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The Judging Eye VI


Nerdanel

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On time wackiness - I think this is very plausible.

We don't know anything about if and how time flows in the Outside. If the Outside actually is outside of the space-time-continuum of Eärwa, all bets regarding time are off.

There is a very enigmatic quote from Psatma Nannaferi that I think supports this. She talks about the nature of the Gods (which she seems to have some insight into) and says something like "The Gods... do not happen... all at once". My interpretation of this is that there are simultaneity issues either between the Outside and Eärwa, or within the Outside itself.

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The logos is bound within nature and follows the axiom of precipitate action - this dictates that the future cannot affect the past. However, it also contradicts the idea of sorcery.

Take that as you will, but prophecy is included in the story as one of the trappings of epic fantasy and we can expect it to be dealt with.

It seems more likely to be an element to the metaphysics of Earwa than Mekeratrig. I mean, we have aporetic socery and trinkets... Time bending is fairly contradictory too.

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The logos is bound within nature and follows the axiom of precipitate action - this dictates that the future cannot affect the past. However, it also contradicts the idea of sorcery.

In what way? I think nothing in sorcery breaks the law of cause and effect as it is in force in Eärwa. A sorcerer casts a spell and an effect occurs. The energy to achieve the effect comes from the Outside, but temporally the effect happens after the cause exactly as it should.

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where do those spells come from though?

Bakker creative process:

every time a spell is said an angel gets his wings

Every time a spell is said a demon gets his horns.

Every time a spell is said an eternal soul* is consumed.

*Dead but self aware and existing in the Outside. the spells are literally powered by soul power, those dazzling triangles of light and arcing octagons of doom with planes of shimmering fire and rays of stabbing purple-blue light fingers don't just come out of nowhere. Nope, all the sorcery mathemagical deathrays are powered by SOUL POWER! and every spell burns off/consumes an entire soul. More powerful spells burn off more powerful souls. and that's why sorcerers are damned, cause they is fucking with y'lls grandma's souls and the other ancestors and shit. And nobody best be talkin' bout Grandma!*

What, deathray laser magic in mathematical form is created by the power of trigonometry theorems? :/ Pishposh. that sorcerous light show needs a source of power and soon I shall demonstrate that Bakker has left a very elaborate trail of clues to inform us of this, and only me, I, myself and all by my solitary lonesome self has been able to track the one true path through the books which everyone else has missed in their comparitively paltry attempts at comprehension. Soon I will reveal the secrets... MWAHAHAHAHAH!

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Nice man. I think you're onto something there. :thumbsup:

But yeh, magic is magic. It's clearly supernatural and all that supernatural stuff is tied to belief. Dunyain precepts seem based on Stoicism minus the spirituality and rely on quantifiable reality, doesn't mean its the whole truth though, eh.

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Sometimes it's so hard to know if people are being serious or not...

Anyway, here is my theory of how magic is powered:

Every soul is a pinprick to the Outside. Magic is based on making the Outside shine out of that pinprick, which is why only creatures with souls can use it. This has the effect of making the local reality malleable to individual will (NOT belief) like the Outside is naturally. Magic is the art of temporarily superseding the natural laws. Magic can be used "naturally" without the structure of sorcery, but since the human brain is far from an exact instrument, it's extremely hard to get something to happen, let alone get something happen the way it was actually intended. On the other hand, that kind of magic leaves no Mark and incurs no Chorae vulnerability. I think Mimara's bonfire "Teach me!" was this kind of magic, and it indeed worked after a fashion. Achamian came out of his tower and whacked her with his staff, which must have taught her a lesson about not being annoying.

Sorcery is the art of arranging one's magic-invoking thoughts very precisely so that the desired effect will happen exactly as desired. Gnosis with its mathematical thinking is the most precise and therefore generally the most powerful as the sorcerer's will energy is concentrated on producing just the essential and not frills like translucent dragon heads; Psûkhe is the closest to the natural magic and therefore does not leave a Mark of its falseness. Psûkhe partially compensates for its lack of precision by calling on more of the sorcerer's brain than just the frontal lobe. A theoretical synthesis of Gnosis and Psûkhe would be extremely powerful. All sorcery has verbal components since those are uniquely useful in focusing the mind.

The light that comes from a sorcerer's mouth and eyes shines from the pinprick to the Outside that is their soul. When the sorcery is extremely powerful, such as in the case of Kellhus, the caster's entire flesh glows like a lamp. Try putting your hand over a bright light in somewhere comparatively dark. You'll see the light shining through your flesh. That's the same principle in action. The light is so especially bright through the eyes because eyes are a window to the soul. The Surillic Point may produce its light by being a pinprick to the Outside too.

Channeling magic through one's own body gradually changes the body. One becomes more and more a creature of the Outside. The Chorae react against the remnants of any kind of structured sorcery in someone's flesh, but the Mark gained from Gnostic and Anagogic ways of pouring the Outside through one's soul is a sign of a more harmful kind of damage, and that damage is to the soul, or mind - I'm not sure if there's a real difference in Eärwa. This damage selectively affects memories, turning the victim first into an Erratic and eventually into a demon, Ciphrang. I suspect the reason for this is that while people's souls are windows to the Outside, there are different regions in the Outside, and the souls of the damned are windows into Hell. This is what Mimara sees with her Judging Eye. And as for why the souls of the sorcerers point to Hell, here it's hard to separate cause from effect. One possibility is that the God (who is evil in Bakker-world) doesn't like competition and damns all sorcerers with extreme prejudice. Or it could be that the soul damage is just an unfortunate consequence of doing magic, which is why the God sees it as evil. So, is something evil in Eärwa because the God says so or because the God is adhering to a higher morality? I think the source of morality in Eärwa will be an important question in the story.

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You are implying that Chorae wouldn't work against users of the Psukhe wouldn't be affected by Chorae because they wouldn't have "remnants of any kind of structured sorcery" in their flesh. And yet we know beyond a certainty that Chorae do work against the Psukhe, both as a protective device and as a weapon.

Also, your thesis about Erratics fails to acknowledge a point made by Incariol earlier in the thread, which is that our evidence suggests that all remaining Nonmen are to a greater or lesser extent Erratic, not just those who use sorcery. We don't have anything to suggest that of the wandering Erratics that we have seen (including those near the Inchoroi who was interrogating those folks), none are non-sorcerers. How do you explain that?

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Sometimes it's so hard to know if people are being serious or not...

Dude, I quoted It's a Wonderful Life in a Bakker thread. I watch a lot of movies, to me its obvious Bakker is drawing many of his conclusions from these ancient texts. Perhaps if more of us read the Gospel of Kazan and the Epistle of Capra we'd realize the important parallels when Achamian laments that "I coulda had class. I coulda been somebody. Instead of a bum. which is what I am," parallels that draw powerful insights into the role of Mimara, Mekeritrig and Kellhus' eventual fate.

Anyway, here is my theory of how magic is powered:

I think Magic is just another physical principal and law of the Bakkerverse. A machine could perform magic far better than a human, a Dunyain, or even a Mentat-Gesserit hybrid could manage.

Afterall, is there nothing more anathema in fantasy literature than the progression of science (HORRORS!) and the advancement of technology (CROSSBOWS EVOLVED IN A VACUUM I TELL YOU! A VACUUM!)? Machines, like the development of technology are what cause the disenchantment of the world that eradicates the common-sense intentional worldview we're born with. If magic is part of the objective world view, than scientific training will reveal its secrets quite ably--far more ably than the superstitions of the actual sorcerer practicioners would ever be capable of. Magic IS scientific is Bakkerverse, why else does he use the language of calculus and trigonometry to describe its effects? Precision is the key, precision of the inutteral, and the precision of mathematical language. That's why a computer will be a far better user of magic than humans will ever manage. Perhaps the No-God's shutting down of live births is nothing more than a simple program that repeats an inutteral for every woman in the world that prevents a live birth. One Petaflop of computer cycles should be more than ample for such an inutteral, and such processing would be paltry for a spacefaring species that's built a worldship/ark.

New Crackpot theory, the title of the third series is the Industrial Revolution, where Kellhus has harnessed the power of the NoGod and used it to advance Earwa kicking and screaming into a disenchanted modern world.

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Dude, I quoted It's a Wonderful Life in a Bakker thread. I watch a lot of movies, to me its obvious Bakker is drawing many of his conclusions from these ancient texts. Perhaps if more of us read the Gospel of Kazan and the Epistle of Capra we'd realize the important parallels when Achamian laments that "I coulda had class. I coulda been somebody. Instead of a bum. which is what I am," parallels that draw powerful insights into the role of Mimara, Mekeritrig and Kellhus' eventual fate.

New Crackpot theory, the title of the third series is the Industrial Revolution, where Kellhus has harnessed the power of the NoGod and used it to advance Earwa kicking and screaming into a disenchanted modern world.

I just dropped my toast. Thanks for waking me up.

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It's a really interesting (to me) idea that a computer would be the ultimate practitioner of magic.

Just a harebrained notion: what if the No-God was an artificial consciousness in that old sense of the word - an AI? This would go well with the Tekne notions and its odd peculiarities, and give odd meanings to the whole WHAT DO YOU SEE nonsense.

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Just a harebrained notion: what if the No-God was an artificial consciousness in that old sense of the word - an AI? This would go well with the Tekne notions and its odd peculiarities, and give odd meanings to the whole WHAT DO YOU SEE nonsense.

I like it.

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Erm, well looks like this is devolving into parody and snark.

Now I aint claiming there is some secret truth that only I can see, and I think its unfair to rag on people this way. Sure, I don't agree with many of the theories here, but there are some interesting points in there. If you dont agree with something, thats great, critisize the idea. If you don't think it's worth it, then don't. Humour is welcome, but this seems a little personal - "Here, look at me. I'm pretending to be that guy I don't like. Duuur. Here's my dumb theory. I sure am dumb. Duuur." That's not nice. Maybe it's frustration at the stagnation of this thread that causes people to only post when they feel like they can score points or are irritated. I would advise ignoring it for a while instead.

The purpose of discussions like these is to share information and insight. It's a place for learning and amusment to me.

I do believe that Bakkerworld has a highly interesting setting and the intergration of philosophy and psychology is unique and fascinating. It's fun to speculate and play in the sandbox of ideas that make up this world. To me and others this is a modern classic; lifechanging and illuminating.

But anyway...

Magic in any context contravenes the scientific principles of the world in which it exists. That's what magic is. In Bakkerworld magic follows the metaphysical principles of language and belief. Consider this metaphor. Kellhus is basicly a quantum computer when he leaves Ishual, but as he interacts with the supernatural forces of Earwa he is changed and "used", now he's on a holy mission and talks to gods.

Extending this suposition to the Inchies, perhaps their ark was designed as a colonisation craft. Rather than terraforming the new planet, their vessel is stocked with genetic material and manned by somekind of AI. After millenia of striving against unexpected resistance and unquantafiable magic they have been changed and almost destroyed despite their technologicl superiority. That might explain the fixation with rutting and violence and perhaps clarify their goals a bit.

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But anyway...

Magic in any context contravenes the scientific principles of the world in which it exists. That's what magic is. In Bakkerworld magic follows the metaphysical principles of language and belief. Consider this metaphor. Kellhus is basicly a quantum computer when he leaves Ishual, but as he interacts with the supernatural forces of Earwa he is changed and "used", now he's on a holy mission and talks to gods.

By equal measure, an AI would be quite good at predicting the future too but i think Kellhus, as you say, is already doing that.

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Well, Thorsten had said that it was an artificial consciousness or emerging superconsciousness, but didn't exactly elaborate on how it came about; I'm suggesting that it actually came about via true artifice. The difference to me is engineering instead of science, if that makes sense.

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Okay - Thorsten postulated that the No-God was an emergent superconsciousness. (that's the science part). He didn't state how he was created or what was used to create him. (how do implement the science is an engineer's job).

I'm stating that the way that the No-God was created was via tekne, and he most closely resembles a really big supercomputer, using mechanical processing as a means to control magical energies (or subvert them) due to the precision of meaning that a computer can introduce. That precision granted via compilation methods and real grammars based on mathematical modeling (instead of nonmen linguistics, which are more logical but still flawed) is what grants the power. That's the engineering side.

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Hmm, let's see if I can lay these out:

1. Magic in bakker-verse is a science, described by mathematics.

2. Computers can crunch numbers fast.

3. An AI would be superior to a human in magical abilities (2 inutteral strings? Learn to multi-thread! We're taking these inutterals over 9000!)

4. The No-God is a giant floating computer. The carapace actually encloses a cooling system. Modern super computers need really cool temperatures. Inside the carapace, the No-God is bathed in liquid hydrogen.

But can the No-God run Crysis?

Any rate, can the No-God's magic pass his carapace? The carapace being studded with chorae and all.

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But can the No-God run Crysis?
Pfft. This is science, not magic.

Any rate, can the No-God's magic pass his carapace? The carapace being studded with chorae and all.
That's where it gets...murky for me, I will admit. The only conclusion I can reach is that whatever the No-God is, its power is not derived from a connection with God. Alternately, chorae work on the principle of paradox (and revealing the paradox associated with magic). If the language was specified reasonably correctly enough there may not be any paradox for the chorae to work on, correct?

Hmm. I like this even more. The idea that chorae are basically small packets of linguistic nit-pickery that say 'dude, you used affect instead of effect' or 'eats, shoots and leaves is ambiguous'. But chorae do nothing when used against something whose meaning is perfect. They check the grammar, see that it's valid and internally consistent, and shrug it off.

That would make both chorae and magic and the No-God all very, very consistent and explanable via fairly reasonable scientific and linguistic rationale.

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The problem with computers and magic is that a soul is needed to be able to use magic, and Tekne doesn't create souled beings by default. The souled skin-spy was an accident. Presumably souled squirrels and the like also occur naturally. And even if the Consult was willing to mass produce No-Gods until they got one that worked, they might not even known if such a thing was possible at that point in their history. And it's not even known if non-biological circuits can even have souls at all in Eärwa. Considering that the Consult's more recent Tekne work has been all about biotechnology and stuff like lasers have completely fallen by the wayside even though they most definitely would have been useful, that suggests that the No-God would have to be a biological sort of computer i.e. something with a brain. This would mean something like the usual Consult creatures, except better.

But I don't believe any of it. It is stated in the books that the No-God was summoned. I think he came from the Outside and he wasn't a Consult AI of any sort. I think only the body his soul inhabited was made by Tekne.

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