Rhom Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Part of me wonders if they are akin to trees - rooted in the past but branching out into probable but not definitve futures. If they are blind to the No God, then they clearly don't have a complete picture with regards to time on Earwa.Oh Happy Ent will love that theory...:lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madness Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 In the narrative, I actually consider the God or Gods perspectives much more incomplete than my imagined future beings - they simple imagine that their perspective is that whole.I think in Earwa's "timeline" or chronosphere(?), the Gods perspective's probably incorporates only sections of existence where they have particular agency due to limitations. The existence of Topoi at certain locations, individuals of a certain mental intentionality - mutated in the right way or, perhaps even, the Gods can only perceive the historical timeframes where belief is strongest?Meppa does suggest in WLW that the beings of the Outside is limited to using fallible human tools.The Cults have probably never been stronger since these last 20 years of peace and unity at Maithanet's knee - even the White-Luck's perspective calls Maithanet the Holy Shriah, an honorific denied the "nameless" Empress and Aspect-Emperor. And now the Cults all act on their own, openly. So now is when the Gods have a shitload of agency suddenly again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokisnow Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 wondering about the term No God...What is a God? An anthropomorphic personification.What is a No-God? Not an anthropomorphic personification.what the hell does that mean? What's the synthesis, Kellhus? stupid dialectic...The term no God perhaps means the opposite of God--not opposite in a Dualistic sense of Good and Evil, God and Satan, but opposite in the sense of with God and without God, hmm? Or maybe the term nogod signifies the Absence of God, perhaps the Consult found a way to anthropomorphize Meaninglessness--if God is the anthropomorphification of meaning--and this anthropomorphized Meaningless is what they have 'summoned' into the NoGod. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhom Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 wondering about the term No God...What is a God? An anthropomorphic personification.What is a No-God? Not an anthropomorphic personification.what the hell does that mean? What's the synthesis, Kellhus? stupid dialectic...The term no God perhaps means the opposite of God--not opposite in a Dualistic sense of Good and Evil, God and Satan, but opposite in the sense of with God and without God, hmm? Or maybe the term nogod signifies the Absence of God, perhaps the Consult found a way to anthropomorphize Meaninglessness--if God is the anthropomorphification of meaning--and this anthropomorphized Meaningless is what they have 'summoned' into the NoGod.That's always the way I've envisioned it. The No God is nothingness. Literally the manifestation of being cut off from the outside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 If that is true, why do the gods behave in exactly the manner that you would expect from beings that are constrained by causality and the unidirectional nature of time? If they weren't, you'd expect them to do things like kill Kellhus as a child, before he became immensely powerful, in response to something he hadn't done yet. Nothing about the way that the gods have acted so far suggests any time travel capability.Except for them all of this has happened. The gods don't react to anything; all is ordained because it's all happened so far. There is no seeing things here and there and then reacting to them; it's that Mimara has always had the Judging Eye because she was always going to have a baby. This is likely why the gods are blind to the No-God, now that I think of it. It isn't just that whatever it is is cut off from the Outside, it's that it's cut off from the causal loop as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sci-2 Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 @Kal: So the gods are passive observers? I sort of get it, as the blind spot of the gods is the limit of knowing - they don't know that they are blind, and whatever they are they rationalize events involving the No-God...or they are more like animals representing domains that humans would, by their own nature, ascribe human characteristics to.I hope TUC explains this, as right now it threatens to be a confusing and possibly nonsensical idea even if the text seems to corroborate this.=-=-=eta: Good stuff Madness, I also think the gods are limited to looking through the eyes of those attached to their domains. Not necessarily believers, but for example Gilgol can look through the eyes of those engaged in conflict, Yatwer through the eyes of those engaged in servitude, etc.The one advantage they have to get a sense of events is their priesthoods, and as you point out under Maitha the strengthening of these cults likely increased the awareness if not the intellect of the gods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madness Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 sci, honestly - I never expect to agree with Kalbear - but I feel like he's saying that for the Gods or my future beings, they've already made all their moves. From their perspectives, in this vantage beyond the passage of time.The reason we have any sense of "things happening" in this world is because we're witnessing from the perspectives of the characters and the Gods or God may be unaware of some things, despite everything happening or being rationalized to their "expectations."This reminds me more and more of the original Hyperion Duology, the Shrike, and the Time Tombs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 What is a God? An anthropomorphic personification.What is a No-God? Not an anthropomorphic personification.what the hell does that mean? my take on that over at madness' place was, quoting some parts of dune:there's plenty of other bits, most important among them in-setting are those that indicate a no-field (no-chamber, no-globe, no-ship) renders contents imperceptible by atreides prescient awareness.the prefix no-, in genre at least, does not historically negate the item prefixed in itself, but only as to the knowledge arising in others about the prefixed item. safe to assume that the no-god remains a deity of some sort. from its conversations, the no-god lacks self-awareness, apparently, so safe to say that the no- prefix is self-reflexive.the only response it got was some quibbling about spoiler text. dunno why i bother sometimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madness Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 I appreciate your words, sologdin, and the time you take to express them. Just saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 I'm not sure if it's that the gods are without choice so much as there is no sense of 'now'. If you're going with the BBT idea, think about how the brain synthetically creates a past and present for you - and then remove the notion of present entirely. Everything is past. Everything is rationalized and descripted and ordained because it's already done. The gods exist outside of the time stream; in that respect they exist at all times and all places. Asking what they are going to do is like asking you what you are going to do yesterday. In that respect it sounds like the gods are the ultimate example of Bakker's ideas about the illusion of choice. With near omniscience comes no limited information and thus no limited rationalizations. But with that comes a perfect understanding of what is going to be done. Heisenberg would be pissed as all hell, but its him that gets the short end of the stick here. Everything is known, everything is decided, every wave function collapsed. It's somewhat amusing that as far as the Gods are concerned the No-God is religious; it doesn't exist, it can't be proven, it is only faith that makes people believe in it, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 It's somewhat amusing that as far as the Gods are concerned the No-God is religious; it doesn't exist, it can't be proven, it is only faith that makes people believe in it, etc.I don't get what you're saying here. Or maybe I do. You're saying that from the God's perspective, the No-God doesn't exist? But that wouldn't be quite right since they don't fail to believe in it. They're blind to it, right? It's an "unknown unknown" to quote Rumsfeld. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 The gods hear about the No-God; you can't assume that any time someone talks about the No-God that they're all Charlie Brown all of a sudden. But to them, it's a fiction. Remember, as far as the Gods are concerned they can see everything at all times. If someone's talking about something they can't see, why would they think it exists?. So they can presumably see the effects of the No-God - as people die, as wombs fail to produce new kids, etc. They just can't see the actual thing. To them they rationalize it as a natural process or dumb luck or whatever, knowing that humans are stupid and are prone to get things wrong anyway. So to them, in order to believe that the No-God is real they would actually have to have faith in something that exists outside of their worldview. They have no way of ascertaining that it exists at all; all they could do (if they wanted to) is believe in it. The Gods in that respect would be the ultimate in rational actors, having all the information at their disposal and dismissing anything that cannot be directly experienced by them as wrong. Hmm. The more I think about this and the more I state it like that - and how it ties in to blindsight and BBT - the more I think I'm right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 So you're saying that the Gods aren't blind to the fact that the No-God existed; they knew people believed in it. They just thought that those beliefs were wrong?I always took it to mean that the Gods were blind to the very idea of its existence and not just the actuality of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Yep. The gods are already used to humans having stupid ideas about how things work and what gods are better and what gods aren't. Heck, as far as we know the idea of a "God" is wrong, and the Gods are having a good laugh at Fanimry and Inrithism. To them, the No-God is simply a shitty way to explain more things our monkey brain can't actually see, just like Inri's explanations and later worship was, just like Fanimry possibly is.I could be wrong about this, but it fits well with what we know about the Gods' behaviors and actions as well as Bakker's theories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sci-2 Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 But if the gods are outside time, why would they even think of humans as anything but features on a frozen landscape?If you can see everything happening at once, meaning the [principle of] WCBDWCA is negated simply because there is no before and no after, why would you made make distinctions between humans and rocks? Humans are just streaks in a painting, the caterpillar of their lives' moments viewed simultaneously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Because human's actions apparently have meaning to the Gods. Otherwise Psatma doesn't matter to them and isn't specifically chosen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sci-2 Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Because human's actions apparently have meaning to the Gods. Otherwise Psatma doesn't matter to them and isn't specifically chosen.So gods are playing a board game, say multi-dimensional Jenga, but we who are trapped on the board of linear time misinterpret this as and reinterpret their shifting of pieces as visions and being chosen?Of course, the issue with that is history is as subject to change as the future.Or am I just completely missing what you're saying? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 I'm not really sure what you're saying, actually. Or if you're arguing with me or agreeing with me or flirting with me. Let's see if I can write some random shit that sounds good on a Pink Floyd college analysis.History isn't subject to change; everything is written as far as the gods go. There is no changing anything. When you know with absolute certainty how the universe works and how everything in it works, there's no such thing as causality any more. Psatma gets the attention of Yatwer because she was always the herald of Yatwer and Yatwer was always going to be angry with Kellhus, just as WLW always killed Kellhus. Heck, for all we know Psatma is Yatwer and has always been Yatwer in the same way that Mimara always had the Judging Eye and was always going to be pregnant. The Gods always interact with humans in ways, as they always have, because humans have souls - and Gods really care about things like souls for some reason. That, by the way, is what I'm really hoping for as far as an answer goes: what the fuck is the deal with souls being so fucking important? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sci-2 Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 I'm not disagreeing with so much as trying to understand how the gods matter if there is no passage of time. Why would it matter if they are blind to the No God if everything has already happened?I was trying to think of time in terms of spacial dimensions. ( .)It just seems to me that this whole "outside of time" bit sounds cool but is ultimately meaningless/nonsensical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord of Oop North Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 I hope it's something completely random and ludicrous, like they need to harvest souls to serve with fries to hungry Ciphrang in the Outside's version of McDonalds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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