[Wilshire]

don't get this part though.

Why? Why don't you get this. If Gods do exist in our world/UNIVERSE, there is no connection here, same as with the Inchoroi's home planet. Its not that hard to comprehend. The progenitors delved too deep, created a looking glass into hell. Something, in sure many of the scientists around here would be ecstatic for. Maybe not their damnation, yet again, who knows what Mimara or Esme would see looking at the IF.

If there's no connection you cannot be damned. Arcane/anarcane has something to do with whether God is "dreaming lucidly" in that particular place. Again, as has been said, the premise of the story is that Gods/meaning are real in this universe, unlike in our universe (from the perspective of Bakker). 

Yeah I'm with Teilaxu. There either is a connection, or there isn't - I think its that simple.

If the Gods exist and if souls exist, then there is a connection to the Outside. If there is a connection, then the Outside can conceivably influence the Inside, and vice versa. That's really all there is to it.

We know the first two statements are true (Gods and Souls exist), so therefore a connection must exist. It can't be that the connection only exists on Earwa, because then damnation would only exist on Earwa. Since the Inchoroi/whoever found out they were damned when they weren't on Earwa, we must conclude that the connection between Outside and Inside is universal.

From there, the rest of the discussion follows, no need to rehash that.

Conversely, if there is no connection, there cannot be souls or Gods. And without souls or Gods, there is obviously nothing to connect the inside and the outside - there's no outside to even discuss.

Anyway, I'm not trying to convince you of anything. If you don't think there's a connection, that's fine, but what I'm saying is that the entire discussion comes from the assumption that there is a connection between the Outside and Inside in the whole universe. Its not an illogical assumption I pulled out of thin air, and can be explained simply - though that doesn't mean its correct or that you have to agree with it.

[H]

I think it stands to reason though that it would be the case for the nature of the Outside-Inside relationship to be different for placed besides Eärwa.  If it wasn't, how did the Progenitors get so far but not realize the Outside was real?  It seems very unlikely that the gods can function the same everywhere else, when we know that Eärwa is the exception.

[SuJuroit]

I'm increasingly starting to disregard Bakker's proclamations regarding his work.  Anyway, if the No-God is unaware and unconscious, then whence its questioning?  I mean sure, I could program my computer to periodically "ask" the same questions asked by the No-God, and that wouldn't mean my computer has consciousness or self-awareness, but to claim that's what's going on with the No-God is simply... lame.  Perhaps the soul within the No-God is a separate entity from the No-God?  I think I like that interpretation best of all.

I completely understand your problem with the premise, but it is what it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

Bakker's just using it basically as is.

Yes, I'm familiar with the concept.  I just find it to be lame and bad storytelling.  Look, we all know why the No-God asks those questions in ALL CAPS.  Because it's badass.  Because it's cool.  Because it's terrifying. 

But by claiming the No-God is unaware of its existence, Bakker turns the No-God into just a chatty cathy doll.  There's nothing asking the questions because there's nothing there other than a speaker belching pre-programmed lines.  This is a good example of how Bakker's need to insert his philosophy into his story makes the story worse.

[MSJ]

I think it stands to reason though that it would be the case for the nature of the Outside-Inside relationship to be different for placed besides Eärwa.  If it wasn't, how did the Progenitors get so far but not realize the Outside was real?  It seems very unlikely that the gods can function the same everywhere else, when we know that Eärwa is the exception.

Spot on. They didn't even know about sorcery when they landed on Earwa. Planet X (now the name for Inchoroi homeland) doesn't have to be connected to the Outside for their souls to go there. Earwa just has a DIRECT link is all. The progenitors are us, Bakker all but confirmed this. So, it's telling that their world is just like ours. No gods interfering or manifesting. No sorcery. But, most of us believe our soul will go somewhere when we're dead.

It's like the hadron collider, who knows what secrets of the Universe might come from that thing. That thing scares me, its digging too deep, just like the progenitors.

Really, I don't see how what I'm suggestion is hard to comprehend. Planet X had no direct link to the Outside, Gods couldn't meddle. Progenitors went searching for a planet with a direct link after they dug too deep and found the IF. Ajokli all the way down is waaaay more far-fetched then Kellhus still acting upon the TTT. I liked that post by the way, and would make for a great story. A true turn of events. We all knew the whirlwind was coming, not that big of a surprise.

[Inchoboi]

To me the No-God's questions seem to be basically the manifestation of it's "hunger" to BE, it's simply functioning as it must in the only way it can due to it's construction/components and it's pre-determined programming.  We know Kelmomas' brain is different from others' which is the reason he is a viable Insertant. The No-God's questions sound like they're from one twin to the other. Without the constant input from the bodily-active/first-person twin's thoughts, the second twin is left baying at the gates so to speak. "Neither of them" can know that they "both" suffer the same fate. To THEM (if such a statement is applicable) I assume it feels like they've been cut-off from one another, this being the cause of the No-God's "hunger", the desire to be whole again... TO BE.

Parentheses because we know they constantly swap; "Kelmomas" as watched/Object, "Samarmus" as watcher/Subject. Now they're at once both, and neither of these things. Zero and One.

I'm sure there was a lot of discussion about it already, but there's clearly something up with the Judging Eye and the No-God. Scenes where TJE opened in the Great Ordeal mention "Sranc squealing in the black" and the like.  Most believable for me is that the Judging Eye only exists due to the No-God existing (and thus it exists/has existed retroactively). Some of you would probably be able to conceptualize it better, but for lack of a better way to share the thought I'll do my best.

TNG collapsing of Kel/Sam certainily ruined the God of God's cycle, it glitched the system and "woke" the God. We know for sure that only women who give birth to still-born children have TJE, but I think that twins are a part of that requirement as well. Because Mimara would have the twins she carries, she has TJE and thus has had/will have it her whole life... maybe not ONLY because one would die, but SPECIFICALLY because of that circumstance in addition to the No-God doing its subject-object collapse. I think, due to souls sharing the same space, that the collapse of Kel and Sam somehow also happens to Mimara's twins... blinding the Judging Eye in the same way that we're blind to how our brains work. Seeing, feeling, understanding how our brains do what they do is not a function of our brains, and I believe here that seeing, feeling, understanding itself is not a function of the God.

What could this mean? Hell, anything. But sounds logical to me that the world being Shut and the lack of new (live) births makes sense if you are willing to entertain the thought that at this time (post-Resumption), the "shared space" that's orthogonal to Bios, has collapsed into ONE place... ALL souls, or at least the remaining/unclaimed Portion were born into Mimara's baby?

Can't forget to include!

The Ark, The Inchoroi, The Progenitors - Okay, I am going to go ahead and jump into the clearly less popular opinion and side with Ajencis, that genius dude who was like "Wait wtf? There's no way they flew to other planets!" due to the identical locations of stars when charted from different corners of the World. "The stars would move relative one another were they not uniformly embedded in a sphere hanging a fixed distance about the Sky."
....Okay, yeah Ajencis might not be aware of Tekne and it's possibilities... but I am far more inclined to trust in him (and his statement about the stars/sky/universe) than the Inchoroi. In Ajencis' Glossary entry in TUC, this line caught my eye in regards to the discussions in this thread: "In fact, he observed that most individuals posses no criteria whatsoever for their beliefs" - which I include here specifically because the Inverse Fire is seemingly ALL the Inchoroi are basing their beliefs on (that and whatever "programming" their Bios was crafted with). The Mutilated claim they "outlived their origins" or some such, but who is to say that they ever knew their origins? They are a creation, that much is obvious... but truly, what reason have we to believe in "Progenitors", or believe that a weapon race like the Inchoroi would A.) Tell the truth if they knew it or B.) KNOW in the first place?

The Inchoroi are doing no more or less than what their Goad(s) call upon them to do - they create the No-God, they wake the God. Who wants to wake the God? The Vision/no-haloes Kellhus! (Which I think is Outside-Kellhus, but could certainly be a lot of other Things.)

The tapestry thingy that was flashing a code of sorts which only WLW/Sorweel (right?) and Kellhus could see/read = I can't help but think Kellhus made the Inverse Fire. 

Got way too much to add as usual and this is more than enough for one post.

ETA: There's no real need for "Progenitors" or actual other worlds/Grounds from my perspective. The Inchies are probably deceived. The Nail is where the Ark came from and it could be the Outside as much as it could be a Wormhole, or from Earwa's past/future, I hope we find out!

[TLEILAXU]

I think it stands to reason though that it would be the case for the nature of the Outside-Inside relationship to be different for placed besides Eärwa.  If it wasn't, how did the Progenitors get so far but not realize the Outside was real?  It seems very unlikely that the gods can function the same everywhere else, when we know that Eärwa is the exception.

Realizing damnation exists is hard when supernatural phenomena aren't beating you over the head every day. They had mastered everything when they realized that there was something orthogonal to the real going on. But in the end, as Emilidis made sorcerous artifacts without the mark, they managed to create technology interlinked with the Outside. Again, the fundamental premise of the story is that Gods are real, and as such they can act any way they please. Recall what Bakker says in the quote about the Dreaming God. In anarcane places, the God dreams lucidly, making co-opting his songs hard if not impossible. I.e. God is in some sense more "aware" here and you cannot sing fire out of thin air, but you can get sent to the pit for sure.

[SmilerLoki]

Really, I don't see how what I'm suggestion is hard to comprehend. Planet X had no direct link to the Outside, Gods couldn't meddle. Progenitors went searching for a planet with a direct link after they dug too deep and found the IF. Ajokli all the way down is waaaay more far-fetched then Kellhus still acting upon the TTT. I liked that post by the way, and would make for a great story. A true turn of events. We all knew the whirlwind was coming, not that big of a surprise.

You're talking about the strength of a connection (the existence of a direct link implies the possibility of an indirect one), while me and TLEILAXU are talking about the connection itself.

But by claiming the No-God is unaware of its existence, Bakker turns the No-God into just a chatty cathy doll.  There's nothing asking the questions because there's nothing there other than a speaker belching pre-programmed lines.  This is a good example of how Bakker's need to insert his philosophy into his story makes the story worse.

You lost me completely. This is only one way to understand the concept of philosophical zombie. Through a simple analogy that uses existing technology. The concept can be formulated more rigorously, which creates very interesting questions that, I feel, Bakker is trying to at least showcase.

The No-God is not at all made into a chat-bot by referring to it as a p-zombie and non-conscious.

[SmilerLoki]

The Ark, The Inchoroi, The Progenitors - Okay, I am going to go ahead and jump into the clearly less popular opinion and side with Ajencis, that genius dude who was like "Wait wtf? There's no way they flew to other planets!"

There is a slight problem with this line of thinking. Many of Bakker's extratextual comments outright state that the Inchoroi indeed came from outer space and the Progenitors do have a homeworld other than Earwa. One of those comments is what I started my participation in this thread with:
http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=2664.msg44236#msg44236

Personally, I feel like that entry from TUC Glossary is a jab at the scientific method and its genre fiction counterpart, Theory of Narrative Causality (my apologies if you weren't exposed to TVTropes before; we will see you in six months). Scientists try to devise their theories by only using the proven facts and writers are encouraged to use only the elements that are properly set up and foreshadowed in their plots. But that's not how the world works. We never know whether we possess enough information to make a sound theory, and if we try to make a theory with just the facts that we have right now, then said theory might be spectacularly wrong. For example, it's way more logical for Ajencis that there is no space or other worlds (the way it was completely logical for our own ancestors) and the out-of-context threat of the Inchoroi and the No-God Earwa faces is actually very much an in-context one, coming from the Outside and its agencies. But Ajencis knows exactly nothing about the Inchoroi, their Ark, their history, etc. He is not in possession of even a fraction of the information available to many other characters, let alone us, readers.

He uses incomplete data and shoehorns it in a theory that suits his worldview and beliefs.

You know, just like we here often do when we discuss TSA. Because we expect Theory of Narrative Causality to be in effect, for one thing. And also because proving something is a lot of work, not to mention it isn't always possible, which is compounded by different people making different leaps of logic that cannot be reconciled with each other. This is also why philosophy is mired in endless disputation.

Even when Wilshire advocates to first define the starting conditions of our theories, it might turn out to be completely unhelpful, because many theories are based on what's called primitive notions. Those exist even in the context of something as simple as a book series, for example TSA (that's not to say TSA is a simple book series, of course). But they also exist in geometry (depending on the axiom system it might be point, plane, line, etc.) or math in general (number), or physics (time).

Bakker seems to be very aware of all of the problems outlined above, and it's very much to my liking. I'm pretty sure he helped me to better educate myself.

[Wilshire]

Even when Wilshire advocates to first define the starting conditions of our theories, it might turn out to be completely unhelpful

Its always helpful in the sense that it gets people closer to talking about the same thing - not as a rigorous exercise to guarantee it, since that would include recursively deeper discussion on the darkness that comes before

[Khaine]

So I have this crazy theory about the Inchoroi.

The progenitors discovered through super advanced technology that they are damned. The idea that Ajoklis did it, is seductive but I don't buy it.

At the same time they figured out that they need to shut the Outside and the way of doing this is to reduce the population of a planet below a certain level. They kept doing that, but they kept failing because there was a catch. In order for the Outside to be shut, it had to be done in a certain way and the planet had to be fully arcane.

That certain way was the No-God. But the No-God could only work in a planet that was fully arcane and the connection to the Outside was the strongest. They found partially arcane planets and they did reduce the population to the required number but every time they failed. Because it wasn't just the number but also the way to achieve this. So finally they figured out that they needed to deploy a special tool, the No-God to shut the outside, but this could only happen in a planet which was arcane and where its inhabitant were proficient in the use of magic.

The Ark upon contact with Earwa malfunctioned and crashed because its design was not compatible with a fully arcane planet, causing its accidental crash. Remember it was constructed in a fully anarcane environment. During the fall and because of the great losses they suffered in the wars against Nomen, knowledge of the tekne of the No-God was "lost", that's why it too them so long to deploy him. Possibly the No-God needed some magic input in order to operate and without the ability of magic, they couldn't operate him.

At the same time crash landing on Earwa was a good thing, because the Inchoroi had finally arrived at an arcane planet, the promised land.

This OR the Inchoroi are just crazy psychopaths hell bent on killing other species out of lust and they merely use the excuse of redemption as an excuse, the rationalisation of rationalisations.

In any case, it is entirely possible that redemption the Inchie way is entirely false, because it has never been done and nobody really knows how it would work. In this sense it mirrors the elusive quest of the Dunyain to attain the absolute. The absolute is a mirage and so is redemption for all who join the crazy quest of the Inchies. They would be better off learning to meditate and follow the way of the Nonmen

And this in my mind sort of settles the most vexing question why was Earwa the promised land and how did they know?

[SmilerLoki]

@Khaine

Save for some nitpicking, this is pretty much my line of thinking.

One important thing to note is the fact that unarcane ground does, in fact, exist in Earwa, and the No-God famously avoided it.

[H]

@Khaine

Save for some nitpicking, this is pretty much my line of thinking.

One important thing to note is the fact that unarcane ground does, in fact, exist in Earwa, and the No-God famously avoided it.

I think we can actually sort of rectify this with the notion of Ark not working in Arcane situations.  First, I think we just clarify that it is unlikely that Ark completely stopped functioning.  I tend to think of it more as the AI (or, not so A I) that constituted Ark did not work under the Arcane conditions.  That is, the "circuits" did not function.

So, when Ark crashes, many of Ark's various parts still function, there is simply no more intentionality, because the directive element (possibly the No-God apparatus itself) did not function.  So, once "bootstrapped" with the Consult with an Earwa-compatible substitute "circuit" the opposite problem becomes the issue, an aversion to the Anarcane. In other words, it simply cannot function outside the particular circumstance of it's genesis, perhaps.

[Khaine]

@Khaine

Save for some nitpicking, this is pretty much my line of thinking.

One important thing to note is the fact that unarcane ground does, in fact, exist in Earwa, and the No-God famously avoided it.

I think we can actually sort of rectify this with the notion of Ark not working in Arcane situations.  First, I think we just clarify that it is unlikely that Ark completely stopped functioning.  I tend to think of it more as the AI (or, not so A I) that constituted Ark did not work under the Arcane conditions.  That is, the "circuits" did not function.

So, when Ark crashes, many of Ark's various parts still function, there is simply no more intentionality, because the directive element (possibly the No-God apparatus itself) did not function.  So, once "bootstrapped" with the Consult with an Earwa-compatible substitute "circuit" the opposite problem becomes the issue, an aversion to the Anarcane. In other words, it simply cannot function outside the particular circumstance of it's genesis, perhaps.

All that, plus I would say despite the existence of unarcane grounds in Earwa, on balance it is a fully arcane planet, save the odd exception here and there. Whereas all the previous planets visited by the Inchoroi were only partially arcane and the connection to the Outside was not strong enough for the shutting down of the world to work properly. For the same reason, i.e. not coming across a fully arcane planet, the Ark had not malfunctioned earlier.

[SmilerLoki]

To clarify, my comment about the No-God wasn't meant as a contradiction. Myself, I saw it more as corroboration, but other interpretations have every right to exist.