The Second Apocalypse

Earwa => The Aspect-Emperor => The White-Luck Warrior => Topic started by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:47:02 pm

Title: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:47:02 pm
Quote from: sciborg2
Past ideas:

1. An AI
2. A collection of souls
3. A break between the watcher and watched
4. Some kind of singularity, similar to 3.
5. Someone from Earwa's past.

Also, why did the No God have to take the field? Why couldn't they have just sent it across the ocean and let the still borns pile up until the Inside was closed.

eta: added theory mentioned below
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:47:13 pm
Quote from: Swense
While I have no idea about the first four, I think it was arrogance. The North had fallen, the world was crumbling and what could possibly touch the No-God? The Three Seas were after all much less important at that period so they couldn't have judged it to be a particular threat that required extra support.

Alternatively, the Consult has pathetically little control over what the No-God does once the No-God comes into the world. So essentially, it wanted to go South and they couldn't stop it.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:47:21 pm
Quote from: Li'l Mog
Don't forget theory number five, that it was somebody from Earwa's long and tragic history. I've seen speculation that the actual voice asking the questions is potentially Nau-Cayuti, or even the severed head of Cu'jara-Cinmoi, somehow preserved after the battle where he was slain. I am not sure how that would work, or why the Inchoroi would have held on to the head of their hated enemy (keep him aware of how broken his people had become, maybe?) or why the Consult in general would have wanted to use Nau-Cayuti in particular, but I include it here for the sake of contemplative completeness.

With regards to the three above ideas, of it functioning as an AI, a collection, a break, I'm not sure those are mutually exclusive. It seems strange that something that only appears to want to understand what it is would be trying to kill everything. If it were a collection of souls acting through an artificial intelligence, that might work. That way, the souls could be bound to that intelligence and its directives (move south, kill world etc.) yet still be aware enough to be confused and demanding answers. I'm not sure exactly how the break between watcher and watched might work, but then again the No-God's carapace was studded with chorae, so perhaps they had some affect beyond merely protecting the No-God from magic.

One more question though. If the No-God was a magical construct that utilized souls, shouldn't those souls have been banished to the Outside due to their proximity to the eleven chorae? I mean, we know that the ciphrang salt when they come into contact with the chorae, same as sorcerers, but the Wight-in-the-Mountain did not, and was only affected by the chorae due to Mimara's Judging Eye. So did the No-God have its own frame of reference that protected it from the aporeotic magic or the chorae? Is there any indication that devices of sorcery fail when they encounter the chorae?

As for the No-God going south, Swense's idea makes a great deal of sense. Is there any indication that the No-God itself wants to kill everything? When Kellhus is confronted by Aurang, he does say that the No-God blames Aurang for his failures during the Apocalypse. So would the No-God have actually lead the crusade against humanity, or would Aurang have merely been organizing the Consult forces as they in turn fled from the No-God?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:47:29 pm
Quote from: BargiltheDestroyer
I believe the translated Cunoroi name for the No-God is The Angel of Endless Hunger.  Now, this can obviously be an allegorical kind of name, as the No-God does "consume" entire nations in its genocidal wars, but I wonder if the No-God is actually eating something, maybe the souls of the peoples it kills or their connections to the Outside?  Perhaps the No-God is not an immortal entity, but one that must continually consume the lives in order to live or operate.  I believe that Anaxophus or however you spell it, saved the core of his army during the fall of Kyraneas, so perhaps the No-God was desperate for souls and decided to enter the fray.

Or perhaps the codex is right and that after 11 years of war, the Scylvendi and Weapon Races were depleted enough that the No-God decided to give battle in order to finally finish the war. So impatience and all that.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:47:36 pm
Quote from: Twooars
Quote from: BargiltheDestroyer
...must continually consume the lives in order to live or operate...

Galactus!
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:47:45 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
Angel?  hmm. 

We know from the aspect emperor books that gods like to nom nom souls. 

non-diagetically, Bakker has stated that Angels can't exist inward, only in the outside (but demons and gods can exist inward and in the outside, so are they different, the same, or variations?)

If demons nom nom souls and if Gods nom nom souls then perhaps its reasonable to assume that Angels nom nom souls as well?  This seems a particularly good assumption since the only name we have for an Earwa Angel references eating, "Angel of Endless Hunger".

So perhaps the No God is the first Angel brought Inward--normally they cannot exist in such a plane, in such a place of damnation (aside crackpot, Inward/Earwa IS Hell! everyday existence IS the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth).  The chorae help anchor it in place, the carapace contains it, and they keep it alive on souls.

Perhaps the No God took the field because it was starving to death?  What a great way to control your ultimate powerful weapon.  It accomplishes your goal of closing the world, but it effectively self annihilates by being too good at its job.  We know the No God nom nomed Anasurimbor Celmomas, so in taking the field it was also feasting...

***
new direction:

Perhaps the No-God is a soul-variant of the nuclear principle? 

Rather than gaining power by enriching uranium and splitting the atom, the Inchoroi harness power by enriching souls and splitting the soul.  The atom is one of the core units of the physical world, what if the Soul is the equivalent of the atom in the spiritual world? 

By splitting the soul-atom, the Inchoroi are capable of producing an incredible power akin to cold fusion, but like a nuclear reaction, such a power is inherently unstable and must be strictly controlled and contained--like in a carapace with chorae anchors.

Perhaps the no god took the field because he was getting close to meltdown.  The inchoroi didn't want the "nuclear fallout" anywhere near holy min uroikas and sent him into the field so that when he did go boom it was far away from them. 

Then, on the fields of Mengedda, Anaxophus tried to fire the heron spear and it didn't work, of course, Akka's dream was true.  But, in a major coincidence, around the same time the No God went kaboom, just before coming upon Seswatha and the King.  Seswatha's incipient wards protected him from the fallout.   Since it makes for a worthless story to say that he just went boom, and since they had the heron spear and since they both stood to gain unfathomable power by being the slayers of the no god both men were incentivized to tell the tale that they killed the  NG.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:47:55 pm
Quote from: Swense
The problem with the whole angel thing is that the Nonmen also have called the Inchoroi "Flesh Angles" in the False Sun. So I think the Nonmen just have something they like about perverting angel imagery.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:48:17 pm
Quote from: Jorge
I pretty much assumed the No-God was the culmination of Tekne/sorcery fusion which was necessary for the Inchoroi to begin shutting the World against the Outside.

The name "Whirlwind" has a lot of implications as well. Bakker recently used that word to describe science itself (and we all know what he thinks science is going to do our precious intentional concepts...)

Make of that what you will.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:48:24 pm
Quote from: BargiltheDestroyer
I believe Aurang or Aurax is called the Angel of Deceit in some translated Non-Man, so as Swense says the whole angel thing may just be a Non-Man naming convention.

Also, I don't remember anything about angels being brought up.  I thought the Outside was composed of

Ciphrang:  Demons and lesser agencies.  Like to chomp on the eternal spirits of people.

gods:  Greater agencies of the Outside, usually personifying some kind of concept, like Birth or War.  Been said to be essentially bigger Ciphrang.

The God of Gods:  Kind of hazy on what exactly the God is and what effect it has on Earwa.

So where would angels fit into all this?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:48:31 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Quote from: BargiltheDestroyer
So where would angels fit into all this?

Right angels fit in at ninety degrees, nyuck nyuck.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:48:40 pm
Quote from: Swense
Bakker has established there are Angelic Ciphrang, who presumably provide the opposite function as demonic Ciphrang. Who knows if you can actively summon them, though?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:48:49 pm
Quote from: Madness
Well, Mimara might have... Faith Power?!
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:48:57 pm
Quote from: The Sharmat
Pretty sure the "Angel" thing just signifies that the subject came down from the stars. Although I would also speculate that the "Black Heaven" is also a title of the No-God.

I got the impression that once activated/awakened/summoned (all these seem to be used at different points in the text) that the No-God is not commanded by any in the Consult. Aurang seems to fear its disapproval. And there's that one phrase in a What Has Come Before section "To save their souls, they made themselves slaves.". Or something like that.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:49:04 pm
Quote from: Madness
There's a post somewhere on Three Seas where Bakker explicitly says the Void (which the Inchoroi flew across) and the Outside (where Ciphrang are from) are two different things. Though, I've not at all discounted the possibility of... other species showing up.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:49:13 pm
Quote from: Sideris
Alien vs. Inchoroi?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:49:27 pm
Quote from: Octavian
Quote from: Jorge
I pretty much assumed the No-God was the culmination of Tekne/sorcery fusion which was necessary for the Inchoroi to begin shutting the World against the Outsid

This.

The No God is most certainly something that was in part cooked up by the Grandmaster of the Mengecca and the Non Men in order to help shut the world to the outside. Wutteat stated that the Inchoroi would fall on worlds in crazy numbers to kill off the population. The No God was not used before Earwa.

I'm think Golden Room = Wells of the Aborted + Sorcery + The Tekne = No God.

It had some form of body because the Consult are said to have carried it from the field and its death caused some type of plague to spread. Also, Kellhus had a vision of something that he believed to be the No God, but i don't have books on hand to describe it.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:49:32 pm
Quote from: sciborg2
What's also interesting is that Scylvendi beliefs are based on the idea that their god, Lokung, was killed by the rest of humanity.

Lokung, IIRC, is the No God.

So what exactly did they believe before the No God was killed by the Heron Spear? And why did they ally with the Consult + Inchie Bros?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:49:40 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
I once speculated that Swazond are a soul trapping device.  Seriously, reread the passage on swazond and then reread the passage in the next book where it is empthatically reiterated virtually word for word by a different character. I'm pretty certain it's hugely fucking important.

Anyway, I speculated that Swazond are a soul trapping device and this might explain why they allied with the Consult. 

My theory is that because Scylvendi men carry around extra souls on their swazond, when the NoGod caused planet wide still births the Scylvendi were immune because of their swazond.  Because the souls attached to the swazond had never traveled to the outside, they were still inward.  Thus when a baby was ensouled, the connection that would normally form to the outside, instead evolved/adapted by forming to one of the spare souls carried by the father. 

Thus the Scylvendi never experienced the still births that united all the other kingdoms and empires of the world, in fact, their immunity would be a reason to ally themselves with the Consult.

I had not considered before that The God LoKung was killed/captured by the Consult and transformed into the No-god, I just assumed that they took the no-god as their god.  But it seems sort of self-evident that their god/ciphrang may very well be the entity that was inside the carapace, and that is why they continued to worship him.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:49:48 pm
Quote from: sciborg2
Awesome theories. Not sure about the Swazond == soul trap. You do raise good questions regarding the Scylvendi and whether they continued to have babies even after the No-God arose.

Oh, also, from False Sun, might support AI idea:

"A power that could be crafted and shaped, that could be applied to its own proliferation, and so accelerate, radiating out across the span of need and desire. A power that could uproot cities and hurl them across the Void.

The Tekne.

Mechanism. Only mechanism could save their Voices."


Can the No-God apprehend Paradox?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:49:55 pm
Quote from: The Sharmat
Quote from: Octavian
The No God is most certainly something that was in part cooked up by the Grandmaster of the Mengecca and the Non Men in order to help shut the world to the outside. Wutteat stated that the Inchoroi would fall on worlds in crazy numbers to kill off the population. The No God was not used before Earwa.

I'm think Golden Room = Wells of the Aborted + Sorcery + The Tekne = No God.
Only partially cooked up by the non-alien members of the Consult I think. There are also references to Shauriatas "Re-discovering" the method to end damnation, which is presumably the No-God.

Guessing that the Inchoroi themselves originally conceived of the No-God, but simply couldn't make it work until sorcery was discovered. The plans/prototypes/whatever may have lain dormant completely forgotten by the twins until the Maengaecca moved in.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:50:03 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Well, the inchies had been enacting their 144k plan on other planets and seemed confident it would would work as long as the planet was the promised land... The no-god seems like an addition or extension of this.  I think it may have been prompted by some buried and forbidden research by ancient quya.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:50:10 pm
Quote from: Jorge
Quote
The God LoKung was killed/captured by the Consult and transformed into the No-god

I like this idea. There isn't much textual support, but it kind of makes sense. The idea of Swazond as some kind of soul-trapping ritual is interesting and somewhat supported by things that Cnaiur says and thinks about.

If Ciphrang/Gods can draw souls towards themselves, then they would be an ideal "core" for the Whirlwind...
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:50:18 pm
Quote from: The Sharmat
Pretty sure "Lokung" was alive until it was hit by a directed energy weapon at Mengedda. Just seems simpler to me.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:50:25 pm
Quote from: Madness
Agreed. I'm pretty sure the Scylvendi made a covenant with a living "Lokung" or the No-God.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:50:35 pm
Quote from: Soterion
Quote from: sciborg2
Past ideas:

1. An AI
2. A collection of souls
3. A break between the watcher and watched
4. Some kind of singularity, similar to 3.
5. Someone from Earwa's past.

Also, why did the No God have to take the field? Why couldn't they have just sent it across the ocean and let the still borns pile up until the Inside was closed.

eta: added theory mentioned below
I don't necessarily have anything to add to the great collection of specific details that posters have gathered here in order to determine what the No-God is in the context of the narrative; but conceptually, I think some awesome ideas have been stated.

I love this idea of the No-God being a singularity of sorts, although I would also lump artificial intelligence into that category.  It's my opinion that the No-God has lost any sense of the Cartesian cogito, or a kind of subjective awareness that we typically associate with cognition.  But, as Hegel has been so kind to show us, the void and the infinite are two sides of the same coin.

I think the No-God has to ask "What do you see?" because it cannot conceive of itself within the logic of a subject constituted by its limits (one of which is language).  In this sense, I see the No-God as a strong Hegelian type of image: a negation of a negation of sorts, the culmination of technological development of the Inchoroi, but also the annihilation of meaning since this development has exceeded its own limitations.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:50:44 pm
Quote from: anor277
I don't mean to carp or criticize but the comparison of the No-God to a singularity (whatever that is) or an AI or a strong Hegelian image (whatever that is) is all pretty hard to fathom.

The No-God was probably not a singularity as he was deactivated by a laser (the which would have no effect on a singularity).  The idea that the No-God was a soul trapper has already been developed in the novels (and no I don't know what a soul is either).

One nice historical parallel in the novels was the Scylvendi's identification of the Ketyai (and the Cenei and Nansur empires) as 'God-Killers'; the Scylvendi were the Christians to the Ketyai Jews, and warfare avenged Ketyai blood-guilt.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:50:52 pm
Quote from: sciborg2
I mean singularity more as a way to sum up "breaking the rules of the world" or "taking the rules to an extreme".

So whatever qualities we could use to categorize/measure topoii, times infinity.

ETA: I do wonder, if paradox leads to consciousness and consciousness is the God, what makes the No-God what it is?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:50:59 pm
Quote from: Soterion
I agree for the most part with that conception of singularity.

Is God consciousness?  I admit to having forgotten, unfortunately, many of the specific details of the books (one of the reasons I registered on this forum); is this something from the context of the novels?  Or a separate theological type of equation?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:51:08 pm
Quote from: Madness
God, the - In Inrithi tradition, the unitary, omniscient, omnipotent, and immanent being responsible for existence ... In the Fanim tradition, the God is unitary, omniscient, omnipotent, and transcendent being responsible for existence (thus the "Solitary God"), against which the Gods war for the hearts of men. (p. 445, TTT LE)
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:51:19 pm
Quote from: sciborg2
Quote
Is God consciousness?

Well, Kellhus tells Akka that people are the very God they would worship, souls mean you can apprehend paradox (from WLW), and Akka tells Cnauir that human souls are holes between the Inside and Outside.

Now, I believe that Scott is taking the idea that consciousness at least relates to the soul, and the connection between paradox and the soul+God seems to explain Mimara's apprehension of God via the Chorae.

eta: quote, also:

What's strange is that there seems something "paradoxical" about the No-God, as if it too were a living contradiction. However, we know the Carapace requires Chorae to protect it from sorcery. Why I'd refer to the No-God as some kind of soul-singularity, especially as it relates to the Tekne which isn't language dependent.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:58:04 pm
Quote from: Soterion
Madness: thanks for the definition.  I live in Florida currently, but my copy of The Thousandfold Thought is still in the basement of my parents' house up in NY.

There is definitely something paradoxical about the No-God, but I think there is something paradoxical about the God as well.  If Bakker is drawing from his philosophical education, I can't imagine he would make a kind of superficial connection between consciousness and an omniscient God.  Of course, this might be what the characters within the spiritual ideology of the Three Seas believe; but I feel that Bakker's working to subvert traditional, usually naive notions of God and consciousness.  If the God is a kind of omniscience and omnipotence, the No-God must be a bit of this as well; each one is inextricable from the other.  This is the paradox I perceive here: if the God constitutes itself as something infinite, and yet it opposes itself to the No-God, then it has constructed a finite boundary for itself.  It is everything, and yet it is NOT the No-God...
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:58:11 pm
Quote from: Madness
Just suggesting a couple thoughts.

There was an old Three Seas theory concerning the No-God being the captured World Soul, which manifests itself in division (different consciousnesses or the "ensouled" as it were).

Then there's the distinctions of immanent and transcendent. Essentially, I, again, don't see these two ideas as even incompatible. Clearly, in my mind, a transcendent God, if it exists, is the very grounds, or foundation, for the emergence of an immanent God.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:58:22 pm
Quote from: sciborg2
Just to clarify, I'm not saying the God of Earwa is paradoxical (not discounting this either). I'm just noting how Scott has related the apprehension paradox to both the soul and the God.

Think about this question - the Chorae were made after the Aporos practioners were already forbidden from continuing their work:

Quote
Forbidden from practicing their art under Cû'jara-Cinmoi, they were seduced by the Inchoroi, whose loss of the Battle of Pir Pahal had been largely due to the power of Quya. The practicioners of the Aporos created for their masters the first Chorae, which rendered their bearers immune to magic and killed Quya on touch

Why was this the case? Was it already known that the Aporos could undo sorcery? Or was the Aporos dangerous because of what it revealed about the Outside?

eta: grammar

eta II: I mention revelations about the Outside because Mimara in her first divine vision mentions the "false foil of the abyss" or some such.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:58:31 pm
Quote from: Madness
That's an interesting perspective. I had actually just assumed that there are Aporotic sorcerers out there - the Chorae being another magical artifact like the Whore's Shell, Waithi Doll, Agonic collar, the Gate at the Coffers, Kellhus' fireplace, the Arras in the Umbilicus, the sorcererous sheets that hang from Sauglish's walls, or Mimara's Mihtrulic dagger and armor (apologies for lack of names or page numbers and improper spelling, I'm not at home with the books).
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:58:39 pm
Quote from: Triskele
I think the idea that it need to continually feed off of souls or the severing of souls from the Outside is a very good idea.  And that could help explain why it took the field. 

We do not know enough about it at this point to assume that The Consult made a huge error in letting it take the field because we don't know if they were fully in control or had a choice.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:58:48 pm
Quote from: sciborg2
I like the idea that it [meaning the No-God] needs constant maintenance and that if the Consult had been defeated it wouldn't have anyone to keep it alive.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:58:55 pm
Quote from: Sideris
After wrangling with ideas about the No-God for hours on end with a friend, we have come to this conclusion: it was a Demonic Richard Nixon. The whirlwind built from a mighty 'HAROOOOOOO!' Aurang was his Checkers.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:59:02 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Quote from: Triskele
I think the idea that it need to continually feed off of souls or the severing of souls from the Outside is a very good idea.  And that could help explain why it took the field. 

We do not know enough about it at this point to assume that The Consult made a huge error in letting it take the field because we don't know if they were fully in control or had a choice.

Not just severing souls' connection to the outside, but creating a new outside by gobbling up souls like a proto-god of the hundred variety?
That could tie into my old speculation that the no-god took to the field at Mengedda to create a mega-topos as the human population was reduced to 144k.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:59:11 pm
Quote from: Ajokli
Quote from: Sideris
After wrangling with ideas about the No-God for hours on end with a friend, we have come to this conclusion: it was a Demonic Richard Nixon. The whirlwind built from a mighty 'HAROOOOOOO!' Aurang was his Checkers.

I would except this.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:59:24 pm
Quote from: Borric
In Achamians later dreams involving seswathas son, we see him in a line of people about to enter a torture chamber in the heart of Golgotterath (probably the inverse flame room?).
Here is the extract for the time period for the death of Nau-Cayûti and the summoning of the No-god.

 ■2140 - Nau-Cayûti’s beloved concubine, Aulisi, is abducted by Sranc marauders and taken to Golgotterath. According to The Sagas Seswatha was able to convince the Prince (who was once his student) that she could be rescued from the Incû-Holoinas, and the two of them embarked on an expedition that is almost certainly apocryphal. Mandate commentators dispute the account found in The Sagas, where they successfully return with both Aulisi and the Heron Spear, claiming that Aulisi was never found. Whatever happened, at least two things are certain: the Heron Spear was in fact recovered, and Nau-Cayûti died shortly after at age 21 (apparently poisoned by his first wife, Iëva).[112]

■2141 - The Consult return to the offensive. At the Battle of Skothera, the Sranc hordes are crushed by General En-Kaujalau, though he died of mysterious causes within weeks of this victory (according to The Sagas, he was another victim of Iëva and her poisons, but again this is disputed by Mandate scholars).[113]

■2142 - General Sag-Marmau inflicts yet another crushing defeat on Aurang and his Consult legions, and by fall he had hounded the remnant of their horde to the Gates of Golgotterath itself. This siege is known as the Second Great Investiture.[114]

■2143 - In spring the No-God is summoned. Across the world, Sranc, Bashrag, and Wracu, all the obscene progeny of the Inchoroi, hearkened to his call. Sag-Marmau and the greater glory of Kûniüri are annihilated. All Men could sense his dread presence on the horizon, and all infants were born dead. The 11 years when all infants were still born comes to be known as the Years of the Crib. Anasûrimbor Celmomas II had little difficulty gathering support for his Second Ordeal. Nil’giccas and Celmomas were reconciled. Across Eärwa, hosts of Men began marching toward Kûniüri.[115]


We know Nau-Cayûti didnt die right away from poison, but was encased in a coffin and sent to Golgotterath, we also see the opening of the coffin by one of the Inchoroi.
Therefore whatever was happening to that line of people, was directly related to the summoning of the No-god.
Whatever is needed to create/summon the No-god requires the suffering/torture (death) of people. Some essence they can harness somehow?


The No god was not summoned/created when the inchies landed, nor for thousands of years of war, and it sounded like they needed it.
Therefore i think the no-god was an idea of there new human allies. On hearing of the 144k prerequisite to avoid damnation. That clever leader of the Mangaecca came up with another brain storm. A weapon of mass destruction.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:59:41 pm
Quote from: Twooars
Quote from: Borric
The No god was not summoned/created when the inchies landed, nor for thousands of years of war, and it sounded like they needed it.
Therefore i think the no-god was an idea of there new human allies. On hearing of the 144k prerequisite to avoid damnation. That clever leader of the Mangaecca came up with another brain storm. A weapon of mass destruction.

I agree with this, and it stands to reason, as the No-God's creation/summoning required sorcery (I am assuming that the chorae embedded in the carapace have some significance and not just ornamentation!) and the Inchoroi had no sorcery before they came down on Earwa.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 06:59:49 pm
Quote from: Borric
They may well have had sorcery.
I can’t remember when sorcery was grafted into them, but it may have been long before the No-Gods arrival. 
Hmm, i remember this being mentioned in a interview with Scott, ill go cut and paste the question.
Found it, here you go.

Is Aurang special amongst the Inchoroi in his ability to use Sorcery? Or were all Inchoroi, his brother included, amongst the Few? 

The Inchoroi only possessed the Tekne when they arrived in Eärwa. All of the Inchoroi are the products of successive Graftings, species-wide rewrites of their genotype, meant to enhance various abilities and capacities, such as the ability to elicit certain sexual responses from their victims (via pheromone locks), or the capacity to ‘tune sensations’ and so explore the vagaries and vicissitudes of carnal pleasure. The addition of anthropomorphic vocal apparatuses is perhaps the most famous of these enhancements.

The Grafting that produced Aurang and Aurax was also devised during the age-long C no-Inchoroi Wars, one of many failed attempts to biologically redesign themselves to overcome the Nonmen. But they had been outrun by their debauchery by this time, and had lost any comprehensive understanding of the Tekne. The Graftings had become a matter of guesswork, more likely to kill than enhance those who received them. The Inchoroi filled the Wells of the Aborted with their own in those days.

Aurang and Aurax are two of six who survived the attempt to Graft the ability to see the onta.

So they had sorcery during the C no-Inchoroi Wars. That’s long before the first apocalypse period when the Mangaecca show up.
So sorcery was not the show stopper for the summoning of the No-God.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:00:04 pm
Quote from: Twooars
Good point Borric, I remember that interview now.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:00:10 pm
Quote from: themerchant
So i was reading about the massive black-hole they're tracking which has actually be ejected from a Galaxy which is pretty novel relative to modern thinking or so i read, i'm not an expert.

However when following some links I see this description: 

"Furthermore, as you fall, there are things that have been falling in front of you that have experienced an even greater 'time dilation' than you have. So if you're able to look forward toward the black hole, you see every object that has fallen into it in the past. And then if you look backwards, you'll be able to see everything that will ever fall into the black hole behind you.

"So the upshot is, you'll get to see the entire history of that spot in the universe simultaneously," he said, "from the Big Bang all the way into the distant future."

So maybe the outside is a huge singularity and when you enter it cause of time dilation you are able to see everything in front and everything behind, with respects to the god. That's also why its for enternity.

I don't know how relevant , but it made me think of the gods when i read that bit.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:00:18 pm
Quote from: Borque
Quote from: Borric
Therefore i think the no-god was an idea of there new human allies. On hearing of the 144k prerequisite to avoid damnation. That clever leader of the Mangaecca came up with another brain storm. A weapon of mass destruction.
I think Wutteat mentioned that they had reduced the population to 144k on various worlds before they came to Eärwa, but this didn't work. So that particular figure was somehow known to before.

However, I'm sure Nau-Cayûti is part of the No-God somehow. Take a look at the Celmomian Prophecy scene:
Quote from: TDTCB
"My son... Do you think he'll be there, Seswatha? Do you think he’ll greet me as his father?"

"Yes... As his father, and as his king."

"Did I ever tell you," Celmomas said, his voice cracking with futile pride, "that my son once stole into the deepest pits of Golgotterath?"

"Yes." Achamian smiled through his tears. "Many times, old friend."

"How I miss him, Seswatha! How I yearn to stand at his side once again."

The old king wept for a moment. Then his eyes grew wide. "I see him so clearly. He’s taken the sun as his charger, and he rides among us. I see him! Galloping through the hearts of my people, stirring them to wonder and fury!"

"Shush... Conserve your strength, my King. The surgeons are coming."

"He says... says such sweet things to give me comfort. He says that one of my seed will return, Seswatha — an Anasurimbor will return..." A shudder wracked the old man, forcing breath and spittle through his teeth.

"At the end of the world."

My interpretation is that the "sun" Celmomas sees here is the No-God - operating like the "great light" radiating love and good stuff that is often described in near-death experiences. To draw souls to itself instead of to the outside.

Taking this one step further - Naû-Cayuti could possibly have been exposed to the Inverse Fire, and chosen to side with the consult and be a part of Mog, in exchange for being allowed among the 144.000 after having helped luring souls in. This would imply that the Anasûrimbor returning at the end of the world would be Nau himself.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:00:25 pm
Quote from: Curethan
I tend to interpret the gods as Jungian archetypes (the Hero in this case, manifesting to Celmomas as his son).
Alternatively, this is reminiscent of Tirtirga's first apearance with the false sun.

Nau Catyuti himself seems to have definitely been exposed to the Inverse Fire or some other soul raping device within the golden room (as shown in Akka's AE dreams) and based on his state there I find it hard to believe he'd actually be zooming around the Inward spreading hope and wonder (remember the outside is almost closed when Celmomas passes) if these dreams are in  any way factual.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:00:33 pm
Quote from: Camlost
Wild speculation here:

I'm making some serious assumptions, that I don't really know if there is any evidence for, in a loose posit of the No-God's "identity/being".

When a human dies their soul is sent to the Outside, for damnation or whatever it may be. Whether beings residing in the Outside (Ciphrang, or Gods..) maintain a corporeal form or they only manifest one while in Earwa, I don't know. I'm going to assume the former for this theory. What if the Consult manage to destroy a God's body. Where would the soul of a being from the Outside go to? Perhaps they then trapped Lokung's soul within the carapace, thus his inability to self recognize. Not to mention, what better God to slaughter a world than that of the People of War. Might also tie in the belief surrounding swaszond, that the scars, in the case of the No-God at the very least, literally carry the souls of all those slain by the No-God, and the weapon races. If the Inchoroi have reduced other worlds the 144k and still failed to avoid damnation, and they seem to believe that this will prove otherwise on Earwa, then the No-God seems their key (I think we all agree on that in one way or another) to achieving salvation. Making me guess that difference here is that the No-God carries those souls, never releases them to the Outside, fooling the "world" into not allowing any more souls in.

Pretty crack-pot, could use some tinkering and polishing. Let me know what ya think. Massive disproofs are encouraged :D
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:00:41 pm
Quote from: Borric
It’s a good theory, one that requires some pondering.

About the 144k, i wonder what makes them feel so strongly that this world will be different.
Sorcery?.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:00:53 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote from: Camlost
Wild speculation here: Making me guess that difference here is that the No-God carries those souls, never releases them to the Outside, fooling the "world" into not allowing any more souls in.

Pretty crack-pot, could use some tinkering and polishing. Let me know what ya think. Massive disproofs are encouraged :D
Makes me think that if we posit the world as an entity with consciousness then the world has to have a circuit of watcher and watched.  If you were to neurosurgery the World's perception of itself, so that it was blind (in the neuropath sense of the word, meaning consciousness) you might get something approximating the No God.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:01:04 pm
Quote from: Li'l Mog
Quote from: Borric
It’s a good theory, one that requires some pondering.

About the 144k, i wonder what makes them feel so strongly that this world will be different.
Sorcery?.

Sorcery, and thus a connection to the voice of the God, might be the reason, but I was wondering if this wasn't just another instance of self-delusion. What if the only reason the Inchoroi and Wutteat declare Eärwa the promised world is because they can't get to other worlds anymore? The ark is dead and they don't know how to, or just cannot fix it, let alone pilot it. So they see something special or different about Eärwa, such as sorcery, declare Eärwa different, hope that they're correct, and go along with the usual plan.

Of course, if damnation is not local, and the Inchoroi were right about reducing the population to 144k, wouldn't it make sense to assume that the number applied to the entire universe? Maybe Eärwa is special because it is the last world.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:01:12 pm
Quote from: Imparrhas
Thematically, I think there is something very human about the No-God. The books constantly talk about people being blind to themselves and mention several times how they need the judgment of others to know about themselves (I wish I had a direct quote for this but you can't ctrl-f physical books  :( ). Compare to the No-God saying WHAT AM I and YOU MUST TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE. Also in Kellhus's vision the figure is described as half divine and half animal. A good description for beasts who can apprehend the Logos, no?

Within the setting, a soulcatcher placed between the World and the Outside makes sense. If souls leaving the world get caught in it they will never reach the Outside and damnation and if a soul tries to enter the World it also gets caught in it and never reaches its body. Hence all children being stillborn.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:01:20 pm
Quote from: Ciero300
Kellus is the No-god .... or in some other way closely connected too it. Or he is the new No-God ... his manipulation of his followers is starting to become similar to the way the no-god manipulates the Shank.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:01:28 pm
Quote from: anor277
Quote from: Ciero300
Kellus is the No-god .... or in some other way closely connected too it. Or he is the new No-God ... his manipulation of his followers is starting to become similar to the way the no-god manipulates the Shank.

Is this why the Consult opposes him?  Or is just that the Consult do not know K's identity yet?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:01:34 pm
Quote from: Imparrhas
So far Kellhus's manipulation has been less direct than the No-God's. Remember that the Sranc and other weapon races were custom made by the consult to be controlled. Kellhus uses things (like language, emotions, symbols) he found in the worldborn to influence them.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:01:40 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
But that begs the all important question:

Are the things Kellhus found in the worldborn--like language, emotions, symbols--the mechanisms of control that were custom built into humans by The God or Gods?

Perhaps humans are not so different from Sranc...
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:01:47 pm
Quote from: Ciero300
Quote
Is this why the Consult opposes him? Or is just that the Consult do not know K's identity yet?

I think all the consult know is that the no-god is returning .... but dont know how.

Of cause, this is just my guess but I expect some kind of major twist. However i have a feeling that the arc was sent back from the future (Kellus' time). the past and the future seemed linked in ways that havnt been fully explained yet.

The no-gods obcession that the people worship him as a god (as per the dreams of the mandate followers) seems remarkably similar to how Kellus works. Remember in one of Achamians dreams of the past, the no-god speaks to him by name. IF I remember rightly, it demands that he accepts him as god.

Quote
Perhaps humans are not so different from Sranc...

.. created from humans? .... maybe from Kellus' army. He become the no-god, his followers become the sranc. then through the arc, go back to the time of the no-men and eventually his defeat at the hands of Seswatha (or whatever he was called) .... man i need the new book.

Any idea when its out? was supposed to be last week but obviously it has been delayed.

Quote
So far Kellhus's manipulation has been less direct than the No-God's.

... but he has not become the no-god yet (if my theory is right) but the signs are there that he works on similar lines.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:01:55 pm
Quote from: Imparrhas
We already know the Sranc are based on the Nonmen.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:02:02 pm
Quote from: Ciero300
yeah that rings a bell. Still think Kellus and the no-god are linked
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:02:10 pm
Quote from: Amun
I had a crackpot theory back before TWLW came out. It was based on a passage from The Warrior Prophet and a dream sequence from the Thousandfold Thought.

First, in the scene where Kellhus is hung from the circumfix, he has a vision of the No-God and hears it speaking to him. Here is a quote:
   
     "WHAT DO YOU SEE?
      The silhouette stood, hands clasped like a monk, legs bent like a beast.
      TELL ME ...
      Whole worlds wailed in terror." (from page 540 of the Overlook trade paperback edition of the Warrior Prophet)

"worlds" is underlined by me. It's important to the theory.

Secondly, the dream sequence involving Seswatha and Nau-Cayuti in the Ark implies that the ship may have been alive. Seswatha tells Nau that the ship may have mothered (or fathered) the Inchoroi, if I remember correctly. If the Ark was alive, it is possible that it may have had a soul. So when the Ark plummeted to earth it died and the soul moved to the Outside (possibly).

The possibility that the Ark was alive and died, coupled with the mention of worlds (more than one world) wailing, I came to the conclusion that the No-God is the soul of the Ark, or maybe a collection of the Inchoroi souls on the Ark (less likely in my opinion since they are so concerned about damnation and I don't think the No-God is damned since the Gods are blind to it.

I liked this theory because it meshed with the idea that the No-God needed to be summoned (from the Outside?) as well as requiring the Tekne to exist (the Ark's brain or brain-equivalent?) It also explains why the Inchoroi didn't use the No-God in their war with the Nonmen. They were unskilled in sorcery and knew nothing about "summoning." It took the Mangaecca to discover a way to do it.

Now, I doubt this is the case. First, I don't see how it fits with some of the themes of the story, and plus I have no idea how the presence of a ship's soul could close off the world. And secondly, with the new revelations in TWLW it seems even less likely than when I came up with.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy the thoughts.  :)
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:02:19 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
I'm not so sure you should discard it so readily.  The Soul-of-the-Ship thing fits with the Three Seas Forum postulate that the No God is an A.I.  And the use of the plural on, "worlds," fits with the revelations of Wutteat.  Does it fit perfectly post WLW?  No, but some of it seems to still work.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:02:25 pm
Quote from: Callan S.
Quote from: sciborg2
ETA: I do wonder, if paradox leads to consciousness and consciousness is the God, what makes the No-God what it is?
The space between gods?

I still think of the no god as rather like the death of thought - like light condensing at the event horizon of a black hole - you see what light escapes. The 'What do you see?' is just the part that escapes.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:02:32 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote from: Callan S.
Quote from: sciborg2
ETA: I do wonder, if paradox leads to consciousness and consciousness is the God, what makes the No-God what it is?
The space between gods?
How does this dialectic of yours hold up if consciousness is illusion as Bakker so often posits in his rantings and ramblings?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:02:40 pm
Quote from: Callan S.
Well I dunno - how is thought paired inextricably with conciousness? I've watched dogs asleep, but dreaming (run twitches, muted barks - pursuing something in their mind only). I'd call that thought?

So say you can have thoughts without conciousness - the no god is kinda like an elephant graveyard for thoughts...from gods.

As one idea, anyway.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:02:47 pm
Quote from: The Sharmat
Quote from: Callan S.
I still think of the no god as rather like the death of thought - like light condensing at the event horizon of a black hole - you see what light escapes. The 'What do you see?' is just the part that escapes.
I like this idea, if only because the idea of the No-God's desperate inquiries being meaningless and reflexive, because it's not even aware it's asking them, being fairly creepy.

I like the Soul of the Ark idea too, but it can't be true. The Gods are blind to the No-God precisely because they cannot perceive an intellect without a soul.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:02:54 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote from: The Sharmat
I like the Soul of the Ark idea too, but it can't be true. The Gods are blind to the No-God precisely because they cannot perceive an intellect without a soul.

If War is Intellect does War have a soul?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:03:02 pm
Quote from: Callan S.
Quote from: lockesnow
If War is Intellect does War have a soul?
It's more a question of how many?  :twisted:
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:03:09 pm
Quote from: Callan S.
I thought there was a 'What is the No God' thread but can't find it now. Thought I'd log this clue (http://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/the-person-fallacy/#comment-12281) dat wuz found.

Quote
AD

So is “tell me what you see?” a “reflective blurt” or a system requiring external self-referential information, no longer internally modellable, for utilitarian purposes?
Quote
rsbakker

Shrewd, AD. Very shrewd.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:03:16 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
http://secondapocalypse.forumer.com/what-is-the-no-god-t1188754.html

As of this post it looks like you where actually the last one to post on that thread.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:03:24 pm
Quote from: Callan S.
Yeah, that seems the one! Perhaps a mod could attach the first post here to that thread?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:03:31 pm
Quote from: sologdin
perhaps an inventory of all relevant passages would be good?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:05:45 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
That would would be interesting. Though first someone would need to take the 66 posts that are currently there, move them around and summarize the different parts of each current theory. That way there wouldnt be a need to scroll and scroll through the pages looking to make sure not to cover something already discussed. Would be sweet though.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:05:53 pm
Quote from: Church
let's do a no god mind map! - a 'no mind' map if you will
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:06:01 pm
Quote from: sologdin
some sources & analogues:

herbert--
(click to show/hide)

clarke--

(click to show/hide)

adams--

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:06:07 pm
Quote from: Callan S.
Not sure I need spoilers -

With the Adams example, it's funny how thought can appear plausible without history.

I mean, how does the whale think, form those thoughts/words, without a history?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:06:15 pm
Quote from: Truth Shines
Another speculation on the No-God, advanced apologies if this has been voiced already.  Also, my thoughts are very vague at this point.

So: The Indigo Plague.

Here's the entry in the Encyclopedic Glossary: According to legend, the pestilence swept up from the No-God's ashes after his destruction...  Mandate scholars dispute this...  Whatever the cause, the Indigo Plague ranks as among the worst in recorded history.

This could be nothing.  Merely another bloody footnote in the history of the First Apocalypse that Bakker added for effect.  But let's suppose it's not merely ornamental, but a clue; further, let's suppose the Mandate are wrong.  What do we have then?

First, the plague cannot be a microparasite (a la malaria-causing Plasmodium) or a bacterium, or my theory won't work.  It has to be a virus.  What then is a virus?  It is as close as you can get to a physical manifestation of the normally abstract concept of "information."  It is made up mostly of a piece of floating DNA or RNA with a few minor protein attachments.  It literally can do nothing by itself -- no metabolism, no reproduction, except seeking to take over the cellular machinery of other organisms to replicate more of itself -- the self-copying piece of information.  Hmm.  Something about this reminds me of the infamous "Inverse Fire"...

So the No-God may not be some manifestation of "soul" (at least not in its more abstract and perhaps religiously-inclined connotations), but rather some strange manifestation of biological information?  It certainly fits with the "Tekne" aspect of the Inchoroi and Consult.  The ultimate genetic engineering project?

Like I said at the beginning, my thoughts are rather jumbled and inchoate at this point.  If someone else wants to take a crack at it and try to elaborate it, you are more than welcome.  :)
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:06:22 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
Initially I liked this theory. Simply a vessel containing information, the carapace acting as some kind of virus like protein shell that holds the information, and it 'infects' people with information. It does fit into the Tekne very well and its more inline with the Inchi's whole persona. Though to me the analogy kind of breaks down there.

It would almost need to have some kind of consciousness to drive it to 'consume', or in this case, infect. I say this because its not being blow around in the air and randomly destroying civilization, its actively seeking it out things to control and to destroy. Also, symptoms of this information infection include what? I think everything around the no-god dies, so its hard to say from what, especially with the mobs of sranc. On that note, what would keep them at the side of mog if it were a simple virus.

There probably would been more of a case for this if not for the whole damnation/soul/afterlife story that became extremely important in the WLW, and a virus wouldn't do a very good job in continuing that theme.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:06:30 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote from: Truth Shines

So: The Indigo Plague.
Possible, but seems to elaborate.

I think the Indigo Plague is Radiation Sickness
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:06:38 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
Radiation sickness was kind of my conclusion as well, fallout and such. What would that mean for what the no-god actually is? Why would destroying it make nuclear fallout/radiation, why not the rest of the energy release affects associated with nukes?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:06:46 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
well it only looks like magic for the NG, right?  could the NG really be casting a 'make whirlwind' spell when there's all those chorae there as well?  I think it's a mechanistic explanation to drive the whirlwind and make the NG fly.  The Consult got the power via some sort of Nuclear Fusion.  However I doubt that they had very stable control over the reactor.  Hell maybe the No God took the field because everyone in Golgotteranth was dying from the Indigo Plague.

I like this explanation, because it suggests that DA's final dream in TTT is accurate, The Heron Spear didn't work when Anaxophus tried it (which would fit with the continuity that Mek presumably depleted the spear trying to breach glamour around Golgotteranth).  If the dream is true, it is highly probable that Anaxophus tried the spear it didn't work, and then the NG went boom on its own, just a happy, coincidence (or a convenient explanation).  Seswatha's wards saved himself and Anaxophus, and they took all the credit for an event they couldn't explain.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:06:55 pm
Quote from: Callan S.
Quote
Seswatha's wards saved himself and Anaxophus, and they took all the credit for an event they couldn't explain.
Ouch!
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:07:02 pm
Quote from: The Sharmat
The No-God is described like a talking singularity in a can/carapace. The whirlwind sounds sort of like the accretion disk of a black hole. If that imagery is significant, then it actually represents the death of information. Which would be thematically appropriate for a "No-God" that deprives the universe of objective meaning.

Also some kinda high tech containment device for sustaining a microscopic black hole against hawking radiation, if destroyed, might well result in a shitload of radiation or a gamma ray burst once the thing evaporated.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:07:09 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
Hawking radiation and singularities? This is a writer/philosopher we are talking about, not a physicist. You really think this is the avenue that Bakker was going down?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:07:15 pm
Quote from: Callan S.
I'd say he's crazy enough to meddle in such matters :)

Though I'm leery of the idea of an actual black hole. And really it only needs to work at this soul thingy level, rather than any grossly physical level like a black hole does.

Might even be a kind of soul anti-black hole. Black holes form from massive gravitational effects of collected matter. Earwa has that magical number of people - you go above it and there's enough 'mass' (hey, kinda a pun there!) to connect to the gods. Or perhaps create a black hole of the soul variety. The no god is the anti black hole. Perhaps stopping it from collecting more mass/souls/children from being born.

Death of thought is kind of my pet theory as well - it's like how light might be seen intensely around a black hole, as it mostly gets dragged in but before the event horizon. The no god doesn't think/speak by the efforts of a system (brain), but instead by the collapse of a system.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:07:22 pm
Quote from: The Sharmat
Quote from: Wilshire
Hawking radiation and singularities? This is a writer/philosopher we are talking about, not a physicist. You really think this is the avenue that Bakker was going down?
He has tissue and genetic engineering. And extraterrestrials in a fantasy setting. If he wanted to write a book about nothing but philosophy he'd write a philosophy book. You can have more than one element in your narrative.

I wasn't thinking it likely that it was so much for a literal black hole as we understand it, more that the imagery was probably not coincidental. More along the lines of what Callan S. says. Though I did like the symmetry of the Indigo Plague being radiation poisoning and the idea of a singularity exploding. Although who knows? Maybe a spiritual singularity produces gamma rays too?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:07:31 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
Likely a spiritual singularity would produce some kind of magical radiation that killed people like radiation = P
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:07:38 pm
Quote from: Madness
"A typical Mongolian shaman, if a shaman could ever be considered typical in any sense of the world both spiritual and tangible, calls his or her spirit from one of three Heavens: The White Heaven, which generally contains benevolent spirits, the Black Heaven, which is the opposite of the White, and the Red or Mixed Color Heaven, also known as the home of wrathful spirits."

- British man becomes Mongolian shaman (http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/?p=1463)[/b]

My bolding in the quote.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:07:46 pm
Quote from: KRST IS
What or who is the No-God? What are the Dunyain? What is the nature of Earwa?

I can see many parallels between Bakkerverse and real life. But it's very hard to determine anything before the author has revealed it.

Bottom line, Bakker is the darkness that comes before in Earwa, and I for one have no real idea what his worldview is in reality; thus it's very hard to know what the nature of his universe really is.

I could interpret it from my own worldview in real life, but I don't know how effective that is.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:07:54 pm
Quote from: Madness
Have you never ventured to Three Pound Brain (http://rsbakker.wordpress.com)[/u][/b], KRST IS?

This whole thread is devoted to your first question, along with another I've been unable to assimilate into this, in Misc. Chatter.

It's funny that you mention the Dunyain, as the only thread going that I can find is Dunyain and Nonmen... I'm actually surprised at this as they remain one of the biggest question marks of the Second Apocalypse.

The nature of the World and the Outside is a much debated idea in many of the various ongoing threads.

Explore when you have time, KRST IS, start some threads if you sense a void in our understanding.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:08:01 pm
Quote from: KRST IS
Thank you for the reference, Madness.

I think I've been to Bakker's Three Pound Brain a few times before, it looks familiar. He writes a lot of content on there, though, so I suspect I'll have to frequent his blog often and sift through the infinite levels of his psyche to get a good grasp on his overall worldview. Which would take some time, respectfully. :)
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:08:10 pm
Quote from: Triskele
Quote from: The Sharmat
Quote from: Callan S.
I still think of the no god as rather like the death of thought - like light condensing at the event horizon of a black hole - you see what light escapes. The 'What do you see?' is just the part that escapes.
I like this idea, if only because the idea of the No-God's desperate inquiries being meaningless and reflexive, because it's not even aware it's asking them, being fairly creepy.
.


For some reason this reminds me of Daniel Quinn's book in which a character says that an animal in captivity would pace back and forth constantly asking "Why?" but if you could ask it "Why what?" it would have no response.  I'm not suggesting it has any relevance here, but I mention it just the same. 


I had forgotten that Kellhus had the vision of a figure with legs like a beast.  No idea what to make of that. 

For the love of all that is holy we need this unholy book now.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:08:17 pm
Quote from: Madness
Can't take the anticipation, Trisk ;)?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:08:25 pm
Quote from: Triskele
Quote from: Madness
Can't take the anticipation, Trisk ;)?


I would pluck out any heart; murder the world to see TUC released. 




On a serious note, I really am excited for this one.  I was mildly disappointed by TJE but really excited to see what happened next, and then I was really happy w/ WLW for the most part, but dying to see what came next.  There is still just so much we're just guessing at.  Not just parts of the plot, but huge parts of the history, the metaphysics, finally seeing the Nonmen and the Consult in earnest, etc...
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:08:32 pm
Quote from: Madness
I've attempted my first merging of topics - hopefully this worked out.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:08:38 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Similar thread on 3c's concluded that the no-god is, in fact, an apache gun-ship.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:08:47 pm
Quote from: Madness
The only helicopter lol...

Welcome back, Curethan. Hope the academics are going well.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:08:52 pm
Quote from: Callan S.
Well, Jesus keeps popping up on TPB to demand unholy consult, but he's had no effect as yet. Pretty good tricks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8kOQ2zvBfU) though.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:09:00 pm
Quote from: 4AGdTmCall_Moenghus
Quote from: Callan S.
Well, Jesus keeps popping up on TPB to demand unholy consult, but he's had no effect as yet. Pretty good tricks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8kOQ2zvBfU) though.

Doesn't RSB know that nobody fucks with the Jesus?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:09:07 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
Quote from: 4AGdTmCall_Moenghus
Quote from: Callan S.
Well, Jesus keeps popping up on TPB to demand unholy consult, but he's had no effect as yet. Pretty good tricks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8kOQ2zvBfU) though.

Doesn't RSB know that nobody fucks with the Jesus?
As I recall, that one guy crucified him near golgotha (which I have always thought was stunningly similar to our Golgotterath, which was really my main motivation in posting)
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:09:14 pm
Quote from: Galbrod
Since I'm new to the forum I'm not sure wheteher I'm adressing an issue that has beed adressed befor..e. But, since soul-shifting would appear to a key consult stategy to escape damnation, do any of you think that the no-god could be the result of a pooling of consult souls into some sort of common container? (having in mind that the first chapter of 'Unholy Consult' takes place two years before the no-god)
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:09:22 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
"consult souls" is ambiguous, since there are only (as far as we know) just a few souls that actually make up the consult. However if you just mean souls in general that the consult have collected, then I'd say its possible. Considering the effects of the mass slaughter (like the topos) compounded with some higher understanding of the outside and its machinations, its at least possible the the pooling of an extremely large number of souls all into one place could create the no-god.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:09:29 pm
Quote from: Madness
Does the No-God have agency? Hot topic! Is it its own entity?

Welcome, Galbrod.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:09:37 pm
Quote from: Galbrod
Thanks madness :-) That all infants were born dead as a result of the bringing of the No-god could be seen as an indicator that the No-god somehow interfered with the ordinary passage of souls. (stopping any potential damned souls from leaving the world as well as stopping new ones from entering the world). I'm thinking something in line with the Shield-anvil role of the Malazan books by Steven Erikson, but in a more sinister consult-variant...
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:09:45 pm
Quote from: Madness
I definitely like Erikson/Bakker analogies. Erikson's mortal avatars always tickled me pleasured lol.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:09:52 pm
Quote from: Madness
Super Nerdanel but the No-God is Ajolki.

The No-God is an entity from the Outside, who died in mortal form, and returned to the Outside. This is why Ajolki is the Trickster, the four-horned brother, the one God not blind to the Apocalypse. His avatars worship murder.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:10:03 pm
Quote from: Triskele
I love how we used to give Nerdanel guff and yet we are now a bunch of Nerdanels. 

I love that theory. 

Did we get it confirmed somewhere that Ajokli isn't blind to the Apocalypse? 

But I don't know how much WHAT DO YOU SEE?-ing would go on w/ Ajokli if he's not blind.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:10:11 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Four-horned brother...  Sil's symbol (the alpha/omega thing) is kinda like a four horned head, doncha think?  :p

Tangentaly;
I was theorizing to myself just yesterday that Ajokli could be a remnant of the Inchie pantheon from their pre-exposure to the inverse fire days...
If the hundred (or at least their mini-dimensions) are shaped (evolutionarily) from coagulations of human emotion (divided by their portfolios) and Ciphrang are similarly made from what they "eat" (i.e. regret and suffering) - then it's possible that the Inchies once had similar outside agencies interested in them, yes?

Either way, the fact that Ajokli is said to be/have been the consort of Gierra lines up with Inchie predictiliations.  ;)
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:10:18 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
who is gierra again?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:10:26 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Gierra - God of carnal passion.  Often cast as a malign temptress, luring men to the luxury of her couch, often with fatal consequences.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:10:32 pm
Quote from: Triskele
The way that I take it, while Akka might call Fate "The Whore," Gierra is perhaps more the whore.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:10:39 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Certainly, she is the patron of whores, I think.  Esmenet says something to the effect that the whores are most like to give alms to her temples or something. 
I seem to recall that her preistesses go out giving it up to all and sundry on her holy days and during some other celebrations, but they don't take coin for their favours.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:12:15 pm
Quote from: Galbrod
Wow, it's amazing how good a grip on second apocalypse characters and events that you people on this forum have. It's making me feel amateurish when formulating ideas about the Bakkerian universe :-) Concerning the No-God, I'm however still intrigued by the statements of the No-god: "WHAT DO YOU SEE? I MUST KNOW WHAT YOU SEE... TELL ME... WHAT AM I? I CANNOT S-" (TWP, p19) To me that states the No-god as an entity that is unclear about itself, that has the concept of sight clearly defined, but that is definately experiencing the lack of signt. All the ideas about the No-god as being connected to a previous Inchoroi godlike entity (if that is what Ajolki is) are very interesting, but the insecurity of the No-god would seem to indicate that it is not an ancient entity that has been summoned. Rather it appears to have been created as a new, but extremely powerful, entity.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:12:21 pm
Quote from: Madness
Lol, Galbrod, cheers. Know that much of our theorizing - though based on majorily canonical sources - is still full of shit.

Dive in, friend.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:12:28 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
Yeah most of our musings are madness...

Anyway, I don't think the lack of sight disproves him being an old entity. Perhaps the summoning from the outside, or whatever, causes Him to go blind. At the same time, now this blind thing is shoved into a sarcophagus and loosed into an alien world.

Blind, trapped, and thoroughly confused, WHAT DO YOU SEE would seem to be a valid question by anyone, new or old.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:12:36 pm
Quote from: Galbrod
The most quoted question would definately seem to be: WHAT DO YOU SEE? I however find the follow-up question even more interesting: WHAT AM I? It is of course possible that an entity that has been summoned from the outside has gone blind, but this existential question would seem to hint that the counsciousness of the No-God is something that is either newly created or has gone through some sort of radical change...
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:12:43 pm
Quote from: Triskele
Another thing that seems important to keep in mind is the cycle of watcher and watched that was mentioned in Achamian's Library of Sauglish dream. 

I'm not really sure what to make of it, but it seems potentially relevant to the No-God.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:12:50 pm
Quote from: Curethan
I've noted it before, but the God and the No-god seem to be opposites some interesting ways.

The god seems to exist within all souled creatures (according to Kellhus) and thus percieves itself through everyone, whilst remaining unconcious of its own existence as a seperate entity ("the god slumbers - it has ever been thus").  Kelhus manipulates this conection when he uses the logos (the spark of the divine) to see out of the eyes of others - he does a perspective swap to both Esme and Akka in PoN. 
So the god seems to exist in the outside and has some link to all souls via the logos, providing the link that allows souls to move between the realms of subjectivity and objectivity.

The no-god is conscious, but cannot percieve himself.  He seems to extend himself through the weapon races (he co-ordinates the sranc, bashrag and wracu and his voice is heard emenating through their throats...) but we know that they lack curiousity beyond their programmed urges and direct instructions and cannot deal with the nature of paradox (i.e. they are all effectively the same creature) so they can provide no insight into his questions. 
-
The no-god's existence prevents new souls from entering the world, and he seems to "eat" or otherwise interfere with the passage of souls back to the outside (see the reference to tasting Celmomas' soul from Skafra and the fate of those killed on the plains of Mengedda, where the consult almost achieved their objective and the no-god might have reached his apotheosis).
The no-god exists in the objective world and seeks to sever or reverse the link from the objective to subjective realms.

I think the reason the no-god's words are so creepy and affecting is that they suggest utter loneliness coupled with a complete lack of empathy. 
Whatever else it is, I think if it is a soul or ubersoul (like the hundred), it is completely seperated from the Earwan god.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:12:58 pm
Quote from: Madness
Curethan, you've inspired the new question - what kind of cognitive atmosphere does the No-God experience? Is he receiving datum from his extremities (in this case, Sranc, Bashrag, Wracu, Skin-Spies, and X to come) that then culminate and manifest in its perspective?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:13:05 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Hmmm, Madness.
I guess the thing there is that the weapon races do not impart meaning into their experiences.  They are strictly action/reaction meat machines, behaving according to their built in hungers.
Interesting aside here, Position Sranc et al on Mazlow's pyramid...  they barely make the first level, and their physiological needs are all by design.

Does Mog even have a perspective?
The no-god demands reflective experiences, and yet he is the angel of endless hunger.  A cognitive black hole, and yet capable of directing his resources towards attempting to fulfil his hungers/objectives.

Clearly, a mystery wrapped in an enigma, jamed into a paradox inside a carapace riveted by contradictions.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:13:13 pm
Quote from: Madness
Quote from: Curethan
A cognitive black hole, and yet capable of directing his resources towards attempting to fulfil his hungers/objectives.

This. You've hit something here.

Bakker's big on agnosia, especially anosognosia.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:13:19 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Lol, a god with anosognosia.  The death of meaning.  Goes around unmaking people.

I wonder what happened to Celmomas.  How could he have that prophetic vision and then get nommed by Mog?
True and false prophecies indeed... methinks Seswatha's dream of the prophecy might be lies.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:13:27 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
True and false prophecies as the synthase said, I think, was more of a description of non-knowing. Like they know that some prophecies, for example the ones they made themselves, are false, some have been shown to be false through the years, and what remains of other prophecies that have not come to pass is really just 'well maybe its true, maybe its full of shit, we don't know so lets cover our bases'.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:13:35 pm
Quote from: Curethan
I was forgeting about Celmomas' 'twin-souled' status anyway.  It's possible that that enabled some connection with the outside despite Mog.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:13:45 pm
Quote from: Anasurimbor Bob
Well to me the No God is what the Dunyain strive to become:a self moving soul free from the before and the after in short the absolute.However by being this,the No God loses something crucial in the Second apocalypse world:meaning.
By being freed of causality and of the cycle that being has no meaning unto itself and thus cannot be defined,and as it cannot define itself it does not truly see meaning in anything/anyone else,thus always hungering for real meaning but unable to find any due to being it's own subject rather than an object to anyone else's reality,but a subject who does not realy know what it is,thus the no god is always questionning,and those incessant questions contest the meaning of things,sowing incertainty and slowly destroying the meaning God/gods gave to creation and even their own realm basically comdemning them into oblivion.And that would also be why Kellhus and Mimara(respectively for the former the understanding of that condition via Dunyain breeding and for the latter the judging eye)are the best persons to take it down.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:13:55 pm
Quote from: Madness
Hmm.... meaning is crucial - probably onto something with that, AB.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:14:00 pm
Quote from: Triskele
Didn't Bakker once say something about Kellhus along the lines of "looking for meaninglessness in a meaningful world?"  Or do I have that backwards?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:14:08 pm
Quote from: Curethan
That's right Triskele.  That applies to the dunyain, imo.  Kellhus is talking to the world and drawing meaning from twigs in his sandles by the end of TTT.

"Meaning, purpose.  These words name not something given.  They name our task."

Causality in Earwa is moved by the logos, and it is that sliver of the logos in the souls of men that the gods strive over, that enables sorcery and the hundred to work their will in Earwa.
The dunyain work to master this for themselves, to remove all the preconcieved meaning and the hold of TDTCB that causes men to move in their predetermined circles and yield up this power to others.

The No-god, OTOH, just wants to snuff it out.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:14:15 pm
Quote from: Madness
http://www.boomtron.com/2005/05/on-the-spot-interview-r-scott-bakker/

Quote
The dominant tradition in mainstream literature is to depict protagonists stranded in a potentially meaningless world trying to find some kind of compensatory meaning – usually through some conception of ‘love.’ You’ve literally seen this pattern countless times. Kellhus offered me an opportunity to turn this model on its head. What makes fantasy distinct is that the worlds depicted tend to be indisputably meaningful – in a sense that’s what makes them fantastic! I thought to myself, what would a story of a protagonist stranded in a meaningful world struggling to hold onto meaninglessness look like?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:14:22 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
Also this:
http://www.sfdiplomat.net/sf_diplomat/2007/08/conservative-fa.html
http://www.sfdiplomat.net/sf_diplomat/2007/02/the_aesthetics_.html

RSB was active in the comments section, in the second link we have:

Quote
The question of epic fantasy's SPECIFIC appeal, it seems to me, is primarily a social, historical, and psychological one.

So getting back to your question regarding worlds and laws. Humans are hardwired to anthropomorphize. Among the many specialized inference systems possessed by our brains, we have 'intentionality detection' systems, which we use to track various kinds of agents as opposed to natural events, which have their own inference systems. Our brain literally has modules dedicated to understanding events according to the modalities of intent or according to the modalities of cause. The thing is, our intentional inference systems are (and this is an uncomfortable fact) hyperactive: they regularly impute intent to events which are in fact causal.

Now before the institutionalization of science in the Enlightenment, we really had no way of knowing this, so as a result, we universally understood the world at large in intentional terms. Only as science provided us with its astonishingly reliable and powerful picture of the ways that causal processes monopolize natural events (the so-called 'disenchantment of the world') were we able to recognize the kinds of wholescale anthropomorphizing underwriting our worldviews. In other words, the institutional dominance of science is what allowed us to see these kinds of worlds as FANTASTIC.

Thus the connection of fantasy worlds to the worlds of scripture (myth that is believed) and myth (scripture that is disbelieved). It's no accident that Middle-earth, Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Vedic India all share such similar ontological structures. They all use the same inference systems to interpret the 'world' - the signature difference is that Middle-earth is a classic example of what psychologists call 'decoupled cognition,' which is just a fancy way of referring to the capacity to think 'as if' that underwrites all fiction. Middle-earth is, in a very real sense, 'scripture otherwise.'

The laws of these worlds are quite literally social and psychological as opposed to natural. This is one of the keys to their appeal, I think. Fantasy worlds are intrinsically meaningful worlds - this is what makes them fantastic. They are not worlds of things, but of AGENTS and ARTIFACTS. There's literally not a 'thing' - understood in the strict sense - to be found in fantasy or scriptural worlds.

Since this is our default way of understanding the world (the scientific worldview requires oodles of training), the primordial way, the 'escapism' of fantasy is not so much an escape as a return to worlds that make immediate sense. And this is part of what makes fantasy the antithesis of modernism, if you define the latter as narrative forms involving the struggle of a protagonist trying to find coherent meaning in an apparently meaningless world. (The Prince of Nothing, btw, tries to turn this toothless saw on its head.) The 'great clomping foot of nerdism,' as Harrison puts it (at once evincing and reinforcing the general bias against forms of decoupled cognition without obvious utility), is nothing more than the 'as if denial' of the scientific worldview, a return not to happier times, but to more comprehensible ones. In epic fantasies, we often like our illusions to run deep.

I can go on and on about this - there's many parallel stories to be told here.

In terms of content, the laws of fantasy worlds are CONCEPTUALLY different, which is just to say they engage different inference systems. In terms of composition, where hard SF uses what I call pseudo-cognitive transition rules to build speculative versions of the stochastically mechanistic world we've gained thanks to the Enlightenment, epic fantasy uses 'associative elimination rules' to build alternate versions of the intentional worlds we've lost thanks to the Enlightenment.
- Scott Bakker
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:14:29 pm
Quote from: Madness
Real cool commentary... links r ded :(.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:14:35 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
hah, glad I saved the text, RSB had tons and tons of comments on the second article.

I think the articles were called the Aesthetics of Fantasy and Conservative Fantasy.  The original article (this was all pre-HBO) was a critique of ASOIAF based on making Ned Stark into a hero for executing the kid at the beginning of GOT, and that this sort of conservative bypass of any sort of judicial process and just getting to the killing as somehow noble and higher was a bad thing.

http://web.archive.org/web/20100928002957/http://www.sfdiplomat.net/sf_diplomat/2007/08/conservative-fa.html
comments by Wert, Ran, Larry etc

May take some more thorough poking around the wayback machine to find the other article and it's comments, might be a good idea to save stuff from the first, but I didn't see Bakker in particular on that article, he was commenting on the second link

edit boom found the article, RSB is first commenter: http://web.archive.org/web/20100928211911/http://www.sfdiplomat.net/sf_diplomat/2007/02/the_aesthetics_.html
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:14:42 pm
Quote from: Madness
I will endeavour to find them :). Sounds interesting.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:14:50 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote from: Madness
I will endeavour to find them :). Sounds interesting.

Since this is a new page you might not see the edit I just posted:

http://web.archive.org/web/20100928211911/http://www.sfdiplomat.net/sf_diplomat/2007/02/the_aesthetics_.html
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: What Came Before on June 01, 2013, 07:14:56 pm
Quote from: Madness
Lol, went back and read your edit. Cheers, duder, will make for interesting reading later :).
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: sciborg2 on August 24, 2013, 04:00:59 pm
Throwing my Ouroboros theory into the ring. Will subsequently post some of the comments/discussion from Westeros, but you can read some of that here:

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/78108-the-unholy-consult-previews-and-speculation/page__st__380#entry4213686

Quote
On another note, going back to the idea of God/No-God as states of the same entity, could the No-God simply be the God dragged into a reality where one is forced to acccept the arrow of time?

The No-God asks "what do you see?" and "what am I?" The notion of seeing reminds [me] of Calasso's interpretation of Hinduism focusing on the idea of two beings in the Mind - the mind that acts and the mind that watches. Or as Bakker put it, the "watcher and watch[ed]" that anchors sorcery.

What if the God, outside of time, has no need for origin or ending, a perfect circle? Dragged into linear time the God now is aware that thoughts follow thoughts. The circle is now an ouroboros, serenity replaced by an obsession to catch the origin of one's own thinking.

The Circle dreams and we get creation. The Ouroboros metaphorically devours itself and we get the Angel of Endless hunger.

I think there are hints pointing in this direction:

In TWP, Akka is trapped in an Uroborian Circle. This prevents him from utilizing sorcery. It negates his ability to grasp the clarity of meaning necessary for sorcery. What would happen if the God was in similar straits?

After being possessed by Aurang in TTT, Esmi worries about the things she hungered for. Kellhus assures her those weren't her desires, she merely suffered them. Esmi asks "Then how does any desire belong to me?" as she suddenly becomes aware that desire's origin lies outside the purview of conscious thought.

In the same book, IIRC Moe worries that Kellhus is touched by the No-God. Kellhus says "Thoughts come. I know they are not my own." Yet IIRC TDTCB begins with [a] quote that notes thoughts [always] come of their own volition, intruding onto the conscious mind.

Dunyain, as Inri notes to Maitha, are always reflecting, always trying to catch the origin of their thoughts. Cnauir notes the Dunyain are like sharks, always swimming toward the goal. The way he describes [Kellhus] calls back to the idea of endless hunger.

Seswatha notes that the circuit of watcher and watched is the foundation of all sorcery. This would mean this circuit fixes meaning, and when this circuit is broken presumably sorcery fails. When the God fails to apprehend Its own perfection, then Its magic - the entirety of the onta - fails. [Its only hope is to be recognized by the watchers, the shards of Itself which are the souls of men. This is why it demand-begs through the unsouled -sranc, bashrag, wraccu - to know what the ensouled see.]
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Galbrod on August 25, 2013, 09:05:07 pm
I think it's brilliant Sci!
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: sciborg2 on August 26, 2013, 03:28:55 pm
I think it's brilliant Sci!

Thanks!

I don't think it's 100% accurate, but I do think there are connections between the No-God, the God, and paradox.

Mimara says only souls can apprehend paradox.

The wiki says there is a connection between chorae, and the Uroborian Circle (http://"http://princeofnothing.wikia.com/wiki/Uroborian_Circle") Akka was trapped in by the SS. [Why I associate the "Endless Hunger" with a snake eating its tail.]

Mimara feels something that appears to be the God when she looks into the chorae with her Judging Eye.

The Aporos was actually banned before they made Chorae. Was it simply because they broke the power of sorcery? Or because the Aporetic sorcerers discovered something about reality that upset the assumed natural order the Nonmen took for granted?

I want to say the Aporetics found the divinity Mimara seems to have experienced by looking into the chorae, but it's hard for me to believe anyone touched by Heaven would side with the Inchoroi.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on August 26, 2013, 04:23:58 pm
Mimara feels something that appears to be the God when she looks into the chorae with her Judging Eye.
I'd say "a" God, rather than "the" God. Maybe not all of the 100 are hellish soul-eating torturers. Though we haven't heard about any of those...


The Aporos was actually banned before they made Chorae. Was it simply because they broke the power of sorcery? Or because the Aporetic sorcerers discovered something about reality that upset the assumed natural order the Nonmen took for granted?
Certainly wouldn't be the first time some select few Nonmen had some kind of revelation and then the info was suppressed or destroyed. The Nonman are really bad at dealing with change. Or maybe they just forgot the joy of finding out they weren't damned.

I want to say the Aporetics found the divinity Mimara seems to have experienced by looking into the chorae, but it's hard for me to believe anyone touched by Heaven would side with the Inchoroi.
If Mimara is some kind of Jesus figure that opens up heaven to the masses, then anyone before her that saw into this other world might have only seen endless purgatory or hell... like the inverse fire. Maybe there was only pain and suffering until a savior is sacrificed.

I liked your thoughts about the no-god. I'm not sure I know if you are right or not, but there is a lot of stuff in there that makes sense.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on August 28, 2013, 02:21:03 pm
The Aporos was actually banned before they made Chorae. Was it simply because they broke the power of sorcery? Or because the Aporetic sorcerers discovered something about reality that upset the assumed natural order the Nonmen took for granted?

Sorcerous aptitude is hereditary and there is a caste distinction between Quya and Ishroi. The social responses to Topoi, Damnation, and the Outside. Banning the Aporos, a sorcery-unmaking sorcery...

I'd hazard that the Quya, rather than strictly Ishroi, ran/run Nonmen society.

If Mimara is some kind of Jesus figure that opens up heaven to the masses, then anyone before her that saw into this other world might have only seen endless purgatory or hell... like the inverse fire. Maybe there was only pain and suffering until a savior is.

+1 for Mimara as Saviour.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on August 28, 2013, 02:31:18 pm
Oops looks like I got distracted when typing. The sentence that you quoted ends with "is". I put in "sacrificed" after it so now it makes some sense.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on August 28, 2013, 03:30:10 pm
Doesn't change my thoughts ;).
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: sciborg2 on August 28, 2013, 05:22:23 pm
Quote
I'd say "a" God, rather than "the" God. Maybe not all of the 100 are hellish soul-eating torturers. Though we haven't heard about any of those...

I feel like Onkis should be more good than evil?

It's also weird to think every god wants to torture people for eternity. But then the Outside's nature is hard to pin down so perhaps they feel like they are torturing for half-an-hour with long breaks but you feel like it's unending.

It's like them hitting pause of a game. You don't feel time passing while they have it paused.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on August 28, 2013, 05:46:13 pm
Yeah if you they don't 'perceive' time like we do then its hard to say how 'long' eternity is. Once you are outside, does the soul still see time in a linear fashion? To an objective person from Earwa, it may seem like eternity, but what about the subjective time of the soul experiencing the pain? Does eternity really even mean anything in a system that has no linear timeline? I have trouble comprehending what a timeless-space would be like.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: locke on August 28, 2013, 06:21:06 pm
somewhere somewhen on zombie three seas someone posted a theory on why NG asks his questions and RSB replied, "very astute." wish I could remember what it was...
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on August 28, 2013, 07:20:36 pm
That might just be his go-to phrase when he's not entirely sure what to say. "Very astute" is exactly the phrase he used to describe some of the things I've said. Its probably just habit, instead of saying "cool" or something equally as lame. I choose to believe otherwise though :D.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: sciborg2 on August 31, 2013, 12:45:47 am
That might just be his go-to phrase when he's not entirely sure what to say. "Very astute" is exactly the phrase he used to describe some of the things I've said. Its probably just habit, instead of saying "cool" or something equally as lame. I choose to believe otherwise though :D.

Ah, yeah, that is possible. But it did make sense that the No-God is trying to establish a watcher-watched circuit.

The one thing I'm almost sure of is that the No-God doesn't devour souls. At least not the souls inhabiting the Inward.

Otherwise wouldn't the Inchies and Consult just let the No-God devour them.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on August 31, 2013, 02:12:58 am
Otherwise wouldn't the Inchies and Consult just let the No-God devour them.
Possible answer: No-God is some kind of trapped ciphrang/god trapped into earwa time/space. Being consumed by the No-God would effectivley be the same experience of dying and having your soul eaten by one of the 100.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: sciborg2 on August 31, 2013, 02:43:39 am
Otherwise wouldn't the Inchies and Consult just let the No-God devour them.
Possible answer: No-God is some kind of trapped ciphrang/god trapped into earwa time/space. Being consumed by the No-God would effectivley be the same experience of dying and having your soul eaten by one of the 100.

Ah, good point. The No-God might not grant the souls he consumes oblivion. The process of consumption might be the endless torment of always approaching the singularity, having your soul smeared across the even horizon, but never actually getting there.

Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on August 31, 2013, 02:49:22 am
I thought that was just from the POV of the viewer. Or did I get that backwards? Can someone actually watch something go into a black hole?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Galbrod on August 31, 2013, 09:39:25 am
A question indirectly related to the No-god... When travelling to the outside, is the watcher/wathed relationship reversed - with the soul taking the active part (being watched) and the ordinary consciousness taking the role of the watcher of the soul?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on August 31, 2013, 12:58:35 pm
Certainly, the watched relationship is changed in degrees, evident in the Walking the Shadow Way in the World-Between (Achamian and Xinemus in TWP to Caraskand).

But the watcher... I'm not sure exactly on the relationship nor on the way the circuit is compromised by animata.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: locke on September 02, 2013, 08:15:15 pm
What if the No God is Kellhus?

Kellhus tried to teleport out of Moenghus' cave, but the spell didn't work the way he expected.  Kellhus was lost in the outside and the No God seized his frame to come back inward.  Because the NG is not a ciphrang the non-men did not recognize him.  A substitution occured.

Quote
Existence cringed before the whip of his voice. Space cracked. Here was pried into there. Beyond his father he saw Serwë, her blonde hair tied into a war-knot. He saw her leap out of the black …

Even as he toppled into one far greater.

And of course that's always begged the question to me, did he see into the black and see Serwe, or did he see the-thing-called-serwe (which Moenghus had already disabled/killed) come back to life to attack him?

And the next time we see Kellhus he takes on characteristics of the NG, like the whirlwind.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: locke on September 23, 2013, 06:41:21 am
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/09/22/evils-shadowy-existence-realclearreligion-9-14/
Quote
Digging deeper than many reflections on the recent film about Hannah Arendt and her book Eichmann in Jerusalem, Fr. Robert Barron reminds us of Arendt’s debt to St. Augustine:

The young Hannah Arendt had written her doctoral dissertation under the great German philosopher Karl Jaspers, and the topic of her work was the concept of love in the writings of Saint Augustine. One of the most significant intellectual breakthroughs of Augustine’s life was the insight that evil is not something substantial, but rather a type of non-being, a lack of some perfection that ought to be present. Thus, a cancer is evil in the measure that it compromises the proper functioning of a bodily organ, and a sin is evil in the measure that it represents a distortion or twisting of a rightly functioning will. Accordingly, evil does not stand over and against the good as a kind of co-equal metaphysical force, as the Manichees would have it. Rather, it is invariably parasitic upon the good, existing only as a sort of shadow.

J.R.R. Tolkien gave visual expression to this Augustinian notion in his portrayal of the Nazgul in The Lord of the Rings. Those terrible and terrifying threats, flying through the air on fearsome beasts, are revealed, once their capes and hoods are pulled away, to be precisely nothing, emptiness. And this is exactly why, to return to Arendt’s description, evil can never be radical. It can never sink down into the roots of being; it can never stand on its own; it has no integrity, no real depth or substance. To be sure, it can be extreme and it can, as Arendt’s image suggests, spread far and wide, doing enormous damage. But it can never truly be.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Somnambulist on September 23, 2013, 03:16:25 pm
What if the No God is Kellhus?

I am currently re-reading the series (what else am I gonna do until TUC comes out?), and am on TWP.  Reading the part where the Holy War is camped out on the Plains of Mangedda, and Akka is having a particularly intense dream of the First Apocalypse.  Between dreaming and waking from this dream, he's having a conversation with Esme about Kellhus.  The No-God is shown speaking, threading his dialogue in with the conversation about Kellhus.  Seems like it might be supporting your theory, giving some foreshadowing.  Does Kellhus succeed in obtaining the Absolute, thus transforming into the No-God in the process?  Classic case of 'be careful what you wish for'...
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on September 23, 2013, 05:30:30 pm
Lol - Bakker certainly knows Augustine well.

Also, locke, it's very interesting to note that that quoted passage is Kellhus' last POV in the whole series, neh?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Galbrod on October 02, 2013, 04:39:57 pm
Is not the No-God supposed to be invisible to the gods?  If so, could the visions of the White-Luck-Warrior concerning the future killing of Kellhus be seen as evidence that Kellhus is not the No-God?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on October 02, 2013, 09:52:04 pm
Is not the No-God supposed to be invisible to the gods?  If so, could the visions of the White-Luck-Warrior concerning the future killing of Kellhus be seen as evidence that Kellhus is not the No-God?

That is a very good point.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on October 03, 2013, 01:32:19 pm
I've always had it in my head that the visions of the Gods and the Warrior are fallible, in that, like ourselves, they will invent rationalizations to cover the unknown unknowns in their environment... Maybe the Gods have some completely different revelation about the First Apocalypse.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on October 03, 2013, 02:41:15 pm
Who did they blame for that? Was there another Kellhus figure that they decided to blame everything on? More questions, no answers.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on October 04, 2013, 02:26:29 am
Seswatha. It'd be ironic. The Gods are pissed at him.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on October 04, 2013, 12:35:16 pm
Really? I guess he did all the rabble rousing, but surely they Gods arn't so blind as to think he was the cause of all the death... Could they see him use the heron spear? Wonder what he would have been shoot at. If you couldn't see NG then I guess it would look like someone shot a giant beam of light which created some kind of terrible plague.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on October 04, 2013, 01:00:15 pm
Lol, I didn't say I'd provide the rationalization ;).

The Gods really do have no reason to believe that Sranc are real, they aren't ensoulled.

Perhaps, the Gods do really want Aurang, Aurax, Mekeritrig, and Shauriatas, though.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Cüréthañ on October 04, 2013, 11:06:16 pm
The hundred are aware of the sranc.  Herons track them, remember.  Animals are also unsoulled (for the main), yet some are holy.
Iirc, sranc are referred to as lies.  Who else do we know that is referred to in similar terms?  Nonmen - the false.

Shauritias boasts that he walks paths the gods cannot see.  For me, this is a clue that he feels unbound from causality. 

Khellus' convo with Aurang in TTT provides the best rationale for abject damnation: transgression of the boundaries of skin.  In my mind, the tekne and sorcery both violate  causality by physical alterations and this may be the key to it.  The logos otoh provides a method for 'natural' alteration or mastery of causality and therefore is something the gods can see and oppose.

As to whom the hundred blame for causal events where they are ignorant of the cause; either sorcery or the solitary god seem like viable explanations.
However Celmomas' prophecy suggests the gods are involved with his son's return.  Or perhaps the vision is granted by the God.

The no-god's nature as a construct of sorcery and tekne makes it the opposite of the 'divine' rather than some kind of apotheosis of evil. Tsuramah is an all permeating awareness within the material plane with no reflective self awareness.  He doesn't exist at all in the outside.  Of course the hundred would be blind to him.  And what death should the hundred gods notice when he is around?  The soul that encounters him passes no further.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Borric on October 27, 2013, 02:06:59 pm
Really? I guess he did all the rabble rousing, but surely they Gods arn't so blind as to think he was the cause of all the death... Could they see him use the heron spear? Wonder what he would have been shoot at. If you couldn't see NG then I guess it would look like someone shot a giant beam of light which created some kind of terrible plague.

Going off on a tangent here. 
But he didn’t use the Heron spear.
He had the king leading the last defence use it.

Didn’t that seem odd to you guys? It did to me, I remember Seswartha shouting at the king to use it.
So why the hell didn’t he use it?, I’d put it down to prestige or something at the time.

But maybe there is more to it. Maybe the real reason he took NG along with him into the ark was because he cannot touch the spear.
Maybe its imbued with chorae, maybe that’s how they tracked it in the ark.

If any of that is true, then he would have needed a normal person to hide the spear.
Maybe some obscure sect he could securely hide in a mountain fortress he was privy to?
One who would wipe their collective minds of the past. Going as far as “chiselling rune sorceries from the walls”
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on October 27, 2013, 03:57:18 pm
Thats a good point. I find it hard to believe that Seswatha would place the fate of the world in the hands of someone else, unless he absolutely had to (i.e chorae).
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Galbrod on October 27, 2013, 04:18:18 pm
A very interesting thought... But I thought the Heron Spear to be a Inchie artifact (i.e. laser gun) and chorae to be something that was created much later by practitioners of the Aporos.  It is of course possible that the aporos created chorae based on ancient blueprints provided by the Inchoroi.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Borric on October 27, 2013, 05:43:36 pm
It seems I was mistaken about who the custodian of the Heron spear was post Eleneöt.
I’d assumed Seswartha had secreted it away somewhere and kept it safe.
That’s why I found it surprising that he was not the person to use the weapon at Mengedda.
But according to the Wiki Anaxophus V was the custodian, and he was the one who kept it secret until its use.
http://princeofnothing.wikia.com/wiki/Anaxophus_V
Therefore it was only right that he should use it.

Hi Galbrod, I’m not suggesting it was manufactured with chorea.
Rather they were added at a later date.
Imbued was the wrong word to use?

Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on October 27, 2013, 07:35:35 pm
There is a discrepancy, neh? I feel like in the Glossary the Mandate Dreams and historicity dispute each other. But I think you are right - Seswatha doesn't know where the Spear is after Eleneot.

Also, I think we may have had a version of this discussion elsewhere. I will try and find it. Definitely, it seems that Seswatha can't use the Spear himself (why bring Nau-Cayuti along to raid the Ark?).
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Cüréthañ on October 27, 2013, 10:06:41 pm
Yeah, we have discussed this to some extent ... somewhere.  If the spear were somehow dangerous to mages, that might explain why the consult never used it themselves - even to use it up so it couldn't be wielded vs Mog.
NG must've told Seswatha where to find it when he told him about the No-god's creation, meaning the Non men left it in the Ark when they sealed it up.  Perhaps they just didn't want anything of the Inchies'. 
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: locke on October 28, 2013, 07:57:06 am
the heron spear isn't dangerous to mages, Mekeritrig used it on the glamour around the ark, fully depleted the weapon and then discarded it when it didn't succeed. 

of course it the consult recovered it, rearmed it and put chorae in it after Shae broke the glamour, then that would explain things.

Also, isn't it just terribly interesting that the Nonmen warred for millenia inside the Ark and Ses and NC snuck into the Ark, searched it, and found the HS in a matter of days.  That seems unlikely given the presumably incredible dimensions of the ship.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Callan S. on October 28, 2013, 08:06:02 am
Is not the No-God supposed to be invisible to the gods?  If so, could the visions of the White-Luck-Warrior concerning the future killing of Kellhus be seen as evidence that Kellhus is not the No-God?
Not terribly. The gods can't see the no god.

A Kellhus transforming into the no god might, to them, just seem a death.

It's possible for him to just drop off their radar (for how very omniscient they assume their radar is). And certainly preferable.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Cüréthañ on October 28, 2013, 11:38:52 am
The god's can't see Mog?  Maybe they just can't believe in him.  Sranc are 'lies made flesh' after all.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Galbrod on October 28, 2013, 06:31:20 pm
Is not the No-God supposed to be invisible to the gods?  If so, could the visions of the White-Luck-Warrior concerning the future killing of Kellhus be seen as evidence that Kellhus is not the No-God?
Not terribly. The gods can't see the no god.

A Kellhus transforming into the no god might, to them, just seem a death.

It's possible for him to just drop off their radar (for how very omniscient they assume their radar is). And certainly preferable.

It appears that the WLW/Kellhus situation is slowly building up to a moment resembling the stabbing of Moenghus the elder in TTT (but with Kellhus on the other end).
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on October 28, 2013, 07:13:56 pm
Very true Galbrod, this series seem to like the "history repeats" theme. Though Kellhus' stabbing seemed a bit less premeditated, but I'm always struck by the similarities of the WLW's visions and the "visions" granted by the probability trance.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Galbrod on October 28, 2013, 07:29:58 pm
Thus once again asking the question of the difference between (a) arriving at 'the one solution' by making a perfect rational decision based on taking all possible factors into account, and (b) arriving at 'the one solution' based on what has been preordained by the God/gods
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Borric on October 28, 2013, 07:32:03 pm
It appears that the WLW/Kellhus situation is slowly building up to a moment resembling the stabbing of Moenghus the elder in TTT (but with Kellhus on the other end).

So it would seem, but I don’t believe it.
Sorweel has the same job right? Both sent by Yatwer?
Why would you need multiple assassins if one is a dead cert?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Galbrod on October 28, 2013, 07:46:28 pm
Unless it is for one of them to perform the act and for the other to bear witness
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: locke on October 28, 2013, 08:16:22 pm
Thus once again asking the question of the difference between (a) arriving at 'the one solution' by making a perfect rational decision based on taking all possible factors into account, and
I think this is important, and part of what we will learn is that there is no difference between A and B, The Dunyain are merely deceived that they are perfect, they are merely deceived that they are rational, they are merely deceived that they make decisions, they are merely deceived that they make perfect rational decisions in the probability trance.  The probability trance is nothing more than an added complexity to ex post facto rationalizations, they use it and in using it the truth of their deceiving themselves is obfuscated (because they think they've moved beyond it).   Ultimately, the actions of the Dunyain, in the world of Earwa, are as precisely pre-ordained as the actions of the White Luck Warrior, or any other character in the mileau.

and on the meta level, the probability trance is just a tool the author uses to enhance the illusions the reader gladly participates in by agreeing to engage in the process of receiver of story.  The author has already pre-determined the outcome of the probability trance, exactly as the author has already pre-determined the outcome of all the other elements of the story, the readerly perception that the probability trance is different is nothing more than an illusion that enhances the experience.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on October 28, 2013, 09:30:04 pm
Perhaps, Kellhus is not the Aspect-Emperor of the Warrior's visions...
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Galbrod on October 28, 2013, 09:48:25 pm
Perhaps, Kellhus is not the Aspect-Emperor of the Warrior's visions...
Sure, that's possible... I've just got a feeling Bakker is going to "surprise" us in TUC with having the WLW actually doing what he has seen in his visions...
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on October 29, 2013, 01:37:20 am
Well, in my more wild imagining, Moenghus played the ascension card by which a number of his believers died for him when he himself is killed.

And cue Kellhus getting skewed in Momemn while the Ordeal dies at Dagliash.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on October 29, 2013, 02:21:00 pm
And cue Kellhus getting skewed in Momemn while the Ordeal dies at Dagliash.

That would be poetic at least. Much better than him sacrificing himself to somehow save the Ordeal at Dagliash, though if he did that then they would almost certainly fail at Golgotterath which would be deliciously ironic. Either way.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Callan S. on November 03, 2013, 01:03:58 am
The god's can't see Mog?  Maybe they just can't believe in him.
There might be alot to it within the notion of what these god thingies can and can't believe themselves.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: locke on November 04, 2013, 07:15:21 am
I'm requoting this cause I think the Augustine and Aquinas should go together, no-god and god, if you will...

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/09/22/evils-shadowy-existence-realclearreligion-9-14/
Quote
Digging deeper than many reflections on the recent film about Hannah Arendt and her book Eichmann in Jerusalem, Fr. Robert Barron reminds us of Arendt’s debt to St. Augustine:

The young Hannah Arendt had written her doctoral dissertation under the great German philosopher Karl Jaspers, and the topic of her work was the concept of love in the writings of Saint Augustine. One of the most significant intellectual breakthroughs of Augustine’s life was the insight that evil is not something substantial, but rather a type of non-being, a lack of some perfection that ought to be present. Thus, a cancer is evil in the measure that it compromises the proper functioning of a bodily organ, and a sin is evil in the measure that it represents a distortion or twisting of a rightly functioning will. Accordingly, evil does not stand over and against the good as a kind of co-equal metaphysical force, as the Manichees would have it. Rather, it is invariably parasitic upon the good, existing only as a sort of shadow.

J.R.R. Tolkien gave visual expression to this Augustinian notion in his portrayal of the Nazgul in The Lord of the Rings. Those terrible and terrifying threats, flying through the air on fearsome beasts, are revealed, once their capes and hoods are pulled away, to be precisely nothing, emptiness. And this is exactly why, to return to Arendt’s description, evil can never be radical. It can never sink down into the roots of being; it can never stand on its own; it has no integrity, no real depth or substance. To be sure, it can be extreme and it can, as Arendt’s image suggests, spread far and wide, doing enormous damage. But it can never truly be.
Andrew sullivan strikes again, this was linked and quoted on his blog today:
http://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2013/10/31/atheists_dont_get_god.html
Quote
[T]he new atheists hold that God is some being in the world, the maximum instance, if you want, of the category of “being.” But this is precisely what Aquinas and serious thinkers in all of the great theistic traditions hold that God is not. Thomas explicitly states that God is not in any genus, including that most generic genus of all, namely being. He is not one thing or individual — however supreme — among many. Rather, God is, in Aquinas’s pithy Latin phrase, esse ipsum subsistens, the sheer act of being itself.

It might be helpful here to distinguish God from the gods. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, for example, the gods were exalted, immortal, and especially powerful versions of ordinary human beings. They were, if you will, quantitatively but not qualitatively different from regular people. They were impressive denizens of the natural world, but they were not, strictly speaking, supernatural. But God is not a supreme item within the universe or alongside of it; rather, God is the sheer ocean of being from whose fullness the universe in its entirety exists.

It is absolutely right to say that the advance of the modern physical sciences has eliminated the gods. Having explored the depths of the oceans and the tops of the mountains and even the skies that surround the planet, we have not encountered any of these supreme beings. Furthermore, the myriad natural causes, uncovered by physics, chemistry, biology, etc. are more than sufficient to explain any of the phenomena within the natural realm. But the physical sciences, no matter how advanced they might become, can never eliminate God, for God is not a being within the natural order. Instead, he is the reason why there is that nexus of conditioned causes that we call nature — at all.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Callan S. on November 04, 2013, 10:00:58 am
Does he explain much how something is outside the natural order, yet he knows so very much about it anyway?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Royce on November 04, 2013, 12:58:54 pm
Quote
Does he explain much how something is outside the natural order, yet he knows so very much about it anyway?

No need to explain, call it "god" and shut up. I guess that is what he is saying.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wic on November 05, 2013, 02:51:49 am
The God-of-the-Ever-Shrinking-Gap.  Not quite the cause, but the cause of cause.

Perfectly reasonable.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on November 05, 2013, 02:42:21 pm
Lol - I like Ever-Receding-Gap for some reason...

Also, you're going to have a hard time explaining to me how Kellhus/Absolute/God of Gods/No-God could be the cause of causes. Pretty big deal philosophically, which I think you know - I look forward to your treatise ;).
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Triskele on November 18, 2013, 03:54:05 am
This is probably nothing, but I noticed that Inralatus is described a couple of times as being hunched over like an ape kind of like the description of the silhouette in the vision that Kellhus has.  And he talks about oblivion a bit...the No-God is elsewhere described as oblivion.  But like I said, probably nothing.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Callan S. on November 18, 2013, 08:06:02 am
I wonder how the bit about the consult making themselves slaves to better take over the world - how that ties in to the no god? The consult worships the no god, enough to be beholden to it somehow? It doesn't exactly seem like it would enact any commands. Though I guess being under the control of something that exerts no control efforts is still being under it's control.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on November 18, 2013, 02:44:24 pm
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.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Garet Jax on November 18, 2013, 02:54:25 pm
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.

This.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on November 18, 2013, 08:16:54 pm
Wha ????
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on November 18, 2013, 08:21:15 pm
The idea came to me again when Callan mentioned that the inchoroi are themselves slaves. its the same basic thing that the Yater-cult said - that they are slaves to their God in life and in death. So, pretty much the Inchoroi are creating their own "god", turning the world into a huge topos, thus allow the outside to leak through, but since there is already a "god" who has dominion over it, the 100 will be shut out...
Most of these thoughts have been stated elsewhere. Maybe on that thread about the Void/Outside.

Was that your questions?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on November 18, 2013, 08:56:21 pm
Yeap. Thank you.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on December 06, 2013, 03:20:50 am
Looking at the end of TTT, just before Cnaiur kills Moenghus.
Quote
"Nayu … You have returned to me ...."
...
“Just as I knew you would.”
This is Moenghus speaking. Sounds a lot like The Prophesy. Nayu sounds a lot like Celmomas' son's name.

Quote
Suddenly Cnaiür could feel it: the miles of earth heaped above them, the clawing inversion of ground. He had come too far. He had crawled too deep.
Italics from text.
Wonder why the italics. Again the emphasis on ground, and warning those that would dig too deep...

Quote
His eyes leaden with ardour, he murmured, “I wander trackless ground.” Moënghus gasped, jerked, and spasmed as Cnaiür rolled the Chorae across his cheek. White light flared from his gouged sockets. For an instant, Cnaiür thought, it seemed the God watched him through a man’s skull.
What do you see?
But then his lover fell away, burning as he must, such was the force of what had possessed them.
Italics from text.
Its basically quoting the No-God...
Quote
One last thought too many … See! See! He cackled with grief.
The anguished cries of a crazy man pushed too far, or the beginning stages of the No-God being born again?

Crackpot: The Consult have been grooming Cnaiur to become the next No-God, this was just one more cog in the wheel.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Triskele on December 07, 2013, 04:27:36 pm
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.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Cüréthañ on December 07, 2013, 11:48:55 pm
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.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Callan S. on December 07, 2013, 11:50:09 pm
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.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on December 07, 2013, 11:53:45 pm
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.


Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: locke on December 09, 2013, 08:30:48 am
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.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: dragharrow on December 09, 2013, 12:31:21 pm
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?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Meyna on December 09, 2013, 12:57:03 pm
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!
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: dragharrow on December 09, 2013, 03:51:58 pm
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.

Quote
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:

Quote
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.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on December 09, 2013, 03:57:23 pm
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? (http://second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=819.0), 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?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: dragharrow on December 09, 2013, 04:05:47 pm
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.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on December 09, 2013, 04:27:39 pm
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.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Ishammael on December 09, 2013, 06:08:18 pm
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.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Wilshire on December 09, 2013, 06:51:28 pm
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.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: dragharrow on December 09, 2013, 09:52:13 pm
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.

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

Quote
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.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Cüréthañ on December 09, 2013, 10:35:37 pm
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?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: dragharrow on December 09, 2013, 11:04:56 pm
Can you refresh my memory on that?

It would make sense for him to eat souls. Souls are an illusion and I'm painting him as the breaker of illusions. They're also a connection to the outside and he seals the way so he could be cutting the tether.

As for the topoi I don't know. Are you deriving that from mengedda?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Cüréthañ on December 10, 2013, 12:25:16 am
Skafra mentions Mog enjoying the taste of Celmomas' soul in one of the dreams.  And the whole blocking new births thing seems related.

Yeh, the generating topoi thing is a bit of an assumption drawn from Mengeda and my percieved similarity of being near him/ feeling his presence on the horizon with the feeling the skin eaters get in Cil Aujis.  Don't worry too much about that.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on December 10, 2013, 12:59:58 pm
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.

I just quoted it to Who (or what) created Eärwa? (http://second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=819.30).

Good luck on finals, dragharrow. I have such a slack semester right now and, my last one, next semester is so heavy.

Has anyone read the Ender's Game books by Orson Scott Card?

I've mentioned elsewhere that Speaker for the Dead may be my all-time favorite science fiction book. Xenocide and the event in question were actually the point where I lost touch with Card's vision and simply read on because I'd come so far. Though, the shadow series made me love again... for a time. I really liked Han Qing-jao, though.

Quote
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.

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.

Lol... Gall, Card. Did'ja have to :(?

To be fair, I think certain of Card's books are very good.

Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Shadow of the Hegemon, certain Alvin Maker books, and, definitively, his best collection of work, in my mind: Maps in a Mirror, one of his short story anthologies.

dragharrow, a couple select points, as I personally lack the evidence to support or refute you, and what you are writing reads like it might be onto some cruxes.

Sorcery is like Wittgenstein's conception of language games except it goes beyond language ... Science, philosophy, religion and common sense are all the same. They are just sets of rules for the games we play with truth.

+1

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.

Maybe. We're pretty tentative about "good" around here. And Trisk and I are big on the Cishaurim being Redeemed as opposed to Damned. Plus, Ajokli's Narindar suggests that the sighted are, in fact, the blind.

Quote
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.

That was Curethan and I tossing that around ;).

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.

I think, instead, that it's our experience of those things wouldn't exist as we perceive them to now, not that they don't still serve some kind of function ulterior to what we perceive them to achieve.

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.

I'm not sure if you've read Neuropath or not but... The No-God's a Neil in a Box?

Skafra mentions Mog enjoying the taste of Celmomas' soul in one of the dreams.  And the whole blocking new births thing seems related.

Yeh, the generating topoi thing is a bit of an assumption drawn from Mengeda and my percieved similarity of being near him/ feeling his presence on the horizon with the feeling the skin eaters get in Cil Aujis.  Don't worry too much about that.

"My lord hath tasted thy King's passing and He saith... it is done."

One of my favorite lines in the whole series. I often quote it in completely inappropriate circumstances.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Francis Buck on December 10, 2013, 08:31:20 pm
I always interpreted the topoi at Mengedda being a result of all the souls the No-God had swallowed being violently expelled all at once, whereas the whole "everyone could sense him on the horizon" was due to their souls almost literally being tugged at by the No-God's soul-capturing mechanism.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: dragharrow on December 11, 2013, 01:00:07 am
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.
Maybe. We're pretty tentative about "good" around here. And Trisk and I are big on the Cishaurim being Redeemed as opposed to Damned. Plus, Ajokli's Narindar suggests that the sighted are, in fact, the blind.

Oh man, not the way I meant good. I meant like skilled at or whatever. Those seem to be factors that enable one to exert the power deeply, or delicately, or strongly.

Personally I completely agree on the Cishaurim front. Fits with the general constructiveness of blindness that I've been selling.  I wish I had the emotional depth to bear the water.

I'm not sure if you've read Neuropath or not but... The No-God's a Neil in a Box?

I have read it and yeah, they're at least of a similar order.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Cüréthañ on December 11, 2013, 01:41:53 am
Don't forget that at Mengedda the consult had almost achieved their goal.  Presumably, reducing the population to 144k. 

Thus, the no-god was about to enact his purpose and the topos might have been formed as a part of that process rather than his demise.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on December 11, 2013, 01:32:18 pm
I meant like skilled at or whatever. Those seem to be factors that enable one to exert the power deeply, or delicately, or strongly.

Hm. Thank you for clarifying.

Personally I completely agree on the Cishaurim front. Fits with the general constructiveness of blindness that I've been selling.  I wish I had the emotional depth to bear the water.

You do, dragharrow... you have only to pluck thine gaze from this world and you shall feel the water swell within you ;).

I'm not sure if you've read Neuropath or not but... The No-God's a Neil in a Box?

I have read it and yeah, they're at least of a similar order.

Hm.

Much thinking, yes.

Quote
I always interpreted the topoi at Mengedda being a result of all the souls the No-God had swallowed being violently expelled all at once, whereas the whole "everyone could sense him on the horizon" was due to their souls almost literally being tugged at by the No-God's soul-capturing mechanism.

Don't forget that at Mengedda the consult had almost achieved their goal.  Presumably, reducing the population to 144k. 

Thus, the no-god was about to enact his purpose and the topos might have been formed as a part of that process rather than his demise.

I dislike very much giving ammunition an enemy camp but... the ash, boys? The ash of souls ;).
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on December 11, 2013, 07:01:20 pm
dragharrow, Ishammael asked if I'd bridge the gap between the two of you after posted the questions below in Who (or what) created Eärwa? (http://second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=819.30) in response to your post (http://second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=824.msg11557#msg11557) that I moved there.

I stand entirely convinced by this argument.

So, essentially is seems like you are saying that the No-God is a sacrifice.  His torment of all-knowing, or all-self knowing, is what allows the people of Earwa to avoid the Damnation imparted upon them by the Hundred.

Does the No-God know this? If so, would that mean that he accepts the need for his existence and therefore becomes what some would argue to be the very epitome of "Good"?  If he he knows this but doesn't accept it, would he have said "Thank you" after being "killed" by the Heron Spear?  I don't think he truely understands or believes this, otherwise his questions wouldn't be asked.

So what would drive the need for death and war associated with the No-God's arrival, other than the hypothetical misunderstanding of the people of Earwa?  In other words, why wouldn't the Consult be able to create the No-God quietly in their basement after commiting the required torture, sacrifice, etc, and then hang out and party while the rest of Earwa is unaware of the existence?  I assume that the answer to this would be that the No-God's arrival would inevitably be tied to the inability for new children to be born, or other similar terrible consequences.  If that is the case, then I think we would need to explore why those consequences exist.  For example, if children are no longer born due to the presence of the No-God, does that mean the children are illusions of the Hundred or of their parents, which eventually grow into their own individual Truths capable of extending their Truth unto others?
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Triskele on December 12, 2013, 02:26:22 am
I just have to say that when Kellhus asks "What is the No-God...what are the possibilities you've considered" of Moenghus and we get nothing, it quite agonizing.  At least to this reader.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Cüréthañ on December 12, 2013, 04:26:31 am
I just have to say that when Kellhus asks "What is the No-God...what are the possibilities you've considered" of Moenghus and we get nothing, it quite agonizing.  At least to this reader.
+1 trauma point.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on December 12, 2013, 12:17:49 pm
Lol - I honestly don't know I ever expected Moenghus to be as opposed to the No-God as he seemed to be when Kellhus finds him. Like, as much as Kellhus just flat-out says Moenghus will betray humankind, Moenghus seemed pretty organized against the Consult. There are probably easier ways to fuck with the Three-Seas and prep-it for the Consult as an anonymous Dunyain than by putting yourself at human mercy (by always playing the Prophet Card, which Kellhus did and thought his Father would do to replace him)...

And then Kellhus does exactly what he says his Father would to a point. We're just waiting to see if Kellhus has organized some... pre-meditated disasters. You know, like Irsulor.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Triskele on December 13, 2013, 02:45:20 am
So it was pointed out somewhere by Wilshire I believe that Cnaiur has a What do you see? thought when Moenhus burns away. 

Has it been pointed out that Cnaiur also has a What do you see? inner-monologue thought at least twice with respect to Kellhus in TDTCB?  I noticed that while perusing a reread.  Not sure what to make of it, but it seems potentially significant. 
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Cüréthañ on December 13, 2013, 03:50:28 am
As I remember it "What do you see?" is spouted by almost every character at least once in PoN.  I simply took it as a thematic motif.  Like swirly death in AE.
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: Madness on December 13, 2013, 12:41:22 pm
As I remember it "What do you see?" is spouted by almost every character at least once in PoN.  I simply took it as a thematic motif.  Like swirly death in AE.

+1 - mostly in explicit self-reflection by characters in interacting with Kellhus but it wasn't limited to that. Often it was embedded directly in the text, rather than being capitalized, bolded, or italicized and many times it seemed general shorthand for someone thinking about another's, inaccessible, thoughts and judgements. The inner unseen half of Kellhus' "we are two people" metaphor to Esmenet...
Title: Re: What is the No God?
Post by: locke on December 13, 2013, 08:10:30 pm
Loving your thoughts, dragharrow, that's an incredibly compelling take on the metaphysics.  Speaking of which, what do you think of the metaphysics of the mark?  I've sometimes thought the Mark is a sort of Swazond-of-the-soul.  But where a swazond is a physical mark of the physical crime of murdering another's body, the Mark is a metaphysical mark of the metaphysical crime of murdering the world.  That's why it's sometimes called the blood of the onta, the mark is literally being marked with the bloody crimes your sorcery has wreaked against the world.