Bakker LVI: the Rectum of Creation

[Kalbear]

8 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

As I understand .H. Sin and the Mark are commensurate in that both emphasize a distance between the Ego and the Zero-as-One. Basically selfish acts are done when one emphasizes the Self above the Other and thus emphasizes that very distinction.

So it's not that the Mark is Sin, but both are markers of damnation b/c they both leave the soul ripe for being "butt floss" for Ciphrang.

I'm not sure that's accurate either. Honestly, I'm not at all sure if sorcery's mark is actually damning. Furthermore, there's no reason to believe that sorcery by itself is a selfish act any more than any other action is, unless you're assuming that sorcery by its very nature has to be a selfish act as you're asserting what you WANT on the world. 

I still don't buy that, due to how it works with Titirga. The Mark is, IMO, just an indicator of how entirely non-objective you've been using the Onta in the objective frame of the World. It spells out how entirely wrong  what you've done is compared to the original design. It has nothing to do with the damage you inflict on the Ur-Soul, and everything to do with the damage you're inflicting on Earwa. 

 

[Callan S.]

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Yeah we accept this as a possibility. But I actually think Bakker did put more thought into this than some might think even it's less than, say, having worked out a complete metaphysical schema.

It might even be that the fantasy world is a platform to delve into various interpretations of philosophical problems in a way that is far less dry and traditional philosophy.

[Sci-2]

9 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I'm not sure that's accurate either. Honestly, I'm not at all sure if sorcery's mark is actually damning. Furthermore, there's no reason to believe that sorcery by itself is a selfish act any more than any other action is, unless you're assuming that sorcery by its very nature has to be a selfish act as you're asserting what you WANT on the world. 

I still don't buy that, due to how it works with Titirga. The Mark is, IMO, just an indicator of how entirely non-objective you've been using the Onta in the objective frame of the World. It spells out how entirely wrong  what you've done is compared to the original design. It has nothing to do with the damage you inflict on the Ur-Soul, and everything to do with the damage you're inflicting on Earwa.

Ah I don't mean sorcery is inherently selfish, I mean the likelihood of damnation increases when you emphasize the Ego of the Individual. So both selfish acts and sorcery emphasize the Ego but in different ways.

But both these ways leave a soul vulnerable to being one more Individual adrift in the Outside, and thus the most likely end result of both Selfishness and Sorcery is Damnation.

"The descent to Hell is the same from every place." -Anaxagoras

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

Ah I don't mean sorcery is inherently selfish, I mean the likelihood of damnation increases when you emphasize the Ego of the Individual. So both selfish acts and sorcery emphasize the Ego but in different ways.

But both these ways leave a soul vulnerable to being one more Individual adrift in the Outside, and thus the most likely end result of both Selfishness and Sorcery is Damnation.

This makes sense but doesn't explain why sorcery marks and selfishness doesn't, nor does it explain why Psuhke are not marked at all. Nor does it explain why those who can see the Onta can see the mark of sorcery on the landscape itself. 

 

[Sci-2]

6 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

This makes sense but doesn't explain why sorcery marks and selfishness doesn't, nor does it explain why Psuhke are not marked at all. Nor does it explain why those who can see the Onta can see the mark of sorcery on the landscape itself.

I don't think the Mark is measuring the individuation of the sorcerer, but rather the discrepancy between the God's dreaming and the sorcerer's intention?

[Kalbear]

12 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

I don't think the Mark is measuring the individuation of the sorcerer, but rather the discrepancy between the God's dreaming and the sorcerer's intention?

Maybe? But the Mark is also left on things like the rocks and the trees. It's separate from the sorcerer's intent at that point, and is basically just a discrepancy between the God's dreaming and the world as it is.

And if it had to do with intent, we'd see it with Cish as well. We don't. 

[Sci-2]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Maybe? But the Mark is also left on things like the rocks and the trees. It's separate from the sorcerer's intent at that point, and is basically just a discrepancy between the God's dreaming and the world as it is.

And if it had to do with intent, we'd see it with Cish as well. We don't. 

Is the Mark left on the World really separate from the sorcerer's intent?

Especially if there's only one Here, and only one Mind?

[Kalbear]

Just now, Sci-2 said:

Is the Mark left on the World really separate from the sorcerer's intent?

Especially if there's only one Here, and only one Mind?

I think so? I don't know of any evidence of people being able to determine which sorcerer did what and where. Some sorcerers have less or more of a Mark, but it isn't distinct like a signature. 

And again, doesn't explain the Water or why it wouldn't leave a Mark. To me, this makes it clear that the Mark has less to do with the intent and more to do with the ugliness of ruining the true objective world's perfect design. 

[Sci-2]

27 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I think so? I don't know of any evidence of people being able to determine which sorcerer did what and where. Some sorcerers have less or more of a Mark, but it isn't distinct like a signature. 

And again, doesn't explain the Water or why it wouldn't leave a Mark. To me, this makes it clear that the Mark has less to do with the intent and more to do with the ugliness of ruining the true objective world's perfect design. 

Do you then think Cish are surrendering their will to the Will of God? Otherwise why doesn't the Psukhe ruin the True Objective Design?

[.H.]

13 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Once again, don't mistake the Mark for the sin. Marking has to do with sorcery specifically - both in being able to see it (being of the Few and seeing the Onta) and when practicing it, being seen. It appears to be entirely based on that and that alone. Damnation relies on what effective damage - real and semantic - you cause on others.

Well, yes, in a sense, the Mark is not specially Sin and Sin is not a Mark.  So, liars and murderers don't get Marked, even though those are Sins.  This is because of the nature of the Onta though.  The Mark is the "ledger" of the "continuity" of the Onta.  Consider:

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With great power, however, comes grave consequences. Given these perspectival revisions of being are necessarily incomplete, they constitute desecrations of being, and so appear as the aesthetic violation called the Mark, while heaping damnation on the sorcerer responsible. In this sense, sorcery could be said to be, in the immortal words of Zarathinius, “Hell’s most toilsome and tedious route.”

and also:

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In secular accounts, textual analogies are typically resorted to: seeing the Mark is akin to seeing where text has been scratched away and overwritten in ancient documents. In the case of sorcery, since the amendments to reality are as flawed as the Men who do the amending, it stands to reason that some essential difference would be visible.

It is a bit "arbitrary" but we need to roll with these "facts" in creating our "theory."  So, a Sin, like say, murder, does not Mark, because the Sin does not change the nature of the Onta.  This is why I, earlier, posit the Spirit as primary "ledger" of Sin.  Murder does not offend the continuity of the Onta.  Likely because it does not "rewrite" anything, simply "rearranges" what is already there.

I think our sometimes used analogy of Eärwa as a "computer simulation" of sorts can be useful here, even though not really true, the Onta is essentially the God-made Source Code.  If you change that Source Code in a manner that is not akin to how God wrote it, that is, non-consciously, via Spirit (specifically not Mind) then it will appear different.  That difference, that disjunction, is the Mark.

The Cishaurim, and the Psûkhe, being non-conscious, evokes the same manner of "Code" as what The God wrote the Onta with.  So, when one "speaks with The God's voice" in preforming the Psûkhe, the Code "appears" no different (because it comes from Spirit, not Mind).  However, we know from the fact that Chorae can undo it, that it is still fundamentally different than actual Divine action.  Which does mean that the Onta is not the final arbiter on things.  Or, we could say, not "final" but "only."  There is another "ledger" at work, that "keeps track" or else there would be no way a Chorae would do anything to a Cishaurim.

So, unfortunately that leaves us in a rather precarious place to judge if the Psûkhe Damns outright, like other sorcery, or does not.  It's a bit of a coin flip, we have reason to believe it might or might not.  In the end, it is likely a "push."  The Psûkhe does not Damn or Save, it just is.  So, perhaps Sci is partly right, it might depend on that you do with the Psûkhe that determines if you are Damned.  Considering that Fane is wrong, the Solitary God is not existent, I think it is likely that almost every Cishaurim is Damned, but not really because of the Psûkhe, but rather because they worship an idol that has no ability to save them.  They probably have a chance of reaching Oblivion, but likely fail to find the correct path of "ego-death" to get there.

[Sci-2]

4 hours ago, .H. said:

So, perhaps Sci is partly right, it might depend on that you do with the Psûkhe that determines if you are Damned.  Considering that Fane is wrong, the Solitary God is not existent, I think it is likely that almost every Cishaurim is Damned, but not really because of the Psûkhe, but rather because they worship an idol that has no ability to save them.  They probably have a chance of reaching Oblivion, but likely fail to find the correct path of "ego-death" to get there.

Yeah I think Damnation is what happens when you are captured by the Hundred or the Ciphrang and tormented. One's sinning is secondary, as seen with Korringhus the Survivor.

This seems to be the state of any soul that is not rescued by one of the Hundred, excepting the very few souls who find true Oblivion/Nirvana by rejoining the Absolute.

The key to Salvation (saved by one of the Hundred) or Nirvana (dissolution of Individual) seems to be sublimating one's own will, in some way, to the will of the god or God. (Potential exception is the Bellicose gods, though I think this still applies since your identity is subsumed in striving against them.)

Outside or Sorweel, one other person - Sosering Rauchurl- seems to achieve Salvation --> specifically via Gilagol:

This was how King Coithus Narnol was maimed and forced to retire back to the Canal, and how Thane Sosering Rauchurl was felled from the heights of Gwergiruh. He was grinning to his compatriots when the missile dropped from the void of his left, piercing his cheek, breaking his teeth, and pitching him headlong into the frenzied threshing below. Death came spiralling down … Bore him wondering to the brace of Gilgaöl.

Bakker, R. Scott. The Unholy Consult: The Aspect-Emperor: Book Four (The Aspect-Emperor Trilogy) (Kindle Locations 7821-7823). The Overlook Press. Kindle Edition.

If premeditation is bad, I suspect it's b/c it emphasizes thinking. Same with Sorcery, which is based on cognition.

The Psukhe is based on action - it's soccer not programming. The philosopher Graham Harman has argued that both First Person and Third Person perspectives are equivalent, b/c each is reporting an incomplete, finite account of either Consciousness or the World. He says both cannot get to the Zero Person perspective, the pure actual Feel/Action.

This, to me, helps explain Memgowa's saying that Thought, which is Finite, does Violence to the God. Cognition, in that it marks a separation of the thinker from the One Mind, does violence in the sense of fracturing the God into Individuated Selves. Salvation/Damnation/Nirvana all turn on getting back to a Zero Person perspective by forgoing cognition for action (admittedly the right kind of action, one can still be Self-ish in acting rashly).

So the Bakkerverse is sort of an Inverse of the Hindu idea of God - for Hindus Isvara (God) is the bird that watches the Self, which is the bird that eats. For Bakkerverse denizens the God is the eater, while the Self is the one who in some sense 'lies' and says "I, an individual, am eating now."

[.H.]

32 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

Yeah I think Damnation is what happens when you are captured by the Hundred or the Ciphrang and tormented. One's sinning is secondary, as seen with Korringhus the Survivor.

This seems to be the state of any soul that is not rescued by one of the Hundred, excepting the very few souls who find true Oblivion by rejoining the Absolute.

The key to Salvation (saved by one of the Hundred) or Nirvana (dissolution of Individual) seems to be sublimating one's own will, in some way, to the will of the god or God. (Potential exception is the Bellicose gods, though I think this still applies since your identity is subsumed in striving against them.)

That's interesting to think about.  That Sin actually doesn't matter, in the sense of directly determining if you are Damned.  It is more that Sin, as "experience" is what The Hundred want, differentiation from the "background"  that is from The Infinite God-of-gods, i.e., everything.  That is, Sin is only flavor for The Hundred and/or Ciphrang.  The question of Damnation is actually the question of being able to simply avoid the clutches of those agents, Sin or no Sin.  So, where Koringhus had certainly Sinned, Mimara showed him the path to annihilate his Self and escape the clutches of Damnation?  Is the annihilation of identity the absolution of Sin then?

I need to reconsider Mimara in light of this though.

Maybe though it really doesn't matter if experience is Sin or not.  This could well be why the Inverse Fire shows everyone as Damned, because if you have experience, no matter what it is, you are tasty to some degree and apt to be devoured for eternity by something.  Basically, as long as you cling to Identity, you are screwed.

On the Bellicose gods though, I think it is more helpful to drop the logical fallacy of them as particularly anthropomorphic.  In this sense, it is "easier" to understand them as the Nonmen seemed to regard them: Principles. So where Yatwer (Fertility Principle) asks you to embody it, Akkeägni asks you to fight it it.  It's really the same in the end, I think.  Akkeägni isn't disease itself, it's the Principle of disease as related to Souled Beings.  In the same way, Yatwer isn't birth itself, but rather, what birth signifies as a Principle.

[Sci-2]

16 minutes ago, .H. said:

On the Bellicose gods though, I think it is more helpful to drop the logical fallacy of them as particularly anthropomorphic.  In this sense, it is "easier" to understand them as the Nonmen seemed to regard them: Principles. So where Yatwer (Fertility Principle) asks you to embody it, Akkeägni asks you to fight it it.  It's really the same in the end, I think.  Akkeägni isn't disease itself, it's the Principle of disease as related to Souled Beings.  In the same way, Yatwer isn't birth itself, but rather, what birth signifies as a Principle.

Makes sense, after all Bakker did say the Gods save who they Will...or something like that...

Perhaps if a person is a microcosm containing their own mirror of the Hundred then by making your identity in line with a Principle you can achieve Salvation. You are deeply obedient or deeply antagonistic but either way the aspect of your microcosm personality that mirrors one of the Hundred has become the prime aspect of your Self.

You are, in some sense, already just that god in the physical world.

Question -> Can I then just worship a Ciphrang...and if so why aren't there more demon cults in Earwa...

[Kalbear]

(an aside: The Good Place's latest ep hints strongly at a really cool question/answer to this issue of sin)

[.H.]

1 minute ago, Sci-2 said:

Perhaps if a person is a microcosm containing their own mirror of the Hundred then by making your identity in line with a Principle you can achieve Salvation. You are deeply obedient or deeply antagonistic but either way the aspect of your microcosm personality that mirrors one of the Hundred has become the prime aspect of your Self.

Indeed, it would seem that your Spirit is just such a mirror, being a shard of the Infinite God.  A part of the Infinite God is still the Infinite God.  So, that is a good thought, I think, that then the Inter-Subjective Space of the Outside, is actually the inter-subjective space of any and every Spirit, because they are all One (Zero).  So, in fact, the Outside is just the inter-subjective "view" of The God from the irrational and detrimental point of view of Identity.  The Principles spring forth from this Identity, because they are what Souled beings enforce as aspects of Identity.

This is a fantastic rabbit hole, here, I think...

[Kalbear]

9 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

Makes sense, after all Bakker did say the Gods save who they Will...or something like that...

Perhaps if a person is a microcosm containing their own mirror of the Hundred then by making your identity in line with a Principle you can achieve Salvation. You are deeply obedient or deeply antagonistic but either way the aspect of your microcosm personality that mirrors one of the Hundred has become the prime aspect of your Self.

I think that there's a very big difference between attracting favor of the hundred and achieving salvation. Just like appealing to ancestors doesn't 'save' you, it just puts you in with other entities in the Outside that can protect you some, appealing to the hundred doesn't save your soul; it just saves your soul from being eaten by random hobo ciphrang.

I still think that there are things that are actually holy and are actually going to be saved come their experience in the Outside. Not go to oblivion, not be rescued by the hundred, but an actual heaven. 

Another way to say it is that a series based on a biblical myth which is real not having an actual heaven would be pretty weird, given how virtually all myths have a good place of sorts. If this didn't exist, then the whole conceit of making the world worse than it was historically in order to show how a premodern world would be is an obvious bullshit ploy. 

 

[Sci-2]

20 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

(an aside: The Good Place's latest ep hints strongly at a really cool question/answer to this issue of sin)

The Good Place and Beserk are the "metaphysical whodunnits" that I think parallel the Bakkerverse. Sometimes to an uncanny degree...like the three could be in a genre themselves.

[.H.]

21 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

The Good Place and Beserk are the "metaphysical whodunnits" that I think parallel the Bakkerverse. Sometimes to an uncanny degree...like the three could be in a genre themselves.

Haven't caught this week's episode yet, I will tonight.

Perhaps I should check out the Berserk mangas.  I remember watching the old show a long, long time ago, but I'd rather just read it.

[Sci-2]

Just now, .H. said:

Haven't caught this week's episode yet, I will tonight.

Perhaps I should check out the Berserk mangas.  I remember watching the old show a long, long time ago, but I'd rather just read it.

The original anime is good but from what I've seen of the newer one you're liable to miss some of the character beats that are found in the illustration.

Really the manga is best to really grasp the telling - the androgyny of Griffith's beauty, for example, isn't conveyed as well in the animation whereas the original art really does make me wonder if he is a false or true Messiah.

[.H.]

Just now, Sci-2 said:

The original anime is good but from what I've seen of the newer one you're liable to miss some of the character beats that are found in the illustration.

Really the manga is best to really grasp the telling - the androgyny of Griffith's beauty, for example, isn't conveyed as well in the animation whereas the original art really does make me wonder if he is a false or true Messiah.

Yeah, I remember reading about how the original show really failed to grasp a lot of the subtle things done in the manga when I had watched it way back then.

Honestly, I prefer reading things to watching things anyway.  My reading comprehension is definitely better than my listening comprehension, at least generally.  Not to mention I don't really have time to watch many things...