Sorry that I'm not generating at my usual rate - skewl.

Word Madness. I feel you. I've been back for like two weeks and I'm already falling behind. May Cleric favor you.

What're you studying?

Lol - I wouldn't accuse you of belligerence. I don't think your speculation is clear but nerdanel.

Lol thanks.

You use that word all the time. What does it mean? Nerdanel? I feel like I'm missing some super obvious wordplay here.

-edited-

This is a response to your earlier post Madness.

Colour me unconvinced, dragharrow.

- Titirga was blind as a child... no idea what that means. Does he see like the Cishaurim? (child's skull, maybe, instead of snakes, or "Third Sight") Did he grow or make artifice eyes?

I don't think so. The Cishaurim are blind for life. The False Sun gave me the impression that Titirga can actually see again. There are no indications that his vision is at all stunted in adulthood whereas the snakes are a poor replacement for natural human sight (I think Moengus says its like looking through a pinhole or something).

Noshainrau is rumored to have found Titirga begging on the streets. I assumed that Titirga's blindness was medically curable once he was raised out of poverty. Specifically, I was thinking of cataracts because I remembered reading ancient civilizations in our own world could treat them using surgery.

- Blindness/Sight/Mark correlation: We don't know what the Mark is (is it a moral measure or a physical one?); we don't if the relation between "degrees of sightedness" and the Mark even exists - it seems to but I can't think of a thought-out reason as to why?; How are you ranking Mark/Inward Mark/No Mark? What is/are the orienting rule/s you use to establish hierarchy between them?

Food for thoughts.

We don't have anything concrete but we've been given some speculation on the Mark and its relationship to sight.
 
Kellhus claims that sorcery is speaking with the voice of god. All souls are fragments of the god soul and the Few are fragments that can recall the voice of the god soul. However, mundane existence apparently carries an overwhelming immediacy for souls. Intoxicated by mundane existence, the Few are generally unable to recall the voice of god with a high degree of clarity. Someone argues (and I think it's still Kellhus that proposes this) that the Cish's blindness reduces the overwhelming immediacy of the Inside. It separates them from the mundane world, making them more remote. The absence of this distraction allows them to recall the voice of god with greater clarity.

The exact mechanics of the Mark are unclear. I think Kellhus suggests that mages accrue it because they use the voice of god but there is dissonance. This kind of explains why, assuming Kellhus is right about sorcery and the Cish, they don't get the Mark, but it doesn't explain what the Mark actually is. That said, going by Kellhus' assumptions about sorcery, the Cish and the Mark, we can understand why Titirga would have a muted Mark. When he was young he had the remoteness of the blind but he doesn't anymore.

Mark/Inward Mark/No Mark?

I absolutely could be missing something but I looked through my books and The False Sun, and I wasn't able to find a reference to the "inward Mark" as you use that term. If you could point me to where that comes from awesome but my understanding is that there is the Mark (of varying intensities), the muted Mark (which we have only seen on Titirga), and no Mark. I'm trying to be careful about not rehashing but I do think that's a clear hierarchy. No sight=no Mark/Experience of no sight=some or "muted" Mark/No sight=zero Mark.

Why is that? I don't exactly know. According to Kellhus, I guess sorcerers without sight are more able to understand gods plan and act in line with it but that doesn't really make sense to me. I think it is because the Onta exists behind sight. The Few can see the Onta. Take their regular sight away and they can only see the Onta. That makes them understand the Onta much more accurately. So by my understanding, the Cish, who are totally blind and can only really see the Onta can speak in line with it very accurately. Titirga was one of the Few but when he was blind he became familiar with it. He relied on it. So that even when his blindness was cured he remembered the nature of the Onta and was more able to speak without dissonance.

Blindness/Sight/Mark correlation: We don't know what the Mark is (is it a moral measure or a physical one?);

I wish I had a theory on this but I don't at all. Here is my best guess but it is total speculation: There is a hard difference between the Inside and the Outside. The beings of the Outside created the Inside using the voice of god. Using the voice of god within the inside, which, again, was created by the voice of god, creates dissonance for some reason. There is some kind of nesting problem with the voice of god. Somehow, inherently, using the voice of inside the voice of god creates dissonance. Again though I don't know and I feel like that butts up against what I was just saying about blindness and the Mark.


I can't decipher what you said after this but I'm trying. Help me out I'm not trying to be belligerent.

Well, that is the established mythology (I don't use this term as a mark of "fiction," aside) of a number of human conceptions.

What mythologies? Not fiction but religious or like Parfit?
Edit: I misinterpreted you. By not fiction you meant not necessarily false?

Quote

Hmm I guess I want to think of these things less as agencies than as forces. Isn't Oblivion fundamentally the "Ground of Grounds"? That was your term and I think it perfectly encapsulates the Solitary God. Everything ultimately must rise from the void.

But it's interesting because I've always used that metaphor internally to distinguish Absolution/Redemption states (attributed to the Solitary God specifically) from Oblivion states (they, again, might have similar characteristics - "bowing to God forever" & "sleeping forever" are equally appalling to me as much as I think they are unlikely - but are dissimilar in actual experience).

Edit, I keep rereading this and I think I get it now:
So absolution/redemption is connected with the Solitary God and that's what you're describing as bowing forever. Whereas Oblivion is sleeping forever. That makes sense.

Is there an alternative that you wouldn't find appalling? This is a big jump but I'm given to suspect -for both Earwa and our own world- that existence is bondage. Freedom and existence appear to be antithetical to each other.

I wrote this before I saw your most recent post madness but I forgot to submit it. Hope it isn't too confusing or repetitive I was up on the Qirri. I'll look at your new post now.

Second - I don't actually see how you and FB have disagreed here. Hopefully, there's a response by FB to clarify.

I disagree with him in that he is elevating, for whatever reason, pure knowledge. Truth for the sake of truth. On the contrary, I believe that meaning requires informatic neglect. As I privilege meaning that puts us on different sides of the fence. I believe that total knowledge would be apocalyptic and that delusion is “good”.

Quote from: dragharrow on January 25, 2014, 07:39:22 am

I want to hear more about this. I think this is a core fallacy that Bakker is addressing.

Yes, Meaning is "kind of meaningless". Meaning is essentially a delusion. The nihilists are right. The world is meaningless. Pure meaning does not exist. And so meaning dwells in the shadows and in the corners of your vision. It exists only where we cannot see the truth of its nonexistence. Our perception of freewill is an example of this. As Bakker argues, we only perceive it because we cannot see our own processing. Cleric sort of gestures at this.

I'm honestly not sure that the revelation of eternal ignorance is nihilistic insomuch as it has nihilistic characteristics. We are absolutely bound by our circle of ignorance - but this doesn't make the meaningful content of what we do know inert.

I'm having a little trouble parsing this so my response may be totally missing the point. It's not that I believe that ignorance is nihilistic. It is that meaning does not exist objectively, it only exists subjectively. The world is a blasted meaningless husk but we breath meaning into it through delusion. And, further, I believe that that deluded meaning is "sacred". Those delusions are what makes living worthwhile. They make living different from the alternative. I am comfortable embracing delusions if they are the source of all meaning.

There is no meaning to be found by looking or knowing. In seeing clearly, meaningful content is destroyed. In our own world, science has slowly stripped all of the gods and spirits from our experience. It has shown love to be a chemical reaction. It calls the existence of free will into question. Meaning exists only in blindness and in ignorance. That is how I was reading Cleric. At their height, his people were very good at looking clearly (inquiring in the way of science and philosophy). They found that whatever they were able to understand became mundane and empty of meaning. So reasonably, they made an altar out of what they could not understand.

This is sort of connected with why the gods collect souls. They are too eternal, too remote. They want our ignorance and our confusion. So they consume us like we are drugs or food. They crave our limited, deluded experience of existence. It sucks to be as big as they are. Have you read Bakker's Disciple of the Dog? It touches on an the idea that in the future humanity could, through technology, increase the scope and power of the human brain. But the cognitive titans they become immerse themselves in simulations that imitate our current experience of the world. They intentionally limit their brainpower because it is much more entertaining to be small. Same deal with the hundred. They collect our souls because our experiences are made meaningful by how little we can see.

From Meppa's conversation with Pstama:

“Gods are naught but greater demons,” the Cishaurim said, “hungers across the surface of eternity, wanting only to taste the clarity of our souls. Can you not see this?”
The woman’s laughter trailed into a cunning smile. “Hungers indeed! The fat will be eaten, of course. But the high holy? The faithful? They shall be celebrated!”
Meppa’s voice was no mean one, yet its timbre paled in the wake of the Mother-Supreme’s clawing rasp. Even still he pressed, a tone of urgent sincerity the only finger he had to balance the scales. “We are a narcotic to them. They eat our smoke. They make jewellery of our thoughts and passions. They are beguiled by our torment, our ecstasy, so they collect us, pluck us likestrings, make chords of nations, play the music of our anguish over endless ages. We have seen this, woman. We have seen this with our missing eyes!”

Word Madness, I think I was to quick to generalize there.

Kahiht (aside Curethan or lockesnow's assertions) is the resulting distinction of mundane social interaction. If there is anything supernatural to it, it'd be the "walking with the momentum of many souls" a la Swazond (whatever that actually affects), I think, not godly imbued powers.

I don't remember exactly what Kahiht is or where it was mentioned. Could you point me to where that is in the books.

The White-Luck Warrior is Hundred Ordained.

I think I agree. Accepted.

The Hundred each have their own goals but take their lead from Yatwer who is the strongest.

Ajokli stands apart from the Gods.

Anagke is either an instrument of the God of Gods, the Solitary God, or none of them and her own agent.

Agreed.

The World Conspires may or may not be a tool of Anagke's, the God of Gods, the Solitary God - it too may just be the resulting mundane distinction of the interaction of various social forces manifested by humans on mass, and how there is always someone to see fortune in circumstance.

I don't exactly remember The World Conspires either. Who expresses this concept?

The God of Gods is the sum of the Hundred. It is one where they are many. It may or may not have agency in the world.

The Solitary God is the Ground of All (as per the Gnostic allusions). The God of Gods may or may not reflect actual moral dissonance from the Solitary God (a la Fanim, Inrithi, or Gnostic allusions).

Word.

We have no evidence of either the God of Gods or the Solitary God?

The fact that pursuing the Solitary God allows the Cish to avoid the mark is, in my opinion, evidence of salience. That said, I get that that might be exclusively an effect of their blindness. Tirtirga's muted mark certainly suggests that blindness without Fanim faith may be enough.

I would also count Meppa's conversation with Psatma as evidence of the Solitary God. I buy that he has seen the Outside and he still believes in the Solitary God.

I want to add the Non Men's Oblivion to the list.

I think it may or may not be the same thing as the Solitary God. They both theoretically provide freedom from the hells and heavens of hundred. If there is any distinction between them I think it would be that the solitary is genesis, the process that separates existence from the void, whereas oblivion could be the void itself.

Quote

I strongly disagree that Kellhus will close the way to outside and make the world more deterministic and soulless. Why would he do that and how would that make him a savior? Despite their damnation and their cruelty and their arbitrariness, the hundred provide the intuitive meaning that makes life worth living. Without them it'd be the semantic apocalypse.

Without them we would no better than the Inchoroi!

That's where they came from. They're humans without the fundamentalist meaning of the hundreds. Without the hundred hedonism and power are all their is. Without the hundred our hungers would define us and we would become a race of lovers and flesh.

Hmmm...this is a tough one and I'll probably have to return to it. To me, the "meaning" attributed by the Hundred is...well, kind of meaningless. It's no better or worse than the Inchoroi. Instead, Kellhus shutting the Outside and merging all of the souls into the Solitary God may be the best possible fate anyone could hope for. He is essentially freeing all souls from material bondage (a bondage that is enforced, if not initially perpetrated, by the demiurgic Hundred), and in a way bringing true enlightenment to all ensouled beings -- all possible thinking creatures. It's an apocalypse of a different kind. It's not necessarily "good" or "bad".

I want to hear more about this. I think this is a core fallacy that Bakker is addressing.

Yes, Meaning is "kind of meaningless". Meaning is essentially a delusion. The nihilists are right. The world is meaningless. Pure meaning does not exist. And so meaning dwells in the shadows and in the corners of your vision. It exists only where we cannot see the truth of its nonexistence. Our perception of freewill is an example of this. As Bakker argues, we only perceive it because we cannot see our own processing. Cleric sort of gestures at this.

“We Nonmen …” he continued telling his hands, “we think the dark holy, or at least we did before time and treachery leached all the ancient concerns from our souls …”

“You must understand,” Cleric said. “For my kind, holiness begins where comprehension ends. Ignorance stakes us out, marks our limits, draws the line between us and what transcends. For us, the true God is the unknown God, the God that outruns our febrile words, our flattering thoughts …”

Achamian battled the scowl from his face. To embrace mystery was one thing, to render it divine was quite another. What the Nonman said sounded too like Kellhus, and too little like what Achamian knew of Nonmen mystery cults.

Sight kills meaning. Knowledge kills meaning.

What would be the point of the enlightenment you're proposing? The only purpose in collecting truth is to slake our desires. Without desire, what would be the meaning in apprehending the absolute?

There are only three options. One, meaning in delusion and slavery (what the hundred give us). Two, existence without meaning and slavery. This is the existence of the Inchoroi. They are consumed by their appetites. And, three, nonexistence. This is how I see apprehending the absolute. It's oblivion.

I'd rather have meaning in ignorance than oblivion or pure appetite.

Francis. Your gnostic skin for this is totally up my alley and in line with my vision. The gnostic concepts of the Demiurge and Absolute are exactly what I'm envisioning.

Also, you don't mention this but I think the gnostics do. In addition to being the sum of all things in whom we exist, but he also critically the prime mover. He is the stepping out of the void.

Well, here's the thing. I think Sejenus was indeed a prophet, but he was a prophet of the Hundred. His powers were divinely given (like the kind magic "magic" we see from Porsparian and Pstama). Why the god sent him, I do not know. Maybe to reinforce the faith, to keep it strong (and thus keep giving them souls).

Kellhus, however, is a savior of the Solitary God. He's a lie made truth, like what Moe says. Thus the Khahit, the World Conspires, all that stuff.

I agree with this 100%. This exactly.



That said,
While I see the hundred as essentially the Demiurge, I do not think they are bad or evil. They are the differentiators of meaning. Yes, I'd rather go to the solitary god, and he's of a greater order, but you can't really have a world without them. Division in the absolute is necessary for all the fun planetary conflict in life. I don't want to transcend yet.

He does by destroying the Demiurges (the Hundred) and shutting off the Outside, which cuts all the souls in the universe with it. The material universe essentially becomes a soulless, deterministic, disenchanted one -- one much more similar to our own. I also believe it's possible he will use the No-God to achieve this, possibly even by becoming the No-God himself, though I'm more uncertain of that aspect. Regardless, I think Kellhus truly is a "savior" of sorts, just the kind people might expect.

I strongly disagree that Kellhus will close the way to outside and make the world more deterministic and soulless. Why would he do that and how would that make him a savior? Despite their damnation and their cruelty and their arbitrariness, the hundred provide the intuitive meaning that makes life worth living. Without them it'd be the semantic apocalypse.

Without them we would no better than the Inchoroi!

That's where they came from. They're humans without the fundamentalist meaning of the hundreds. Without the hundred hedonism and power are all their is. Without the hundred our hungers would define us and we would become a race of lovers and flesh.

I totally agree with Kellhus as the avatar of the solitary god but he was sent here to stop the no-god. I think he's being honest when he says that the hundred just cannot see that they are aligned with him.

So, essentially is seems like you are saying that the No-God is a sacrifice.  His torment of all-knowing, or all-self knowing, is what allows the people of Earwa to avoid the Damnation imparted upon them by the Hundred.

Does the No-God know this? If so, would that mean that he accepts the need for his existence and therefore becomes what some would argue to be the very epitome of "Good"?  If he he knows this but doesn't accept it, would he have said "Thank you" after being "killed" by the Heron Spear?  I don't think he truely understands or believes this, otherwise his questions wouldn't be asked.

I personally wouldn't call him good. His existence will prevent you from experiencing damnation but what's the point of living in a dead and meaningless world. Living is worthwhile because of meaning and meaning comes with a price. There's a metaphor in there surely.

I'm of the mind that meaning is more valuable than truth. Sure the Inchoroi's perspective and the No-God's world are in a sense truer than that of the gods but who cares? Rich illusions are more valuable than empty truths. I don't know what my opinion here would be characterized as, existentialist maybe? Born into a cold and pointless world, the noble thing is to choose to create meaning (by lying to oneself if that's what it takes) and breath life into it. The gods may be arbitrary but at least they've got convictions.

I don't know if the No-God accepts his fate or would thank you for killing him. Its possible that his level of awareness is so confusing that such questions don't really apply. I prefer the idea that he would thank for killing him though. I may not think he is good for the world but I do think he is a sacrifice and a sympathetic entity. Poor thing. I agree with you that he probably doesn't truly understand or accept.

So what would drive the need for death and war associated with the No-God's arrival, other than the hypothetical misunderstanding of the people of Earwa?  In other words, why wouldn't the Consult be able to create the No-God quietly in their basement after committing the required torture, sacrifice, etc, and then hang out and party while the rest of Earwa is unaware of the existence? 

That's a really good question that I haven’t really thought about. The two likely possibilities I see are that: one, it's just in his nature to destroy. The god's clearly have personalities in line with their existential domains. Perhaps he is the same. Or two, death provides some sort of power source for his mojo. I like your giving him the label of a sacrifice and agree with it but who is to say how much suffering needs to be heaped on the altar before the god's can be shut out. In any case your guess is as good as mine there.

I assume that the answer to this would be that the No-God's arrival would inevitably be tied to the inability for new children to be born, or other similar terrible consequences.  If that is the case, then I think we would need to explore why those consequences exist.  For example, if children are no longer born due to the presence of the No-God, does that mean the children are illusions of the Hundred or of their parents, which eventually grow into their own individual Truths capable of extending their Truth unto others? 

I think that his arrival is definitely tied inevitably to the inability for new children to be born. My read on it is this. Souls are a connection to the outside and a connection to the gods. Seal out the gods and no new souls can come through. It also prevents them from going back which is the whole point. Seal the way and no meaning or new souls can come though but also no souls have to go back into the outside where damnation awaits.

It's possible that those slain while the No-God dies go into him. Maybe the Inchoroi didn't settle for oblivion instead of damnation, maybe they've insured a pleasant retirement by creating a heaven of their own. A simulation of eternal pleasure running in the circuits and souls of the No-God himself.

And yes, children and their souls are an illusion. Everything is an illusion, but miraculous beautiful things like souls are particularly illusory. And I would posit that children do become capable of extending their truth onto others. Souls are a kind of lens that allow you to filter the truth. That's how the gods, who are super-souls, created Earwa, and it is how sorcerers bend reality.

By the way, I don't necessarily think everyone faces damnation when they return to the outside. The outside is chaotic. Really chaotic.

For I have seen the virtuous in Hell and the wicked in Heaven. And I swear to you, brother, the scream you hear in the one and the sigh you hear in the other sound the same.

“What did you see?” Nin'sariccas asked with what seemed genuine curiosity. “What did you find?” “Gods... Broken into a million warring splinters.”

Maybe when you cross over your soul is divided into parts. Separated by its properties the way the hundred are.  The warlike parts go to Gilgaöl, the greedy parts to Ajokli, the scarily passive aggressive parts to Yatwer. Or maybe you're divided up by deeds and not nature. Your souls units given to those you worshiped or offended. The outside is such a mess that I'm not sure it matters at that point. I doubt you are really you anymore.

What to make of the Inverse Fire then though? I don't think it lies, and while I cannot imagine the chaos would be comfortable, it would have to be pure torture to inspire the devotion it does. I want it to have only worked on mages who I could imagine face another order of damnation but if I recall correctly everyone who enters is converted.

In any case I think the Cish have the right of it. Like Meppa says the hundred are just great demons. Give them your respect but worship the Solitary God. The god of pure undifferentiated meaning. The fact of meaningful illusion.

Quote from: dragharrow on December 09, 2013, 09:52:13 pm

Again, the specific mechanics are beyond me but we know some of the things that are connected with being good at wielding these powers in Earwa. Will, intellect, emotion, and sight are all tied up with it.

Maybe. We're pretty tentative about "good" around here. And Trisk and I are big on the Cishaurim being Redeemed as opposed to Damned. Plus, Ajokli's Narindar suggests that the sighted are, in fact, the blind.

Oh man, not the way I meant good. I meant like skilled at or whatever. Those seem to be factors that enable one to exert the power deeply, or delicately, or strongly.

Personally I completely agree on the Cishaurim front. Fits with the general constructiveness of blindness that I've been selling.  I wish I had the emotional depth to bear the water.

I'm not sure if you've read Neuropath or not but... The No-God's a Neil in a Box?

I have read it and yeah, they're at least of a similar order.

I've outrun myself here so I'm winging it.

I don't think I have the exact mechanics of magic in Earwa down but as I understand it sorcery sort of represents any kind of meaning manipulation.

Math, art, philosophy and religion are tools we use to manipulate meaning in our world. In Earwa matter follows meaning to such a potent degree that the equivalents of the ways we manipulate meaning can burn armies.

Sorcery is like Wittgenstein's conception of language games except it goes beyond language. Meaning games and truth games. We like to think that when we inquire into truth we are doing something something objective but we aren't. Truth is up for grabs and we manipulate it with whatever tools are at our disposal for selfish animal reasons. Science, philosophy, religion and common sense are all the same. They are just sets of rules for the games we play with truth.

Again, the specific mechanics are beyond me but we know some of the things that are connected with being good at wielding these powers in Earwa. Will, intellect, emotion, and sight are all tied up with it.

I'm specifically interested in more of what you think the No-God's subjective experience is like, if you'd indulge me...

Someone mentioned the no god being a god of anosognosia but I think it's more likely to be the opposite. I can see the mechanics of the no god somehow working through hyper self awareness.

What I was thinking here was that the gods are these blind, illusory sources of meaning and the no god is an inward looking antithesis to their meaning.

Our intuition tells us that if the no god is asking for help seeing it follows that he can't see. Bakker thinks that intuition is dangerously misleading though. When we can't see, we don't know we can't see, and we are unconcerned. As we gain access to more information we become more aware of our own ignorance. Moreover, the world is a place without inherent meaning, and possibly a place without truth. Because of that it's our ability to lie to ourselves that creates truth.

The ineffable but all important thing we call “meaning” is actually a direct product of  informatic deficits wired into our brains. Our ability to experience love, hate, beauty, time, consciousness, is the direct product of our blindness to the truth of our own nature. If we could see our thought processes clearly the illusion would be broken. Our soul is our capacity for illusion and the gods are a concentration of that. They just believe and feel their certain truths, thereby providing anchors of truth for us to exist downstream of.

D because C, C because B, B because A, A because? A because the gods know and feel it to be true. That kind of belief (wrong word?) has power. Power that is similar to sorcery. They are big powerful agencies. Souls more deluded and willful than a human could ever hope to be.

I'm just throwing stuff around here. I think that this self-delusion, illusion stuff is critical but its tangled. There seems to be power in both sight and blindness. Look closely enough and illusion collapses. Sometimes that's a good thing. They mandate are skeptics and that makes them powerful. The Cish are zealots who literally have blind faith, and that makes them powerful. Mimaras clearly on the power from sight side of things. Sight is definitely associated with destruction and illusion with creation.

Anyway, the No God begging to know what people see makes me think his vision is too good. Plus it's a cool parallel to the blind gods.

Theres a few ways this could work but what I'm imagining is that the No God is a big soul and a big “lens”. Under his powerful gaze all the beautiful lies and illusions whither. Horrifyingly I suspect the lens may be mostly focused on itself. He is a lens and a consciousness leashed together for the singular purpose of experiencing the worlds and his own meaninglessness. Thus the desperate mantra. He exists only to perceive the illusory-ness of that his existence. He experiences consciousness as robustly as we do, but he can see the neural or digital circuits that generate that consciousness doing so as they do it. His sensorium is taken up by a never-ending lesson in nihilism.

Because of the way magic is tied up in sight and will and soul, his torment changes the rules for everyone. He is a god of nihilism and materialism. Meaning is shut out from the world.

When I finish writing these they seem hopelessly speculative. Way fun though.