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Bakker XLIII - the prattle of unnumbered years


sologdin

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Sorry Kal, but you've tried this attempt to equate my argument with some kind of hyper-skepticism.

I've already answered the assertion, and dismissed it as an incredibly weak charge.

Feel free to present a serious case.

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Sorry Kal, but you've tried this attempt to equate my argument with some kind of hyper-skepticism.

I've already answered the assertion, and dismissed it as an incredibly weak charge.

Feel free to present a serious case.

Aw. I thought it was funny.

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For an aesthetic argument, I'd say what makes any whodunnit challenging is misdirection. 

As such I think a good bit of our assumptions about how Y follows from X are misdirection on Bakker's part.

See Lokisnow's past posts on how Bakker makes us think it's Kellhus who is always proceeding from positions of possessing the most accurate information, yet rereads suggest that Kellhus is, at least as far as TTT's ending, actually profoundly ignorant as to how an enchanted world works.

We tend to think something like resurrection lends truth to one's metaphysical claims, but this doesn't necessarily follow. Someone can come back from the dead and still be completely wrong about the nature of reality that allowed for this to happen.

Bakker has made it clear limited "metaphysical efficacy", by which I refer to the Cants, does not give one revelation about the true nature of reality. For some reason people think the other powers displayed do give someone objective insight, whereas they could just be a variation on what allows magic to function.

 

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More noob questions, what's the current theory on what the No-God is?

An anthropomorphic personification of the negation of god.

Or if one wanted to write out the simplest possible precise definition of what she is, one would obviously describe her with very accurate and highly descriptive term "the No God".

So given the term used describes him accurately throughout the text, I'm not sure I understand your question unless you're rehearsing an earwa version of "who's on first"

:)

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3 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

More noob questions, what's the current theory on what the No-God is?

My theory is the No God represents the Timeless Mind of God dragged into the linear time of the mortal realm.

God deprived of the reflexive awareness of Its own perfection, no longer Watcher & Watched unto Itself.

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2 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

For an aesthetic argument, I'd say what makes any whodunnit challenging is misdirection. 

As such I think a good bit of our assumptions about how Y follows from X are misdirection on Bakker's part.

See Lokisnow's past posts on how Bakker makes us think it's Kellhus who is always proceeding from positions of possessing the most accurate information, yet rereads suggest that Kellhus is, at least as far as TTT's ending, actually profoundly ignorant as to how an enchanted world works.

We tend to think something like resurrection lends truth to one's metaphysical claims, but this doesn't necessarily follow. Someone can come back from the dead and still be completely wrong about the nature of reality that allowed for this to happen.

Bakker has made it clear limited "metaphysical efficacy", by which I refer to the Cants, does not give one revelation about the true nature of reality. For some reason people think the other powers displayed do give someone objective insight, whereas they could just be a variation on what allows magic to function.

 

So you believe that all the information that we've been fed has basically just been slight of hand, then? 

I'm not indicating that Mimara has insight - and I don't think you are either. What you appear to be claiming is that what she actually sees with the Judging Eye is not like the pictures she has seen in murals and other depictions elsewhere. Which...is an odd thing to say. This isn't stating that what she thinks about how the world works is wrong (like Kellhus) - this is saying that the sensory input to her brain is not correct. 

And...okay, that's misdirection all right. But to what end? 

Let's go with that thought experiment, Sci. Let's assume that Mimara doesn't see damnation. You said she does see the objective morality and weighing of things though, right? So she can see that, but she doesn't really see the consequence; she projects what she thinks would be the consequence if someone had the sins and the moral negative value that she sees. Is that a fair characterization of what you're saying?

And therefore - despite Psatma and Meppa both indicating to their worldview that damnation exists, despite a couple of philosophers saying how horrible the Gods are and how we would recoil from them like spiders (or something like that), despite Topoi existing, and despite the Inverse Fire - damnation isn't real. 

So what do they see? Are they seeing what they're primed to expect? That because everyone has talked about damnation for so long, they expect it - and not only do they expect it, they expect it in the form they've seen and read about? And...once they get to the Outside...what? Do they just disappear like the nonmen work towards, or...do they craft their own unending torment, because it is what they personally believe should happen (and because it is the outside, that desire manifests as fact)? 

In which case...what's the point? This is where I lose the thread. I could get that it might be super, super interesting if, say, Mimara could look at someone with the judging eye and then somehow manifest their damnation as she wants it in the Outside - essentially acting as the actual Judge in the eye - and giving them pain based on her choosing. This almost gets supported in the text if you take her forgiving her  rapist as forgiving their sins and giving them no damnation. But I don't think that's where you're going with this. I think you're going with the idea that damnation in any form just doesn't exist, and the spirits/gods/et al in the Outside are just lying. I still, however, don't know why. What's the point of faking damnation? 

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9 hours ago, Kalbear said:

The issue is the bolded. People like H. believe that the rules are bidirectional - that the Outside is shaped by the denizens of it and in turn shapes Earwa. Belief begets reality. Get enough people to believe in something and it changes how things work. This idea is that reality is mutable, the overall weight of the beliefs and desires of all the souled people, and if they change things enough then the Outside will change too. They can change that whores are not sinners, or sorcerers are not damned. This is what most of the sorcerers that follow Kellhus believe, for instance - it's what  Kellhus has sold everyone on. 

I disagree. My interpretation is that the Outside is open to change and the whim of desires - and things with stronger desires can shape things even more - but Earwa itself is not subjective. It is maximally objective. It least conforms to the desires of those on it. It doesn't change because everyone believes one way or another. Its morality is constant, unceasing, and immutable. Just like the atomic weight of uranium. So you can go to the Outside and rules can change (though this should tell you something - you can't change that the Outside exists), but you can't change the rules on Earwa. You can use tools to change Earwa in some ways, but even then you're abiding by the rules that are set. You can recall the sound of God's song to change the world, but it's still God's song so it's okay. Or you can use the tools God used to create the world, but because you're a shittier handiman than God it leaves a mark on the Onta - and your soul - because you're desecrating God's actual work. Or you can see the true nature of the world - see it as God sees it, see the objective value and ordering that everything in the world has, the objective value that is set by God. You can't change it, but you can perhaps channel God's view and judgment and remove things that do not belong. 

The support for my view comes in the text in many places - how the morality of the world hasn't appeared to have changed significantly in millenia, how the Gods are still known, how the Gods see time and how their view doesn't change, how the Inchoroi were unable to change their damnation despite either having a world full of hedonists or killing population after population, how Mimara can see the sins and the world, how Bakker says that there is one right way and one wrong way to believe. It also comes from obvious thought experiments: if the Inchoroi could simply change how people believed, they wouldn't be damned. 

It isn't absolutely decided. One extratextual reason I think that this is the way to go is that it makes for a far more interesting story. Not only is Kellhus a meaningless man in a world of meaning, the meaning of the world isn't what our modern sensibilities would describe as good. It's very much like what premodern people thought the world was like, but it isn't fair or normal. Kellhus, representing modernity, naturally rebels against this and wants to change things. If he can simply change things by changing belief that doesn't make a very compelling story to me. If instead he has to essentially fight the universe to do what he wants, choose to ignore the data that doesn't fit his worldview (another Bakkerism that he enjoys) and do what he wants in spite of the facts on the ground - that's a very compelling dichotomy to me. I admit that this makes me biased towards this interpretation. The other interpretation - that God is simply the collective belief of people - rings like hippie bullshit to me, and I personally don't think that Bakker would do it just because he would view it as far too easy an out. 

I'll buy it, I mean, when I said bi-directional, I meant more in influence than it actually changing things, especially for the Gods and the Inside.  As far as I remember, we've never seen a god actually do anything in Earwa, only influence people.  I certainly could be wrong and as you point out, it's probably more interesting if I am.

That being said, then why is Earwa the "promised land" for the Inchoroi?  Because it can be sealed?

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4 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

I have not read the false sun. Isn't that the one Bakker warned people not to read cause it spoiled things?

No, it doesn't spoil anything. Its set long ago and you get some Consult perspective on the Inverse Fire and damnation. Also, Titirga gives perspective against it.

False Sun, its the best info on what the Inverse Fire is.

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The No God is the answer to the thought experiment of what would happen if a world that is actually meaningful and had souled creatures suddenly lost its God and meaning. Answer is no more souls so all humans stillborn. Also apparently God looks like the opposite of a spinning whirlwind. And since the No God is localized and every soul can feel its location, God must be everywhere but unfelt. God sleeps, as Big Moe said.

God is not to be confused with the hundred gods, that the Cish can see with their No Eyes are really evil demons.

[emoji56]

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MSJ found one hell of a humdinger in the thousandfold thought re read at the other forum. All credit is due him, this is big enough to merit cross posting. I would quote the books but this forum hates quotes now, so I'll spare us all the agony of dealing with the quotes. Section 2 of chapter eleven of TTT, AURANG is narrating:

"To realize that the Cishaurim were but a mask for a far more ancient foe."

The next thought is "something new. The dunyain."

There it is. Two separate thoughts. The cishaurim are a mask for something ancient and the dunyain are something new.

Boom!

Next he thinks specifically about what the dunyain are:

"these Dûnyain were Anasûrimbor enmity was a fact of their accursed blood."

So. Cishaurim are a mask for an ancient enemy, dunyain are something new. Dunyain are anasurimbor. Anasurimbor have cursed blood. inchoroi have enmity for anasurimbor.

Conclusion, Aurang has figured out who founded the dunyain and why (from the readers perspective the only candidates we are aware Titirga, celmomas, or seswatha). From discovering these facts of the dunyain he separately finds out that the cishaurim are a mask for an ancient foe.

So the order of the cishaurim are a conscious construction on the behalf of an unknown agency, possibly the dunyain possibly the agency behind the dunyain, for reasons as yet unknown.

Note the use of "ancient" the context leading into this passage is AURANG thinking about time and that he is older than the stone, so he is describing a foe as ancient while preceding that with thinking about time in very large orders of magnitude.

So what agency founded the cishaurim and why?

Meppa is x where x is a representative of said unknown agency.

***

I think close reading indicates that AURANG has clear separate thoughts about the newness of the dunyain and the ancientness of the enemy beneath the cishaurim mask. I'm sure others will claim that AURANG is merely contradicting himself and dismiss this by merely saying that AURANG has discovered the dunyain beneath the cishaurim. But I think this is ludicrously blind to the text.

Also note that this construction is an Inversion of what the reader knows. The reader knows that the cishaurim are a new construction within earwa with only centuries of continuity and the dunyain are an ancient order with thousands of years of continuity. But AURANG inverts this and describes the agency behind the cishaurim as ancient and the dunyain as a new construction.

Boom indeed.

Has an ancient enemy followed the inchoroi to earwa to continue their ancient war?

As madness says, shit we never saw coming, hmm?

Again, all credit to MSJ for uncovering all this.

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That would totally suck though,.msj and loki. talk about unearned surprises.

It's possible it's something extra terrestrial, but that's just me being crackpot. I think the cishaurim are either seswathas second foundation or are a construction of Titirga, who survived his fall.

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Hey, I just thought it all pointed to Seswatha. Lokisnow, has made the connection between the Cishaurim and a more Ancient foe. In fact, I thought he was just busting my balls with the post. Until, I seen here posted it here too. Lol. 

Does the text point to that? I don't know. I see what Lokisnow is saying now, and how he gathered that bit from the quote. 

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Chapter 11, TTT

But the plate had changed all too quickly. To realize that the Cishaurim were but a mask for a far more ancient foe. To come so very close, only to discover their sublime deceptions subverted by something deeper. Something new. The Dûnyain. There was more to this than a son hunting for his father—far more. Their devious methods and disconcerting abilities aside, these Dûnyain were Anasûrimbor. Even without the Mandate prophecies, enmity was a fact of their accursed blood. Who was this Moënghus? And if his son could seize the armed might of the Three Seas in a single year, what had he accomplished in thirty? What awaited the Holy War in Shimeh...

Before this Aurang is ruminating on how old he is, saying, "he was older than their blasted stone.". Or, something along those lines. Now, I like Lokisnow's idea, but I don't know if I can see another enemy that has followed them. Though, could it be the God? Maybe the God isn't just part of Earwa but the Universe. After all, Moe says that it sleeps on Earwa.

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