I think you're having a problem defining what is "real." You keep saying the Godhead and Vehk are the only things that are real, but the Godhead is everything. The Godhead is the dream. The dream is the only thing that's real. If the Godhead wakes up, then that means everything is nothing.

Honestly, the whole "dream" thing is just semantics. It's terminology. There's not a literal head of God laying on a pillow having a dream because he ate too much chocolate the night before. It's all a metaphor, and you're taking it too literally. Existence is existence. "I think therefor I am."

It's real, Chaplain. It's real.

Yes, I'm having trouble defining reality. I'm thinking from the point of view of the real world not a fictional world that can exist in the way TES does. When I heard "dream" I instantly think not real, immaterial, inconsequential. What then is Zero-Summing? Vanishing because you realize you're not real or vanishing because the reality is too heavy for your mind to comprehend?

Semantics is my biggest enemy with TES lore.

Thank you. I'm no longer shaking with anger.

And it's [censored] beautiful. The numbers are just abstractions, don't sweat 'em, just sit back and enjoy the qualia.

As I understand it, it's more the latter. It's not that you realize you're not real, it's realizing that you are part of everything and everyone. It seems to me that zero summing is not so much vanishing and more becoming a direct part of everything. You lose your identity, you lose any and all sense of self (your sense of self and anyone else's sense of you,) and you become everything and everyone, as you recognize yourself as. Thus, CHIM is realizing all of that and having the gull and the selfishness to say "I AM" in the face of all that.

That's why I love fiction. It allows a relief from this damned complicated real world with its numbers, numbers, numbers and worst of all the people that know them know them know them.

Amaranth is what Chim is trying to get to. Chim isn't the goal, Amaranth is. Compassionate onanism or something.

I thought as much. Thanks.

Deleted. Not worth it.

This, exactly. I was going to say something similar but you beat me to it.

Why learn math? Why learn algebra? If you've studied physics or chemistry, you know that an entire day spent working problems accomplishes exactly nothing in the real world. The world is not numbers. The world is not symbols. But without the understanding gained through working out the problems, you can't accomplish anything very big at all. With the understanding, you can literally remake bits of reality. But at the same time, the creators of math were perfectly aware that math is a lie. It's discarding anolog information for the sake of useful digital description.

As for playing around in the Matrix, you're literally doing that. Leaving aside the point that the Matrix was meant as an anology for the real world, and that all saints and sages in all times and climes agree that there is something realer than what is commonly accepted as reality - when you play Skyrim you are LITERALLY playing around in the Matrix. What are you doing? Why aren't you out fighting to save endangered gorillas in the Congo, or feeding the hungry, or being Batman? If you're here asking questions, and you've been doing this for FOUR YEARS, then either it must feel awfully important to you, and you should ask why, or you must be suffering some severe existential despair at the thought of frittering away that much of your life. Or both, which is what seems to be true.

As for your vision of mankind and the stars, you haven't answered the most important question: why? The universe of math doesn't care in the slightest whether mankind, or indeed any life, is in it. YOU care. And you care for reasons which can only be addressed through philosophy. Your idea of the future is not only joyless but it's a very young person's idea. Go watch Jersey Shore - or the news - and then tell us some more about the inevitability of the increasing rationality of mankind. And you haven't explained why your dystopic people would do that. Are they stupid? Don't they like six, surfing, the smell of a rainy night? Why would they, being so wise and advanced, decide to torture themselves far more creatively than anyone is capable of today?

Incorrect, that was the view of multiple generations, all throughout the Victorian Era up until the Second World War. See the ideas of the 'Superman' in Neitzche and Bernard Shaw. This inevitable progress is at the very center of the entire 'modern' age.

It's not a young person's idea, it's just an outdated idea. To believe it is to be living about eighty years behind the times.

Math by itself accomplishes nothing, but applied math explains the world. You apply math to the real world, and you get physics. Don't pretend that physics is worthless.

Math isn't a lie; its an abstract construct. Of course there's no concrete thing as a number. You can't take the number eight and put it in your pocket. Our number system is just one base, but it's what we use, and it's not so abstract that it can be argued until it loses its meaning. If that were the case we'd never have gotten to the moon, and we wouldn't have high rise buildings or computers or industry. Math is only a building block, like carbon. It makes up everything, and just because in your world you don't have to do math on a daily basis doesn't mean it's not used in the real world. That's the worst kind of ignorance. Physics and chemistry are the most important fields of study in the entire scope of mankind without further study of them, we'd shrivel over a loss of natural resources and suffocate under over-population. The best fate for mankind is to leave Earth and colonize other planets and eventually learn enough about neurochemistry, that we can identify all neurological ailments, fully understand the brain, increase neurological efficiency, and become gods.

I'm not "saving the world" because I don't care about those problems. I've been doing this for four years because it is in fact important to me. And now you're judging me, making assumptions on my personality based on a few lines of text. How dare you. How dare you think you can sum me up and diagnose me without even seeing my face and talking to me in person. I could ask you what you've been doing with your life, but I won't, and don't think about answering. I don't want to know. I'm not going to slip down to your level of character assault. Do you honestly think that I've done nothing with my life but research TES lore? And I know what you're implying with that too. You think I'm an obsessive mess, unable to cope with the real world, so I choose to live a fictional life. You think I'm an escapist. From what fount of arrogance and malice do you draw from to condemn so? Go on and tell me a few more things about myself, professor, doctor. You smart, smart person. Tell me that four years is too long to spend on TES. Tell me I'm an idiot. Why stop with abstracts? Tell me I'm ugly and misshapen. Tell me I'm fat or emaciated. You seem to know so much about me. You're so adept at extrapolating entire personalities from forum text, aren't you? Go on, goddamnit! Insult me some more!

Why? WHY? Why not!? Why do anything? Why shave and take showers? Why go out and earn money? Why seek to better yourself? Because you want to be better than what you are.

And yes I want to think that someday humanity will live beyond the problems that face us today. I want to think that things like Jersey Shore are just passing fads. I want to believe that we'll get off this planet and outlive our own solar system. I have hope for humanity. Forgive me for not being a misanthrope like everyone else.

My idea of the future isn't realistic. You want to hear a realist's take on the future? Here it is. See if it's any less joyless.

NASA is completely shut down. The US government decides that money spent on anything extraterrestrial is wasteful spending. Europe eventually drops its space programs as well. Growing information technology brings the world closer and closer together until every world power is digitally in spitting distance, making matters of currency and trade tariffs increasingly more tedious. National laws become more invasive to other countries with the further expansion of internet business especially in counties that are already very stringent in this regard, such as China. Digital warfare becomes more omnipresent in the world as a result. The world is so stitched together digitally though; no single country can risk breaking digital contact or risk changing the rules of internet usage, therefore digital legalities and illegalities continue to make countries butt heads. The United Nations convenes to finally set forth a master set of rules for digital multimedia, and the internet inevitably becomes completely federal. Private businesses are now subject to more capital gains taxes through digital business, and citizens are made to purchase licenses from the FCC. Furthermore, the internet becomes more nationalized, and American citizens cannot access British or Chinese, or German, or any other nationally owned sites without authorization. Digital tariffs are formed for digital information. Federal internet becomes a keystone of all world powers' infrastructure. Cyber terrorism becomes easier and easier as cyber terrorists seek havens in less-developed countries, working in unmediated digital gray regions, exploiting weaknesses in the digital domains of other countries. Culture further declines as television ratings, reality tv, and cookie-cutter sitcoms chip away at quality as it's doing now. Overpopulation increases with further medical advances. Growing knowledge in medicine makes mass-production easier and cheaper. Lower prices of medicine allows countries to defeat ailments such as cancer and further stop diseases caused by genetic mutation. It becomes cheap enough to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa, which further exacerbates overpopulation. National currency is threatened greatest now because nations are digitally side by side, and currency exchange and market fluctuations create further obstructions. The United Nations convenes to forcefully adjust all currencies together, but an agreement can never be reached. The Dollar reaches an all-time low, and digitally paying in Euros within the United States becomes commonplace. American debt allows Europe and Asia to dictate US economic policy. Digital proximity of world powers causes all counties to take greater interest in global elections, and market leaders along with multimedia giants work to pull strings in said elections to ensure people get elected that will serve their interests. 3rd World populations propped up by cheap medicine but unable to sustain themselves otherwise create an overpopulation problem so large, that the United Nations, now more of a digital oversight body convenes to place population limits on 3rd World countries. This causes global outrage. The digital world becomes a stage for proxy shadow wars between countries, caused mainly by economics. This along with cyber terrorism caused by UN mandates on population control causes a critical breakdown in digital multimedia infrastructure. By now modern medicine has allowed societal decadence to flourish. Over indulgence super-saturates American culture, and everything depends on the internet and digital communication. A digital attack on all of this sends everything crashing to the ground. When the smoke clears, the Federal government is forced to impose strict, authoritarian laws concerning digital communication and information sharing. This can't hold up with the rest of the world. The Dollar dies. The US becomes a client state of the EU. Internet usage becomes so strict, its usage is reduced to simple, interpersonal communication and basic business for regular citizens. The EU forcefully enforces population control laws on all world citizens. Digital monitoring becomes commonplace. Newborn children are genetically engineered for limited procreation. Energy consumption is forcefully enforced by the Federal government.

I could go on, but I won't. You'll just tell me everything I say is bullsh!t anyway.

*edit*

I refuse to talk about:

1. The real world
2. Myself
3. Anything non-TES-related anymore.

Calm down.

You've completed missed what Allerelirauh has been trying to get at. Nothing said was intended as a personal attack. Nothing said was a criticism of you as a person or a criticism of the choices you've made in your life. The point of Allerleirauh's questions was to try to elict an answer from you. The right answer in this context is not a defense of you or your choices. You aren't under attack.

Incidentally, in the midst of everything you said, you actually gave the right answer by accident. See if you can find out where and why.

By the way, some people do think numbers (or maybe sets) exist.

In all seriousness, this is actually the sort of thing that brings me here.

Theory of mind is the big sixy topic in philosophy these days. There are interesting things going on with dialogue between philosophers and neuroscientists. I was alluding to the work of http://youtu.be/mthDxnFXs9k earlier (that's a link to a video of a lecture); I find him quite interesting. As is so often the case with philosophy, it's not really a question of what is true; we already know that. What we're not clear on is how we know it. We know we're awake, but how do we know that? This self that we have at the center of all our experiences: where does it come from? Roughly: the self is a result of modelling the world around us. We have a primary model of the external world, which allows us to compare that world to other possible worlds. But we don't experience the external world directly, only through the model. If you break through the model, your self collapses. And this happens sometimes.

We're all about constructing models of worlds and comparing them, aren't we? Isn't that what we're doing? It's a remarkable aspect of how we think, that we can imagine an alternate world, feeling for the moment as if we exist within that world, and yet not forget what world is real. And more: we have conversations with other people about these imaginary worlds. For everyone reading this, it's a perfectly intelligible question to ask what Helseth and Vivec might talk about if they met, for instance.

I've long believed that we are creatures of narrative. That is, I belief our conscious self is constructed and reconstructed by creating narratives. (I think this is compatible with Metzinger's ideas.) We create meaning out of bare facts by constructing narratives that put those facts in order. How did you choose your college major? What was your relationship with your parents like? We make plans for the future by imagining future worlds and constructing narratives about how to get from this world to the best of those other worlds. We gain a lot of experience in critiquing narratives, in looking at whether they explain all the known facts and make sense. We don't need narratives for narrow technical questions -- what is the length of the hypotenuse of a triangle with legs of length 3cm and 4cm? -- but the more complex a question is, the more the required answer approaches the form of a narrative.

So we've got a lot of reason to be interested in narratives. And we've got a lot of reason to be interested in the construction of imaginary worlds. And so, here we are. And so, what is Vivec talking about?

This isn't an attack?
In relation to CHIM?

CHIM the word means nothing unless it's applied as thought?

CHIM is only one step, but exists as everything like the Godhead? Because something is invisible or unknown or abstract/theoretical doesn't make it not real?

The true purpose of Nirn as attempted by Lorkhan? To give up aetherial immortality and exist on Nirn to learn things like emotion and achieve CHIM to become the Godhead and create the Amaranth?

Lorkhan's endeavor? Vehk's wish for the whole of creation?

No, it's not an attack.

Let's suppose you're not suffering from existential despair. Why not? That question is not meant to imply that you should suffer from existential despair. It's just asking: why aren't you so suffering?


Yes, in relation to CHIM.


Take the whole quote: "Why? WHY? Why not!? Why do anything? Why shave and take showers? Why go out and earn money? Why seek to better yourself? Because you want to be better than what you are."

I don't know what kind of connection you're trying to make to Lorkhan's endeavor, so I can't comment on that. Also, I don't think Vehk has any wish for the whole of creation other than whatever his whim is on this day or that.

Wasn't Lorkhan's initial idea to achieve CHIM? I'm not sure how he expected to do that, and why it was considered a failure. What would have happened if he succeeded?

But in relation to the quote, the point of CHIM is to do something and be something; more than a dream?

"Lorkhan watched the Aurbis shape itself and grew equally delighted and tired with each new shaping. As the gods and demons of the Aurbis erupted, the get of Padhome tried to leave it all behind for he wanted all of it and none of it all at once. It was then that he came to the border of the Aurbis.

He saw the Tower, for a circle turned sideways is an “I”. This was the first word of Lorkhan and he would never, ever forget it."

Precisely this. TES is a particularly rich world precisely because it makes the spinning of narratives and the consequences of doing so some of its central concerns. In exploring all the different mythopoeic possibilities that this world and its metaphysical rules invite, we can come to better understand what it is that these little stories we tell each other do -- and why we should bother to tell them in the first place.

EDIT: I wrote even more pretentiously on this subject http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1282279-new-to-lore/page__view__findpost__p__19372820, if some poor soul is interested.

Ah. I'd been under the impression that Lorkhan wanted from the beginning, to build Nirn to achieve CHIM. So when did he see the Tower? During Nirn's construction, or did he see it and get inspired to create Nirn based on what he saw?

Also is this connected to Magnus fleeing back into Aetherius before Nirn was completed?

I know it sounds stupid to ask about the linear chain of events given that Time wasn't stable yet, but I'm just so unclear on the order in which all of this happened.

Akatosh and Lorkhan are born > Lorkhan sees the Tower > Lorkhan convinces the Aedra to lend their skins and bones to create Nirn > Magnus flees > Akatosh kills Lorkhan > Convention.

or

Akatosh and Lorkhan are born > Lorkhan convinces the Aedra to lend their skins and bones to create Nirn > Lorkhan sees the Tower > Magnus flees > Akatosh kills Lorkhan > Convention.

I feel like I should know all of this by now, but it was only quite recently that I figured out the difference between Towers and The Tower along with the fact that Magnus was a god instead of just a name given to the sun. Bear with me on this.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/tower

Wow, dude, reading comprehension much?

Where did I suggest in the slightest that learning math was not important? My point was the exact opposite.

You were the one suggesting that everything other than math - art, philosophy, history - were pointless. You were the one who brought your own real world views into it. My point is that all these things are important exactly as math is important, as ways of discussing reality. All stories, even the most fantastic, are on some level stories about reality.

You're here because you claim to find this important, it feels important to you. And obviously it is important to you, because you're acting like a rabid wolverine, which unfortunately seems to short-circuit your brain. It didn't occur to you to maybe pause and consider that someone asking why you were here instead of saving the Congo WHO IS ALSO HERE might not be a criticism?

I'm not talking about about anything non-TES-related anymore. At least not on this thread. So have your fun poking at me. I won't answer anymore. All it accomplishes is to further convince everyone else on this forum that I'm a complete lunatic, and I think I've annihilated my reputation enough for now.

By all means though, keep shooting at the opinions I previously stated. Maybe you'll hit a perfect x, dead center.

As much as I want to continue arguing about math and philosophy; I'm not going to do it. Yes, I brought it up, so is it not fitting that I close it too? Just leave me alone unless you want to dissect my points on TES.

Annnnd you didn't read a word I just said. We are talking about TES.

You were just talking about my real life opinions. How does that factor into TES? Stop accusing me of not reading things.

There is the only thing in your post that's related to TES. The rest is your opinion on the real life importance of art, philosophy, etc. which stands in argument of my opinion on the same subject. Real life =/= TES.

You sound like you're disagreeing with everything I saw solely on principle now, and I'm getting weary of arguing.

In reference to my last post concerning real world math. Not TES.

In reference to your last post and my last post concerning real world math. Not TES
Everything here save the last sentence is an indictment on my posts and the veracity of my arguments. Not TES.

More of a reference to my last post and the nature of the importance to which I hold TES lore than actual TES lore and material. Also you assume that all of this is making me angry. Half right. It was making me angry. I'm too tired to be angry right now. The most all of this is doing is creating an uneasy feeling in my stomach.

I get your point. You weren't criticizing me, but it felt like a criticism. Instead of saying "I wasn't criticizing you," you say, "Has it ever occurred to you that..." I find that condescending. I feel like I'm being talked down to, treated like a child. And the worst part of it is that no matter what you say, regardless of how you say it and what your message is; everyone of this forum worth their salt in knowledge will side with you on the matter because you're part of the in crowd.

I obviously pissed you off with my comments; my opinions on math, philosophy, and the arts, and now you won't let me hear the end of it. You'll argue every word I say. You'll tell me I'm wrong on everything. Even things as straightforward as what is and isn't related to TES. Did I bother you that much to earn such ire?

One might suppose that exchanging little insults isn't quite "talking about TES", but you've been around as long as I have or longer so I have no doubts you're as aware of this as I am. Any questions may be directed to the duckies.