[Triskele]

Thank, Wilshire - That final sequence with Moe and Nayu...I can't help but think that there's something subtle that the reader is supposed to pick up, but I can't put my finger on what. 

Very curious to me that Nayu thinks for a moment that the God itself looks back at him as Moe burns away.  Is that something to do with Moe?  Something to do with what happens to Psukhari when they get choraed?  Something to do with the Outside?  Not sure, but I swear there's something there...

That said...for some reason I want Nayu's arc to end where it appeared to have ended.  Hope he's not the No-God.

[Cüréthañ]

I feel like the destruction of Cnaiur's id was very close to bringing him to a similar state to the no-god, thus simpatico rather than synthesis.

[Callan S.]

From that it kind of just sounds like they are creating a new Outside, where the No-God is the only God, where all of the hundred cannot get them.

How about they are creating an inside, which will tie into BBT because it's the inside of other gods, that the other gods are not aware of and cannot see. Possibly what the Nonmen wanted to worship all along - but not between. Inward.

[Wilshire]

Thank, Wilshire - That final sequence with Moe and Nayu...I can't help but think that there's something subtle that the reader is supposed to pick up, but I can't put my finger on what. 

Very curious to me that Nayu thinks for a moment that the God itself looks back at him as Moe burns away.  Is that something to do with Moe?  Something to do with what happens to Psukhari when they get choraed?  Something to do with the Outside?  Not sure, but I swear there's something there...

That said...for some reason I want Nayu's arc to end where it appeared to have ended.  Hope he's not the No-God.

I agree. I believe Bakker said somewhere that Cnaiur's story arc was over. I don't really want him to come back. I just couldn't come up with anything else.

[locke]

From that it kind of just sounds like they are creating a new Outside, where the No-God is the only God, where all of the hundred cannot get them.

How about they are creating an inside, which will tie into BBT because it's the inside of other gods, that the other gods are not aware of and cannot see. Possibly what the Nonmen wanted to worship all along - but not between. Inward.

Which would explain why they dig so deep, they dig ever inward.

crackpot, earwa is the lobes of god's brain.  Literally, Earwa is the lobes of Bakker's brains and the characters are just little neurons firing back and forth.

[dragharrow]

Hey all, I'm new.

I like the theory that the no god is an attempt at creating a new inside. The original genesis emerges from the gods in the outside and their natures combine to simulate the bubble that is the inside. The exact rules of the bubble are defined by specific bundle and degree of natures that create the bubble. The rules are set and the chaos of outside is delineated from the inside. The no god is a technological simulation of a new bubble. He is a fuzzy representation of the horror of rich computer simulation that bakker thinks is approaching in the real world.

Random pieces of crackpot speculation:

Where the no god is a machine simulation the original gods simulate with potential and possibility. Imagination in the void.

Someone mentioned the no god being a god of anosognosia but I think it's more likely to be the opposite. I can see the mechanics of the no god somehow working through hyper self awareness.

The gods are the blind brain. They don't exist but they believe they do. They are entities in the chaos of the set of all possible things. There is only void but that doesn't stop these potential entities and hungers from experiencing in a rich way. They feel without existing and they are unaware of their own nonexistence. They create the world through anosognosia just as humans create meaning through anosognosia.

But the no god is the opposite. He is an eye focused on his own nonexistence. He can see that he is the result of calculations, see that he has no soul or agency. Somehow, in doing this, he can instigate a new genesis. Thats probably why he's so desperate to know what we, the blind, do see.

Ooh maybe existence has some kind of equivalence to the justification of an argument, and then there could be an agrippas trilemma thing going on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma

To exist, you must be justified, but there is no true justification, no axiom or ground to start from.

The god's emerge from the void as the foundationalist solution the agrippas trilemmma. Arbitrary starting points that nevertheless justify rich realms of existence.

But the no god will allow existence to shift from foundational justification through the gods to circular justification. The gods are arbitrary hungers hanging in the void, but the no god is justification by his own existence. That could be why he is an eye perceiving his own meaninglessness!

Was that all totally indecipherable and crazy?

[Meyna]

Was that all totally crazy?

Yes; however, that is prudent with these discussions. I personally enjoy any theory that results in the No-God being "good" in the most twisted, malformed standard of "good".

Welcome!

[dragharrow]

Haha thanks.

Oh lord. I liked my genesis as argument idea so much that I tried to write up a clearer post about. It may just be more madness though.


My idea that the metaphysics of genesis bear some similarities to argument fits with some of what we've read of magic in Earwa.

Sorcerers are humans speaking with the voice of god. They can not bring things into existence with that voice the way the gods can but their power gives us an insight into the voice of god itself. It isn't farfetched to imagine that Earwa was born through something like magic and that the foundations of its existence are bound up in this voice of god. Furthermore, sorcery is often compared to argument in the books. Magi grasp the substrate of existence and “argue” for their vision.

Since the First Father, Men had always spoken to command the Ground. Since the Shamans, they had called and Reality had answered, a brother, a deceiver, an assassin.

They coax and convince reality to be what they say it is and it obeys, becoming their truth. In Earwa, reality can be argued into submission.

The gods created Earwa in a similar way. They willed it to be and it was. I think that this too was in some sense an argument. Existence emerged from the void because they asserted that it was so and they argued with each other about what it should be like. The sum of the convincing arguments stuck, becoming the rules and physics of Earwa. Existence is a statement or an argument made by the voices of the gods.

Arguments are chains of statements and justifications. A therefore B therefore C.

But the skeptical position continues to ask for further justifications and reveals that nothing can be satisfyingly justified. For any justification of a truth I can ask for a justification of that justification. It goes on in an endless regression. From wikipedia:

If we ask of any knowledge: "How do I know that it's true?", we may provide proof; yet that same question can be asked of the proof, and any subsequent proof. The Münchhausen trilemma is that we have only three options when providing proof in this situation:
The circular argument, in which theory and proof support each other (i.e. we repeat ourselves at some point)
The regressive argument, in which each proof requires a further proof, ad infinitum (i.e. we just keep giving proofs, presumably forever)
The axiomatic argument, which rests on accepted precepts (i.e. we reach some bedrock assumption or certainty)
The first two methods of reasoning are fundamentally weak, and because the Greek skeptics advocated deep questioning of all accepted values they refused to accept proofs of the third sort. The trilemma, then, is the decision among the three equally unsatisfying options.
In contemporary epistemology, advocates of coherentism are supposed to be accepting the "circular" horn of the trilemma; foundationalists are relying on the axiomatic argument. Views that accept the infinite regress are branded infinitism.

Earwa is an argument supported by foundationalism. The gods are the prime movers in the sense that they themselves are essentially the arbitrary axioms. They are platonic wills, or assertions to particular truths, floating in the void. They barely exist but that doesn't make them any less potent. This echoes one of the core insights of Bakkers Blind Brain Theory. Meaning, truth, our whole experience of existence, these things are illusions but they are powerful illusions.

The reality of Earwa is ruled by the axiomatic wills of the gods who support it. Everyone in it is a slave to their truth, even if, in the skeptical view, their truth is arbitrary. The Inchoroi seek to escape their truth by cutting Earwa off from the gods. But they can't easily do that because Earwa's existence rests on their axiomatic assertions. So the Inchoroi plan to use the No God to change the fundamental scheme of justification on which Earwa rests.

Earwa is an argument justified by the arbitrary assertions of the gods. The No God is intended to hijack their argument and graft a different epistemic scheme of justification onto it. Thereby cutting the gods off from Earwa and freeing the Inchoroi from their tyranny.


The gods are a foundationalist justification scheme. Suppose A. A therefore B, B therefore C, C therefore D. Or, suppose the manifold god, therefore the hundred hundred, therefore Earwa.

The No God is a circular justifications scheme. A therefore B, B therefore C, C therefore D, D therefore A, repeat. The No God is in Earwa, the No God exists, therefore Earwa exists, repeat.

Just as an antagonistic will can wrestle an argument away from you in day to day life, it is possible to wrestle Earwa away from the gods. It happens on a small scale any time a mage performs sorcery. Even though his tiny soul is nested within the argument itself, he can exert his will and effect the argument that is Earwa. The No God is a great will, like the gods. A titanic agency probably sewn together from numerous souls.

[Madness]

crackpot, earwa is the lobes of god's brain.  Literally, Earwa is the lobes of Bakker's brains and the characters are just little neurons firing back and forth.

I have it from Bakker's own mouth that he doesn't approve of "going Meta" and yet I'm still constantly expecting something like this...

Hey all, I'm new.

...

Someone mentioned the no god being a god of anosognosia but I think it's more likely to be the opposite. I can see the mechanics of the no god somehow working through hyper self awareness.

...

Was that all totally indecipherable and crazy?

Was that all totally crazy?

Yes; however, that is prudent with these discussions. I personally enjoy any theory that results in the No-God being "good" in the most twisted, malformed standard of "good".

Welcome!

+1 Meyna.

Welcome to the Second Apocalypse, dragharrow. Kudos on joining the mobbish fray.

I'm specifically interested in more of what you think the No-God's subjective experience is like, if you'd indulge me...

Also, I invite you to partake (in all threads, obviously) in Who (or what) created Eärwa?, as I'm curious as to your thoughts on this as well. Lol - and it seems while I was posting you've done just that here...

I may move your latest post to the aforementioned thread, dragharrow. Cool with that?

[dragharrow]

If you think its more relevant there than definitely go ahead. I'll try and read through it soon. Stupid finals.

Thanks for the warm welcome.

[Wilshire]

Interesting thoughts Dragharrow. I should read through them more carefully later, with a dictionary, so that I can better understand.

Crazy? To anyone not on this forum, maybe. To those of us here, crazy is all we have left.

[Ishammael]

Has anyone read the Ender's Game books by Orson Scott Card?  At the end of the series Card delves into something similar.  My memory is fuzzy around the details, but basically they travel to an Outside and through the help of a super computer (over simplification, but you get the point) they are able to create new people, things, complex biological structures, etc.
It seems like that would play in well with the idea of the No-God's will creating his own version of Earwa, superimposed over the existing one. 
Maybe someone with a more coherent thought process than mine can expand, or agree... or probably shoot it down.

[Wilshire]

Thats a valid comparison Ishammael. They end up using a computer to break into some kind of subjective reality thats outside time/space. Once there they are able to create whatever they want.
On a very similar note, near the end of Simmon's Hyperion Cantos, "the void which binds" seems somewhat similar.

[dragharrow]

I've outrun myself here so I'm winging it.

I don't think I have the exact mechanics of magic in Earwa down but as I understand it sorcery sort of represents any kind of meaning manipulation.

Math, art, philosophy and religion are tools we use to manipulate meaning in our world. In Earwa matter follows meaning to such a potent degree that the equivalents of the ways we manipulate meaning can burn armies.

Sorcery is like Wittgenstein's conception of language games except it goes beyond language. Meaning games and truth games. We like to think that when we inquire into truth we are doing something something objective but we aren't. Truth is up for grabs and we manipulate it with whatever tools are at our disposal for selfish animal reasons. Science, philosophy, religion and common sense are all the same. They are just sets of rules for the games we play with truth.

Again, the specific mechanics are beyond me but we know some of the things that are connected with being good at wielding these powers in Earwa. Will, intellect, emotion, and sight are all tied up with it.

I'm specifically interested in more of what you think the No-God's subjective experience is like, if you'd indulge me...

Someone mentioned the no god being a god of anosognosia but I think it's more likely to be the opposite. I can see the mechanics of the no god somehow working through hyper self awareness.

What I was thinking here was that the gods are these blind, illusory sources of meaning and the no god is an inward looking antithesis to their meaning.

Our intuition tells us that if the no god is asking for help seeing it follows that he can't see. Bakker thinks that intuition is dangerously misleading though. When we can't see, we don't know we can't see, and we are unconcerned. As we gain access to more information we become more aware of our own ignorance. Moreover, the world is a place without inherent meaning, and possibly a place without truth. Because of that it's our ability to lie to ourselves that creates truth.

The ineffable but all important thing we call “meaning” is actually a direct product of  informatic deficits wired into our brains. Our ability to experience love, hate, beauty, time, consciousness, is the direct product of our blindness to the truth of our own nature. If we could see our thought processes clearly the illusion would be broken. Our soul is our capacity for illusion and the gods are a concentration of that. They just believe and feel their certain truths, thereby providing anchors of truth for us to exist downstream of.

D because C, C because B, B because A, A because? A because the gods know and feel it to be true. That kind of belief (wrong word?) has power. Power that is similar to sorcery. They are big powerful agencies. Souls more deluded and willful than a human could ever hope to be.

I'm just throwing stuff around here. I think that this self-delusion, illusion stuff is critical but its tangled. There seems to be power in both sight and blindness. Look closely enough and illusion collapses. Sometimes that's a good thing. They mandate are skeptics and that makes them powerful. The Cish are zealots who literally have blind faith, and that makes them powerful. Mimaras clearly on the power from sight side of things. Sight is definitely associated with destruction and illusion with creation.

Anyway, the No God begging to know what people see makes me think his vision is too good. Plus it's a cool parallel to the blind gods.

Theres a few ways this could work but what I'm imagining is that the No God is a big soul and a big “lens”. Under his powerful gaze all the beautiful lies and illusions whither. Horrifyingly I suspect the lens may be mostly focused on itself. He is a lens and a consciousness leashed together for the singular purpose of experiencing the worlds and his own meaninglessness. Thus the desperate mantra. He exists only to perceive the illusory-ness of that his existence. He experiences consciousness as robustly as we do, but he can see the neural or digital circuits that generate that consciousness doing so as they do it. His sensorium is taken up by a never-ending lesson in nihilism.

Because of the way magic is tied up in sight and will and soul, his torment changes the rules for everyone. He is a god of nihilism and materialism. Meaning is shut out from the world.

When I finish writing these they seem hopelessly speculative. Way fun though.

[Cüréthañ]

Sounds legit, dragharrow.  Sounds like the whirlwind could be a product of his unfocused 'anti-sorcery' that you describe.  Could also explain the chorae on the carapace.

But, any ideas on why he eats souls and shits topoi?