[Madness]

But again, I feel myself looping back to the idea that, even if a God existed, and even if that God laid out the rules of morality...they're still not objective. If that God says that women are spiritually inferior to men, then I disagree. Because they're not my morals. This goes back to the quotes from Epicurus, and Mark Twain. A God setting up rules of morality doesn't mean anything about real morality. They're just the arbitrary rules the God set. His omnipotence and omniscience is irrelevant. He can punish me for not following his way, but that doesn't change the basic nature of morality. Just like if a God said, "This is piece of art is objectively superior." Well, maybe for God it is. For me it sucks. I don't follow the line of reasoning that a being of great power, setting a punish-reward system based his own conception of morality, suddenly makes that moral framework objective.

...

Hopefully I'm making some kind of sense here.

You can only make that commentary because you've found a way outside of the belief system, FB... I don't really know what else I might say to highlight this further.

[mrganondorf]

Callan, your op made me think of this SMBC comic:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2244#comic

Maybe the Inverse Fire shows you what is outside of the matrix?  You can look and see that everyone is 'damned' in the sense that life is ultimately meaningless outside of the Bakkerverse?  This might mean that the Inchoroi's ultimate aim is the perpetual maintenance of the operating system.  The No-God may be their method for prolonging the narrative world indefinitely or preventing it's demise.  They necessarily war against Kellhus because he is that guy seeking to convert the whole world to meaninglessness.

The timeline would be: 20?? humans realize life is meaningless but we have complete power to alter our perceptions.  So as a way to cope with reality, we create a super elaborate matrix to give us the illusion of purpose.  Maybe Earwa is everyone's delusion, maybe just a small group of perverts, maybe just one persons.  On a long enough timeline, all of the participants (if there is more than one) can rotate through all of the lives (those weird hints that reincarnation maybe at play in Earwa).  If so, I guess TUC will reveal if the matrix is actually in danger or if the events are just part of the narrative that give the world the semblance of meaning.

As for the 5 tribes, that it is only 5, no more no less, I have no idea.  But I wonder if it has something to do with the 5 tribes being engaged in some kind of super-long migration.  That Eanna isn't there birth place but just a way station from somewhere else.  I'm thinking of all the varied elf migrations in the Silmarillion. 

Morality in Earwa--I suspect Bakker is trying to make a point about the pointlessness of fixing morality to super-human agents.  Basing morality on the Hundred or Jesus ultimately comes down to an arbitrariness that is nothing more than a food chain of powerfullest to leasternest.  Meybe?

@ Madness, fuck yeah Euthyphro!!! 

@ Duskweaver, lol to what you said

IMO, it's a pretty glaringly unfair comparison. The Bible was cobbled together from the work of multiple authors writing over several centuries, with each part subjected to generations of translation, possible transcription errors, and outright political manipulation. It's frankly amazing it makes as much sense as it does. A series of novels written by one guy over a decade really ought to be held to a higher standard, don't you think? Even if he's consciously going for a 'Biblical feel'.

[Callan S.]

After considering things further I want to add this to the prediction: It is the future and the human race is actually extinct. What we take for humans are simply the simulations a grand AI creates - somewhat like in the story 'I have no mouth but I must scream', but no humans remains, only simulations (ie, crossed with Red Dwarf's holograms/dirty deadies). Qualia zombies, of course, of course. The people we see are genetically modified humans but they cannot function without the AI's go ahead (as shown by the still borns during the no-gods reign, the bodies lack any capacity to indipendently offer brain function). Lacking the genetic instructions for being a human that grows a brain that indipendently thinks and stuff, they aren't human and taking it this is all there is, the human race is extinct, even if our bodies are still being reproduced (so retro!). The inchies then simply want to make a harem of a bunch of bots - and is that so bad? Could no more sin against dirt and all that! No, I'm asking provocatively - I don't agree with my question. Futher, the inchies are essentially the more legitimate beings involved (even as self modified as they are). And after all, it's like they are just fucking a museum full of wax dolls, aren't they?

So that's my update, in case it gets me bragging rights.

Edit: Also the lost password function isn't working/isn't sending any e-mails. In the end I just got lucky and remembered my password.

[Wilshire]

No problem making a harem out of robots, unless they really do have consciousness. In which case, aside from biological technicalities, they might as well be considered people. I haven't thought about this problem long enough, I'm sure there is a loophole in there somewhere

Edit: Also the lost password function isn't working/isn't sending any e-mails. In the end I just got lucky and remembered my password.

Thanks, will look into it.

[Wilshire]

Edit: Also the lost password function isn't working/isn't sending any e-mails. In the end I just got lucky and remembered my password.

Thanks, will look into it.

Sorry but I could not replicate the issue. I made a new account with a new email, logged out, went to recover password, and it sent me an email.

Possible solutions:
1) You forgot which email you had/have linked to your account
2) You didn't wait long enough for the page to load after you submitted the request. It took at least 2 minutes, maybe even longer, after I hit "submit" for a new page to load that told me an email was sent to my account. It is possible that if you don't stay on the page and wait for it to load fully, then the system doesn't have enough time to process your request and it cancels it.

[mrganondorf]

After considering things further I want to add this to the prediction: It is the future and the human race is actually extinct. What we take for humans are simply the simulations a grand AI creates - somewhat like in the story 'I have no mouth but I must scream', but no humans remains, only simulations (ie, crossed with Red Dwarf's holograms/dirty deadies). Qualia zombies, of course, of course. The people we see are genetically modified humans but they cannot function without the AI's go ahead (as shown by the still borns during the no-gods reign, the bodies lack any capacity to indipendently offer brain function). Lacking the genetic instructions for being a human that grows a brain that indipendently thinks and stuff, they aren't human and taking it this is all there is, the human race is extinct, even if our bodies are still being reproduced (so retro!). The inchies then simply want to make a harem of a bunch of bots - and is that so bad? Could no more sin against dirt and all that! No, I'm asking provocatively - I don't agree with my question. Futher, the inchies are essentially the more legitimate beings involved (even as self modified as they are). And after all, it's like they are just fucking a museum full of wax dolls, aren't they?

So that's my update, in case it gets me bragging rights.

Edit: Also the lost password function isn't working/isn't sending any e-mails. In the end I just got lucky and remembered my password.

It would be neat if there were aliens who tinkered with reality trying to simulate what kinds of life forms would exist under different conditions.  Run that experiment enough times and you get both Earth and Earwa!  We are in the Matrix with no body to wake up into!

[mrganondorf]

Couldn't think of the right thread for this:

From the beginning of chapter 15 of WLW:

"In life, your soul is but the extension of your body, which reaches inward until it finds its centre in spirit.  In death, your body is but the extension of your soul, which reaches outward until it finds it circumference in flesh.  In both instances, all things appear the same.  Thus are the dead and the living confused.

-Memgowa, The Book of Divine Acts"

So the ultimate setting is...EVERYONE IS ALREADY DEAD!  The world is the Outside and what everyone in the book refers to as the Outside is really the world of the living!  Yatwer is a alive and Akka is dead