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Messages - Madness

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5086
Literature / Re: "The broken empire" by Mark Lawrence
« on: August 13, 2013, 02:00:54 pm »
Hmm... I'll have to look it up. Thus far, I've not felt much of a lure to read the of Thorns series.

5087
The-Wind-Has-Teeth returns! Welcome back, Athjeari.

I follow TPB somewhat religiously. I value, and attempt to honour, Bakker's intentions to engage disparate groups, because communication matters, though in regards to distinguishing his Blind Brain Theory, I simply have other academic matters that I wish to pursue; inevitably, of course, I devote some hours of my life to all things Bakker, including his more scholarly pursuits.

On that note, Bakker just mentioned in his latest offering that TUC's first draft is about two weeks from completion (he's a writing machine, really clockwork, despite having to downsize his writing hours to, you know... work for money ;)).

Cheers.

5088
The White-Luck Warrior / Re: The nail of heaven
« on: August 13, 2013, 01:48:44 pm »
Lol, shades of District 9, Wilshire. Anyone see Elysium yet?

Welcome back, Francis. It's good to see you here, though I've been enjoying your speculations on Westeros, regardless.

I actually think the wormhole is likely but there is a satisfying terror in imagining an operational orbital battery or some such ;)...

5089
The White-Luck Warrior / Re: Seswatha's Elju(s)
« on: August 13, 2013, 01:43:35 pm »
I don't have time to adequately cover what I want to at the moment - in a couple days.

However, for those curious, I was reminded of a course I took some years ago and I think Aristotelian Essentialism offers us a unique perspective on Nonman, Erraticism, and, perhaps even, the Intact.

5090
The White-Luck Warrior / Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
« on: August 13, 2013, 01:29:55 pm »
But the whole mountain isn't a topoi, just the the depth, the pits where the suffering took place... and the gates, where the main part of the battles where.

Hmm... we've had versions of this discussion before - even this thread, likely. I sort of figured that it's a radiating gradient from the pits. It seemed analogous to the way grasslands give way to deserts, that shallows become depths, that they are the Topoi grows more intense towards its point of origin.

I've always wondered at the strangeness of the Gate scenes as well. Cleric wears his Erraticism, especially, at the various physical, yet seemingly metaphorical, Gates all through Cil-Aujas.

But I don't think we're talking about the same thing... Unless Sci and I are onto something with thinking that a portion of Nonman society was oriented around dealing with the manifestation of Topoi and they knew enough to guard the perimeters of Topoi. Gates of Hell or to the Outside metaphors and all that.

I wonder, are dieing and suffering the same? Could the suffereing by the dead, at the hands of the hundred, somehow be "grounded" in the geographical place where they died, such that, when a lot of people die in one place, there is inherently a lot of suffering?

I don't think so, Wilshire... though deaths seem essential to at least some of the metaphysical power plays in the series (Consult).

5091
Does anyone happen to know when it is first mentioned the Kellhus either apprehends or starts using TTT?

The "hinges of destiny" quote from tDtCB has been bothering me recently and for some reason I see the timing of Kellhus' revelations about TTT being the missing piece in one of my never to be written, hot sauce induced, crackpot theories.

. . .

I though that the firs time Kellhus grasps TTT is as he is cut down from the tree and freed from the circumfix. If not there, then sometime close before that spot, around where he spends weeks in the Probability Trance trying to find a way out of the circumfixtion.

+1.

The "hinges of destiny" quote from tDtCB has been bothering me recently and for some reason I see the timing of Kellhus' revelations about TTT being the missing piece in one of my never to be written, hot sauce induced, crackpot theories.

What the hell, you're holding out on us? Come now, lets have it. I'll not stand for this hording of crackpotery.

Yeah! Cough it up, Jax. Share the Nerdanel!

5092
Philosophy & Science / Re: Rupert Sheldrake
« on: August 07, 2013, 04:10:33 pm »
I've encountered his perspective and research at various points in my personal education. Morphogenetic universe, nes pas?

5093
Introduce Yourself / Re: Hi everyone
« on: August 07, 2013, 04:07:54 pm »
Welcome to the Second Apocalypse, Kellais.

Lol, don't feel any anxiety about diving in with your own brand of insanity. Having more disparate perspectives helps to tease clarity from that sweet, sweet, ambiguity ;).

5094
General Misc. / Re: Oratory
« on: August 04, 2013, 02:54:46 pm »
Though, the same could be said for any action; not just language, no?

Yeah, that distinction is pretty novel, if available, in linguistics. The same could be said for sensorimotor function but the linguistic possibility really became clear to me when studying emotions, which, in many cases, seem to simply be patterned responses to stimuli.

5095
Literature / Re: A Game of Thrones
« on: August 04, 2013, 02:50:02 pm »
As I wrote in the what are you reading, I'll just reiterate for this thread that I made it partway into Storm of Swords and stopped reading because I couldn't stand the soap-opera meets fantasy.

5096
The White-Luck Warrior / Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
« on: August 04, 2013, 02:45:56 pm »
You know, there are a couple threads featuring etymology with Duskweaver...

Maybe I will consolidate them in the future.

5097
Literature / Re: Satoshi Itoh - Harmony
« on: July 30, 2013, 02:22:18 pm »
You're the carrier/a carrier of the argument now. As in you've repeated it, Mike.

Aside, +1.

I was responding to Royce but, in both of my above posts, I'd seeded arguments for james, specifically, as originally asking for commentary on V. Itoh's BBH.

And in reality, it is only a problem so much as other humans use this leverage to dominate other humans because argumentatively,

This sentence is misleading in a couple ways but, in one aspect, it directly reflects the outcome of Harmony's plot. In another, it has connotations of both Cain's posts on TPB and Bakker's writings on BBH as a whole. Another is the antecedent premise and the primary argument.

"if there is no gestalt shift in perception, then these realizations wouldn't and couldn't change our behaviors."

This is, somewhat, the secondary argument in the sentence. It also performs the duty for the antecedent premise (which just means for the consequent to be valid or "true," then the antecedent, "coming before" argument must also be valid or "true."

"if there is no gestalt shift in perception," then it doesn't matter what was written after because it cannot be validated by this specific linguistic bolster.

Gestalts are a tricky perceptual and philosophic thorn to handle. Unfortunately, it has outgrown its simple effect, which is similar to 'flicker fusion' - Bakker offers this as analogy often on TPB - and it has a developed to the point of Thought Schools (in my opinion, groups agreeing to a number of non-debatable premises for their research) in both the philosophic and psychological disciplines.

To put it most simply, a gestalt effect manifests most obviously in visual illusions. A gestalt shift occurs, say, when that rabbit you were looking at becomes a duck, the lady becomes a lamp, the 2D image of random patterns becomes a 3D object. In many cases, individuals experience an inability to re-embody their former perceptions.

This seems to be the primary criticism for BBH's efficacy as a theory... there's yet no gestalt shift greater than, say, something akin to nihilism or Buddhism (though I would hesitate to include this as Buddhism is embodied to a greater extent than other philosophies and, thus, experience the dividends of more physically manifest changes).

5098
General Misc. / Re: Oratory
« on: July 27, 2013, 08:30:25 pm »
A problem I've found is that, once you really understand how each word you speak (or write or type) can influence your audience, it can become hard to restrain yourself from purposefully manipulating people. And most people are so damn easy to manipulate.

Just rapping.

I might argue that few yet - with the knowledge to manipulate in comparison to the subsequent "ideal" set by the Dunyain - have such restraint and expertise with oratory to do so, specifically. While it may be an aspiration, not personally, for those who practice with such linguistic mechanisms in mind, a la abstract, few, if any, have cultivated such acutely focused levels of attention.

As Jorge suggested, many of the historical examples remaining are the result of collective noospheres working to hit as many of those mechanism as possible, in tandem with one another.

Duskweaver may be talk about diction, or manner of articulation - even taken to Dunyainic extremes) on the other hand but this is simply the result of biological predisposition and embodiment practice, which does not allow for any significant communicative advantages in manipulating particular behaviorial outputs (at least, until such a point that research, dissemination, and practice happens towards those ends - see, Neurolinguistic Programming, which I think disregards critical aspects of effective oratory).

Eventually, you start to feel a bit like Inrilatas: when every word, every gesture or expression, every subtlety of tone and cadence, becomes a potential tool (or even a potential weapon), how can you really be said to mean anything you say? Even if you feel like you're being honest and "speaking from the heart", how can you be sure you're not just manipulating yourself in order to more easily manipulate others? After all, the best liars and conmen are the ones who really, genuinely believe the lies they're telling while they're telling them. There is nothing so convincing as conviction.

+1 Duskweaver

It would be like Usain Bolt trying to let a young cousin beat him in a race. As far as social interaction goes, I would imagine that people fall into one of two categories: either they are attempting to "speak from the heart" when, in fact, no such objective personal state exists, or they forgo trying to resonate with their "true self" (which doesn't exist) and act/speak how they think they should in order to accomplish a certain goal (manipulation, simple acceptance, etc.)

Might I offer a third category by which a person engages in a relentless disassembling of their own linguistic utterances for purposes of self-understanding?

For instance, behavioral psychology might hazard a further statement, that certain constitutive criteria, either endogenously (within the body-mind) or endogenous (within the environment) stimuli are biologically inherent or conditioned resulting in specific sonically coded, information packets, depending on the sounds one makes. In which case, Kellhus or the World, you do not own your communicative expulsions, regardless, and all linguistic practice may be inherently inseparable from manipulation, as far as communication attempts to always leverage some environment reaction.

5099
Literature / Re: HP Lovecraft
« on: July 27, 2013, 08:06:07 pm »
I'm going to read some original stuff (rather than within-Mythos) before I pass my absolute and final judgment ;).

5100
Atrocity Tales / Re: The inverse fire.
« on: July 27, 2013, 08:05:05 pm »
That is awesome.

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