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Bakker XXX: A Dark and Seminal Work


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It's not causality that I think is in play. It's the arrow of time. For the WLW what comes after determines what comes before. But it is still a causal relationship. WLW strikes the Aspect Emperor with a shattered blade, therefore this series of prior events all happened which leads up to that point.

If I had to make a wild guess, I would say that the Dunyain are wrong because the numerous exogenous variables they exclude from their calculations. This is very foreshadowed in the scouring of the sorcerors marks in the prologue of TDTCB. The Dunyain simplified their environment of sorcery, nonmen, gods, etc. in the end, the world conspires, but that still begs the question: what darkness comes before the world.

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But if he can be at the "right place at the right time", then why does he need to get on Esmi's side? Why not just wander from place to place killing people at the right time?

Seems to me the WLW has to take the place of mortals in the timeline for Yatwer to arrange events around him properly.

Whether the WLW could gain a Cishaurim's metaphysical insights...not sure.

Because replacing the assassin is how he gets to the right place at the right time. That is how he exists within the proper universe such that all his goals are fulfilled.

The WLW seems like the ultimate expression of causality. He exists at all points along his timeline at once. The white luck simply lays out his timeline such that he accomplishes his goal and then he walks along that predetermined path because that is what he has always been meant to do.

It's like when he is created, he stares down all the infinite potential universes and sees the one where everything he must do comes to pass and so he chooses that one.

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Maybe. There's enough hinting that the whole concept that the dunyain are built on is hugely wrong. One theme we have seen is the concept of the faithless man claiming there are no gods when there are - the meaningless man in a world of meaning. It's not a far stretch to say that causality - the bedrock of that meaningless man - is not at all true.

Do you mean Earwa is like our world, where no one has a good accounting for causality?

Or do you mean there is no actual causality because time is an illusion?

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It seems more like the issue is that the Dunyain view the world as a closed system and that this ultimately renders their ability to predict future events flawed. Moenghus seems to assert, standing in as sort of the quintessential Dunyain, that the Outside is just a reflection of the Inside. That the Dunyain have everything at their disposal. And I think this is not at all correct and will end up being a real weakness.


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Or do you mean there is no actual causality because time is an illusion?
Closer to this.


I've thought about a couple possibilities. One is that the universe is actually running backwards, and our perception of causality is precisely wrong in the Earwan universe. It is literally that which comes after determines what comes before. We have some odd proofs of this with things like Mimara having the judging eye because she does get pregnant in the future.



The other is that everything has already happened. There is no free will. It is perfect determinism. All events have been specifically planned and ordained. There is no causality.


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Kal, I get the first theory. I don't understand how the second theory means no causality. A totally deterministic framework means 100% causality.

The old answer to the free will problem was precisely to set the dilemma up as: things are either caused or uncaused. If things are caused they are determined (no free will). If things are uncaused they are random (no free will).

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Yeah, that's probably not well-said by me. Everything is determined is a better way of saying it because all causes are 100% known. The notion that you have some say in what is done or thought or anything is entirely an illusion caused by your misunderstandings of the whole world and what you cannot see. From that point of view, there is no causality; you don't make any choices.



This goes well with Bakker's view of BBT from what I understand it as well. What it doesn't do is answer the problem of the Consult and why they are blind to the gods and the god, which appears to be correct in some fashion. You could get into some weird places of thinking that the Inchoroi are some kind of outside virus or glitch that was added outside of the intents of the creator and are interfering with the simulation, but it doesn't go well with...well, the whole worldview in general.


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What if the world is conscious and BBT is true? Isn't there kind of a word for it in the TTT glossary? Kahiht? The manifestation of the world soul? Also the world conspires right?

Anyway, so assume the world is conscious. Without really understanding BBT or the infathomable psedo-jargon that goes with it, I think it means that the world is fooling itself into thinking that all it experiences equates to all there is. Two possible blind spots are the Outside and the No God /Inchoroi. It makes intuitive sense that the world would be blind to the Outside. That the world might think that causality happens normally, when really it is the Outside and the gods through "simultaneous time" that are the real causes. (So bouncing off the Sci and Kal theories.)

I don't quite get why Inchies and nogod are blind spots.

No longer sure where I can go with this . . .

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The WLW seems like the ultimate expression of causality. He exists at all points along his timeline at once. The white luck simply lays out his timeline such that he accomplishes his goal and then he walks along that predetermined path because that is what he has always been meant to do.

It's like when he is created, he stares down all the infinite potential universes and sees the one where everything he must do comes to pass and so he chooses that one.

Comparing the Thousandfold Thought to the White-Luck/WLW. In PON, both Kellhus and Maithanet (who walked paths conditioned by TTT) are described in terms reminiscent of the WLW,

His every movement, every pose, it seemed to Proyas, conveyed a sense of inevitability, as though the scripture of his acts had already been written.

Step after step, annihilating world after possible world, warring until only this moment survived...

But those futures, he now knew, had been murdered long before. The ground he travelled had been Conditioned through and through. At every turn, the probabilities had been summed, the possibilities averaged, the forks impossibly predetermined ... Even here, standing before Shimeh, he executed but one operation in the skein of another's godlike calculation. Even here, his every decision, his every act, confirmed the dread intent of the Thousandfold Thought.

From the synopsis in TJE,

plotting future after future, searching for the thread of act and consequence that would save the world. For years he crafted his Thousandfold Thought.

The Thousandfold Thought, I think, is the mundane equivalent of the White-Luck. Or at least as close as you can get to mundanely emulate it. Note the phrase "Godlike calculation." Where Yatwer used her actual God powers to produce the WLW, Moënghus spent 30 years crafting a calculation that is Godlike.

Comparing the "enchanted world" view to Dunyain philosophy, TWLW and TTT represent the ultimate expressions of those respective worldviews.

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What if the world is conscious and BBT is true? Isn't there kind of a word for it in the TTT glossary? Kahiht? The manifestation of the world soul? Also the world conspires right?

I don't think the BBT applies to Eärwa (not that I understand it that much). Since Eärwa is meant to be in some ways an inversion of our world, I think that people in it do actually have free will.

In fact, I think that Bakker once made the distinction (on his blog probably) between the Second Apocalypse and the world of the BBT - our world.

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I don't think the BBT applies to Eärwa (not that I understand it that much). Since Eärwa is meant to be in some ways an inversion of our world, I think that people in it do actually have free will. In fact, I think that Bakker once made the distinction (on his blog probably) between the Second Apocalypse and the world of the BBT - our world.

Do they though? It seems that Kellhus isn't right but not completely wrong either, or he wouldn't have won.

I feel like Earwa is what our world would look like if it had souls purely through authorial fiat. All the mundane tech and philosophy is,if not true then effective, yet there's some strange glowy thing called a soul. Which is just as confusing a concept as in our world today, given how it reacts to the sorts of things Kellhus and the Inchoroi do to it and how incidental it seems to be (until it comes time to find skin-spies).

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The WLW seems like the ultimate expression of causality. He exists at all points along his timeline at once. The white luck simply lays out his timeline such that he accomplishes his goal and then he walks along that predetermined path because that is what he has always been meant to do.

It's like when he is created, he stares down all the infinite potential universes and sees the one where everything he must do comes to pass and so he chooses that one.

I’m not sure I understand this. If he can see all potential futures and chooses the right path, or what to do now (in Earwa’s timeline) based on what he had seen then that’s not causality because what he’s doing now was determined by what he saw in the future. As far as I can tell, he’s the ultimate opposite of causality.

Do they though? It seems that Kellhus isn't right but not completely wrong either, or he wouldn't have won.

Are you talking about Kellhus when he first left Ishual or post-Circumfix? Because in the scene with Moe, Moe says things like 'the feeling of free-will is not a marker of free-will' or something to that effect and Kellhus feels the conviction that his father is wrong. Moe even asks how Kellhus could have won ("be possible") and Kellhus seems to think it's because he was "chosen". At least that's how I read the scene.

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Are you talking about Kellhus when he first left Ishual or post-Circumfix? Because in the scene with Moe, Moe says things like 'the feeling of free-will is not a marker of free-will' or something to that effect and Kellhus feels the conviction that his father is wrong. Moe even asks how Kellhus could have won ("be possible") and Kellhus seems to think it's because he was "chosen". At least that's how I read the scene.

I was just talking about his general behavior.

Even if Kellhus is wrong and he was chosen whatever the "soul" is it's subject to the same sorts of criticisms we make of it today (where does it fit in), regardless of whether you choose to read Kellhus possessing Leweth as him shining through his soul or just playing with his brain. So...soul by authorial fiat.

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