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Bakker XXIII: Priapic Godlings and Whoresome Folks


lokisnow

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one of the underlying ideas behind BBT is that causality of thought is wrong, an illusion, consciousness privilege, if you will.

For example in the sentence: Esmenet thought to herself, I shall scratch my nose, and she reached up and scratched her nose. we take it as a given that Esmenet's thought--her brain--caused her muscles to move in a certain order that resulted in her scratching her nose. First the thought, then the action.

In blind brain theory, the suggestion is that the thought, I shall scratch my nose happens after the action has been initiated. That the part of the brain that is not involved in consciousness decides to scratch the body's nose, and initiates the necessary muscle actions to scratch the nose, the body begins to move to do so, but then the brain sends a message to the consciousness part of the brain that says, "think the thought, I shall scratch my nose," and Esmenet thinks the thought, because of how fast that communication is, Esmenet perceives the thought to come before the action, but she is deceived, the thought comes after the action has begun, but the gap between having the conscious thought and initiating the action is so small that she doesn't notice it. And since common sense dictates that a thought must precede an action, she never questions the process.

Kellhus in fact uses this to his advantage, because he knows that thoughts originate in the darkness that comes before, not in the conscious mind. I think he often sees thoughts forming on people's faces before they have formed in their conscious mind because he can perceive the infinitisimal difference in time.

My suggestion here is that it is turtles all the way down--or at least down one more layer to the outside.

Kellhus thinks he sees muscles moving before the conscious thought has been made. But what if this is just the Dunyain, 'common sense' error he never thinks to question. He never questions what comes before the darkness that comes before.

What Kellhus is actually perceiving is a thought forming in a soul, and his soul perceives the thought before it has moved to the muscles or before it has moved to the pre-conscious brain. Kellhus then thinks that he's seeing the 'first' element before the conscious thought because that is how his society has conditioned him to think, B follows C. But just as a conscious thought is an illusion of control provided by the preconscious brain, the preconscious brain is preceded by the soul and the soul tells the preconscious brain what to do so the preconscious brain can tell the muscles what to do and then tell the conscious brain what thought to think.

because all souls are connected in the outside if you're attuned to souls you'll be attuned to the thoughts they are going to have, sometimes before they even have them. But Kellhus trusts his eyes, and his eyes tell him he's reading faces, he doesn't realize he's reading souls, that there is darkness that comes before what he sees. The Dunyain have built up an elaborate architecture of study and a verbose vocabulary in their face reading training--but this training is nothing more than confirmation and selection bias. They're finding evidence that preconscious thought and actions precede consciousness thoughts, but the very methods they use prohibit them from discovering that which precedes everything.

edit: Fuck me. I wrote that and thought, "that last phrase sounds familiar... I remember it from somewhere" And yeah, I went and looked it up, here are the two FIRST pieces of text in the entire series:

I shall never tire of underlining a concise little fact which these superstitious people are loath to admit—namely, that a thought comes when “it” wants, not when “I” want . . .

—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL

Prologue – The Wastes of Kûniüri

If it is only after that we understand what has come before, then we understand nothing. Thus we shall define the soul as follows: that which precedes everything.

—AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN

So there you have it, the soul precedes the pre conscious brain. If Kellhus thinks he is reading the origins of thoughts in the faces of those he encounters, he is not getting all the way through to the actual origins.

And all the people who he encounters who think he is reading the thoughts off their souls, they're correct, that's exactly what he is doing. Kellhus thinks he is manipulating them, by leveraging this belief, but in not critically evaluating the belief, he is also leveraging himself.

Also, note that Kellhus' conscious brain is divorced from the actions of his body during the scene with Serwe's heart. This is the scene where he uses the metaphysics of closeness of souls to pull off this miracle. His conscious brain perceives him as 'other' as he pulls this off, as though everything that he does, he is doing pre-pre consciousness, as you might expect with a soul-to-soul event. And note that such an event would challenge Kellhus' perception of his own consciousness, nobody--not even Kellhus--likes thinking about challenges such as that, and note that this miracle, the big miracle, is the one that Kellhus does not mention to Moenghus. It is almost as though he is avoiding thinking of something that challenges his own perception of himself. Not all that different from Akka avoiding thinking that he caused Inrau to suffer damnation, or Esmenet avoiding thinking that she sold Mimara into slavery.

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and take it one more turtle down, one more layer deeper.

What precedes the soul? The ur soul the god of gods? And the ur soul is literally unaware of itself, the god of gods is unable to perceive of itself as consciousness, , or as they say, "the God sleeps, it was ever thus." where sleeping is the lack of conscious awareness.

Which brings us to 'what is the no god.'

If the No God is the inverse of the god of gods, the no god would be constantly aware of itself. Rather than agnosia, it would be its opposite. This constant hyper awareness would naturally be asking questions like 'what am i" and "what do you see." the inverse god, is the awakened god, hmm?

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I am pretty sure it’s a Warhammer 40Kism.

ETA: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/grimdark

This disproves the claim that grimdark presupposes humour. In fact, humour is an antidote to grimdark.

(In your face, Joe.)

I heard a story of a guy carrying corpses of his fellow inmates in a concentration camp, to a mass grave. The corpse over his shoulder wheezes out dead air and it's as if he's complaining, so the guy carrying him actually laughs. Apparently the guy got out to tell that story.

So it's more like they live together, rather than antidotes. They're the original odd couple! Duh da dah da dah, da da dah da da daaah daaaaahh...

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one of the underlying ideas behind BBT is that causality of thought is wrong, an illusion, consciousness privilege, if you will.

BBT?

I'm assuming that's not The Big Bang Theory, unless that show's a lot deeper than I first thought.

ETA: blind brain theory?

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Excellent stuff, lockesnow! I've always had trouble completely wrapping my brain around BBT and how it relates to the series, you've finally made everything click into place.

Yeah, great work Lockesnow. I'm not sure about the God of Gods being unaware of itself - if nothing else there's Mimara's experience with the chorae but I also think the watcher-watched ouroboros is what makes the God transcendent and self sufficient, the god of the ancient philosophers.

I'd still contend the No-God is divine awareness forced to rely on other watchers.

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All dunyain, they do not apprehend the darkness that comes before the face reading. coincidentally, their face training trains themselves to see the darkness that comes before conscious thought, and this also attunes them to the movements of the soul that come before, but because they're focused on the faces, they miss the gap.

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there's a whole thread of excellence at the other forum with some really stunning art, from which those examples derive.

**

Here's a mind bender for you all, let's challenge some assumptions.

Kellhus is deluded. He thinks he reads faces. He does not. Everyone who meets Kellhus thinks he reads their souls. Everyone is correct, Kellhus is wrong. Kellhus is reading their souls, but he's deluding himself with the biases and vocabulary and way of thinking of the Dunyain.

This is so because the Dunyain seem to have little knowledge of soul metaphysics, they master the mundane. They've built up a massive and elaborate belief structure that they can read faces in the minutia of musculastructure movement. But really, they have trained themselves to read another's soul. They completely deceive themselves because they do not know the origin of their own thoughts, they do not know about the connection of soul-to-soul in the outside. They are blind to this avenue, and so they think they see.

This is why Kellhus' children can read thoughts without training in the minutia of musculastructure, because it is metaphysically innate, not trained skills.

I'd been wondering about that. Unless there's some sort of Lamarckian evolution going on in the Bakkerverse and training and knowledge can be inherited biologically yours seems to be the only real explanation. Good show.

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Kalbear - Kellhus is also able to discern the fine cracks in the face delineating the face-limbs once he studied Skeos' face. No reason Maithanet wouldn't have been looking for that same thing on some level.

except that totally invalidated lockesnows argument. If he can read faces via muscles that makes sense - but then he is reading the muscles and not the souls.
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Why does one preclude the other? Kellhus has obviously been trained to see and understand facial musculature - that doesn't mean that he cannot also perceive the soul directly.

In fact, now that I think about it, Kellhus notes Skeos because he couldn't read his face, but then he realized that the musculature he was looking for wasn't there. Again, this does not preclude the argument that Kell was unable to read Skeos due to Skeos having no soul.

That also makes sense in terms of Maithanet seeing the souled skin-spy. Yes he had a soul to perceive, but Maithanet, already alert to the skin-spies' existence, was able to note the alien musculature.

Tl;dr reading facial muscles and reading the soul can happen concurrently

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Why would the Dunyain have the ability to read souls? Because they're trained to read facial muscles? If so, then they are just reading another reaction to the thought forming in the soul.



1. Thought forms in the soul/TDTCB.



2. Facial muscles reflect the passions associated with it + action is initiated.



3. Conscious mind registers that thought.



Kellhus can detect the thought between 2 and 3. I don't see why there has to be a common sense error here.



Anyway, the Dunyain are pretty clear in that they do actually read facial muscles. If they didn't then Kellhus should be able to tell what a person is thinking without looking at that person's face, and if that were true, then he must have noticed it by now.



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?


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Anyway, the Dunyain are pretty clear in that they do actually read facial muscles. If they didn't then Kellhus should be able to tell what a person is thinking without looking at that person's face, and if that were true, then he must have noticed it by now.

And he should have seen what was in Aurang's soul, but the expressions of alien physiology approximated by Esmi's face throws him off.

So I had lunch with a friend who said that while on DMT he felt sure that reincarnation and transcendent realms were all real.

Is the [conversion effect of the] Inverse Fire just a tailored chemical payload, perhaps even an aerosol, designed to trick people looking at the light show called the IF that they are damned?

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And whatever it is, whose is it?

If Titirga is right that it's a goad, whose goad is it? Not sure if we'll ever find out.

It's the way the Inchies recruit people into following their plans.

My friend said while on DMT it was obvious to him that reincarnation was real, that we descend from the higher realms to this life.

To me that sounds exactly like Shae being sure he's damned.

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It's the way the Inchies recruit people into following their plans.

My friend said while on DMT it was obvious to him that reincarnation was real, that we descend from the higher realms to this life.

To me that sounds exactly like Shae being sure he's damned.

It doesn't convince people to follow the Inchoroi's plans though, it simply convinces them that Damnation is real and that it sucks. The Inchoroi just happen to be the faction standing around with a plan and means. They also don't treat the IF like a recruiting device, they treat it like something horrible and sacred. If it was just a goad that instantly made people join their plans, then why risk the wars? Why risk Damnation? Just use it to convince everyone they meet. Their initial meetings with the Nonmen were peaceful enough that it should have been the first thing they do. In addition, if the IF is false, then how do the Inchoroi know about Damnation in the first place? What could convince an entire species to go on such a mission?

It just doesn't make sense to me in a narrative sense. If the IF is false, then it means there's just some other way the Inchoroi found about Damnation, and that knowledge was horrible and convincing enough that they went on their mission to end it. So basically, another IF. It seems convoluted and unnecessary without really adding anything to the plot.

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