Damnation and the Five Ws (plus how)

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« Reply #15 on: June 01, 2013, 11:44:38 pm »
Quote from: Curethan
What else are they gunna do?  The inchies don't really have a 'builder' metality.
There is this idea that you justify your actions after you decide upon them. 
Perhaps the inchies would believe they were on an epic quest to save themselves from damnation even if it wasn't true/provable.
Maybe the inchies themselves are the source of damnation, and they have dragged their 'outside' along with them.

There is a lot yet to be revealed about damnation, don't you think? 
I think that's what sciborg2 was getting at ... there are still so many possibilities about the ultimate source and nature of judgement.

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« Reply #16 on: June 01, 2013, 11:44:43 pm »
Quote from: Imparrhas
Quote from: Callan S.
Remember they've gone from world to world, reducing thier population to the special number that severs godly contact?
Did we know about that in PoN though? I don't think anything like that was mentioned before the undead dragon in TWLW.

Quote from: Curethan
There is this idea that you justify your actions after you decide upon them. 
Perhaps the inchies would believe they were on an epic quest to save themselves from damnation even if it wasn't true/provable.
Why would they go on their mission in the first place if they couldn't be saved? For the genocide-rape-orgies themselves, because they are a race of 'lovers'? The [horrific] journey is the destination?
Quote
Maybe the inchies themselves are the source of damnation, and they have dragged their 'outside' along with them.
Now that would be interesting. Maybe they started out as a relatively normal race with a normal morality before advances in the Tekne allowed them to indulge in hedonism, but even as they changed they still retained some of their original morality and this damns them?

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« Reply #17 on: June 01, 2013, 11:44:53 pm »
Quote from: Curethan
Quote from: Imparrhas
Why would they go on their mission in the first place if they couldn't be saved? For the genocide-rape-orgies themselves, because they are a race of 'lovers'? The [horrific] journey is the destination?
That's exactly what I'm suggesting.  They're hedonists, not nihilists.  It's possible that they would just frame themselves like this.

Quote from: Imparrhas
Now that would be interesting. Maybe they started out as a relatively normal race with a normal morality before advances in the Tekne allowed them to indulge in hedonism, but even as they changed they still retained some of their original morality and this damns them?

I subscribe to the idea they have neurologically modified themselves.  Khellus gives us this tidbit when he faces Aurang and reaches into it's soul;
Quote from: TTT
A race with a hundred names for the vagaries of ejaculation, who had silenced all compassion, all pity, to better savour the reckless chorus of their lusts.

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« Reply #18 on: June 01, 2013, 11:45:00 pm »
Quote from: The Sharmat
If reform is being broached as an alternative route to avoiding damnation for the Inchoroi, then the important question I think is not whether they would ever by inclined to do so, but if redemption is objectively possible in this universe. Do the Gods forgive? Or, once damned, are you damned forever?

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« Reply #19 on: June 01, 2013, 11:45:07 pm »
Quote from: Curethan
One of the Inrithi beliefs is that you are damned for your intent, rather than your trespasses.  Some of Mimara's JE perspectives seem to support this and her POV explicitly suggests redemption is still possible for the skin eater who is trying to rape her at the end of WLW - despite the mountain of horrible things he has done.

On the other hand, Kellhus v Aurang/Esme in TTT concludes that redemption (or rewriting scripture) is not an option for the consult (who are damned because of their very nature - perhaps meaning they cannot countenance reformative actions).  The Inchoroi's only option appears to be changing reality wholesale - reforming reality to exclude damnation by altering the cycle of souls.

The idea that belief informs reality is one that is widely poo-pooed by forumites in my experience, but their protestations mainly hinge of the assumption that people conciously choose what they believe.  I believe (in Bakker's Earwa) that your beliefs shape your conciousness and inform the reality that you think you exist within.  The following quote comes from Bakker talking about the Psukhe directly after answering a question about how damnation is global rather than local- note how he mentions warring versions of reality.
Quote from: RSB
As a contemporary philosopher might say, the Psukhe is noncognitive, it has no truck with warring versions of reality, which is why it possesses no Mark and remains invisible to the Few.

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« Reply #20 on: June 01, 2013, 11:45:15 pm »
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote from: Imparrhas
Now that would be interesting. Maybe they started out as a relatively normal race with a normal morality before advances in the Tekne allowed them to indulge in hedonism, but even as they changed they still retained some of their original morality and this damns them?
If you want to accept that the Inchoroi are the destiny of humanity  that makes complete sense, the Inchoroi are a representation of the future of humanity. 

Post semantic apocalypse a race has succeeded in harnessing their mind so completely that it eventually degenerates into only the good feelings, and it is revealed that 'good feelings' have extremely dark underpinnings. 

Bakker might posit does a hug feel good because it makes bunnies frolick in the flowers of your mind or does a hug feel good because it is touch and touch has a sexual component and the sexual component triggers our pleasure center?

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« Reply #21 on: June 01, 2013, 11:45:22 pm »
Quote from: The Sharmat
Pleasure isn't all down to sex. You could just as easily have an Inchoroi type species that had modified itself to best enjoy all the possibilities of eating. A "Race of Gluttons". But that would have much less psychological impact to the reader.

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« Reply #22 on: June 01, 2013, 11:45:28 pm »
Quote from: Imparrhas
Quote from: lockesnow
If you want to accept that the Inchoroi are the destiny of humanity  that makes complete sense, the Inchoroi are a representation of the future of humanity. 

That's how I read it. A race that has a powerful tool like the Tekne but no meaning will descend into hedonism. Maybe Kellhus's goal is not to just defeat the Consult but also to steer humanity to an alternative path.

Quote from: lockesnow
Post semantic apocalypse a race has succeeded in harnessing their mind so completely that it eventually degenerates into only the good feelings, and it is revealed that 'good feelings' have extremely dark underpinnings. 

Bakker might posit does a hug feel good because it makes bunnies frolick in the flowers of your mind or does a hug feel good because it is touch and touch has a sexual component and the sexual component triggers our pleasure center?
Quote from: The Sharmat
Pleasure isn't all down to sex. You could just as easily have an Inchoroi type species that had modified itself to best enjoy all the possibilities of eating. A "Race of Gluttons". But that would have much less psychological impact to the reader.
I think it's worse than that. I think what he wants to say is that violence and pleasure are inextricably linked in races like humans and the proto-Inchoroi. And probably every species that grows up in a world with finite resources and selective pressures.

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« Reply #23 on: June 01, 2013, 11:45:36 pm »
Quote from: The Sharmat
So do Hannibal Lecter aliens and get the same point across.

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« Reply #24 on: June 01, 2013, 11:45:44 pm »
Quote from: Imparrhas
That would have much less psychological impact to the reader.  :P