White-Luck Warrior VI

[Kalbear]

Since when did the natural rules of a universe dictate morality? I'm presuming damnation to be a moral judgement word here - is 'damnation' instead being used like 'incineration' is? Just a word to describe a process?

It seems an emotionally charged word to simply describe a process?

That's how it works in Earwa. Moral judgment is correct - it is the Judgment of God, whatever that is (and there's plenty of debate about that) - but I'm not using it as morally charged. That's just what it is on Earwa. Do certain things, you are damned.

Now we can say whether or not a perfectly natural process should have moral implications, and that's an interesting argument. Does the law of gravity have moral implications? Should it? Are you leading a moral life if you fly in planes or observe lensing? The problem here is that morality (for us) is a very subjective, opinionated system - as is damnation. For Earwans it is nothing of the sort. All people, no matter what, if they do the same thing they will be judged the same way and have the same result. Furthermore you can even find out what that action was that fucked you over via TJE. For Earwans, morality IS physics - at least as far as damnation is concerned. Local morality (such as the 1 god vs 100 gods of Fanim and Inrithism or Inri's view that nonmen should be killed, which was a lie) is a different kind of morality.

Again, I'd ask why such an emotionally/morally charged word for something the equivalent of gravity? Or am I just injecting 'damnation' with moral conitation and everyone else is saying it in a flat voice as if they were saying "The character is heffalumped" - like you could make up any old word to replace damnation, like heffalump, and it makes no difference?

You're emotionally charging it. Damnation is important to the characters because it's real, but it's real and dangerous like nuclear armageddon or WMDs are to us.

So to be selfish is to be good? > Or atleast to be selfish is to not be damned?

Depends on what you're doing. There's reason to believe that doing selfless things - like raising a child well, or dying valorously, is a 'good' thing and you'll be rewarded. But in general, ignoring your personal damnation to help others or really do anything is not a good thing for you.

But that hasn't occured and how many have fallen into the swollowing abyss, in the mean time?

I guess I'm making a moral judgement on such a system. It's a bit like buying a kitten, then the very first time it poos in a corner, you shoot it with a shotgun blast. It doesn't seem to work.

Its a long draw of me, but you kinda strike me as looking at it as there being some way to win? Or atleast looking at it like I do some board/video games - that there is away around losing, there is a chance, a hope of solving this puzzle

You're supposed to judge this system as fucked up, because it is. The rules are simple: god in some fashion exists, and he's a dick. As far as winning goes, there appears to be two ways to win - not be damned (and go hang out with angelic ciphrang or something) or fuck over the world entirely so that the Outside doesn't connect to you and you cannot be damned. Kellhus might be looking for a third way as well.

And yeah, billions of souls went and suffered for damnation. That's the funny thing - people aren't scientific here, so they aren't hugely experimenting on what is and isn't cause for damnation. As a result they're governed by what came before - their governments, their families, their choices. There's a very good chance both Inrithism and Fanimry have it entirely wrong and everyone doing things for those gods is fucking up and will be damned. Oops. Nevertheless, they still try. Some people work towards being good people in the afterlife, some work towards personal gain now.

[lokisnow]

Since when did the natural rules of a universe dictate morality? I'm presuming damnation to be a moral judgement word here - is 'damnation' instead being used like 'incineration' is? Just a word to describe a process?

It seems an emotionally charged word to simply describe a process?

Again, I'd ask why such an emotionally/morally charged word for something the equivalent of gravity? Or am I just injecting 'damnation' with moral conitation and everyone else is saying it in a flat voice as if they were saying "The character is heffalumped" - like you could make up any old word to replace damnation, like heffalump, and it makes no difference?

think Barthes sign and signifier for why the author might use a specific word. Scott uses the word damnation because it communicates a specific way with his readers. He wants to use an emotionally and religiously charged word. To create a word like heffalumps to replace damnation would just be an incredibly obtuse and stupid way to avoid communicating effectively with his readers.

The whole authorial point is to sort of shove the absurdity and brutality of religious explanations of the world into plain view and show a realist extrapolation of the reality they proport to describe, but in fact religions tend to studiously ignore, circumscribe and obfuscate the logical end points of their deeply flawed belief systems.

I mean, eternal fire, suffering and damnation for eating pork? For saying, "goddamit"? The same punishment for rape and muder? it's pretty absurd.

[Callan S.]

I think that's an incorrect interpretation. Damnation happens regardless of who sees it. Damnation happens as a part of the universe. It is no more an opinion than the laws of entropy are an opinion.

Because in our world, morality isn't objective.

Okay, so what makes our world not have objective morality, then?

If someone in real life (and this is hardly an entirely made up example) comes along and cites an objective morality and you are damned, for example, for having homosexual sex, why don't you suddenly snap over and think thats an objective morality in our world?

Okay, here's my point, when an author like Scott says his fantasy world has objective morality and say that in it homosexual sex gets you damned*, why do you snap over and think that's an objective morality there? How is his word so...powerful?

How do you reconcile that within yourself? Do you have two copies of your morality? A real world morality and a fantasy world morality? And what do the two think of each other? You think consenting homosexual sex is fine - what does your real world sense of morality think about your fantasy world morality where no, it's just utter damnation to do so? And what does that fantasy morality think about your green light of the damnable? Or are they somehow perfectly quarantened from each other, even as you talk about both in the same paragraph and sentence?

I'm trying to figure what your doing to supposedly have both a non objective morality and an objective morality both inside your head at the same time? I can't figure it out? Or if you want to pitch it the other way and turn the desk lamp to my eyes, you can ask how I can't do so? This applies as much to me, it's not a one sided investigation.

* I don't think this example has been cited in the novels, please no one think that's been said in the book - I'm almost regretting giving the example already. I just needed an example that A: In real life I imagine we all think (amongst consenting adults) is fine, but in horrible Earwa, probably gets you damned.

In Earwa it is. It's a hard conversation - is something moral if it's naturally occurring? Was it 'immoral' to eat pig because it was badly cooked most of the time and caused people to get sick, or was that just a good rule to avoid pain? In Earwa these things are linked in weird ways. At the point in which 'how you live your life' is measurable and valued, is it morals or it is physics?

In Earwa it might be moral to let yourself get malaria - or it might be immoral.

Perhaps your drawing links in weird ways, but they feel utterly the case? The links feel as real as the table in front of you. Although quantum physics suggests the table in front of you is 99% empty space, of course.

In alot of social conversation, I estimate, there's this...reflex, that if one person admits any weirdness, they just have to then listen to the other person dictate to them the proper way. I'm not going to - I'm describing this simply as something possibly quite interesting to chew over. Or you can say I'm lame for giving disclaimers, because it's true, I am! :(

You're emotionally charging it. Damnation is important to the characters because it's real, but it's real and dangerous like nuclear armageddon or WMDs are to us.

So damnation is not moral? Damnation isn't a moral issue? If your saying this, okay, that structure fits more (and my questions above have an answer already). I'd prefer to call it 'heffalumped' though - I guess I have some personal baggage with the word 'damnation'.

There's reason to believe that doing selfless things - like raising a child well, or dying valorously, is a 'good' thing and you'll be rewarded.

That's not selfless? It's for a profit? Not that I'm a big advocate of selflessness (I prefered a slurred defintion of self in selfishness, where one is selfish - it just so happens that ones idea of self includes other warm bodys as well. Including animals, plants and even to a degree, geography. The idea of self slurred to cover more than one being).

As far as winning goes, there appears to be two ways to win - not be damned (and go hang out with angelic ciphrang or something) or fuck over the world entirely so that the Outside doesn't connect to you and you cannot be damned.

I'll pitch an idea - when you look for ways to win, you validate the circumstances your trying to win at. Say, for a hedge maze, this isn't a big deal - you validate the idea of being inconvenienced and disorientated. But that's fine, just a hedge maze.

I'm just suggesting a human inclination to win and find a way to win...but it comes with the shadow of reflexively validating the situation it tries to win at. An instinct that just tries to win at the situation, it doesn't stop and think 'is this situation one I accept?'. The play to win reflex just rolls up its sleeves and accepts....

Nevertheless, they still try.

Heck, they don't even know to nevertheless keep trying. They just keep on going as from their past, ignorant of the overall situation. It's not trying, it's just continuing to live and forage. I've considered whether the idea was they were told the rules of how to act to not get the beat down in the distant past, but then forgot or had circumstances take it from them (children left with dead parents, etc).

[Callan S.]

think Barthes sign and signifier for why the author might use a specific word. Scott uses the word damnation because it communicates a specific way with his readers. He wants to use an emotionally and religiously charged word. To create a word like heffalumps to replace damnation would just be an incredibly obtuse and stupid way to avoid communicating effectively with his readers.

The whole authorial point is to sort of shove the absurdity and brutality of religious explanations of the world into plain view and show a realist extrapolation of the reality they proport to describe, but in fact religions tend to studiously ignore, circumscribe and obfuscate the logical end points of their deeply flawed belief systems.

I mean, eternal fire, suffering and damnation for eating pork? For saying, "goddamit"? The same punishment for rape and muder? it's pretty absurd.

Yeah, but is Scott's point just for us to sit and try and figure him/his stuff out? Or is the idea he's pitching, in part, discussion amongst ourselves?

In such a case, understanding Scott, understanding what his pitching, isn't at all the big important thing?

If were just supposed to figure him out, well, okay, I'm off topic. But I'll swear, the way people are trying to figure him out seems to say more about the people (not in a bad way) than it does about Scott (myself included).

I'd be inclined to think that the word 'damnation' does not communicate in a specific way, is the point of using the word. The signifier is the absence of signifier. The signifier is simply a question mark, not a pointing finger. That's why I use heffalump, because suddenly were left with the psychological artifacts of the invocation of 'damnation', but with an incredibly cold, lifeless, empty word instead, that ceases to control those artifacts. Then, when they aren't controlled, you can look at them clinically. It's a bit like seeing what's left washed up on the shore after the storm - I use heffalump to end the storm, so we can go out and look. Instead of looking and getting swept out to sea by the storm.

[Lady Nerevar]

How do you reconcile that within yourself? Do you have two copies of your morality? A real world morality and a fantasy world morality? And what do the two think of each other? You think consenting homosexual sex is fine - what does your real world sense of morality think about your fantasy world morality where no, it's just utter damnation to do so? And what does that fantasy morality think about your green light of the damnable? Or are they somehow perfectly quarantened from each other, even as you talk about both in the same paragraph and sentence?

I don't have to agree with the morality of a fantasy world to understand it. I like being challenged into working within belief systems with which I do not agree. Maybe I have an overactive imagination, or something, but I have no trouble dropping myself into the world and accepting its cruelties as truth for the duration.

The difference between fictional and real world morality is that with a fictional world, the author is god. He knows how the world works, and can choose to let us in on it. If he says that homosexual sex gets you damned in Earwa, then backs it up with evidence of homosexuals shown as damned, then it's true. We have no such authority in the real world. A priest may claim that God told him homosexuality is evil, but without objective evidence it is just an opinion. On the other hand, I'm going to believe a physicist when he tells me that gravity exists and explains how it works, because he has ample evidence to back him up.

Anyway, part of the fun in Earwa, for me, is that it is a story of relative morality set in a universe of moral absolutes. The societies themselves do not agree on what is and is not moral, and neither do individuals. It is about people arguing the essence of gravity - just because they don't recognize it or don't agree on how it works doesn't mean that they aren't bound by it.

[Kalbear]

Okay, so what makes our world not have objective morality, then?

If someone in real life (and this is hardly an entirely made up example) comes along and cites an objective morality and you are damned, for example, for having homosexual sex, why don't you suddenly snap over and think thats an objective morality in our world?

Okay, here's my point, when an author like Scott says his fantasy world has objective morality and say that in it homosexual sex gets you damned*, why do you snap over and think that's an objective morality there? How is his word so...powerful?

What makes our world not have an objective morality: we cannot scientifically validate the moral code of the world. We can't even agree that there's a single one. Now, neither can the Earwans, but we know that they're wrong and their debate isn't like christianity vs. islam, it's like ether theory vs. special relativity.

As to how Scott's word is so powerful...I'm not sure I get this at all. When GRRM says that Renly and Loras are gay, do you believe him? When he describes the heraldry of certain houses that haven't appeared in the book yet, do you believe him?

Scott's stated that there exists an objective morality in Earwa. That unlike our universe there is a truly right and wrong way to live your life and there are consequences to your actions beyond your life into your afterlife. That these things are not changing or mutable in any meaningful way. That there exists damnation. Since he's the author and not trying to fuck us over, I believe him. I guess I have a faith in Bakker's word. I can't prove that it's true, and if he died tomorrow I probably would not know if they were true. So...there. I guess that's sufficiently meta for you.

How do you reconcile that within yourself? Do you have two copies of your morality? A real world morality and a fantasy world morality? And what do the two think of each other? You think consenting homosexual sex is fine - what does your real world sense of morality think about your fantasy world morality where no, it's just utter damnation to do so? And what does that fantasy morality think about your green light of the damnable? Or are they somehow perfectly quarantened from each other, even as you talk about both in the same paragraph and sentence?

Perhaps that's the real issue. My personal morality is a construct, one that I've picked and chosen over the years combined with societal norms and abnormal behaviors. It's not something that drives me, or if it is it's not something that I fervently worship. I don't have a fantasy morality. I have a personal morality. I recognize that other people have their own morality - and often they'll conflict, but I can still recognize the morality in others. Similarly, I can recognize the morality in the series. The only quibble is the 'objective' part, and to me I've taken that to mean that there is a very provable morality that 100% of the time will have consistent results upon acting in the same way.

So damnation is not moral? Damnation isn't a moral issue? If your saying this, okay, that structure fits more (and my questions above have an answer already). I'd prefer to call it 'heffalumped' though - I guess I have some personal baggage with the word 'damnation'.

Damnation is moral (or more accurately, damnation is a result of behaving in an objectively immoral way in Earwa), but damnation isn't moral the same way that working on the Sabbath is moral. To Earwans, it is both a moral issue (how do they behave to avoid damnation) and a physical issue (will they or won't they be damned).

You can call it what you will, of course, but you'd be wrong. Damnation is supposed to have that personal baggage. When you think damnation you should be thinking of demons torturing, of lakes of endless fire, of your liver being eaten every day. You should also be thinking about damned being not connected with God, which is also likely what it is in Earwa.

Maybe some definitions are in order:

morality is the viewpoint of what is and isn't 'right'. It implies judgment and action. An objective morality would be then a true viewpoint of what is and isn't 'right' in behavior and thought.

Physics is the fundamental empirical scientific study of the universe. It is a scientific basis and thus can be measured, repeated, and predicted. It revolves around action and behavior.

Thus, if something can be measured, repeated and predicted and has behavior then it's physics. But on Earwa, that describes morality as well.

[Callan S.]

I don't have to agree with the morality of a fantasy world to understand it. I like being challenged into working within belief systems with which I do not agree. Maybe I have an overactive imagination, or something, but I have no trouble dropping myself into the world and accepting its cruelties as truth for the duration.

For the duration.

See, this is a pivotal qualifier! It's not an 'objective morality', it's 'for a duration, an objective morality'. The qualifier is pivotal to the sandboxing of the fiction - it's like the difference between the bible and epic fantasy. The qualifier is pivotal. Otherwise fun epic fantasy becomes scripture.

Now maybe you'd say that's what Scott has meant all the time but was to lazy to write the qualifier (as pivotal as I identify it as being) and I could even see a fairly good chance of that being the case and say fair cop. If such is the case I'm just going on and on about a bit of lazy communication and I'll say fair cop to that and pinch my lips!

But is he? And how are other people taking it? I'm just seeing no evidence of peoples sandboxing method? That doesn't mean there isn't one. But nor does that mean there is one either. The question is, how close is an author able to speak into your very morality, when your not even aware of how much you sandbox yourself off from that fiction? How much can an author, Scott or anyone else, grab the very fundimentals of you? If people aren't describing/can't describe how they contain the fiction - is it fully contained? And what if it contains malware for the brain?

The difference between fictional and real world morality is that with a fictional world, the author is god. He knows how the world works, and can choose to let us in on it.

The thing is, what if an author insists that, say, when you drop a feather and a hammer, the feather always falls slower - both in his world AND the real world?

It's objective feather slow fall?

Perhaps this says more about what objective means to me, when I read it, but that's what objective seems to mean. There seems to be no sandbox between the fiction and RL.

[Callan S.]

What makes our world not have an objective morality: we cannot scientifically validate the moral code of the world. We can't even agree that there's a single one. Now, neither can the Earwans, but we know that they're wrong

No, I don't. I'm not part of that 'we' you speak of.

This touches my sandbox issue above - how much has the fiction leaked through a gap in the fiction sandbox and actually made the Earwans wrong? Not just Scott pointing and saying their wrong, but actually the seeming idea that they are just wrong?

As to how Scott's word is so powerful...I'm not sure I get this at all. When GRRM says that Renly and Loras are gay, do you believe him? When he describes the heraldry of certain houses that haven't appeared in the book yet, do you believe him?

Believe what?

Or; technically, no, I don't believe him?

Perhaps I think too much like a lawyer or judge - I can construct the story they are telling me in my head, as a construction fabricated by human X. I even construct it so much I think it was part of Scott's story that Moengus died (but some people say there was some ambiguity and now I think in the communication there may be some ambiguity). Indeed, the assumption Moengus was dead is probably an example of Scott's words slipping the leash and escaping my sandbox containment.

You know the movie, the usual suspects, the cop listens to Kaiser Soze's, but he doesn't listen as a constructed story of him, he hears it as the truth? He believes him? Or that's the story the movie makers told (to bring it back to a constructed story level).

Scott's stated that there exists an objective morality in Earwa. That unlike our universe there is a truly right and wrong way to live your life and there are consequences to your actions beyond your life into your afterlife. That these things are not changing or mutable in any meaningful way. That there exists damnation. Since he's the author and not trying to fuck us over, I believe him. I guess I have a faith in Bakker's word. I can't prove that it's true, and if he died tomorrow I probably would not know if they were true. So...there. I guess that's sufficiently meta for you.

Perhaps that's the real issue. My personal morality is a construct, one that I've picked and chosen over the years combined with societal norms and abnormal behaviors. It's not something that drives me, or if it is it's not something that I fervently worship. I don't have a fantasy morality. I have a personal morality. I recognize that other people have their own morality - and often they'll conflict, but I can still recognize the morality in others. Similarly, I can recognize the morality in the series. The only quibble is the 'objective' part, and to me I've taken that to mean that there is a very provable morality that 100% of the time will have consistent results upon acting in the same way.

Damnation is moral (or more accurately, damnation is a result of behaving in an objectively immoral way in Earwa), but damnation isn't moral the same way that working on the Sabbath is moral. To Earwans, it is both a moral issue (how do they behave to avoid damnation) and a physical issue (will they or won't they be damned).

You can call it what you will, of course, but you'd be wrong. Damnation is supposed to have that personal baggage. When you think damnation you should be thinking of demons torturing, of lakes of endless fire, of your liver being eaten every day. You should also be thinking about damned being not connected with God

Epic!

Your own personal morality isn't one you worship nor does it drive you, but in real life I would be wrong and I should in real life think, upon reading the markings 'damnation', of X, Y, and Z. My very own thoughts are dictated to me.

Certainly you'd have me driven by your personal morality and to worship it's defintions in real life.

You know the best bit, here - this is where, traditionally as a human being I just do the same damn thing back! This is where I'd just as much tell you you can't think that way, which would be the act of enforcing my personal morality onto you!

Instead, I'll say...here we are.

Epic!

[The Imp's Advocate]

Okay, so what makes our world not have objective morality, then?

If someone in real life (and this is hardly an entirely made up example) comes along and cites an objective morality and you are damned, for example, for having homosexual sex, why don't you suddenly snap over and think thats an objective morality in our world?

Okay, here's my point, when an author like Scott says his fantasy world has objective morality and say that in it homosexual sex gets you damned*, why do you snap over and think that's an objective morality there? How is his word so...powerful?

You're making a false comparison. A random person in the real world and a random character in Earwa have the same amount of weight where their opinions on the morality of their respective universes are concerned (very little). The difference is that Scott not just some guy in Earwa. For all intents and purposes, he is God. Nothing happens there that he didn't think or create.

So when he lays down the rules for his universe, I believe him. Just like, if God manifested before me, and he could prove he was God, and he told me that homosexual sex would damn me, I'd believe it.

[Lady Nerevar]

The thing is, what if an author insists that, say, when you drop a feather and a hammer, the feather always falls slower - both in his world AND the real world?

Outside of a vacuum, the feather does drop slower, due to it floating rather than falling down? :dunno:

Anyways, I've not seen Scott insisting that his rules for Earwa apply to the real world, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Neither do I understand your whole sandbox thing. Are you saying that we should disregard what the author is telling us (both inside and outside the books) and impose our own views on the universe? I certainly don't think that anyone can read Prince of Nothing and think "wow, Earth must work the same way!"

[Curethan]

On the topic of damnation, I think its important to note that the absolute requirement for its existence as a 'thing' is the reality of the soul. Animals can be holy or unclean, but only souled critters can be damned.

There are two 'acts' that we KNOW are 100% damnation-no-redemption guarantees. Ancient sorcery, because it contaminates the onta with static, written meanings; and being an inchiroi (which has something to do with the boundaries of skin).

I remember the much debated "morality is objective" quote from Scott as being somewhat different from the way its often represented. Perhaps Madness or Harrol could dredge it up from 3c's.

[sologdin]

100% damnation-no-redemption guarantees

i'm not trying to be douchey, but i must've missed those bits. is there something where damnation is made manifest, outside of represented doctrine? i realize that the overwhelming weight of authority within the setting points to the conclusion quoted above--but does the text show as much, outside of dialogues and internal monologues?

[Tears of Lys]

100% damnation-no-redemption guarantees

i'm not trying to be douchey, but i must've missed those bits. is there something where damnation is made manifest, outside of represented doctrine? i realize that the overwhelming weight of authority within the setting points to the conclusion quoted above--but does the text show as much, outside of dialogues and internal monologues?

The "Judging Eye," currently in the possession of Mimara, is supposed to be the confirmation of damnation. Unless you consider that to be an internal monologue.

[Curethan]

100% damnation-no-redemption guarantees

i'm not trying to be douchey, but i must've missed those bits. is there something where damnation is made manifest, outside of represented doctrine? i realize that the overwhelming weight of authority within the setting points to the conclusion quoted above--but does the text show as much, outside of dialogues and internal monologues?

Gotta start making assumptions somewhere. Kellhus dangled the possibility of redemption at Aurang who scoffs at the idea that inchies could be redeemed. As two of the most deeply versed and knowledgable actors in Bakkerworld I feel its okay to assume they have a firm understanding of the principles of damnation.

This is what I alluded to in my last post.

It hunky dory to say what Scott meant in a half-remembered and highly amiguous quote (from an interveiw printed when Warrior Prophet was about to come out) if it backs up your conclusions. No one has a problem with that.

(A far more pertinant and less ambiguous quote from Bakker is when he said that his metaphysics could be decoded from the epigraphs.)

But extrapolating from actual content results in stuff like this.

How do we KNOW people in Earwa have souls? Have we ever SEEN one? Sigh.

Neither am I trying to be douchey here, but you have to start with some assumption to explore these ideas. Akka is a good dude, we know he's pretty much damned for sorcery from Mim's perspective. The inchies were damned before the ever came to Earwa, Aurang says they are damned for the nature of their existence. Lets just ASSUME that Bakker is sticking to these rules because they are the ones he has defined. Unless there is contradiction there is no reason to assume Bakker is a lying liar who lies.

Last point; I think Topoi, the daimos and ciphrang are excellent examples of where damnation is made manifest. There are plenty of others. Galian, the mark, the JE, Psatma's Yatwer sight, the third sight ("I see the old crone that is your soul.") etc etc

[The Imp's Advocate]

And unless you speculate that the Judging Eye may not be infallible, and that it might be the result of a third party fucking with Mimara's perception for it's own ends.

[Curethan]

Sorry for the multiple ninja edits, Imp.

[The Imp's Advocate]

Yeah, we posted almost exactly the same time. It was meant to be a response to Tears of Lys' post

[lokisnow]

I can't grok Callan's crazyness... but it sounds like he thinks the real world, our world, has objective morality and that this somehow interferes/invalidates Scott's premise of Earwan objective morality by some crazyness.

and he thinks that heffalump is a cold word. Whereas it is to me subjectively an absurdly warm and fuzzy Winnie the Pooh word. Cold. Pfft.

[sologdin]

warm and fuzzy Winnie the Pooh

the heffalumps & woozles sequence in the disney movie is tres creepy.

[Kalbear]

Snuffleupagus could also be a concept Bakker created. An eldritch monstrosity, seen only by the one true believer in the world, huge and hulking, it's pendulous, engorged trunk hanging obscenely from it's gaping, tusked maw. And it preys on children.

*shudder*