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The Unholy Consult / Re: Why would the Inchoroi fear damnation?
« on: May 17, 2020, 07:14:05 pm »@Cyx
Now I see your lines of thinking better. And you certainly shouldn't be worrying about not being educated enough or the like! This stuff is not rocket science (also, rocket science is not rocket science).
But so, there is a number of weaknesses in your arguments, and the most obvious ones are extratextual.
Thanks! Let me preface my continuation of this discussion by acknowledging right here and now that I don't actually expect that I have or necessarily ever will be able to understand or solve the series or its metaphysics. Talking about it however is such great fun and even a great learning experience, so I want to bounce my thoughts back based on your replies.
For example, if we consider the way Bakker himself talks about the Gods, he ascribes them agency by default:
http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=2278.msg36488#msg36488
(Likaro's question) 2. Are Ajokli and the Gods still completely unaware of things with the Consult/No-God? Doesn't Ajokli have enough information now to infer that there are things that he cannot see ? I mean he was briefly right there interacting with the DunSult so he has to have some clue about whats going on. Or the God's just not reason that way?
(Bakker's answer) 2) Thinking from an atemporal POV gives me a headache. Ajokli 'knows' (whatever this means from an eternal POV), but it takes juice, divine intervention, steering the space-time continuum this way and that, and the No-God has begun gnawing at the joists between the temporal and eternal.
This was more or less a yes or no question, and the answer starts off "sure he knows in whatever way Gods know" (so, yes) and then he trails off into a "but" (?) which gets into the juice comment you had mentioned to me before... I guess I think the simplest interpretation would be that Bakker is saying Ajokli knows in his way of knowing but due to Resumption his capacity to know (and/or exist) is diminished or diminishing.
Just for shits and giggles I'll add that if my Ajokli-Kellhus crackpot is true this question would've put RSB in a shitty position to attempt to answer since Ajokli2 would indeed know and have always known, but Ajokli1 never would never have nor necessarily could have.
Here, you confuse definitions. What Akka means by madness is what we mean by madness - acting irrationally, without grounds, with little to no correlation with reality. A human condition.
What's happening with WLW is much more than that. He possesses real power, that has him acting completely rationally and allows for feats way beyond human capacity (like correctly seeing the future and besting Maithanet). He is not mad, he demonstrates agency. Later, we even find out that this agency is not his own, since nothing in his previous life would suggest that he is completely focused on killing Kellhus by using a power that can't be explained and, in fact, is never attributed to agencies of the Inside. Rather, the person that WLW had been before at some point ceased to exist, changed (was displaced) instantly and completely.
Essentially, the Outside leaking in and leading to madness doesn't turn agencies of the Inside into agencies of the Outside. To be of the Outside, completely atemporal, you need to die first.
Another weakness of your argument is the Ciphrang. They talk, they act, they have their own agendas and desires. And what they are is essentially Gods-lite - Outside agencies of a smaller caliber. We even get a Ciphrang POV in TUC.
You make very, very good points!
I see your point regarding the definitions of madness but hasn't Kellhus' own sanity been called into question time and again due to his Ajokli-possession on this and various other media? Yet I can't recall a situation in which Kell truly acts illogically or as if he's what we would describe as insane...
"Each man, he explained, was a kind of hole in existence, a point where the Outside penetrated the world. He tapped one of the beads with his finger. It broke, staining the surrounding parchment. When the trials of the world broke men, he explained, the Outside leaked into the world."
If we take the above statement literally there seemingly could be quite significant implications regarding the Outside and it's "spheres of influence" or whatever they're called if we then consider the possibility that a sufficient "amount of Outside leaked into" Cnaiur('s mind) during his lifetime to allow him/his immense hatred and rage to form a large enough bubble in the Outside to manifest as a new God, where with less madness/Outside it would have manifested some smaller level of Ciphrang.
On Ciphrang themselves, you again made great and largely irrefutable points! I'd like to share that I thus far have believed the Outside is some type of a mindspace that does nothing more than reflect experiences of those who live/have lived/will live on the Inward. Even discarding that consideration, in some way everyone is actually always "of the Outside" to some degree and due to it's atemporal nature you need not die "first" as indeed the concept of "first" makes no sense in the context of the Outside.
In my headcanon of mindspace-Outside, a Ciphrang was a representation or echo of someone's acts/experiences in life, so a Ciphrang-in-itself would have no form nor capacity to think, and is "provided" or forced into both by the Daimos/summoner... unfortunately for me that doesn't jive too well with the fact that when Kellhus is in the Outside at least one Ciphrang speaks to him.
I suppose for the sake of discussion I might suggest it's possible that this since (if) this scene was occuring entirely within Kellhus' own mind the Ciphrang's speech may be reflected/provided by his very own thoughts (similarly that may be the case with summoners & Ciphrang). I'm not convinced, but I posit the possibility.
Next weakness would be the Dunyain (be it Kellhus or the Mutilated) ascribing agency to the Gods. Their "intuit" comments don't mean lack of agency, they describe, the way I understand it, the difference between temporal and atemporal perspectives.
A person living in Earwa (in the Inside) thinks, reasons - they see time happening moment by moment. They watch events unfold gradually, being connected to each other, influenced by a variety of forces, etc. This leads to logic, categorization, theoretical models, you name it. But most importantly it means that knowledge is always emerging, it can change, it can be gained, it can even be lost. There is never anyone in the Inside who possesses total knowledge of anything. New data changes conclusions, leads to other theories, different acts and views.
Now compare and contrast the Outside perspective. An Outside agency is total in itself, it possesses complete knowledge of itself and its acts. Those are done, they were always done, they will be always done. There is no need for logic or reason, an Outside agency "knows" what it must do, because it has already done it, this knowledge is implicit, a kind of intuition. This is how the Gods act and see the world. But what's important to note here is, while each Outside agency is total in itself, it's not absolute. They have limits, they are bound by their own nature, and they compete among themselves. This competition (atemporal, already done in its entirety, always done in its entirety) is one of the things that define the Outside and its agencies - the God is fractured, broken into a thousand pieces.
Now, here I must note that there is a variety of issues with what I describe above in relation to how it's used in TSA. I do at least attempt to wrap my head around spacetime physics and math, and it very well might be that my understanding of this field exceeds Bakker's. Or he had a very bright idea that goes over my head, that's a distinct possibility, too. The end result is, I simply can't tell whether it's me not understanding Bakker or Bakker not working out the atemporal nature of the Outside to the point of me not seeing flaws in the concept. So I can only operate with my understanding in these matters.
I think I follow you, as you noted it kinda becomes rather hard to understand and discuss. Most importantly: "There is never anyone in the Inside who possesses total knowledge of anything. New data changes conclusions, leads to other theories, different acts and views."
As we know, it's actually somewhat the same for Outside - it can be changed, re-written. Retrofitted if you will lol.
So in truth, the tapestry is not, as we imagine the Gods might perceive it "complete" - and that makes complete sense if (perhaps - only if?) the Outside is indeed generated by/reflective of the Inside.
Back on track, though. Another example of the Gods expressing agency would be Gilgaol giving Anasurimbor Celmomas the Celmomian Prophecy. Which is a real prophecy that Celmomas couldn't have spontaneously concocted at the moment of his death.
I agree, the Prophecy is definitely something! To try to turn it into something that supports my crackpot though, isn't or wasn't there some confusion or potential for the God giving this prophecy to actually be AJOKLI?
Then you can remember the Nonmen of Ishterebinth being afraid of Sorweel. They see him being marked by Yatwer and are scared of her infiltrating their sanctum so easily. It's not them being delusional, it's them seeing the signs of power wielded with agenda, in an unprecedented way. They see agency.
I do recall this but would note that Sorweel is only there because of K - meaning the power is there as you say, and the power itself is associated with/attributed to Yatwer, but the actual agency arranging/placing it there need not necessarily be ultimately associated/attributed to Yatwer.
The Nonmen would have had no way to see, or reason to suspect, some super-high-level-Ajokli V2/Kellhus-manipulation of circumstances, so they'd naturally only be able to recognize what is recognizable to them (so to speak) and Yatwer would be the obvious assumption/enemy/threat/fear from their perspective.
The weakness of this argument is in the fact that from that moment on Sorweel is protected from the scrutiny of Kellhus and his half-Dunyain children by means that do not occur naturally and are time and again ascribed to strictly Outside agencies, the Gods. This power is never attributed to agencies of the Inside.
Following your argument further, denying that it was an act of Yatwer means it was done by the slave. Which, in turn, means that the Gods simply do not exist beyond the categorization of this new power. But this contradicts everything everyone who at any point wields a power like this says. Their collective experience is, the power was granted by a God (they even agree on what their respective God is, to an extremely coherent extent). This kind of corroboration simply can't be refuted. Sure, anything can be anything, but here, there is no reason to consider every character wrong.
Ugh, I hate that my argument/theory keeps needing to resort to this type of reasoning, but I still feel I have to say it... DOES Kellhus not calling Sorweel out have to NECESSARILY mean "he was protected from Kellhus' scrutiny" (that Kellhus couldn't see it)? Couldn't it be the case that Kellhus did in fact recognize "the Yatwer"/WLW in Sorweel, and chose to let the course of events flow because they needed to for "his"/Ajokli's ultimate purposes?
That being said, I completely agree that the Gods are anthropomorphized. In fact, they are anthropomorphized by the narrative so deliberately and blatantly that I can only conclude that this is the intended perception telling the reader that yes, in the context of TSA the Gods are anthropomorphic. It shouldn't come as a surprise, though, since Bakker wanted to have arbitrary (but absolutely enforced) anthropomorphic morality in the series
Note how he describes the No-God as a perfectly nonconscious god. This is in contrast with the Hundred, and that contrast is represented by the way the No-God acts every time we see it. It is a p-zombie, it expresses agency without being conscious (and likely without truly being an agency, even, though that's a topic for another discussion), and this is where its odd properties originate. Since it has no connection to the Outside, the Gods can't see it, for them, it doesn't exist. But it also means that it cannot see itself - hence its litany of questions (WHAT DO YOU SEE? WHAT AM I?).
Its all too clear that the people of Earwa perceive their Gods the way that they do but like real life religions, massive number of believers doesn't necessarily equal reality. They may have it completely wrong. But on the flip-side of that, the truth of Anthropomorphized Gods in Earwa may be specifically DUE to collective beliefs/thoughts/experiences; and I suspect this truth (& the Outside in general) may ultimately be malleable.
All of this stems from the No-God being nonconscious. None of the Gods act in such a way.
I think I understand the idea that the Gods exist, see all, and therefore ask nothing vs. TNG exists, sees nothing, and therefore asks all.
I guess my issue lies in the fact that we can't claim to actually know what "way the Gods act" because in the story we are provided no more than interpretations and assumptions by mere Men/Nonmen/Inchoroi. (I almost suspect Bakker would say his goal was to confuse me with this... LOL)
In conclusion I would also say that we are given the perspective of the Gods, in part. The White Luck itself is a fraction of Yatwer's perspective (a fragment of a tapestry that she is). It's always the same, centered on the same result, even though it's expressed through two different hosts - the first WLW and Sorweel. I don't think there is any question that Sorweel-as-WLW is not Sorweel as we had seen him before.
You're right that Sorweel is definitely not the same as we had seen before but that is true for all Men all the time. Sorweel was probably going to live some uneventful life, a princeling who would live then die and not do much of metaphysical significance... but his circumstances changed drastically, of course he was not as we had seen him before. Even without being able to see time the way he did he may have done the same exact things, I actually see little reason to believe that he would or could have ever done differently; how could he not (whether or not he understood it at the time) take up the charge to be Yatwer's warrior and to allow himself to be "hidden" given the circumstances he was paced in. What would the alternate option be? Torture and death? SMH, I definitely need to do another re-read because I can't recall the specifics around Sorweel as much as I'd like right now.
Thank you again for the feedback! I openly acknowledge my ignorance and the unlikelihood that I will ever attain the level of understanding of the events in these books that you and many others around here have. I just absolutely love these books and the way they get my mind working, and I love them more and more when I read the discussions on this forum and am able to gain insight and alternate opinions and perspectives from other readers like yourself. I hope my comments don't come across in any negative or know-it-all-ish way.
Edited to add: Oh yeah!!! A thought occurred to me today regarding the Angeshrael/Inchoroi/Tusk business and I wanted to toss it out there for y'all cause it's super interesting... I think it's a distinct possibility that if Kellhus were indeed somehow involved in this scenario and was somehow manipulating events, it may be the reason that one of the tribes (the one that starts with a Z is it?) remained in Eanna.
. Call it his Moenghus Moment - Bakker just loves his anti-climaxes. If you're going to consider Kellhus alive and "winning", then you gotta at least let the Old Consult (Inchoroi and Shae) be dead.
Until then it's always fun to read and join in on the discussions here!
