truth.

Science aka Tekne is about making objective observations of the world. How does something built by the Tekne give you personal gnosis of your impending afterlife? I'm confident Bakker has pondered this issue, otherwise he'd just have the IF be some kind of magical flame.

For crying out loud he Tekne is able to graft the ability to see the onta. You can't dismiss this point. The ability for the Tekne to cross to the even otherwise magical seeming truths is right there in the text to read.

Bakker already noted that genes covering Few status offer other cognitive benefits. Why the Dunyain didn't breed out those genes in Ishual.

Isolating the right genes to be a magi isn't the same thing as understanding how magic works on a scientific level. Think of drugs where efficacy is recorded but the exact mechanism of action is unknown.

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wouldn't be cool if JE looks into IF during a seswatha dream simultaneous to a cant of calling while dunyain face-reading facial swazonds of an inchie-glamored skinspy masquerading as WLW masquerading as narindar who apprehended TTT? huh?

Nice.

Solo, quit posing on DMT.

:laugh:

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I re-read the Judging Eye (my second re-read) today. Whatever we say about Kellhus' and Akka's scepticism directing us away from the immanent presence of Gods in the first trilogy, it is quite clear from the Judging Eye that Akka in the TJE knows full well which Goddess is pushing him on this path- it is Anagke, the Whore of Fate - indeed he thinks she is responsible for his dreams of Ishual and the conversation with Celmomas and Nau-Cayuti.

It's interesting that before this thread I never considered all the comments about the whore of fate to be anything but an expression but you know, you are probably right.

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like a nuclear reactor or something in the inchie ship, or something?

It's the holodeck, running some Inchoroi equivalent of that 120 days of Sodom movie, on repeat.

And the batteries in the remote control died 5.000 years ago.

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