Nonmen Society

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Wilshire

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« Reply #90 on: September 12, 2014, 02:33:00 pm »
I don't just have my mind in the gutter when I assume he's speaking about masturbation vs. sex, do I? I mean it's not just me, that's what he's talking about?
I think that is the obvious conclusion. What other applications might that have? Imagine pain, rather than pleasure. How could you fight a war, or kill other Nonmen, if being hurt/stabbed/killed by another felt the same as though you did it to yourself? I have no idea...
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Wic

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« Reply #91 on: September 12, 2014, 09:34:27 pm »
But what if you had that backwards?  That is, it's not that stabbing someone else is like stabbing yourself, but that stabbing yourself is like stabbing another?

Wilshire

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« Reply #92 on: September 13, 2014, 08:51:51 pm »
I honestly don't see how that would make much of a difference. Either way, inflicting pain on yourself is not something that is easy to do for most people.
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mrganondorf

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« Reply #93 on: September 29, 2014, 12:17:50 am »
This is probably wrong, but it seems like suicide is not a problem for the nonmen.  I wonder why?  Still wary of damnation even into erraticism?

Francis Buck

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« Reply #94 on: September 29, 2014, 05:16:20 am »
I honestly never thought about the masturbation vs sex angle until now, I always interpreted it as some kind of strange psychological difference between humans and Nonmen, like not being able to see paintings. Admittedly it never made much sense to me, for reasons Wilshire has already elaborated on.

However now seeing the masturbation vs sex angle, I totally believe that. It makes way more sense and also serves as a way of establishing just how distant/lonely/crazy the Erratics are.

Wilshire

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« Reply #95 on: September 29, 2014, 04:37:44 pm »
Actually I was thinking that it leads to more intimacy, but I think that really depends how the two sensations. If sex is the same as masturbation, then its a lonely existence, but if its reverse, the everything would be so intimate for the Nonmen.

I wonder how this affected rape though their own history, and if the sensation extends beyond themselves. I.e raping an Emwama or even just slaughtering a cow. Cutting down a tree? Difference between things with/without souls? Where does the line get drawn. Where does the "self-ness" end?
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dragharrow

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« Reply #96 on: November 05, 2014, 10:27:50 pm »
Quote from: wic
But what if you had that backwards?  That is, it's not that stabbing someone else is like stabbing yourself, but that stabbing yourself is like stabbing another?
Quote from: Wilshire
I honestly don't see how that would make much of a difference. Either way, inflicting pain on yourself is not something that is easy to do for most people.

It makes all the difference
I don't think that either of these cases is actually accurate but I think its a cool thought experiment.

The vast majority of people find it is extremely difficult to seriously harm themselves. There is a strong psychological barrier against it. Most people have a hard time even making a small cut in their skin. And then if a person succeeds in injuring themselves there's pain.

The first case is that harming another is like harming oneself. These nonmen would feel a compulsion not to injure other nonmen. If they did, they would experience the pain of the injury themselves.

The second case is that harming yourself is like harming another. These nonmen could cut their own flesh and remain mostly remote from the experience. They would rarely have a reason to do this but when they did it would be easy. But if one was injured and the limb needed to be amputated, he would be capable of sawing through the arm without fighting his self-preservation instincts or even feeling pain.

Cool thought Wic. I like this. It makes you look at the not differentiating between your own touch and the touch of another trait from the right perspective.

In fact, the second possibility but with touch instead of pain seems fits well with the nonmen for me. They are more remote creatures than us. They experience of the world isn't as emotionally immediate as ours is. It's background for us but we have this constant flow of emotion and sensation associating us with our bodies. I can easily imagine the nonmen not having that.

« Last Edit: November 07, 2014, 02:09:21 am by dragharrow »

Wilshire

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« Reply #97 on: November 07, 2014, 01:10:33 am »
Thanks for explaining that. Makes a lot of sense now, and as you said, the second seems to fit the nonman personae that we are given.
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dragharrow

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« Reply #98 on: November 07, 2014, 02:14:15 am »
Np :) . It almost does seem like it could work with pain, at least on some level. What with the fact that they don't have the psychological compulsion to not commit suicide that humans do. Like cleric says, for nonmen continuing to live is always a choice.

Wilshire

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« Reply #99 on: November 10, 2014, 08:03:40 pm »
Who knows how functioning 10,000x longer than you're brain was supposed would do to you psyche.  Even if they were, at some point, less "alien", they certainly have diverged greatly by now.
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dragharrow

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« Reply #100 on: November 10, 2014, 11:08:24 pm »
Yeah, it's difficult to separate the two. Personally I find them more interesting if many of their more alien traits are innate and not a result of the womb plague. I lean towards this weird form of agnosia and their remote mood both being innate.

Wilshire

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« Reply #101 on: November 11, 2014, 04:11:24 am »
Oh, just read through the last few pages, and realized that some of you had already discussed just that. Without a history of some kind, it will likely be nearly impossible to distinguish pre-Inchoroi behavior/traits to current traits.

Maybe there has been a cabal of historians in Ishterebinth all these years, writing down history for centuries.

What would make it impossible for them to see paintings? Can they read writing, then? I can't think of any reason why anything with sight wouldn't be able to "see" paintings.
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dragharrow

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« Reply #102 on: November 11, 2014, 06:28:24 am »
Paintings are geared towards our specific anatomy. They rely on color and contrast and a certain scheme of stylization that works for us. If memory serves, humans have very powerful but specialized sense of sight. So if you were to stack us up against other animals we have superior sight to pretty much anything in the narrow domain of light that we specialized in. I have no problem imagining that nonmen just can't  process painting the way we can. Someone earlier drew a comparison to dogs not being able to really process television.

We can't decode the information in a dogs urine scent markings. I feel like its the same thing.

Simas Polchias

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« Reply #103 on: November 11, 2014, 02:32:39 pm »
What would make it impossible for them to see paintings? Can they read writing, then? I can't think of any reason why anything with sight wouldn't be able to "see" paintings.
As far as I remember, percieving a flat illusion of a volume is a trainable skill, it's not inherent even to the people. Where most of current human population get this through early childhood (along with zero language, walking and other base stuff for a tiny drunk adult), there were tribes of primitive people found only in 20th century who lived with a very scarce material culture. That certain circumstance prevent them from both creating such illusions and training in recognising them. It seems a window of opportunity here is quite wide, because even adults developed that skill with a help of a pictures brought with explorers.

And we know cunuroi & halaroi have some deep diffirence in perception. Like, cunuroi look exact the same to halaroi, but manage to differentiate between themselves with no problem. I hope that wasn't a "all europeans look the same to asian et vice versa"-joke thrown in by Bakker. Though it would make a damn good dark humour in context of nonmen memory difficulties.

Wilshire

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« Reply #104 on: November 11, 2014, 02:59:53 pm »
Ah, well I'm glad to have that explained. Makes a lot of sense. Its easy to forget things that happen so naturally at this point. So basically, seeing 3D illusions on flat paper is a trained reflex. Couple that with differences in color perception and processing, and its not a tough leap to not being able to see a painting.

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