[Wilshire]

Thoughts dredged from the Slog.
Upon further reflection, I guess I don't get it.

"That which comes before determines that which comes after."

Seems simple enough, and makes logical sense. Cause, effect. Do something, there is a reaction. In reverse, any observed reaction should be able to be followed back to a cause. To its origin.
Maybe it says a little something about free will, and freedom, too. You don't determine your actions, rather the chain of events preceding any action taken determined it.

My real confusion comes from the reverse of the statement.

"That which comes after determines that which comes before"

Sorcery if oft cited as such an event. Can someone explain why? The schoolmen using sorcery still fall into that circuit of before and after, don't they?
If you know a person is a schoolmen, and know the  events leading up to a situation just before the dispensation of sorcery, wouldn't you, or at least a Dunayin, be able to surmise that said schoolmen would Sing?

How is the after - sorcery - in fact the before? How can the reaction, an event, be its own cause?

[MSJ]

"That which comes after determines that which comes before"

I've been thinking on this also. I forget who, but someone said the TSTSNBN could be Kellhus turning into the NO-God and going back to the First Apocalypse. Wouldnt that make the above statement true? It confuses the hell out of me also. And, I pray there is no time travel.

[Bolivar]

I don't remember it being applied to sorcery, thought it was more prophecy. The outcome of something being known and events acting accordingly - the White Luck Warrior, or the Men of the Tusk thinking their victory was inevitable.

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[MSJ]

I don't remember it being applied to sorcery, thought it was more prophecy. The outcome of something being known and events acting accordingly - the White Luck Warrior, or the Men of the Tusk thinking their victory was inevitable.

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Ahhhh, that makes sense Bolivar. I don't believe it was specifically meant to be tied to sorcery. Though it was in the beginning of one of the WLW chapters of i recall correctly. So yeah, that's makes perfect sense.

ETA: let me explain a little better. It was in WLW the book. But, I meant specifically one of his chapters.

[Bolivar]

Yeah there's that "what comes after determines what comes before - in this world." Also after the Battle of Mengedda, Kellhus gets freaked out because of the fake prophecy he made to Saubon, thinking it impossible, that what comes after could not determine what comes before. He brings it up and reflects on it again with Moenghus in TTT.

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[Wilshire]

Doesn't Kellhus muse briefly in TDTCB about the magic from Mek and it violating the Principle? I think before be learns sorcery he rails against its impossibility.

In reference to prophesy, specifically false ones, what makes it any different than just normal Kellhus manipulations? How is telling Saubon to punish the Knights any different than anything else we has done?

Regarding TRUE prophesy, I can see that now. If you've got a person who 'sees' the future and then tells people how the future turns out, that is the future event 'coming before'.

Those two examples are so similar though. In the end, you just have a person convincing people to act accordingly. Whether the prophesy is true or not isn't particularly relevant if people believe equally (false or true) that it will come to pass.
The real difference is that if people don't believe in the False prophesy, then it won't happen, but not so with the True. A true prophesy would come to pass regardless of who believes it. "It has already happened", basically.

[H]

Well, on Prophecy I had made this thread.

[Aural]

I think in the beginning he just goes on about sorcery being a superstition. As bolivar said he argues with Moë about the principle and thinks that prophecies cannot be true because what comes after cannot determine what came before. This is after he had used sorcery of course.

I don't see how sorcery  negates the principle.

[Bolivar]

The reason he was so freaked out about Mengedda was because the prophecy had been fulfilled because he had made it.

At first he just thought he was making a wager, if Saubon wins, then that's one more Great Name endeared to him. But then he learns Saubon would have retreated or been annihilated were it not for the charge of the Shrial Knights against the Cisaurum. Kellhus told him to make sure they were punished and they won the battle as a consequence of Kellhus' condition.

As a tangent, Iyokus notes to Eleazarus that none of the Fanim captives knew who the Cishaurum present were. Possibly Moe calculated even that event?

In the words of (I believe) MSJ: 30 years, my friends.

I'll have to look into the prologue battle.



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[Wilshire]

But its still not a violation of the Principle, whether or not he got the outcome he wanted. In order for it to actually violate the Principle would be if he in fact had a real vision about the future and then caused it to happen.
 
Maybe this is the first point where he 'goes mad'. He starts to believe that he can actually prophesy things.

[themerchant]

It is also the bones coming out the ground at Mengedda . It's when he is thinking about the more power someone has the more danger they see, a proverb he heard from Akka.

[Wilshire]

The bones I understand even less. And, presumably, the eye-heart in Cil'Aujas, would likewise be another example of a Violation.

Why is it not following before/after? A past event - No-God's death ,atrocities forming Topoi, etc - caused the bones/heart/etc to manifest. Its not like bones manifesting caused the No-God to be killed, or the eye-heart thing caused the atrocities that lead to the topoi. Still seems like before->after to me.