[TUC Spoilers] The Loose Ends

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Duskweaver

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« Reply #60 on: August 20, 2017, 10:01:37 am »
Yeah, IIRC, Bakker said the salting is a side-effect. The problem is that he never stated what it's a side-effect of.

To me, it reads like a Chorae shunts a sorcerer into the Outside, somehow drawing back an equal mass/volume of either salt or water depending on whether it's a Schoolman or a Cish.

But I still have no idea why that happens. Why does paradox shunt imperfection into the realm of the subjective?

EDIT: And even if that can be resolved, it still doesn't make sense to me that paradox can undo the non-cognitive Psukhe.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2017, 10:09:10 am by Duskweaver »
"Then I looked, and behold, a Whirlwind came out of the North..." - Ezekiel 1:4

"Two things that brand one a coward: using violence when it is not necessary; and shrinking from it when it is."

SmilerLoki

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« Reply #61 on: August 20, 2017, 10:06:30 am »
Here's a starting point article on the matter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_in_the_Bible

There is a lot (pun not intended) of inspiration to have there.

SmilerLoki

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« Reply #62 on: August 20, 2017, 10:10:13 am »
To me, it reads like a Chorae shunts a sorcerer into the Outside, somehow drawing back an equal mass/volume of either salt or water depending on whether it's a Schoolman or a Cish.
I think you're being too hard on yourself trying to factor the laws of conservation into Earwan metaphysics. It's much more cultural, philosophic, and interpretational than scientific in the formal sense.

it still doesn't make sense to me that paradox can undo the non-cognitive Psukhe.
But Psukhe is cognitive. It's still sorcery, which means it's still based on meaning, which, in turn, simply requires cognition. Psukhe is not spoken, i.e. it doesn't rely on language, that's where it differs from other branches of sorcery.

[EDIT] Maybe it's even more accurate to say that Psukhe isn't expressed. It's only between the sorcerer and the world. It begins where meaning itself begins, without imperfections of artificial systems like art, science, or language.

[EDIT 2] I actually can see how the act described in the last sentence of the previous edit could be called "non-cognitive", though I myself have huge reservations about terming it so.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2017, 12:55:58 pm by SmilerLoki »

Cynical Cat

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« Reply #63 on: August 20, 2017, 01:37:18 pm »
This is all complicated somewhat by Mimara looking at a Chorae with the Judging Eye and seeing it as actually divine after all. So maybe "Tear of God" is not just an epithet coined by ignorant fools who don't recognise a sorcerous artefact when they see one. Did the exiled Aporetic Quya who allied with the Inchoroi accidentally create something thaumaturgical rather than sorcerous?

I don't think an explanation for how Chorae work that treats them as purely sorcerous items will be able to resolve all these issues.

It's further complicated by the fact that its not merely the chorae, its the chorae being wielded by a woman with the Judging Eye in the face of hell.  We know there are moral dimensions (in the eyes of the Outside) to the use of sorcery.  By being a sorcerous artifact that undoes sorcery, chorae could be inherently holy in the same way that women are less than men and pigs are unclean. 

Duskweaver

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« Reply #64 on: August 20, 2017, 07:26:38 pm »
But Psukhe is cognitive.
But Bakker has explicitly stated that the Psukhe is non-cognitive, and that it "has no truck with warring versions of reality".
"Then I looked, and behold, a Whirlwind came out of the North..." - Ezekiel 1:4

"Two things that brand one a coward: using violence when it is not necessary; and shrinking from it when it is."

SmilerLoki

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« Reply #65 on: August 20, 2017, 07:46:26 pm »
But Psukhe is cognitive.
But Bakker has explicitly stated that the Psukhe is non-cognitive, and that it "has no truck with warring versions of reality".
I feel it's a matter of different views here. Psukhe is performed by a person, who has an agenda and envisions some means to fulfill it. However basic the method to create those means is, however close it comes to the point where a person stops existing, leaving only pure motivation that constitutes said person, it's still cognitive in my eyes. On a fundamental level that precedes any other form of cognition, yes, but still cognitive. As you can see, since there can't be any formal proof of such concepts (yet), this difference is completely arbitrary. What's described stays the same.

So this difference in terminology changes nothing for the problem at hand. Psukhe is that basic method that's created by pure motivation, emotion, something that rests on the blurry threshold between the world and a person, where you can't really tell where one begins and the other ends. It's also closely related to the inherent paradox in meaning.

Cüréthañ

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« Reply #66 on: August 20, 2017, 08:41:50 pm »
Paradox is merely self referential confusion, something Bakker knows quite well, I feel. Remove the idea of self and you eliminate the paradox.

For example, the liar paradox is revealed as simple nonsense once you ignore the reference to itself that provides apparent meaning. Which is why the Skin Spy merely thinks it is a strange thing to say, having no concept of self.
Retracing his bloody footprints, the Wizard limped on.