Bakker XXV: A Few Questions

[Larry of the Lawn]

Does anyone at any point tell Kellhus what the dreams of the No-God entail? I suppose Achamian would have told him about them, but unless he told him that he says exactly "WHAT DO YOU SEE? TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE?" then how does madness explain these voices? And the same goes for the haloed hands seen by more than one person, clearly madness doesn't explain everything. If he's mad, something must be going on as well.

Madness allows the Outside to seep into the World

[Callan S.]

Well, how do you reconcile them then? :) Or do you not? And what's your explanation for how the outside isn't supernatural?

I don't think 'objective morality' is any sort of a functional statement to begin with, so no, I don't try to reconcile it with the concept of 'the outside'. I was curious as to whether you did - maybe you don't - that's fine, I was just trying to see where things are at with other folk and keep up to date with with the zeitgeist.

The whole appeal of 'objective morality' in seemingly the general population has become interesting to me - for something to be a objective measure, it remains the same measure regardless of location.

The only way the morality in the books could seem objective is if the measure in the depicted setting remains the same measure as the readers own in real life.

Such a devious writer if that was the intent!!

Oh, I can hear the objection from maybe someone already "But I don't think men are morally superior to women! But that is still an objective morality in the setting!"

Ie, an appeal to localised objective moralities - but that makes a hash of objective, doesn't it?

[Castel]

Ie, an appeal to localised objective moralities - but that makes a hash of objective, doesn't it?

I...don't see how it does?

[Wise Fool]

He sees the halos on his hands ergo he believes.

Okay. However, maybe seeing the halos for him is no different than when he might look into a mirror and see himself with a compassionate expression or whatever - he isn't actually compassionate, he just sees the expression he creates. Similarly, he might cause the halos with his intent without also believing they make him holy. For him, perhaps they just mean that his intentions can and do warp the fabric of reality, and he can see that reality.

[lokisnow]

are people really still having semantic panic attacks over the phrase objective morality?

[Callan S.]

I...don't see how it does?

Because once you start having two objective moralities, you've just accepted any number of objective moralities. You could say each country in Earwa has it's own objective morality. You could say each individual in Earwa has their own objective morality.

It just becomes a half assed way of describing relativism and the only thing you might find holding that back isn't any objective rule, it's just 'I don't wanna say each individual has their own objective morality!'. Which is just not wanting to say it.

are people really still having semantic panic attacks over the phrase objective morality?

I presume this doesn't show up on the forums radar as being an ad homenim? I admire the crafting of it though - I presume it's a matter of using one that's under the radar, provoking the other person into using a percievable negative evaluation and then everyone jumps on them for the responce to the unseen ad homenim.

[Sci-2]

I...don't see how it does?

It kind of does. In these threads we've debated whether the gods were really Good or the rules for salvation/damnation were actually Just. Even people who presumably aren't moral realists have debated this.

I don't know if I see it in the way Callan does, but I do think we're supposed to feel the friction between our "oughts" and the seeming "oughts" of the Bakkerverse.

Madness allows the Outside to seep into the World

Yeah, this is the problem with a malleable onta. How do you separate subjective and objective reality when the former influences the latter. The Inward doesn't seem to be 100% objective, just the end point of a continuum.

[unJon]

Okay. However, maybe seeing the halos for him is no different than when he might look into a mirror and see himself with a compassionate expression or whatever - he isn't actually compassionate, he just sees the expression he creates. Similarly, he might cause the halos with his intent without also believing they make him holy. For him, perhaps they just mean that his intentions can and do warp the fabric of reality, and he can see that reality.

first halos appeared way before he knew any magic. Was it in TDTCB or TWP when Serwe sees them? Also in the TTT scene where Kel sees them he's alone. No need for a manipulative expression. He's drunk his own Kool Aid. He's a believer just as he professes to Moe in TTT. He thinks he is more.

ETA: always amused how people argue that Kel can pull off the most unlikely acts EXCEPT no way he has the ability to keep a heart up his butt.

[Castel]

Because once you start having two objective moralities, you've just accepted any number of objective moralities. You could say each country in Earwa has it's own objective morality. You could say each individual in Earwa has their own objective morality.

It just becomes a half assed way of describing relativism and the only thing you might find holding that back isn't any objective rule, it's just 'I don't wanna say each individual has their own objective morality!'. Which is just not wanting to say it.

Why would you jump from "objective morality in this universe" to "objective morality for every rock!". The former, while intuitively unconvincing, could be justified by any moral theory that saw it as part of the universe that Earwa resides in.

eta: It's not a multiverse.

[Sci-2]

This may very well be be a big mistake and the wrong conception of the story. Just because we see Kellhus habitually toying with others does not preclude the possibility that he is an instrument of someone else.

Oh, he very well could be an instrument of the God or No-God.

Or a tool of Big Moe, who might have conditioned the ground in such a way that his influence is felt posthumously.

[Wise Fool]

first halos appeared way before he knew any magic. Was it in TDTCB or TWP when Serwe sees them? Also in the TTT scene where Kel sees them he's alone. No need for a manipulative expression. He's drunk his own Kool Aid. He's a believer just as he professes to Moe in TTT. He thinks he is more.

ETA: always amused how people argue that Kel can pull off the most unlikely acts EXCEPT no way he has the ability to keep a heart up his butt.

"More than a Dunyain" does not mean "a Prophet, and instrument of goodness and the God." And yes, the halos appeared before he learned Gnostic sorcery, but that doesn't mean they aren't some other kind of magic, namely that same kind of sorcery that (apparently) priestesses of Yatwer or Cishaurim seem to pull off. The kind that doesn't leave a Mark, and seems associated somehow with god or The God.

I don't think that pulling hearts out of one's butt - stage magic, basically - is the more likely explanation in a setting where actual magic is possible and happens constantly. Particularly when the guy in question shows himself to be one of, if not the most powerful sorcerers.

[lokisnow]

I presume this doesn't show up on the forums radar as being an ad homenim?

Sometimes teasing is just teasing. :)

[unJon]

"More than a Dunyain" does not mean "a Prophet, and instrument of goodness and the God." And yes, the halos appeared before he learned Gnostic sorcery, but that doesn't mean they aren't some other kind of magic, namely that same kind of sorcery that (apparently) priestesses of Yatwer or Cishaurim seem to pull off. The kind that doesn't leave a Mark, and seems associated somehow with god or The God.

I don't think that pulling hearts out of one's butt - stage magic, basically - is the more likely explanation in a setting where actual magic is possible and happens constantly. Particularly when the guy in question shows himself to be one of, if not the most powerful sorcerers.

You are trying too hard. If he was using "holy" magic of the gods to make halos appear then the proper inference is he thinks he's holy. Also recall the halos appeared pre-circumfix and only to people that believed. It is the sine qua non of the halos. Kelhus sees because he believes. Or to put it in the terms you used it "is the more likely explanation" by an overwhelming margin.

Re hearts in butts. A world where some very few subset can perform magic in no way means sleight if hand is less likely. Kel himself is a master of the mundane magic. Misdirection. Mentalism. Catching arrows an tricks of speed and strength. Kel basically performs stage magic of one mundane sort or another throughout the whole first trilogy. It's a setting with magical rules and as we know them Kel didn't have those magic powers when he pulled the. Heart out of his butt. It was either a miracle or stage magic.

[jurble]

In tangential news, Brian Greene did an AMA on Reddit where he states he's a hard determinist. That's cool.

[Sci-2]

You are trying too hard. If he was using "holy" magic of the gods to make halos appear then the proper inference is he thinks he's holy. Also recall the halos appeared pre-circumfix and only to people that believed. It is the sine qua non of the halos. Kelhus sees because he believes. Or to put it in the terms you used it "is the more likely explanation" by an overwhelming margin.

Re hearts in butts. A world where some very few subset can perform magic in no way means sleight if hand is less likely. Kel himself is a master of the mundane magic. Misdirection. Mentalism. Catching arrows an tricks of speed and strength. Kel basically performs stage magic of one mundane sort or another throughout the whole first trilogy. It's a setting with magical rules and as we know them Kel didn't have those magic powers when he pulled the. Heart out of his butt. It was either a miracle or stage magic.

Okay, so is "hearts in butts" now just a way of talking about stage magic or deception of any kind?

If the term still literally refers to having a raw heart in your anal cavity and plopping it out afterward, I still don't see how that works given the timing of that scene.

[Castel]

I'm greatly amused by the fact that we've run this so far into the ground that we can't even tell when we're seriously or not.

[Sci-2]

In tangential news, Brian Greene did an AMA on Reddit where he states he's a hard determinist. That's cool.

Will be interesting to compare this with Michio Kaku's AMA tomorrow, as IIRC he thinks consciousness causes the collapse of the wave function and so is "libertarian" from a philosophical view. (Ron Garret goes farther and as I understand it thinks consciousness is all there is.)

I'm curious [what] Julian Barbour thinks since he believes there's no such thing as time.

I'm greatly amused by the fact that we've run this so far into the ground that we can't even tell when we're seriously or not.

Time is Flat Circle.

[Wise Fool]

You are trying too hard. If he was using "holy" magic of the gods to make halos appear then the proper inference is he thinks he's holy. Also recall the halos appeared pre-circumfix and only to people that believed. It is the sine qua non of the halos. Kelhus sees because he believes. Or to put it in the terms you used it "is the more likely explanation" by an overwhelming margin.

Re hearts in butts. A world where some very few subset can perform magic in no way means sleight if hand is less likely. Kel himself is a master of the mundane magic. Misdirection. Mentalism. Catching arrows an tricks of speed and strength. Kel basically performs stage magic of one mundane sort or another throughout the whole first trilogy. It's a setting with magical rules and as we know them Kel didn't have those magic powers when he pulled the. Heart out of his butt. It was either a miracle or stage magic.

Just because it's "mundane" doesn't make it stage magic.

Pulling a heart out of your butt is, though. It's pulling a rabbit out of your hat, only with a kind of different rabbit and hat. It's mundane in a way that Kellhus catching arrows, or being able to read faces, is not. Anyone can learn to pull rabbits out of your hat. Nobody can learn to be the product of a selective breeding program and therefore have superior reflexes and quicker reaction time and so do the catching arrows "trick."

The magical rules are as follows: Gnostic and Anagoic sorcery leaves a Mark and requires teaching. Psukhe does not and may not. "Miracles" such as performed by Inri Sejanus does not and does not; the abilities of Yatwer's mother goddess seducer wench, or for that matter Porsparian, does not and does not. Up until Kellhus nobody could do Meta-Gnostic cants like ever. So clearly, the "rules" of magic in this world are not fully known, they can change, and there are avenues toward sorcery type (i.e., definitely not mundane and definitely not stage magic tricks) phenomena that someone like Kellhus may have tapped, even unconsciously or unknowingly, in the process of the heart miracle. And he may have done so only at the time of Circumfixion; or he may be able to do so ever since; or he may have been doing all along (i.e. the Kellhus-is-reading-souls-not-faces theory). All of which is to say that "it's either stage magic, or a divine miracle" is a false dichotomy. There's too much we don't know, and also too much we know, to accept just those two choices.

[Anatúrinbor]

I'm starting to think this thread has turned into a parody of itself or something.

[Calibandar]

Very quiet on the release date front again. Scott said a month back that he estimated two more weeks of work, but no word since.

Overlook's schedule has gone up until December and TUC is not on it. Looking more and more like it will be another year without TUC. It'll be 4 years since WOW was released. I remember the optimism at the time that TUC would come out soon because a good deal had been written already, back-to-back with WLW.