[What Came Before]

ETA: I do wonder, if paradox leads to consciousness and consciousness is the God, what makes the No-God what it is?

The space between gods?

I still think of the no god as rather like the death of thought - like light condensing at the event horizon of a black hole - you see what light escapes. The 'What do you see?' is just the part that escapes.

[What Came Before]

ETA: I do wonder, if paradox leads to consciousness and consciousness is the God, what makes the No-God what it is?

The space between gods?

How does this dialectic of yours hold up if consciousness is illusion as Bakker so often posits in his rantings and ramblings?

[What Came Before]

Well I dunno - how is thought paired inextricably with conciousness? I've watched dogs asleep, but dreaming (run twitches, muted barks - pursuing something in their mind only). I'd call that thought?

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

As one idea, anyway.

[What Came Before]

I still think of the no god as rather like the death of thought - like light condensing at the event horizon of a black hole - you see what light escapes. The 'What do you see?' is just the part that escapes.

I like this idea, if only because the idea of the No-God's desperate inquiries being meaningless and reflexive, because it's not even aware it's asking them, being fairly creepy.

I like the Soul of the Ark idea too, but it can't be true. The Gods are blind to the No-God precisely because they cannot perceive an intellect without a soul.

[What Came Before]

I like the Soul of the Ark idea too, but it can't be true. The Gods are blind to the No-God precisely because they cannot perceive an intellect without a soul.

If War is Intellect does War have a soul?

[What Came Before]

If War is Intellect does War have a soul?

It's more a question of how many?  :twisted:

[What Came Before]

I thought there was a 'What is the No God' thread but can't find it now. Thought I'd log this clue dat wuz found.

AD

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

rsbakker

Shrewd, AD. Very shrewd.

[What Came Before]

http://secondapocalypse.forumer.com/what-is-the-no-god-t1188754.html

As of this post it looks like you where actually the last one to post on that thread.

[What Came Before]

Yeah, that seems the one! Perhaps a mod could attach the first post here to that thread?

[What Came Before]

perhaps an inventory of all relevant passages would be good?

[What Came Before]

That would would be interesting. Though first someone would need to take the 66 posts that are currently there, move them around and summarize the different parts of each current theory. That way there wouldnt be a need to scroll and scroll through the pages looking to make sure not to cover something already discussed. Would be sweet though.

[What Came Before]

let's do a no god mind map! - a 'no mind' map if you will

[What Came Before]

some sources & analogues:

herbert--

(click to show/hide)

Excerpt from the speech by Hadi Benotto announcing the discoveries at Dar-es-Balat on the planet of Rakis:

[...]

Third, and we believe that this is equal in portent to the actual discovery, there is the storehouse itself.  The repository for these journals is an undoubted Ixian artifact of such primitive and yet marvelous construction that it is sure to throw new light on the historical epoch known as "The Scattering."  As was to be expected, the storehouse was invisible.  It was buried far deeper than myth and the Oral History had led us to expect and it emitted radiation and absorbed radiation to simulate the natural character of its surroundings, a mechanical mimesis which is not surprising in itself.  What hyas surprised our engineers, however, is the way this was done with the most rudimentary and truly primitive skills.

I can see that some of you are as excited by this as we were.  We believe we are looking at the first Ixian Globe, the no-room from which all such devices evolved.

(herbert, f.  god emperor of dune at 1-2).

and

The existence of no-ships raises the possibility of destroying entire planets without retaliation.  A large object, asteroid or equivalent, may be sent against the planet.  Or the people can be set against each other by sexual subversion, and then can be armed t odestroy themselves.  These Honored Matres appear to favor this latter technique.
--Bene Gesserit Analysis

(herbert, f. heretics of dune at 22).

there's plenty of other bits, most important among them in-setting are those that indicate a no-field (no-chamber, no-globe, no-ship) renders contents imperceptible by atreides prescient awareness.

the prefix no-, in genre at least, does not historically negate the item prefixed in itself, but only as to the knowledge arising in others about the prefixed item.  safe to assume that the no-god remains a deity of some sort.  from its conversations, the no-god lacks self-awareness, apparently, so safe to say that the no- prefix is self-reflexive.

clarke--

(click to show/hide)

It was a tribute to the Overlords' psychology, and to their careful years of preparation, that only a few people fainted.  Yet there could have been fewer still, anywhere in the world, who did not feel the ancient terror brush for one awful instant against their minds before reason banished it forever.

There was no mistake.  The leathery wings, the little horns, the barbed tail--all were there.  The most terrible of all legends had come to life, out of the unknown past.  Yet now it stood smiling, in ebon majesty, with the sunlight gleaming upon its tremendous body, and with a human child resting trustfully on either arm.

(clarke, a. c., childhood's end, I.5 at 68).  so are revealed the allegedly beneficient geocentric aliens who author the end of the world on behalf of another, who is described in familiar terms:

When he had turned half-circle he saw the mountain.  It was not on the horizon, but beyond it.

[...]

And then, slowly, the mountain began to change.  When he saw it first, it was a dull and almost sinister red, with a few faint markings near its crown that he could not clearly distinguish.  He was trying to focus on them when he realized that they were moving.

[...]

The mountain--he still thought of it as such, for there was no other word that could serve--seemed to be alive.

[...]

The somber red was brightening to an angrier hue.  Streaks of vivid yellow appeared, so that for a moment [he] felt he was looking at a volcano pouring streams of lava down on to the land beneath.  But these streams, as he could tell by occasional flecks and mottlings, were moving upward.

Now something else was rising out of the ruby clouds around the mountain's base.  It was a huge ring, perfectly horizontal and perfectly circular.

[...]

The ring was expanding as it climbed.  It was higher than the mountain now, and its nearer arc was sweeping swiftly toward him.  Surely, thought [he], it must be a vortex of some kind--a smoke ring already many kilometers across.  But it showed none of the rotation he expected, and it seemed to grow no less solid as its size increased.

Its shadow rushed past long before the ring itself had swept majestically overhead, still rising into space.  He watched until it had dwindled to a thin thread of blue, hard for the eye to focus upon in the surrounding redness of the sky.  When it vanished at last, it must already have been many thousands of kilometers across.  And it was still growing.

He looked back at the mountain.  It was golden now, and devoid of all markings.  Perhaps it was imagination--he could believe anything by this time--but it seemed taller and narrower, and appeared to be spinning like the funnel of a cyclone.

(clarke, a.c., childhood's end, III.22 at 198-99).  and again:

"There's a great burning column, like a tree of fire, reaching above the western horizon."

[...]

"As that fire spreads upwards from the Earth, I can see the network becomign firmer and less misty."

[...]

"Now it looks exactly like the curtains of the aurora, dancing and flickering across the stars.  Why, that's what it really is, I'm sure--a great auroral storm."

[...]

"I can see clearly again.  That great burning column is still there, but it's constricting, narrowing: it looks like the funnel of a tornado, about to retract into the clouds."

(clarke, a.c., childhood's end, III.24 at 215-16).

so, what we know:  clarke's demonic aliens arrive, and then later everyone gets sucked up in a tornado-cyclone mountain-ring fire-thing, which other passages reveal to be the masters of the demonic aliens, termed the "overmind," a collective consciousness.

adams--

(click to show/hide)

This is a complete record of its thought from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it.
Ah...! What's happening? it thought.
Er, excuse me, who am I?
Hello?
Why am I here? What's my purpose in life?
What do I mean by who am I?

(adams, d. ultimate hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, I at 95).

so:  no-god as falling whale randomly summoned by the infinite improbability drive.

[What Came Before]

Not sure I need spoilers -

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

I mean, how does the whale think, form those thoughts/words, without a history?

[What Came Before]

Another speculation on the No-God, advanced apologies if this has been voiced already.  Also, my thoughts are very vague at this point.

So: The Indigo Plague.

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

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

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

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

Like I said at the beginning, my thoughts are rather jumbled and inchoate at this point.  If someone else wants to take a crack at it and try to elaborate it, you are more than welcome.