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Bakker LV - Nau's Ark


.H.

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6 hours ago, .H. said:

I'm really not sure that the Progenitors got the soul wrong though.  Certainly they did not come to the insight of Koringhus, because they do not realize what comes before what they imagine comes before, as Koringhus does.  So, where Koringhus faces his own personal Apocalypse, in the overwhelming, crushing, unequivocal personal and societal defeat I don't think the Progenitors necessarily faced such loss.  At least, almost certainly not at a societal level.  So, they were not really much in the position of accepting loss.  Indeed, the entire No-God, Ark, Inchoroi plan, which becomes the Consult plan, is specifically designed to avoid loss.

Ah I mean they didn't think they would be damned until it was far too late for their fate to change without drastic measures.

They seem like characters in the original video game, with the No-God + Ark sealing of the world being a kind of discovered exploit to get out of the usual cycle of souls. To imagine that the only way to "win" is Oblivion, to not play, wasn't in their mental wheelhouse...especially b/c they probably edited their brains to such a degree that Non-Dualism / Transcendental Idealism weren't even available as suggestions to arise from their Darkness.

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2 minutes ago, Hello World said:

That sounds like God doesn't even exist and people attribute the natural world to it.

Kinda, yeah. God is in a lot of ways the natural world. It is, as Koringhus says, a place. And things like damnation are a part of the natural universe as combustion are. If you do violence against others, via lies, via actual violence, etc - this marks that fragment of God that is your soul, and other fragments will attack it - as natural as your body's response to infection. 

What is confusing, I think, is that our world doesn't have moral judgment baked into it. It doesn't have things like snakes being holy or pigs being unholy. It doesn't have the idea that your actions are constantly being scored and tallied and marked. For us, this conjures the old bad Creationist argument - that if there is judgment, there must be a judge. (and yeah, italic use IS fun!). But that isn't, IMO, the case in Bakkerworld. There is no conscious thought about judgment, no decision. It is arbitrary, objective, dispassioned and impersonal. It is judgment the same way gravity is violence against your body. The place judges everyone and everything in it. 

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1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

What is confusing, I think, is that our world doesn't have moral judgment baked into it. It doesn't have things like snakes being holy or pigs being unholy. It doesn't have the idea that your actions are constantly being scored and tallied and marked. For us, this conjures the old bad Creationist argument - that if there is judgment, there must be a judge. (and yeah, italic use IS fun!). But that isn't, IMO, the case in Bakkerworld. There is no conscious thought about judgment, no decision. It is arbitrary, objective, dispassioned and impersonal. It is judgment the same way gravity is violence against your body. The place judges everyone and everything in it.

But isn't the Cubit the judge?  That is, the latent "rules of the game" that Damns without any conscious decision?  In the same way that the "rule book" of any game places value on actions taken within that game?

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6 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

They seem like characters in the original video game, with the No-God + Ark sealing of the world being a kind of discovered exploit to get out of the usual cycle of souls. To imagine that the only way to "win" is Oblivion, to not play, wasn't in their mental wheelhouse...especially b/c they probably edited their brains to such a degree that Non-Dualism / Transcendental Idealism weren't even available as suggestions to arise from their Darkness.

I don't think of it in that way. I tend to think of them as far more noble. 

Imagine that you find out that hell is real and that virtually everyone who has ever existed is suffering eternal torment without ever even knowing why. And you can not only think this, but actually experience that torment, experimentally verify the precise amount of torment that anyone or thing will ever see. 

You aren't just trying to stop that for yourself and save yourself; that would be fairly trivial. After all, the easiest way to do that is to simply not die. And they had that ability for a long time. No, what they wanted to do is destroy this function because any creature that knows of this system and can attempt to stop it and do so is committing an appalling ethical sin. 

There is literally nothing worse than the current system. Nothing can compare to an eternity of torment for 99.9999% of all sentient creatures. They have a moral and ethical duty to attempt to stop it at all costs. It doesn't even matter what you replace it with - nihilism, the death of all sentient life, whatever - because all of those things are better than this system existing. 

So creating ensouled slaves that would be goaded into following this religious quest - as horrible as that is - is STILL better than the alternative.

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1 minute ago, .H. said:

But isn't the Cubit the judge?  That is, the latent "rules of the game" that Damns without any conscious decision?  In the same way that the "rule book" of any game places value on actions taken within that game?

Sure - but we don't tend to think of the rules of a game as a judge, just the rules. To us, judge connotes someone making a decision. And in that way, there's no real judgment; there's simply outcomes of actions. It's not judgment any more than the score of a game is a judgment. Referees are making subjective judgments during the game, and THOSE are in question, but the actual final score? Not at all in doubt. 

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Just now, Kalbear said:

Sure - but we don't tend to think of the rules of a game as a judge, just the rules. To us, judge connotes someone making a decision. And in that way, there's no real judgment; there's simply outcomes of actions. It's not judgment any more than the score of a game is a judgment. Referees are making subjective judgments during the game, and THOSE are in question, but the actual final score? Not at all in doubt. 

Right, right.  Indeed, because the Cubit is "cold," "uncaring," and unconscious.  Because the God-of-gods is exactly that.  It's the demiurge, not the Cristian God, the Father.  It could be that this is Mimara's "role" though, to be the specifically conscious application of the Cubit.  But we've not seen her do much with that, besides banish the Wight.

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2 minutes ago, .H. said:

Right, right.  Indeed, because the Cubit is "cold," "uncaring," and unconscious.  Because the God-of-gods is exactly that.  It's the demiurge, not the Cristian God, the Father.  It could be that this is Mimara's "role" though, to be the specifically conscious application of the Cubit.  But we've not seen her do much with that, besides banish the Wight.

She banished the Wight, she forgave what's his face in WLW, and she allowed Koringhus to ascend. Those are pretty big deals, IMO.

Which were COMPLETELY FUCKED OVER IN TUC, but whatever.

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1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

She banished the Wight, she forgave what's his face in WLW, and she allowed Koringhus to ascend. Those are pretty big deals, IMO.

Which were COMPLETELY FUCKED OVER IN TUC, but whatever.

I think Korringhus still met the Absolute?

Regarding the banishment of the Wight that's an interesting question raised - if the Consult succeed will every topos become just a place.

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Just now, Kalbear said:

She banished the Wight, she forgave what's his face in WLW, and she allowed Koringhus to ascend. Those are pretty big deals, IMO.

Which were COMPLETELY FUCKED OVER IN TUC, but whatever.

Yeah, I mean, I really do think Bakker did this on purpose, just to subvert the narrative.  Although I disagree about the effectiveness of it.  Because it's hard to imagine that Mimara doesn't have a thematic meaning in the series.  I honestly think it's about being able to have something to "sell" in the next series, narrative-wise.

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6 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

I think Korringhus still met the Absolute?

Maybe? But he as far as I can tell completely avoided the massive amount of damnation that he was going to reach, and ended his life with as much success as you can have in that shitty world. 

6 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

Regarding the banishment of the Wight that's an interesting question raised - if the Consult succeed will every topos become just a place.

Unclear. Maybe? My interpretation is that the gods lose their link to the world through the souled - they are effectively cut off, and are confused and bewildered - essentially because the communication channels between the souled and the damnation engine are cut off as well. But the way in which the world was deformed by damnation and harm to the God itself - things like sorcery marking the landscape, or people sinning in droves and suffering in droves - those aren't caused by that communication layer, they're caused by the weight of damnation itself that marked the souls that were there. So it might be that those few places are the only real places that the gods can actually manifest or do anything at all.

Some evidence for this theory is that Ajokli manifests after the No-God walks. It is confused and irrational, but it is able to override Cnaiur almost entirely at that point, in one of the most 'damned' places on the planet. 

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9 minutes ago, .H. said:

Yeah, I mean, I really do think Bakker did this on purpose, just to subvert the narrative.  Although I disagree about the effectiveness of it.  Because it's hard to imagine that Mimara doesn't have a thematic meaning in the series.  I honestly think it's about being able to have something to "sell" in the next series, narrative-wise.

Subverting the narrative is one thing - having Mimara not see Kellhus with the judging eye is vaguely interesting. But not having her do anything at all isn't subversion any more than not writing the book is. Choosing not to tell a story isn't subversion of storytelling, it's nihilism of storytelling.

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1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Subverting the narrative is one thing - having Mimara not see Kellhus with the judging eye is vaguely interesting. But not having her do anything at all isn't subversion any more than not writing the book is. Choosing not to tell a story isn't subversion of storytelling, it's nihilism of storytelling.

Which, for all I "get" Bakker's post-modern instance on subverting the narrative might actually have been his point.  That even the "atheists" among us want to see the real, Divine prophet manifest and actually save the world.  As opposed to the craptastic solution of Kellhus, or also craptuacular solution of Kellhus.  Or the even worse proposition of Ajokli.

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18 minutes ago, .H. said:

Which, for all I "get" Bakker's post-modern instance on subverting the narrative might actually have been his point.  That even the "atheists" among us want to see the real, Divine prophet manifest and actually save the world.  As opposed to the craptastic solution of Kellhus, or also craptuacular solution of Kellhus.  Or the even worse proposition of Ajokli.

But again, none of that is Mimara's storyline having an actual ending. Simply not doing anything isn't an ending at all. I'm fine with Mimara trying and failing, or ending up being irrelevant because she has no actual power here, or whatever - but her simply not doing anything is not subversion, it's just...nothing. 

I had continued to root for Kellhus being horrible and the Consult winning, so I essentially got my wish, but I also wanted Mimara to actually have a point at all, even if it would be to fail. Don't mistake not succeeding for not taking action. 

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2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Well, no. God is probably none of those things. 

It is not solitary exactly. It is most certainly not immanent - it is not contained as an entity in anything, though it is part of the material world. It is closer to transcendent, but it is transcendent without being conscious, and it is not separate from the real world. 

God is in everything, and everything is part of God, and so God is something like a solitary thing (in that there is only one of it - it is a singleton) but it is not distinct from anything else. 

I think your last paragraph is a good description of immanence. The God within creation rather than the transcendent God above creation. Not sure how you mean the term . . . ?

 

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Just now, unJon said:

I think your last paragraph is a good description of immanence. The God within creation rather than the transcendent God above creation. Not sure how you mean the term . . . ?

 

Immanence as I understand it normally means a God which is an actual physical being - like how we think of Zeus or the Abrahamic God talking directly to Moses. Like you could go up and punch God if you wanted to. That's certainly what we're talking about when we say that Inrithism think of God as immanent - they think of God as immanent through the 100. 

Or Christ being the immanent version of God, the transcendent. 

Now, you could be talking more about a Buddhist version of Immanence, and that's cool, but it's not Immanent like how Inrithism think of it. 

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58 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Don't mistake not succeeding for not taking action.

Well, I guess the answer could be that in the face of over-arching destiny, there isn't even a chance for failure, there is just no chance.  Not that I am saying that is good or great...

There is also the possibility, which I have considered, that Mimara is actually something of a later addition to the narrative and as such, she is only an exposition of thematic meaning in this series.  So, when Bakker kept his "original vision" it was one that did not include Mimara's later added role.  That role only comes into play when he considers the "aftermath."

That is, my hunch is that younger him conceived of the Consult "winning" as fitting.  Now, I think he considers more than nihilism isn't a real answer.  Nor is rational pragmatism.  No, there needs to be more.  Mimara is the vessel of that more.

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6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Immanence as I understand it normally means a God which is an actual physical being - like how we think of Zeus or the Abrahamic God talking directly to Moses. Like you could go up and punch God if you wanted to. That's certainly what we're talking about when we say that Inrithism think of God as immanent - they think of God as immanent through the 100. 

Or Christ being the immanent version of God, the transcendent. 

Now, you could be talking more about a Buddhist version of Immanence, and that's cool, but it's not Immanent like how Inrithism think of it. 

Sort of. Inrithism is right that the 100 are immanent. They interact with the world. They are part of the natural state of the world. We can speculate about whether they are “gods” for various definitions of that word. 

When it comes to the “God” or “God of gods” or “Solitary God”, I agree the way you, Kal, describe him is more Buddhist Immanent, but on the scale of Immanent to Transcendent, if those are our poles, he clearly falls way on the Immanent side. You seem to want to reject both, that the “God” is neither transcendent nor Immanent, and that’s fine. But all I’m saying is that you are giving Bakker too much credit. I think Bakker is stuck on the scale. The TTT glossary describes exactly what Fanimry holds “solitary and Immanent” and that’s the most wrong. 

Teenage Bakker didn’t get any farther than that. 

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15 hours ago, unJon said:

Teenage Bakker didn’t get any farther than that.

That's probably true, but just because Bakker probably didn't think it out that far doesn't really preclude that we can't.  I'm fairly sure that collectively we have actually out-thought Bakker on most thematic portions of the books.  We, collectively have more time and collectively more brain-power to devote to it.

I know most of this exposition is a waste of time though.  However, I do find it entertaining.

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On 10/23/2018 at 3:29 PM, .H. said:

That's probably true, but just because Bakker probably didn't think it out that far doesn't really preclude that we can't.  I'm fairly sure that collectively we have actually out-thought Bakker on most thematic portions of the books.  We, collectively have more time and collectively more brain-power to devote to it.

I know most of this exposition is a waste of time though.  However, I do find it entertaining.

There's also the fact that Teenage Bakker may have had a largely basic story about the No-God coming back, with some vague notions of what this meant metaphysically, but the man who wrote the books had a large amount of philosophical reading under his belt.

Do I know for certain that Bakker read Leibniz's Monadology, or used it as a reference point for the books? Nope. But reading the text we know the rules our hypothesized metaphysical guesses have to adhere to:

- There are bodiless viewpoints, where the perspective includes the body of the particular character.

- In the afterlife you get a new body, one that seems to parallel your body on earth at least initially.

- Distance can be crossed via magic for communication as well as translocation. Space seems illusory or at the least emergent from some more fundamental Ground.

- You have to be able to figure out your damnation and the reality of the afterlife through the scientific method that utilizes reductionism.

- Sorcery has to work (outside of anarcane grounds).

- There's an Inside that conforms to the physics of our world (at least on anarcane grounds), and an Outside where stronger mental entities craft realities for others to experience Damnation or Paradise...assuming anyone is saved that is...

- Moral actions can interfere with the demarcation between Inside & Outside, with immoral actions and suffering creating topoi.

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