The Second Apocalypse
Earwa => The Aspect-Emperor => The Unholy Consult => Topic started by: Elju on July 18, 2017, 05:21:41 pm
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First time poster, long time reader.
I've seen some people express disappointment that the Inchoroi were vanquished so easily by the Dunyain.
That's understandable, given that they were set up as the books primary antagonists, but isn't there evidence in TUC that the Inchoroi we've been exposed to were just one small segment of the population? The warrior Inchoroi, we're told, acted at the behest of the Ark.
Isn't it conceivable that in future books we'll meet representatives from the upper classes of Inchoroi society? This seems especially likely if the No-God is successful in drastically reducing the number of souls in Earwa.
Perhaps the Ark's creators are extinct or they died along with the Ark, but it also seems possible that the Ark was sent out on a mission by a group of ruler Inchoroi. Since the Earwa team was unsuccessful, there was no reason for them to come to Erwa. Now that the Great Ordeal has been overcome, the Nonmen are virtually destroyed, and the sorcerous might of humans has been annihilated these upper-caste Inchoroi may come to claim this world as theirs.
While Aurang and Aurax were manipulated into submission within a short period of time, there's no reason to think that the intellectual wing of Inchoroi society would be so easily subdued.
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Added the TUC Spoiler tag for your topic.
Carry on.
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Oops. Sorry about that! I've been away and wasn't aware they were still being used.
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Oops. Sorry about that! I've been away and wasn't aware they were still being used.
Not a problem, we are still using them in topic titles only.
As for the topic itself, I don't think that those who made the Ark, aka the Progenitors, would really be all that analogous to the Inchoroi themselves, except in pretty superficial ways. The Inchoroi are just their manufactured servents, just like Sranc are to Inchoroi.
In actuality, I think the Inchoroi we see, which is basically only Aurang, is also a distorted and atypical Inchoroi of even the few who were on Eärwa. Aurang purposely designed himself, or was designed by Aurax, et al. to be what we see. Arkfall era Inchoroi were much different, probably typified by how Sil and early-day Aurang are described, physical brutes.
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Welcome to the Second Apocalypse, Elju.
Thanks for registering with an obvious username ;).
On topic, the Inchoroi we see, as per Bakker's second half of his WLW interview (http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.ca/2011/07/r-scott-bakker-interview-part-2.html), are of the last surviving six since "species-wide grafts" take the rest.
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That's true H, the Progenitors wouldn't likely be anything like the Inchoroi, but does that rule out them showing up in later books? If they crafted the Ark and maybe the warrior Inchoroi we've seen, don't know we know at least that they're invested in interstellar travel?
And thanks Madness, I hadn't seen that interview. Same question though: all the Inchoroi on Earwa may be dead, but that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't an off-world contingent of Inchoroi creators out there somewhere, right?
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That's true H, the Progenitors wouldn't likely be anything like the Inchoroi, but does that rule out them showing up in later books? If they crafted the Ark and maybe the warrior Inchoroi we've seen, don't know we know at least that they're invested in interstellar travel?
And thanks Madness, I hadn't seen that interview. Same question though: all the Inchoroi on Earwa may be dead, but that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't an off-world contingent of Inchoroi creators out there somewhere, right?
Nothing precludes any of that, unless my speculation in the other thread about the Ark itself is true and the Progenetor's souls are what was originally inside the No-God apparatus and were the intelligence that sustained the Ark.
However, in any case, what comes next is a more "human" story, I'd think. The Inchoroi are gone, the Nonmen are basically gone, and humans are left to try to pick up the pieces.
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No worries, Elju. Also, Part 1 (http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.ca/2011/06/new-r-scott-bakker-interview-part-1.html) and the Interviews & Articles (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=34.0) thread.
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The Progenitors will be really old. The Inchoroi are ancient and they've presumably been travelling very fast, so relative to the inchoroi much more time has passed for the progenitors, unless they're also traveling really fast, in some sort of gravity well etc.
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Interesting point about the Progenitors' age! There's a good chance H is right and they died along with the Ark, but if they're capable of that sort of technology they may have a backup plan.
I like the idea that the subsequent stories will be more human, but I think one reason these books have worked so well is that they articulate, in a compelling way, the myriad intersections of the human and non-human. It's hard to imagine this world without that.
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The Pole star (nail of heaven) might be some sort of portal.
I've always wondered if the no-god is felt universally or just on Earwa.
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Interesting point about the Progenitors' age! There's a good chance H is right and they died along with the Ark, but if they're capable of that sort of technology they may have a backup plan.
I like the idea that the subsequent stories will be more human, but I think one reason these books have worked so well is that they articulate, in a compelling way, the myriad intersections of the human and non-human. It's hard to imagine this world without that.
I don't think there will be a lack of Sranc or Bashrags though. And, there are still some number from Wracu around, I can't recall if Skuthula died, but Wutteät is still someplace. I'd have to find and consult my list, but there are a couple more I believe that are still unaccounted for.
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Wutteat doesn't answer to them though. Loads of sranc and bashrag west of the arc in those mountains. Be other dragons about surely. even if Skuthula is dead.
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Wutteat doesn't answer to them though. Loads of sranc and bashrag west of the arc in those mountains. Be other dragons about surely. even if Skuthula is dead.
That is true, he claims he isn't commanded by the No-God, but his salvation is the same as the Inchoroi's though, so he would probably fall in line with the No-God's objective.
I went back and dug up my list:
Ghoset - ?
Skafra, Tyrant of Cloud and Mountain - Killed by Seswatha at Mengedda in 2155.
Skogma - "thought destroyed during the Cûno-Inchoroi Wars."
Skuthula, the Black - "one of the few Dragons known to have survived the Apocalypse."
Tanhafut, the Red - Killed by Nau-Cayûti at the Battle of Ossirish.
Wutteät, the Black, the Terrible, the Black-and-Golden, Father of Dragons - Still alive, somewhere near Sauglish.
I believe this is a list of all the Wracu we know of. Only Ghoset's fate is completely unknown. Which dragon is dead at the bottom of the Black Halls is a mystery though.
Since we know know that Skuthula is alive, that means the chances are good that Ghoset is the dead one in the Black Halls. We do learn of one more Wracu, Murathaur, the Silver, the Dragon of Knives (slain by Cilcûliccas, Lord of Swans) but that doesn't change anything.
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My biggest crackpot (which TUC did not shatter) is that:
1. Earwa's timeline is cyclical -- I definitely think this is true in a soft sense, but I've suspected for a while that it may quite literally be perfectly cyclical, meaning not just similar events but the SAME events occur over and over, for all eternity. The Apocalypse(s) simply mark "transition" periods.
2. That the Inchoroi are thus humans from the "future"...or the past, depending on how you look at it. Only now I would amend that the Fathers of the Inchoroi weren't just humans -- they were Dunyain.
3. If the above two things are true (which is a big "if"), then I believe ALL the races are simply derivatives of humanity, even Wracu. Furthermore, certain characters (such as Aurang and Aurax, or the dragons) may actually be characters we know of from the series already...which has all kinds of crazy connotations.
I actually have a bunch of reasons supporting this, but it's still a shot in the dark(ness that comes before). I intend to explore it and other high-level metaphysical stuff in the series in a post I've been working on for quite a while, but was waiting for TUC's release -- along with enough free time to actually make a coherent post out of all my notes.
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I like this theory Meta-Mod. I was hoping that the Inchoroi would turn out to be either Dunyain from the future or another branch of Dunyain who had progressed along a different path than the Dunyain of Earwa. I thought that maybe being confronted by the Inchoroi's relationship with the Dunyain would cause Kellhus to reconsider some of his views. Obviously, most of that is out the window now, but it does seem possible that there's a connection between the native humans of Earwa and the Inchoroi race (or the race that created them).
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I think the book makes it pretty clear that Aurax is the only Inchoroi left. At least on this world. Maybe there are other Arks flying around elsewhere.
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I actually feel like Aurang may have survived. Aurax's lamentations and the offscreen way he died suggests that there may be more plot there.
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I actually feel like Aurang may have survived. Aurax's lamentations and the offscreen way he died suggests that there may be more plot there.
Sometimes the dead bounce ;) . In this case, maybe the mostly-dead bounces on a squishy pile of sranc.
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He was a sorcerer, he might have been able to start skywalking before he reached splatter velocity.
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He was a sorcerer, he might have been able to start skywalking before he reached splatter velocity.
This is something I've have thought of in the past - yeah I know schoolmen can't fly, but certainly a little levitation could help one survive an otherwise fatal fall.
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I mean, Titurga survived a very long fall before they dropped stuff on him.
Now, Aurang had his wings cut off, and was bleeding out, but his biology is weird. Provided he wasn't stabbed before being tossed over the side I wouldn't write him off just yet.
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If that's the case, maybe the Mutilated will build him a better Synthese!
Battle-Synthese?
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I'm just surprised that no one got stabbed.
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My biggest crackpot (which TUC did not shatter) is that:
1. Earwa's timeline is cyclical -- I definitely think this is true in a soft sense, but I've suspected for a while that it may quite literally be perfectly cyclical, meaning not just similar events but the SAME events occur over and over, for all eternity. The Apocalypse(s) simply mark "transition" periods.
2. That the Inchoroi are thus humans from the "future"...or the past, depending on how you look at it. Only now I would amend that the Fathers of the Inchoroi weren't just humans -- they were Dunyain.
3. If the above two things are true (which is a big "if"), then I believe ALL the races are simply derivatives of humanity, even Wracu. Furthermore, certain characters (such as Aurang and Aurax, or the dragons) may actually be characters we know of from the series already...which has all kinds of crazy connotations.
I actually have a bunch of reasons supporting this, but it's still a shot in the dark(ness that comes before). I intend to explore it and other high-level metaphysical stuff in the series in a post I've been working on for quite a while, but was waiting for TUC's release -- along with enough free time to actually make a coherent post out of all my notes.
I like this, bravo sir.
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Bakker is not going to end the next trilogy on a happy note.
Esmenet delivers the Heron-Hug to the No-God, ending that threat. Whew! Thank the Gods! We think its over, finally, the good guys win... we can all be happy now.
All the sudden the Nail of Heaven flares. Oh shit! thats not a star! its a jumpgate !
Ten thousand Inchoroi arks emerge and land on the planet. Game over man, game over.
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I assume the Progenitors are probably very old and very far away with no way to update themselves on the current situation. The Ark(Arks?) are more of a fire and forget thing I'd think, while they concentrate on not dying so they don't get damned.
I do differ from a lot of you on the nature of the Inchoroi though I think. They're described as a "warrior-caste". This to me suggests that while they're artificial, they're derived from Progenitor stock. And to be fair, if the Progenitor have thrown themselves as headlong into transhumanism as has been suggested, aren't they all fairly artificial, by that metric? So rather than be purely analogous to Sranc, I'd say Inchoroi are more just designer-baby soldiers. Though given how much they alter themselves they may be quite different from the original product.
I also suspect the Progenitors themselves, while not as single mindedly obsessed with the carnal as the Inchoroi, are probably still pretty perverse by our standards. I mean, isn't that part of the point? The things people would do to satisfy their hungers if given these options?
I think the book makes it pretty clear that Aurax is the only Inchoroi left. At least on this world. Maybe there are other Arks flying around elsewhere.
I was going to post this. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Progenitors sent many ships out into the void to find the Promised World that could end their damnation.
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I'm just surprised that no one got stabbed.
Lol.
Bakker is not going to end the next trilogy on a happy note.
I've always wondered what Bakker's readerly catharsis would look like. I think we probably got a taste with TUC.
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Yeah, I haven't gotten there yet in the canon artifact but it seems like the story of the Progenitors are Bakker's Human Parable regarding our future, give or take actual Damnation.
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Did we ever find out what the point of a synthese is or why aurang had to use one and what ever happened to the synthese?
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So does shutting the Outside off in Earwa somehow shut it off for the entire universe? Why is that? I do think it's reasonable to assume that because there is sorcery on Earwa that the border between it and the Outside are more porous, therefore making salvation more likely somehow.
I was kinda disappointed the Progenitors are pretty much ultra-hedonistic Eldar who got wind of Slaanesh before the shit hit the fan and made the Inchoroi as essentially Dark Eldar shock troops
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The way I see it, the Progenitors are not sitting somewhere far away, rather, the Ark and its inhabitants are what became of them, or at least some of them.
So does shutting the Outside off in Earwa somehow shut it off for the entire universe? Why is that? I do think it's reasonable to assume that because there is sorcery on Earwa that the border between it and the Outside are more porous, therefore making salvation more likely somehow.
I was kinda disappointed the Progenitors are pretty much ultra-hedonistic Eldar who got wind of Slaanesh before the shit hit the fan and made the Inchoroi as essentially Dark Eldar shock troops
Nah. If anything, they are more like the Necrons (before the sissification), trying to shut the world from the Warp. Anyway, 40k comparisons suck.
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The way I see it, the Progenitors are not sitting somewhere far away, rather, the Ark and its inhabitants are what became of them, or at least some of them.
Since we don't know for sure, I very much like both theories.
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That would kind of make the Progenitors backstory redundant since that's already what we thought about the Inchoroi before this book, I thought?
Did we ever find out what the point of a synthese is or why aurang had to use one and what ever happened to the synthese?
It's a soul housing tekne construct. It's just a lot stealthier than a 10 foot tall albino rape monster. I used to think that maybe Aurang's body wasn't very functional these days but Aspect Emperor stuff proved that wrong.
So does shutting the Outside off in Earwa somehow shut it off for the entire universe? Why is that? I do think it's reasonable to assume that because there is sorcery on Earwa that the border between it and the Outside are more porous, therefore making salvation more likely somehow.
I was kinda disappointed the Progenitors are pretty much ultra-hedonistic Eldar who got wind of Slaanesh before the shit hit the fan and made the Inchoroi as essentially Dark Eldar shock troops
That was kind of the Inchoroi's backstory anyway. But I think the progenitor revelation kind of emphasizes more "they reached too far" over "holy shit I can make my tentacle hentai real thank you Tekne, god is dead".
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Yeah it's kinda weak the Inchoroi are just extra-rapey versions of the already-rapey Progenitors.
I also kinda wish Bakker would distance himself a bit from the doom and gloom nihilist circlejerk blogosphere (like guys like Alien Ecologies, marrone dude with the Landian screeds on nothingness and the grotesque and yadda yadda yadda take a walk outside my bruh) since while the issues he wrestles with are fascinating I'm pretty sure society wouldn't collapse over an orgasm button/novel ways to experience an orgasm. It's an understandable concern for a sex-obsessed culture but it'd get weird looks from members of a culture that don't think the human condition begins and ends with a few spurts of white stuff.
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To be fair society didn't collapse for the Progenitors, did it? They were able to build that huge Ark to try and fix things. Society changed, but it didn't collapse. And even then, a lot of the problem was discovering they lived in a universe with objective morality. Which may or may not be the case in the real world.
I solve the other problem by never reading Bakker's blog.
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Anyway, 40k comparisons suck.
I don't know about that. Duskweaver seems to have made many an apt analogy of the years - though my understanding of 40k is limited to Dawn of War and Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series.
I also kinda wish Bakker would distance himself a bit from the doom and gloom nihilist circlejerk blogosphere (like guys like Alien Ecologies, marrone dude with the Landian screeds on nothingness and the grotesque and yadda yadda yadda take a walk outside my bruh) since while the issues he wrestles with are fascinating I'm pretty sure society wouldn't collapse over an orgasm button/novel ways to experience an orgasm. It's an understandable concern for a sex-obsessed culture but it'd get weird looks from members of a culture that don't think the human condition begins and ends with a few spurts of white stuff.
I really don't pretend to care or understand Bakker's overarching posits regarding "the human condition" but I've known enough addicts in my life to know that many people are inherently lazy and would gladly do the Compulsive Rat Cocaine dance until their mortal husk kicks the can.
All that much easier when wired up a la Neuropath.
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Those people wouldn't build a world-ship full of living weapons though.
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They might if they discovered Damnation?
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I doubt they'd have the will to leave their happy button.
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I swear they did studies that proved most people would only press the button after feeling they've earned it, and that we seek more complex fulfillment than simply press button -> cream in pantaloons
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Yeah it's kinda weak the Inchoroi are just extra-rapey versions of the already-rapey Progenitors.
Is there anything that says the progenitors are rapey? All i remember is that they exist, I dont think anything about them is explained. Glad to be proven wrong, but afaik we have no indication of anything about them other then they come from space and are damned. As is pointed out thoroughly in the books it doesnt take much to be damned. Born in the wrong place? Damned.
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I swear they did studies that proved most people would only press the button after feeling they've earned it, and that we seek more complex fulfillment than simply press button -> cream in pantaloons
I don't know anything about those studies but I'd be willing to bet you'd see the standards for "I've earned it" steadily drop over time. Of course to really do the test you'd have to be using opiates or heroin or something since pleasure is a lot more complex than just hooking up electrodes near a mythical "pleasure center". At least in humans. And I doubt they did that.
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Yeah it's kinda weak the Inchoroi are just extra-rapey versions of the already-rapey Progenitors.
Is there anything that says the progenitors are rapey? All i remember is that they exist, I dont think anything about them is explained. Glad to be proven wrong, but afaik we have no indication of anything about them other then they come from space and are damned. As is pointed out thoroughly in the books it doesnt take much to be damned. Born in the wrong place? Damned.
There's a part where the Mutilated say something like the more advanced they became, the less moral they also became.
I don't know about that. Duskweaver seems to have made many an apt analogy of the years - though my understanding of 40k is limited to Dawn of War and Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series.
Yeah it probably isn't that bad. 40k just triggers me because there's so much... I don't know, cheese. They changed the Necrons from being ancient slaves to dark
(physical) Gods to being butthurt emos in robo-suits. That's impossible to forgive. There's a lot of similarities between the Warp and the Outside though.
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In making 40k analogies, it's best to stay away from the more recent iterations of the lore, as in many ways 40k has become a third-rate fanfic of itself.
The only comparisons worth making are to the early (mid 80s to early 90s) stuff, when the nature of the Warp, the Chaos Gods and the God-Emperor of Mankind were first being laid down in print. My understanding is that Bakker was into D&D in a big way in the mid-late 80s, which means he was probably reading White Dwarf magazine, at least sporadically, just at the time that those aspects of the 40k lore were being excerpted there from the Realms of Chaos books.
Anyway, about the rats thing. Later experiments showed that rats only get hopelessly addicted if they're stressed to begin with (e.g. from being kept in a tiny fucking cage with no stimuli). Rats kept in an 'enriched' environment will still give themselves cocaine hits occasionally, but they don't show the classical addiction symptoms of just sitting there dosing themselves continuously to the exclusion of all else. Humans seem to show the same dichotomy. Poor, stressed, miserable folks get addicted really easily. As do rich but tormented types (e.g. celebrity introverts). But lots of affluent and not-particularly-stressed-out people do illegal drugs without any real ill-effects. They're not as newsworthy as the celeb overdose-suicides, and they don't usually come to the attentions of law-enforcement, of course, so you seldom hear about them.
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There is a big dif between illegal drugs and wireheading tho. Like, the whole 'we seek complicated fulfillment...' there's a wire for that. You can push 'kids finally out the door and going off to college', or a spritz of 'mother is walking again'. Can't enjoy it because you know it is fake? There's a wire for that. Now you are past that hangup!
The Progenitors culture never stood a chance. Once you figure out that people are just a bunch of competing causes, and that brain manipulation can change that, it is pretty much all over for any coherent notions of the self. I imagine they'd have lazed away forever if they hadn't discovered Damnation.
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Can't enjoy it because you know it is fake? There's a wire for that. Now you are past that hangup!
By that point, though, the Progenitors would be in full-on 'in the Matrix' mode. At that point, there's no incentive to start mucking about with investigating the soul or what happens after you die. Whoever invented the Inverse Fire was clearly still capable of having motivation and curiosity. And of being profoundly shocked by the subsequent discovery.
Once you figure out that people are just a bunch of competing causes, and that brain manipulation can change that, it is pretty much all over for any coherent notions of the self. I imagine they'd have lazed away forever if they hadn't discovered Damnation.
And yet, a guy called Siddhārtha Gautama figured that out some two and a half millennia ago in our world. Five hundred million people follow his teachings in one form or another today. They are not notably more lazy, hedonistic or evil than anyone else. Recognising that the self is an illusion is not automatically the death of motivation or morality.
What happened to the Progenitors is one possible result of such a realisation going species-wide, but not the automatic, inevitable result.
Bakker is a smart guy. But he's still blinded to a degree by the frame of his own culture. In the West (especially in the Anglosphere), we tend to view all morality, all meaning, as flowing from our belief in the self and in free will. For the Western mind, discovering that those concepts are mere illusions can be shattering. But there's a whole chunk of humanity for whom meaning and morality don't depend on a belief in the self and in free will, for whom those things have already been accepted as illusory.
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Duskweaver's right on the money. Shit, the Buddhist concept of karmic seeds "watered" by our actions directly foreshadows neuroplasticity. Brain science is just confirming what mystics and ascetics have known for millennia, which is why all this moaning and chest beating over the void of the subject or whatever is just feels so hackneyed and naive, my man it's been known for thousands of years that we are arbitrary aggregates of stuff and your identity is really only the name for your taking an ultimately contingent arrangement of atoms as somehow being your "true" self.
The death of (what we take to be) the self opens up the space for true freedom and is the first step on the path to true spirituality and metaphysics. Bakker and co. are obsessed with poring over the details of the problem, sooner or later you gotta open a window.
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your identity is really only the name for your taking an ultimately contingent arrangement of atoms as somehow being your "true" self.
That arrangement of atoms gives you the basic ability to take something as something. I feel that very different views can be postulated on what's a cause and what's an effect here.
Even if your intentionality is completely arbitrary in the end, it still exists, even if only for you. Whether you want it or not, you have opinions, desires, and emotions.
Still, I'm afraid I don't really have any points to make here.
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You're exactly right, that's my point: the space evacuated by the self and its facticity is freedom itself. Your self-concept you've had all your life goes up in smoke, and what's left is that pure intentionality, pure willing, that self that knows there is no self. The void is freedom. Like okay let's not romanticize it, we're talking going through fucking hell and back here, the empirical ego fights like a cornered lion, but it's possible.
My larger point is I guess the rest of the West needs to catch up to this realization already. Muh void, muh death of values, muh chemicals, got it, let's move on.
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You're exactly right, that's my point: the space evacuated by the self and its facticity is freedom itself. Your self-concept you've had all your life goes up in smoke, and what's left is that pure intentionality, pure willing, that self that knows there is no self. The void is freedom. Like okay let's not romanticize it, we're talking going through fucking hell and back here, the empirical ego fights like a cornered lion, but it's possible.
My larger point is I guess the rest of the West needs to catch up to this realization already. Muh void, muh death of values, muh chemicals, got it, let's move on.
Thank you! This really clarifies your position for me.
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Not to be the that guy, but doesn't the very concept of karmic reincarnation by definition require free will?
Can't enjoy it because you know it is fake? There's a wire for that. Now you are past that hangup!
By that point, though, the Progenitors would be in full-on 'in the Matrix' mode. At that point, there's no incentive to start mucking about with investigating the soul or what happens after you die. Whoever invented the Inverse Fire was clearly still capable of having motivation and curiosity. And of being profoundly shocked by the subsequent discovery.
Once you figure out that people are just a bunch of competing causes, and that brain manipulation can change that, it is pretty much all over for any coherent notions of the self. I imagine they'd have lazed away forever if they hadn't discovered Damnation.
And yet, a guy called Siddhārtha Gautama figured that out some two and a half millennia ago in our world. Five hundred million people follow his teachings in one form or another today. They are not notably more lazy, hedonistic or evil than anyone else. Recognising that the self is an illusion is not automatically the death of motivation or morality.
What happened to the Progenitors is one possible result of such a realisation going species-wide, but not the automatic, inevitable result.
Bakker is a smart guy. But he's still blinded to a degree by the frame of his own culture. In the West (especially in the Anglosphere), we tend to view all morality, all meaning, as flowing from our belief in the self and in free will. For the Western mind, discovering that those concepts are mere illusions can be shattering. But there's a whole chunk of humanity for whom meaning and morality don't depend on a belief in the self and in free will, for whom those things have already been accepted as illusory.
Also, Bakker indicated pretty clearly that the Progenitors were essentially a form of Dûnyain, focused on attaining the absolute. Extrapolating based on rat studies that advanced societies automatically become heroine addicts in vats is actually quite a leap of faith if you ask me :P
Duskweaver's right on the money. Shit, the Buddhist concept of karmic seeds "watered" by our actions directly foreshadows neuroplasticity. Brain science is just confirming what mystics and ascetics have known for millennia, which is why all this moaning and chest beating over the void of the subject or whatever is just feels so hackneyed and naive, my man it's been known for thousands of years that we are arbitrary aggregates of stuff and your identity is really only the name for your taking an ultimately contingent arrangement of atoms as somehow being your "true" self.
The death of (what we take to be) the self opens up the space for true freedom and is the first step on the path to true spirituality and metaphysics. Bakker and co. are obsessed with poring over the details of the problem, sooner or later you gotta open a window.
Hell, all of science has already been discovered by various religious figures. Even the qur'an supposedly has detailed descriptions of the big bang and embryology, or so I've been told by a pious muslim.
Unfortunately we have no way of becoming self-moving souls in this universe, although maybe if somebody pulled a reverse No-God...
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Lotta optimists in this thread.
"Muh void, muh death of values, muh chemicals, got it, let's move on."
To what? Who is moving?
Look, a wirehead culture can debug people, alright? So it is going to. The difference between this and religious leaders having the idea is the difference between cavemen dreaming of flight and planes taking people wherever they want to go.
Once people are just source code, there is no valid argument against optimizing them. Who is gonna stand up and fight for depression and stupidity? They are gone as soon as they can be.
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I'm pretty sure believing a buddhic enlightenment pill is on the horizon, let alone feasible, qualifies as "optimistic". And self-realization is not and never has been a technological hurdle; cavemen dreaming of flight =/= understanding the true nature of the self through the spiritual ordeal. The former is just a dream, the latter has already been done, it's only science that's been playing catch-up/articulating its nuts-and-bolts.
Believing we're a button press away from solving the inherent antagonism in reality is as pie-in-the-sky as it gets. Praise be to the Church of Science, just take this pill and all your problems will go away! Heaven in a prescription bottle? I doubt it.
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"The inherent antagonism in reality" is a very fancy way to describe a thing that boils down to lighting in meat. If you want to say that science will fail to understand it, that's absolutely fair, but science's batting average is positively fantastic.
What goes away isn't the 'problems' part of 'your problems', it is the other part. Science won't understand the 'true nature of the self', it will debunk and debug it.
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I'm pretty sure believing a buddhic enlightenment pill is on the horizon, let alone feasible, qualifies as "optimistic". And self-realization is not and never has been a technological hurdle; cavemen dreaming of flight =/= understanding the true nature of the self through the spiritual ordeal. The former is just a dream, the latter has already been done, it's only science that's been playing catch-up/articulating its nuts-and-bolts.
Believing we're a button press away from solving the inherent antagonism in reality is as pie-in-the-sky as it gets. Praise be to the Church of Science, just take this pill and all your problems will go away! Heaven in a prescription bottle? I doubt it.
The thing is, vague terms like self-realization and "true nature of the self" can be fitted to pretty much anything. Where's the cycle of rebirth in your validation of old religious dogma as the Truth? If the aspiration of Buddhists is the abolishment of the self, why not just kill yourself? I'm guessing because killing yourself has karmic consequences, just like killing yourself in Christianity is a sin so you don't get to jump in line for the gates of Heaven. These systems spring from fundamental human behaviors and thought patterns that are blind to themselves. Science is the missing piece, the neglected information springing to light from mechanical inquiry.
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@ Walter, tleilaxu
Does it mean the nature of meaning is entirely scientific to you?
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I should probably clarify the point I was attempting to make, because it is slightly different from the one Baztek seems to be making.
I'm saying that the realisation that the self is not real, and that the concept of free will makes no objective sense, is something that a big chunk of the human population of this world has already come to terms with. It is not something that innately threatens any kind of Apocalypse, except possibly in the West where we're obsessed with this stupid bullshit we call the Self. ;)
I'm saying that there are philosophies / worldviews that can cope with the death of the Self, and which in fact encourage it. And that not all systems of morality or ethics are contingent on a belief in free will.
That's all. I am not claiming that science is somehow just catching up to religion: I absolutely do not believe that as a general rule. To me, it's largely coincidental that the Buddha seems to have gotten it right on this one point. As far as I'm concerned, 99.9% of religious/mystical 'wisdom' is just claptrap. FWIW, I agree with Mao on the general value of religion to humanity.
I will plead guilty to being an optimist, though. :)
@Tleilaxu: Karmic reincarnation is a Hindu concept. The point of Buddhism is to escape from it, largely by realising that it is bullshit.
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Walter: if you have to assert consciousness is reducible to its material ground, then it isn't really. "Light in meat" is just another way of referring to the miracle that is meat spontaneously generating such a thing as awareness. It really comes down to perspective.
Science is locked within the horizon of its presumed objectivity; neurological activity =/= consciousness, any more than the harmonics of a Beethoven piece is the music proper.
At best science can only offer a formal definition of consciousness, as an emergent property of such-and-such systems in such-and-such organization (which I never disagreed with) but that isn't, fundamentally, what consciousness actually is: the a priori condition of even being able to have such a concept of objectivity, empiricism, reality, etc. in the first place. That is, the very observer doing the observing in the first place. Anything beyond that is just a structural description that in no way could supersede consciousness in its naked actuality.
Also I've been pretty clear that Buddhists, among others, have already debunked naive notions of the self thousands of years ago.
tleilaxu: you're mistaking the empirical ego with non-self/buddha-nature. The goal is not to kill the self but everything we erroneously assume to be the self. The desire for nothingness is an impediment on the path as much as the desire for some kind of celestial existence. The stock "why don't Buddhists just kill themselves?" argument comes from what can only be a superficial reading of Buddhist doctrine.
I urge you to study these traditions closely if you have any interest in them at all. There's really nothing new science is telling us that a intuition, arduous study, and introspection hasn't already revealed.
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@ Walter, tleilaxu
Does it mean the nature of meaning is entirely scientific to you?
The question "what is the nature of meaning" isn't a scientific question, it's a philosophical question, but at the same time meaning is something ascribed to things by neural circuits, and to understand these neural circuits you need science.
@Tleilaxu: Karmic reincarnation is a Hindu concept. The point of Buddhism is to escape from it, largely by realising that it is bullshit.
What do you mean with bullshit though? That it isn't real? Because as far as I know, buddhists (the religious sort) literally believe in Samsara, the way Christians believe in Heaven and Hell. Are we ignoring established dogma to interpret a concept we like through a modern lens so we can say that the Ancients were right all along? Not that important insights can't reside in here, this is mostly a response to the "science is just catching up" type of comments.
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What do you mean with bullshit though? That it isn't real?
That it is a trap. That the concept itself is a trap. That it is not merely the wrong answer, but that it is the wrong answer to a question whose very asking betrays a fundamental misunderstanding (namely, a belief in the Self).
Because as far as I know, buddhists (the religious sort) literally believe in Samsara, the way Christians believe in Heaven and Hell.
Some do. There are lots of interpretations. That goes for Christians too, of course.
But this is all straying off the point. I'm not here to defend Buddhism. :)
Are we ignoring established dogma to interpret a concept we like through a modern lens so we can say that the Ancients were right all along? Not that important insights can't reside in here, this is mostly a response to the "science is just catching up" type of comments.
I'm not. Baztek might be. Unlike him, I'm a science supremacist. :)
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Reincarnation as understood by Deepak Chopra and co. (a continuity of self is maintained across multiple incarnations etc.) is illogical and not the Buddhist understanding of reincarnation, where the accent is not on the continuity of the self but the principle of craving which undergirds the self's phenomenal manifestation. As in, kill yourself and the impersonal thirst for being that you essentially are - and which your ego is simply an accretion around - will keep dragging you back in until it is finally extinguished.
I don't blame you guys for having these notions of these concepts since popularizers are pretty pleb-tier themselves but I promise you guys Alan Watts aren't the end-all be-all of Eastern thought.
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The question "what is the nature of meaning" isn't a scientific question, it's a philosophical question
Indeed.
but at the same time meaning is something ascribed to things by neural circuits, and to understand these neural circuits you need science.
And this, I'm not so sure about. The mechanical functions of those circuits, it can be assumed, create the fundamental material framework for meaning to arise (that is, it creates us, so we can discuss meaning). As for meaning itself, it is a philosophical concept, and I'm not at all hasty to ascribe all philosophy to material science. Right now, philosophy might not even conform to the principle of fundamental objectivity, which science is based on.
To be clear, I'm not trying to prove anything, since I don't really see a way. I merely postulate that there is more than one framework of understanding some concepts. For example, "self", "consciousness", "morals", and "meaning".
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There's really nothing new science is telling us that a intuition, arduous study, and introspection hasn't already revealed.
Here's my problem with your argument: Science confirms Buddha's insight (that there's no self-moving soul) -> extrapolation -> "There's really nothing new science is telling us that a intuition, arduous study, and introspection hasn't already revealed."
Buddha may even have been somewhat blind to his own insight, given his religion's seemingly need for a soft version of free will. This is the essence. Science reveals those blindnesses.
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Here's my problem with your argument: Science confirms Buddha's insight (that there's no self-moving soul) -> extrapolation -> "There's really nothing new science is telling us that a intuition, arduous study, and introspection hasn't already revealed."
Sorry to barge in, but I just want to say this is completely not how I understood what Baztec was saying. Right now philosophical questions are not entirely scientific in the sense that they are based on largely subjective things (at least things we call "subjective" for now), which can also be things in themselves in some frameworks of reasoning. In this fashion these questions are mulled over for millennia, and right now science doesn't really offer any new perspectives on them. It tries to understand our brain circuits, not the end result those circuits provide.
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Here's my problem with your argument: Science confirms Buddha's insight (that there's no self-moving soul) -> extrapolation -> "There's really nothing new science is telling us that a intuition, arduous study, and introspection hasn't already revealed."
Sorry to barge in, but I just want to say this is completely not how I understood what Baztec was saying. Right now philosophical questions are not entirely scientific in the sense that they are based on largely subjective things (at least things we call "subjective" for now), which can also be things in themselves in some frameworks of reasoning. In this fashion these questions are mulled over for millennia, and right now science doesn't really offer any new perspectives on them. It tries to understand our brain circuits, not the end result those circuits provide.
And what happens when those very questions are blind to the nature of the brains that produced them?
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And what happens when those very questions are blind to the nature of the brains that produced them?
Are they? Can they even be, if the necessary complexity for them to arise requires all those circuits to work together, nothing less? So only the system itself is defining, and not its individual parts?
For example, let's take the literary series that ignited our discussion. Are only some of its words defining? Or just some chapters? Or even some books? Or is it only the series as a whole that defines itself?
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And what happens when those very questions are blind to the nature of the brains that produced them?
Can they even be, if the necessary complexity for them to arise requires all those circuits to work together, nothing less?
We're all blind to the darkness that comes before, as they say.
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We're all blind to the darkness that comes before, as they say.
I'm not at all sure it's relevant for every facet of our life and reasoning, even if it is technically true.
Also, that entire exercise with the Dunyain brought forth supremely controversial results.
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Science can't contradict these philosophical concepts because human scientific knowledge of these areas is still extremely rudimentary.
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Science can't contradict these philosophical concepts because human scientific knowledge of these areas is still extremely rudimentary.
My point wasn't that it fundamentally can't (that question is open, but it's a fair bit more advanced than what I had in mind). I was talking precisely about science being somewhere at the start of a long road to quite possibly gaining those much needed new perspectives on philosophical issues. Not to mention relevant information obtained through the scientific method is valuable even if it doesn't further philosophical understanding.
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There's really nothing new science is telling us that a intuition, arduous study, and introspection hasn't already revealed.
Here's my problem with your argument: Science confirms Buddha's insight (that there's no self-moving soul) -> extrapolation -> "There's really nothing new science is telling us that a intuition, arduous study, and introspection hasn't already revealed."
Buddha may even have been somewhat blind to his own insight, given his religion's seemingly need for a soft version of free will. This is the essence. Science reveals those blindnesses.
You think I'm implying science needed to confirm these insights so Buddhists can breathe a little easier. If anything science just peeked under the hood to get a better look at why the engine keeps catching when the Buddha et al diagnosed it as a transmission problem millennia ago. Like okay the analogy isn't perfect because Buddhism still proposes a solution that is more of an inner science than an objective one but you get the idea.
Science can't contradict these philosophical concepts because human scientific knowledge of these areas is still extremely rudimentary.
My point wasn't that it fundamentally can't (that question is open, but it's a fair bit more advanced than what I had in mind). I was talking precisely about science being somewhere at the start of a long road to quite possibly gaining those much needed new perspectives on philosophical issues. Not to mention relevant information obtained through the scientific method is valuable even if it doesn't further philosophical understanding.
I think people who think science can, say, explain subjectivity qua subjectivity don't really understand the problem. Try to imagine in your mind some hypothetical solution to consciousness, some diagram, formula, description, etc. that once and for all, explains, say, how/why the experience of my watching film x is the way it is or whatever in such a way that is immediately accessible to concrete intuition.
Something like, "the lighting in the scene affects you in the register of melancholy because tensor fields in your neurons resonate according to this particular frequency in a way orthogonal to the synaptic gap", like some bullshit like that, and you'll see how completely absurd it is to try to propose a thoroughly mechanical explanation of how any particular conscious experience isn't already what it is, but really [tortured physical explanation provided by physicalist who just twisted himself into a pretzel trying to get it out]
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I think people who think science can, say, explain subjectivity qua subjectivity don't really understand the problem. Try to imagine in your mind some hypothetical solution to consciousness, some diagram, formula, description, etc. that once and for all, explains, say, how/why the experience of my watching film x is the way it is or whatever in such a way that is immediately accessible to concrete intuition.
Something like, "the lighting in the scene affects you in the register of melancholy because tensor fields in your neurons resonate according to this particular frequency in a way orthogonal to the synaptic gap", like some bullshit like that, and you'll see how completely absurd it is to try to propose a thoroughly mechanical explanation of how any particular conscious experience isn't already what it is, but really [tortured physical explanation provided by physicalist who just twisted himself into a pretzel trying to get it out]
Even if this kind of explanation is found, there is like a million questions still. Okay, we have a working mechanical framework of understanding consciousness, good. How does it diminish the validity of some form of philosophical/sensitivist framework where each emotion, for example, is a thing in itself? There is Newtonian formalism, and then there are Lagrangian and Hamiltonian ones. They are all valid.
On the other hand, I would like to have more information even if it doesn't necessarily objectively solve everything. So I salute scientific advancement.
Again, I don't seem to have a point here, really. I have a mentality to use things that are immediately useful (more things equals more options, then) and not feel any existential dread about what those things might potentially mean in the grand scheme of the universe. But that's just my personal attitude.
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You have the right attitude. I like learning about what science has to say about the natural world, it's a fantastic supplement to a more holistic sense of reality, just forests and trees and all that. My main point is: if the nullity of the self threatens to send you careening into the abyss of sranc-tier hedonism, sounds like a you problem my brah.
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You have the right attitude. I like learning about what science has to say about the natural world, it's a fantastic supplement to a more holistic sense of reality, just forests and trees and all that. My main point is: if the nullity of the self threatens to send you careening into the abyss of sranc-tier hedonism, sounds like a you problem my brah.
I'm inclined to agree with this point.
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One more time, there is no 'you' to be sent careening into the abyss of sranc-tier hedonism. Causes within, etc. You will be able to mix and match your personality/emotions like you do smartphone apps.
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That's a pretty specific prediction.
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You sound remarkably something like a techno-Buddhist.
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I'd never heard of that concept until this thread and it still just makes me think of Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny.
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One more time, there is no 'you' to be sent careening into the abyss of sranc-tier hedonism. Causes within, etc. You will be able to mix and match your personality/emotions like you do smartphone apps.
I don't really see how a hypothetical way to improve yourself consciousness-wise means there is no "you".
For example, I can change my desktop however I want, so I have a desktop that's structured exactly how I like it. I don't change it constantly just for the sake of changing it, and every time I do change it, I don't remake it completely (not even close).
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I think one thing modern neuroscience and most religions agree on is that there's a lot more to 'you' than your conscious self, yeah.
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Even assuming that we one day reach a point where we could all rewire our own brains to just be amoral hedonists, what makes anyone think that any society would actually allow such a thing? We'd regulate it like we do with drugs. Some people will do the rewiring anyway, illegally, and most of those people will be caught (they'd be a heck of a lot easier to identify and catch than drug users) and forcibly rewired back to something resembling humanity, or at least something that's not dangeous to the rest of society.
I mean, societies are perfectly capable of collectively deciding that certain things that might seem beneficial/enjoyable to an individual are so destructive to society as a whole that they must be forbidden. That's the point of society.
To me, the fate of the Progenitors of the Inchoroi isn't a cautionary tale about the dangers of science and technology gone too far, but of the Randian 'Objectivist' flavour of libertarianism gone too far. The only way they could have ended up as they did is if they had already thrown out any concept of a society being able to set rules for its members before they reached the technology level required to rewire their brains.
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... the Mutilated told how the Tekne so transformed the problems faced by the progenitors that all the old ways became impossible. It raised them from their traditions, struck the shackles of custom from their intellects, until only their common animality constrained them. They worshipped themselves as the measure of all significance, gave themselves over to wanton gluttony. Nothing was forbidden them, short the obstruction of others and their desires. Justice became the calculation of competing appetites. Logos became the principle of their entire civilization.
"the Tekne unfettered their desires, allowed them to plumb ever deeper perversions."
I don't think it's meant to be a cautionary tale, rather, it's just the story of what happened to this particular society when they tried attaining the Absolute. Remember that the reason why the Inchoroi are depraved rape-monsters is because it goads them to work diligently toward sealing the world from the Outside.
The Dûnyain are another possibility of such a kind of society, except they focused on the movements of their souls instead of worldly machinery and thus bred themselves toward eliminating passions. Same fate in the end, utterly damned, utterly devoted to sealing the World.
Edit: But maybe this is just my bias talking. It does look like a cautionary tale related to Bakker's Semantic Apocalypse https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/what-is-the-semantic-apocalypse/
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Anyway, about the rats thing. Later experiments showed that rats only get hopelessly addicted if they're stressed to begin with (e.g. from being kept in a tiny fucking cage with no stimuli). Rats kept in an 'enriched' environment will still give themselves cocaine hits occasionally, but they don't show the classical addiction symptoms of just sitting there dosing themselves continuously to the exclusion of all else. Humans seem to show the same dichotomy. Poor, stressed, miserable folks get addicted really easily. As do rich but tormented types (e.g. celebrity introverts). But lots of affluent and not-particularly-stressed-out people do illegal drugs without any real ill-effects. They're not as newsworthy as the celeb overdose-suicides, and they don't usually come to the attentions of law-enforcement, of course, so you seldom hear about them.
I haven't had a chance to forum for the past two days but I was coming here to clarify this point. Thanks, Duskweaver, +1.
Also, this is why I love thread tangents. What great reading. I'd like to move this discussion to its own dedicated thread but I don't even know what to call it. The Progenitors? Any suggestions?
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In This Moment, I am Euphoric, Not Because of Any Phony Absolute's Blessing, But Because, I Am Enlightened By My Own Tekne
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I do believe the Progenitors will become a cautionary tale, of sorts.
But I believe, firmly, that the Progenitors are artificial intelligence.
Given Bakker's predilection for the subject and view of its inevitability and culture/species-warping potential, it seems logical, and what he would see as the inevitable end to the "death of meaning" and identification of the universe as an entirely mechanical process. Without moral meaning, we're back to Nietzsche's "good v. bad" supplanting "good v. evil," and AI is already outperforming human intellect at most tasks in our world, before we've even developed a true AI. We know them capable of it from the Ark's machine intelligence.
The question for me is, were they entirely AI prior to finding damnation is factual, or subsequently? If the former, it could be the inherent reason for their damnation; mechanistic souls utterly divorced from semantics, strictly pursuing intentional amoral goals. If the latter, one could assume the Progenitors, having already developed AI distinct from themselves, sought to copy their souls/consciousness into the superior form to forestall damnation (their homeworld being entirely anarcane ground, any solution is entirely reliant upon the Tekne). Side-stepping the issue seems to be most species' go-to move in the absence of a means to end it, or to wait out the interim until success.
Given the worries regarding our own future's technological advances in light of a meritocratic capitalist economy, one might also assume the AI-Progenitors came from wealthy supermen who rode the transhumanist wave to its logical conclusion, and the Inchoroi are the dead-end of the working poor, genetically and neurologically altered for maximum utility to the holders of wealth over the course of time. (Wire up the brain so carnal reward is the ultimate, reward them with this upon task completion.)
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I do believe the Progenitors will become a cautionary tale, of sorts.
But I believe, firmly, that the Progenitors are artificial intelligence.
Given Bakker's predilection for the subject and view of its inevitability and culture/species-warping potential, it seems logical, and what he would see as the inevitable end to the "death of meaning" and identification of the universe as an entirely mechanical process. Without moral meaning, we're back to Nietzsche's "good v. bad" supplanting "good v. evil," and AI is already outperforming human intellect at most tasks in our world, before we've even developed a true AI. We know them capable of it from the Ark's machine intelligence.
The question for me is, were they entirely AI prior to finding damnation is factual, or subsequently? If the former, it could be the inherent reason for their damnation; mechanistic souls utterly divorced from semantics, strictly pursuing intentional amoral goals. If the latter, one could assume the Progenitors, having already developed AI distinct from themselves, sought to copy their souls/consciousness into the superior form to forestall damnation (their homeworld being entirely anarcane ground, any solution is entirely reliant upon the Tekne). Side-stepping the issue seems to be most species' go-to move in the absence of a means to end it, or to wait out the interim until success.
Given the worries regarding our own future's technological advances in light of a meritocratic capitalist economy, one might also assume the AI-Progenitors came from wealthy supermen who rode the transhumanist wave to its logical conclusion, and the Inchoroi are the dead-end of the working poor, genetically and neurologically altered for maximum utility to the holders of wealth over the course of time. (Wire up the brain so carnal reward is the ultimate, reward them with this upon task completion.)
I'm gonna give this a more thorough reply when I wake up in approximately 12 hours, but until then, isn't it funny how we all see our own views, political or whatever, reflected in this?
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I'm gonna give this a more thorough reply when I wake up in approximately 12 hours, but until then, isn't it funny how we all see our own views, political or whatever, reflected in this?
We are all equally blind to the darkness that comes before.
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I'm gonna give this a more thorough reply when I wake up in approximately 12 hours, but until then, isn't it funny how we all see our own views, political or whatever, reflected in this?
We are all equally blind to the darkness that comes before.
Admitting we have a problem is the first step ;).
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Admitting we have a problem is the first step ;).
The second step is, apparently, two millennia of ascetic living and eugenics. ;)
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Even assuming that we one day reach a point where we could all rewire our own brains to just be amoral hedonists, what makes anyone think that any society would actually allow such a thing? We'd regulate it like we do with drugs. Some people will do the rewiring anyway, illegally, and most of those people will be caught (they'd be a heck of a lot easier to identify and catch than drug users) and forcibly rewired back to something resembling humanity, or at least something that's not dangeous to the rest of society.
I mean, societies are perfectly capable of collectively deciding that certain things that might seem beneficial/enjoyable to an individual are so destructive to society as a whole that they must be forbidden. That's the point of society.
To me, the fate of the Progenitors of the Inchoroi isn't a cautionary tale about the dangers of science and technology gone too far, but of the Randian 'Objectivist' flavour of libertarianism gone too far. The only way they could have ended up as they did is if they had already thrown out any concept of a society being able to set rules for its members before they reached the technology level required to rewire their brains.
This is most certainly true.
But I should note it's probably a step below the purely philosophical level of looking at the issue. Societal rules imposed on some forms of behavior don't describe this behavior and its ramifications. Though I completely agree, hordes of hedonistic sociopaths would ruin any kind of (highly) organized society, so it would naturally try to avoid such a turn of events.
Another question is, are hedonism and sociopathy really inevitable?
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Another question is, are hedonism and sociopathy really inevitable?
Hedonism? Probably, though to what degree is open for debate. Depending on the species and society in question, a drive for accomplishment or some other goal(s) could very well moderate its impact. Though in a post-morality world, why not make enjoyment the driving force? Rewire the brain to love tedious, monotonous tasks, and perpetual bliss can be had by all without interfering with social order.
Sociopathy? Useful in certain occupations/areas of society, but on a grand scale for the entire populace, no. Though amorality is a more nuanced beast. Eliminating empathy species-wide is a far different animal than divorcing actions from judgment.
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Hedonism? Probably, though to what degree is open for debate. Depending on the species and society in question, a drive for accomplishment or some other goal(s) could very well moderate its impact. Though in a post-morality world, why not make enjoyment the driving force? Rewire the brain to love tedious, monotonous tasks, and perpetual bliss can be had by all without interfering with social order.
Sociopathy? Useful in certain occupations/areas of society, but on a grand scale for the entire populace, no. Though amorality is a more nuanced beast. Eliminating empathy species-wide is a far different animal than divorcing actions from judgment.
And why would we uniformly pursue any of those things?
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And why would we uniformly pursue any of those things?
For them to become dominant, pursuit doesn't have to be universal, just highly incentivized. Why not get rewired to enjoy your shitty job, if the alternative is suffering through it - and possibly losing it to someone whose performance is better due simply to the fact that it brings them pleasure?
The trend starts; fast forward thirty years as the technology becomes better and more accessible, the benefits are made clear, and non-compliance (while not strictly punished by edict) brings a deluge of negative consequence both financial and social, all toward the purpose of enjoying life less than your peers? Why fight it other than obsolete morality?
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Rewiring someone to take an almost transcendent pleasure in what was once soul-killing monotony amounts to a lobotomy. There's no way the intensity/degree of consciousness would be maintained just as it is, except now you go into ecstatic fits burger flippin'. The mind is a dynamic system, it isn't switches and dials on a board.
But I guess that's kind of your point.
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For them to become dominant, pursuit doesn't have to be universal, just highly incentivized.
Why would it be?
Why not get rewired to enjoy your shitty job, if the alternative is suffering through it - and possibly losing it to someone whose performance is better due simply to the fact that it brings them pleasure?
Why have a job? If technology is sufficiently advanced your needs are met by default. Do what you will.
My point is, why would only one way of life become dominant? I don't see it. If anything, I see more or less the opposite of it.
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There are many books, movies and such on this very subject. When we become so advanced the majority of population isnt needed, what do we become? Its explored in The Expanse.
No one knows, yea, a certain % of people will laze away and delve into only things that pleasure. Gonna be a shitload of poor people. But, humans will still be productive and hold some semblance of morals. Its who we are, engrained into our DNA. It's why we have Gods with religious text, to keep us walking a straight line. And, imho, no matter how far science evolves, most humans will hold onto those morals. People wanna be good people for the most part. Its what I like to think, at least.
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Why would it be?
If it serves the interests of those in power, why wouldn't it be? All structured societies have leaders and followers. The degree of direct control and basis for higher stature varies wildly between eras and governmental/economic systems, but is always present.
To use an oversimplified modern example: the U.S. begins a gradual shift from a production economy to a service/information economy. As such, the intrinsic value of higher education and specialization rises. Without edict or direct legal consequence for failure to adhere, there is a dramatic upward shift in people at the low-to-mid end of the spectrum pursuing specialized education, pursuing reward and avoiding (non-mandated) consequence.
Why have a job? If technology is sufficiently advanced your needs are met by default. Do what you will.
My point is, why would only one way of life become dominant? I don't see it. If anything, I see more or less the opposite of it.
The job bit was a bad analogy on my end, but serves my point a bit indirectly. Think how quick we are to process advancement within the confines of our current system. (The fact that robots and computers may do all the work in the near future might be a bad thing in terms of survival if the current system isn't rewritten from the ground up to accommodate the existence of non-human labor). No reason to think those who benefit from the status quo would alter it substantially just to make things easier on anyone else.
And, imho, no matter how far science evolves, most humans will hold onto those morals. People wanna be good people for the most part. Its what I like to think, at least.
But morals are not universally shared or constant through time.
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Morality as such, however, is universal.
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But morals are not universally shared or constant through time.
Well, they basically have been for 2 millennia. Things change, sure. But, for the most part I don't see the horror story that so many warn us of, coming to pass. Its in a nature to want to be good people, please others, make others think highly of us. To do this, you have to follow morals. I don't see that changing. In fact, my opinion of what science will do to us, is make a better us. I feel that at some point (not in my lifetime, for sure), humanity will wake up and look for common good for each other. It'll take something awful to happen, but I believe it will.
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All structured societies have leaders and followers. The degree of direct control and basis for higher stature varies wildly between eras and governmental/economic systems, but is always present.
I agree. It seems we understand society and governmental systems very similarly.
If it serves the interests of those in power, why wouldn't it be?
I feel that society is reborn (unfortunately, forcibly reborn, as history teaches us, but that's not to say other ways don't exist) when interests of those in power sufficiently contradict interests of those not. I feel that violation of personality is more than sufficient enough. At least for today's advanced societies.
(The fact that robots and computers may do all the work in the near future might be a bad thing in terms of survival if the current system isn't rewritten from the ground up to accommodate the existence of non-human labor).
It presents a significant problem, I agree. I also don't foresee this problem being solved easily.
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Well, they basically have been for 2 millennia. Things change, sure. But, for the most part I don't see the horror story that so many warn us of, coming to pass. Its in a nature to want to be good people, please others, make others think highly of us. To do this, you have to follow morals. I don't see that changing. In fact, my opinion of what science will do to us, is make a better us. I feel that at some point (not in my lifetime, for sure), humanity will wake up and look for common good for each other. It'll take something awful to happen, but I believe it will.
I'll agree that the absolute worst-case scenario is far-fetched. I don't share your relentless optimism, though. Probably some workable middle ground will be found. I do tend to view the arc of progress as tending toward justice... but that's just a modern mind finding merit in the circumstances it was born into and trained to revere, after all.
Perhaps the disagreement lies in "making a better us." Who gets to define "better," and will it somehow manage to contradict "better for the prevailing socioeconomic system" if necessary to preserve current humanist morality?
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Perhaps the disagreement lies in "making a better us." Who gets to define "better," and will it somehow manage to contradict "better for the prevailing socioeconomic system" if necessary to preserve current humanist morality?
By, "better us" thats what I was getting at. A better world, better place to live, more peaceful, more prosperous.
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Perhaps the disagreement lies in "making a better us." Who gets to define "better," and will it somehow manage to contradict "better for the prevailing socioeconomic system" if necessary to preserve current humanist morality?
By, "better us" thats what I was getting at. A better world, better place to live, more peaceful, more prosperous.
I'm just not sure the tenets of humanism will survive the coming storm, especially given ecological concerns looming large on the horizon. Why go through all the trouble of arguing taxation and people's right to their neurology as born to keep the moral sensitivities and livelihoods intact for swaths of people who will be, in terms of the economy (the real system at power for the last few centuries), useless? How does prosperity (as interpreted by those already at the wheel, politically and financially) benefit from "lazy people getting free shit my robots made?"
I'm expecting society to continue to follow a top-down structure, and for those at the top to continue to prioritize their own short-term benefit over other concerns. I do sincerely hope I'm wrong on that front.
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I do believe the Progenitors will become a cautionary tale, of sorts.
But I believe, firmly, that the Progenitors are artificial intelligence.
Given Bakker's predilection for the subject and view of its inevitability and culture/species-warping potential, it seems logical, and what he would see as the inevitable end to the "death of meaning" and identification of the universe as an entirely mechanical process. Without moral meaning, we're back to Nietzsche's "good v. bad" supplanting "good v. evil," and AI is already outperforming human intellect at most tasks in our world, before we've even developed a true AI. We know them capable of it from the Ark's machine intelligence.
The question for me is, were they entirely AI prior to finding damnation is factual, or subsequently? If the former, it could be the inherent reason for their damnation; mechanistic souls utterly divorced from semantics, strictly pursuing intentional amoral goals. If the latter, one could assume the Progenitors, having already developed AI distinct from themselves, sought to copy their souls/consciousness into the superior form to forestall damnation (their homeworld being entirely anarcane ground, any solution is entirely reliant upon the Tekne). Side-stepping the issue seems to be most species' go-to move in the absence of a means to end it, or to wait out the interim until success.
Given the worries regarding our own future's technological advances in light of a meritocratic capitalist economy, one might also assume the AI-Progenitors came from wealthy supermen who rode the transhumanist wave to its logical conclusion, and the Inchoroi are the dead-end of the working poor, genetically and neurologically altered for maximum utility to the holders of wealth over the course of time. (Wire up the brain so carnal reward is the ultimate, reward them with this upon task completion.)
I'm pretty sure they were fleshy beings, as described by the way the cast aside their Gods and temples etc., remolded themselves to plunge deeper perversions (have a hard time seeing a piece of software doing this). Also, I think Bakker's fear of AI is not so much related to humans becoming AI but the way AI can exploit human cheat space in this newly arising cognitive ecology. Also, I'm just gonna say that I personally find strong AI to be a fantasy. Teaching computers how to make a good statistical model of some data is a far shot away from something that even thinks like a human, even though it may be way better than humans at specific tasks.
Also, regarding the capitalism/class thing Nothing was forbidden them, short the obstruction of others and their desires
It looks more like socialism to me!
Another question is, are hedonism and sociopathy really inevitable?
Probably, but hedonism might not be hedonism to the hedonist, only from our perspective. Hell, you could argue a man undergoing hormone therapy and surgery to look like a woman isn't far off from "regrafting themselves to plunge ever deeper perversions".
But morals are not universally shared or constant through time.
Well, they basically have been for 2 millennia. Things change, sure. But, for the most part I don't see the horror story that so many warn us of, coming to pass. Its in a nature to want to be good people, please others, make others think highly of us. To do this, you have to follow morals. I don't see that changing. In fact, my opinion of what science will do to us, is make a better us. I feel that at some point (not in my lifetime, for sure), humanity will wake up and look for common good for each other. It'll take something awful to happen, but I believe it will.
They haven't. In a span of a few short years homosexuality has become accepted, maybe even celebrated, in the West, after a long period of harsh discrimination. Also, as much as it lies in our nature to be good to the good, it's also natural for us to want to punish the evil. The problem is that good and evil are not fixed, at all.
There are many books, movies and such on this very subject. When we become so advanced the majority of population isnt needed, what do we become? Its explored in The Expanse.
To be honest I don't think this is going to happen. At some point, somebody, probably the Chinese or something, will say "fuck your shitty arbitrary and hypocritical morals, I'm going to gene-edit this baby and try making it more intelligent", and voila.
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Also, I'm just gonna say that I personally find strong AI to be a fantasy. Teaching computers how to make a good statistical model of some data is a far shot away from something that even thinks like a human, even though it may be way better than humans at specific tasks.
I'm very much inclined to agree.
It looks more like socialism to me!
While presenting you with means to support yourself, socialistic governmental systems (right now we mostly have Northern Europe to speak for those) do not, by themselves, impose any kind of morals on their citizens. Morals reside in the realm of historical and cultural inheritance. So socialism neither punishes nor promotes self-indulgence.
Another question is, are hedonism and sociopathy really inevitable?
Probably, but hedonism might not be hedonism to the hedonist, only from our perspective. Hell, you argue a man undergoing hormone therapy and surgery to look like a woman isn't far off from "regrafting themselves to plunge ever deeper perversions".
I feel like this analogy is a severe oversimplification. I also have said nothing of the sort.
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It looks more like socialism to me!
While presenting you with means to support yourself, socialistic governmental systems (right now we mostly have Northern Europe to speak for those) do not, by themselves, impose any kind of morals on their citizens. Morals reside in the realm of historical and cultural inheritance. So socialism neither punishes nor promotes self-indulgence.
My point wasn't that socialism promotes self-indulgent behavior, but rather that the society of the Progenitor's must've been in some sense socialistic since the obstruction of others and their desires is forbidden, which I interpret to mean that they are in a sense all equal citizens, which people aren't in capitalistic societies.
Another question is, are hedonism and sociopathy really inevitable?
Probably, but hedonism might not be hedonism to the hedonist, only from our perspective. Hell, you argue a man undergoing hormone therapy and surgery to look like a woman isn't far off from "regrafting themselves to plunge ever deeper perversions".
I feel like this analogy is a severe oversimplification. I also have said nothing of the sort.
Lol my bad, I meant to say "you COULD argue", let me fix it.
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My point wasn't that socialism promotes self-indulgent behavior, but rather that the society of the Progenitor's must've been in some sense socialistic since the obstruction of others and their desires is forbidden, which I interpret to mean that they are in a sense all equal citizens, which people aren't in capitalistic societies.
Off the top of my head, such a society can be an anarchy. I can also imagine its origins capitalistic or socialistic/communistic. The line is tremendously blurry when resources are abundant (at least, I imagine it to be so). Also, if memory serves, current capitalistic societies declare that all people are equal in their rights. Those declarations might not be upheld in reality, but such a situation is then generally considered illegal.
To accentuate my position I should add that I see no problem in capitalism, socialism, or communism as long as society that identifies itself with a given paradigm functions. I also don't really have a preference, since all current legal and governmental systems have traits of all of those paradigms, and more. Of course, none are also perfect. People in power are generally more equal than others, everywhere.
Lol my bad, I meant to say "you COULD argue", let me fix it.
Oh, got it. No problem!
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My point wasn't that socialism promotes self-indulgent behavior, but rather that the society of the Progenitor's must've been in some sense socialistic since the obstruction of others and their desires is forbidden, which I interpret to mean that they are in a sense all equal citizens, which people aren't in capitalistic societies.
I think you're completely off-base here. A system where the only thing forbidden is obstructing the desires of others sounds more like Objectivism (or, I guess, LaVeyan Satanism) than anything else.
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I didn't take that to be a legal absolute anyway, so much as an open acknowledgement that the only thing stopping anyone from getting what they wanted was the power of others. The progenitors didn't sound like they had any kind of objective morality. Which was unfortunate for them since the universe apparently does.
But otherwise yeah I agree with Dusk.
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Okay. The image I had in my head when reading those passages was of a post-scarcity socialist "utopia" except everybody is an immoral pervert, not of laissez faire capitalism, but I get your point.
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If they were truly post scarcity socialism and capitalism cease to have meaning, I'd have thought? I mean a huge part of how they're defined is methods for dealing with distribution of scarce resources. Although I don't think they're post scarcity.