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Bakker and Nietzsche

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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Bakker User ---
--- Quote from: Auriga ---(Of course, you can argue that there's no such thing as a totally amoral organism, just as there's no such thing as an absolutely indifferent mind. Life is a manifestation of need, after all, and so it is by definition caring. Even if this care and love is only towards the self.)
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Though couched in somewhat different terms, this is essentially one of the biggest puzzles about the Dunyain for me, especially given Bakker's other writing.

But I should bring up another thread for that.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Galbrod ---Life would only be a manifestation of need under the condition that identity is established which, in its turn, require memory. If there is no recollection of events leading up to a certain point in time, even caring for one self becomes an impossibility. Thus the tragic fate of the nonmen erratics and their (from the outside) gradually more depraved behaviour becoms a rather natural effect of their lapse of memory - moving from caring individuals (even if only caring for themselves) towards step by step transforming into beings of pure becoming.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Auriga ---
--- Quote from: Galbrod ---Life would only be a manifestation of need under the condition that identity is established which, in its turn, require memory. If there is no recollection of events leading up to a certain point in time, even caring for one self becomes an impossibility. Thus the tragic fate of the nonmen erratics and their (from the outside) gradually more depraved behaviour becoms a rather natural effect of their lapse of memory - moving from caring individuals (even if only caring for themselves) towards step by step transforming into beings of pure becoming.
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Tr00 dat. In many ways, the Nonmen's loss of memory is a form of death. Their personalities are lost, to the point that they become beings that only experience but don't really live, since they don't have any true "self" as a point of reference.

(Which is also why I find most ideas about the afterlife a bit dumb. There is obviously something beyond death, but it won't really be me experiencing it, since all my physical senses and memory will be gone. What makes us into who we are, after all, is just configurations of neurons. The atheist fear of "eternal darkness after death" is equally stupid, since I won't have a physical mind that experiences this black void. I do believe in a continued existence after death, in some state or other, but the "self" will have transformed into something else. Anyways, I'm just rambling here, and this convo about death and the afterlife is a bit off-topic to my Nietzsche-thread.)
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Auriga ---Any more thoughts on Nietzschean themes in PON?

IMO, there's a pretty interesting parallel between Nietzsche's fate and Kellhus' at the end of TTT. As we all know, Nietzsche went insane at the end of his life when trying to rewrite the superego (as his worldview was all about gaining mastery and  freeing the individual from the restraints of the ego).

Similarly, Moenghus says that Kellhus has gone insane from seeing the Thousandfold Thought. To us readers, it seems that Kellhus is the height of sanity and pure reason, but Moenghus might prove to be right. Did this also remind you guys of Nietzsche?
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Madness ---
--- Quote from: Auriga ---Tr00 dat. In many ways, the Nonmen's loss of memory is a form of death. Their personalities are lost, to the point that they become beings that only experience but don't really live, since they don't have any true "self" as a point of reference.
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This - this is what led to my if Dunyain conditioned Ishual and taught them [beings that only experience but don't really live] that they could develop new entities [self as a point of reference], diminishing or living off of the pain of their "past" selves - the "selves" of the original Nonmen.

Also, I apologize, Auriga, I just don't know enough/haven't understood enough Nietzsche to really comment.

What you write seems internally valid though :).
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