Emphasis mine.

Whether or not this is the case is precisely the question, isn't it?

Does the lucid dreamer in the real world have complete control over all aspects of his/her dream? But that might be a fault of the metaphor.

If anyone wants to further their position without beginning the question (presuming the point you're trying to prove, for those without a philosophy background), we're gonna need some textual evidence. Or a gift from on-high (e.g., the blessings of the prophet of Merchant Kenosis).

I have some textual evidence here, from MK about the next step after CHIM: "It's the flowering of a statehood where the images you give birth to in your dream [...] wake up."
If the images wake up in the step after CHIM, they would most likely just be dead playthings for you in your dream before that. Thus, CHIM means control of one's own dream.

The part I "..."'ed out speaks about the stealing from the first dreamer, e.g. the current godhead. Thus, the dream of the CHIM person is a copy of the godhead's dream until it wakes up and you become the godhead of your own universe. As a side-note, this speaks of an endless chain of godheads, each one a physical entity in the previous godhead's dream, unless achieving the state of a godhead means you disappear from the first dream.


EDIT: So in hindsight, this is pretty much what I said earlier, in post #121, except now I agree that the CHIM-person has power in both universes, being a rogue character in the first dream.

Well, avering that the person with CHIM has power in both universes is an important concession. Which is a good thing - we are (or seem to be) moving forward.

However, I don't know how that quote justifies that CHIM means (absolute) control of one's own dream. Perhaps you're thinking that "the images you give birth to in your dream" must be under you control. This certainly isn't true after one of them wakes up, and it's not obvious to me that it's entirely true even before they wake up.

I think that the control I described before is not that of being in charge of every single aspect of one's own dream (like having to move each leaf of every tree to simulate wind and so on), but rather the control is like somebody building a sandbox game and assigning artificial intelligence to every being and so on. When you become the godhead, these artificial intelligences start thinking on their own, but they don't realize that they are still just creations of your doing. That way, you could still move things in your direction, or just pause your creation, change a few things, and press play again. Like when playing a SIM-game.
When one of these creations realizes that he is just your creation (gains CHIM), you could: a) remove him, b) think "cool, something's happening", and let it go on unless he decides to mess everything you've done up completely.

It would seem to me that CHIM is when one of these creations begins to dream independently of the first dreamer. The point is that CHIM means he/she is not just someone/something else's creation.

No, remember this quote: "It's the flowering of a statehood where the images you give birth to in your dream [...] wake up."
The step after CHIM is when the characters in your dream wake up (relating to my last post: get out of their artificial intelligence and acquire real intelligence), and therefore have the possibility of achieving CHIM themselves.

And, I just realized that the reason Vivec can't save Morrowind from destruction is because the current godhead is Bethesda. If Bethesda says, "Morrowind will be destroyed", then Vivec can't do anything because it's the godhead's dream, not his. THAT is what makes CHIM work. Vivec has unlimited power, but it is Bethesda (or whoever is writing an official story about Vivec) that decides if he can use it or not.

That could be true, or it couldn't but either way, I wouldn't acccept it because it's bad lore. Vehk can't save Morrowind from destruction because he's all like "OMG, YOU GUYS DON'T LOVE ME!?!? Well, you're better off dead then not loving me ;_;", not because he can't. I mean, it wold just completely ruin Vehk's character for me if he was basicly powerless to the will of the godhead. Besides that, Vehk is the godhead, and the godhead is Vehk. Why would the godhead need to excerise control over itself?

How could anyone know? If all that is is in that dream, that means that all that is there is the dream, and all that happens there is completely natural, if it actually is natural or not cannot be found out.

Vivec is still a badass egocentric dude at heart, because the godhead lets him. It is evident from Dumbkid's anology of the rogue character. The godhead wants a good story inside his dream just like we do, and thus, someone with CHIM can have quite a lot of freedom at times.

The world is what the godhead lets it be, and as such it doesn't matter what the godhead wants, because we can't perceive that anyway. It just happens. It's like the laws of physics: just because one does not like gravity, it doesn't make one able to fly.

If the theory I and Dumbkid have been drawing up here is correct, then the godhead was once a person too, and he seems to have liked intrigue. Because, isn't that what the whole elder scrolls world is based on, seen at its foundations? Not a single year goes by without a complicated power-struggle somewhere, but there's never just one megalomaniac character who can snap his fingers and the whole world is at once his. Because the godhead doesn't like that story.

In that anology, CHIM is a levitation spell. :3

Dammit, I hate it when I have to explain my point.

His original point wasn't concerning the first and second dreamer, but rather only the second dreamer. His contention seemed to be simply that since the people living in the illusion are unaware of the one person achieving CHIM and thereby encompassing all of them that it was really only in that person's head. His entire theory is based on third person observation of the one who has achieved CHIM. What everybody and their mother have been trying to point out is that when it comes to CHIM, you can't have third person observation due to "A whole World of You" and "I are all we."

It doesn't need any further explanation than the very nature of the metaphysics and what CHIM is, which everybody should already know (which is why most people just disagree on principle):
"The Wheel created it. The Wheel is the structure of this universe, and it is easiest to see it that way."Vehk's Teachings
which is based on the fact that
"All creation is subgradient. First was Void, which became split by AE."The Loveletter
which is referring to
"Anu encompassed, and encompasses, all things. So that he might know himself he created Anuiel, his soul and the soul of all things... Anuiel, who was the soul of all things, therefore became many things, and this interplay was and is the Aurbis."The Monomyth
which affects you in such a way that
"Imagine being able to feel with all of your senses the relentless alien terror that is God and your place in it, which is everywhere and therefore nowhere, and realizing that it means the total dissolution of your individuality into boundless being. Imagine that and then still being able to say "I"."Vehk's Teachings
which allows for
"I AM AND I ARE ALL WE."The Loveletter
meaning that there is no third person, no 'they'.
And then as final proof that its not just in their head, that the general populace can witness the one with CHIM (which the OP disagrees with):
"I breathe now, in royalty, and reshape this land which is mine. I do this for you, Red Legions, for I love you."The Many-Headed Talos

Everything is just one thing dividing itself up infinite times like a hologram, 'you' and 'them' are just part of one schizophrenic godhead hallucinating. The Loveletter doesn't say that you completely separate yourself from the schizophrenic godhead and his hallucination (like the OP suggests), hence its both "I AM" and "I ARE ALL WE". The nature of the universe says that you are encompassing everything. You're not leaving this nature, you're delving further into it, hence calling it "subcreation AFTER mortal death", "the final subgradient of all AE" and "Jumping beyond the last bridge of all existence is the Last Existence, The Eternal I." Its still subceation, still a subgradient, you're not leaving anything to exist "separate" as the OP suggests, you're going deeper into it. The trick is that this seems to serve a circular purpose (like I alluded to before):
"It is a return to the first brush of Anu-Padomay, where stasis and change created possibility."Vehk's Teachings which is "Anu and Padomay came next and with their first brush came the Aurbis."The Loveletter

Finally I reference:
"The ruling king that sees in another his equivalent rules nothing."Sermon11 and "Above them all is the horizon where only one stands, though no one stands there yet."Sermon13. Only 'one' stands there, there can't be multiple. If he has an equivalent then he rules nothing, if there are two then they're back to the drawing board. If there are two then you no longer have "I ARE ALL WE" because the guy standing in front of you negates it - you can't be I ARE ALL WE while a HIM exists to prove you wrong. The only difference between your previous state and the one you're currently occupying would be that instead of it being you a billion other people making up the schizophrenia that it'd just be you and him, maybe you'd have to reachieve CHIM or something by saying "I AM ALL THE TWO OF US". Of course, this is impossible anyway, two people can't achieve CHIM. Like I said before, if "I ARE ALL WE" then all of 'them' are part of me. For 'them' to achieve CHIM would mean that they're realizing that they're just a part of my schizophrenia. The possibilities I see here are three: 1) they'll replace me (or contest me) 2) they'll have delved deeper into my 'I', reached that subgradient and somehow have achieved CHIM within my CHIM, or 3) it will be wholly impossible for them to make this realization due to my own lucidity (whereas presumably the original dreamer was not lucid which allowed for my achievement). [Both Option 1 & 2 (but mostly 2) seems to me to reflect M'Aiq and Dumbkid's idea that the godhead was once a person too].

Again, the nature of the universe says that you are encompassing everything. The OP's ideas rest on third person observation. The universe (I are all we) says that there is no third person to do this observing. If there's a third person to be an observer then you've missed something along the way and whatever you've achieved it isn't CHIM.

The duckies are tired now, I hope you're happy. If my guess is right then I'm guessing that you're going to ignore my entire post minus the bit in the last paragraph which I said might support your theory in some minor way and thereby continue to miss the entire point.

:turtle:

Thanks for all that, but if you had understood Dumbkid's post and the first line in my opening post (the edit), you'd have seen that I don't hold the views you just criticised. So yeah, I agree on most of what you said (though I didn't read it all too carefully since it doesn't have any connection with the current discussion), but I think that "I ARE ALL WE" refers to the step after CHIM which MK spoke of.

I think I must have mis-stated something, because there seems to be a miscommunication somewhere. Let me try to state explicitly what I'm getting at - of course whether you agree is your prerogative.

Yes, it is true that the step after CHIM (Amaranth) is when the characters in your dream wake up. But for a character to "wake up" is just for it to dream its own dreams - that is, for that character to attain CHIM. Once you're dreaming your own dreams then you have CHIM. To say that you have CHIM is just to say you're dreaming, or, perhaps, that you've woken up.

Here, I'll diagram it.

A is the dreamer, thus, A has CHIM
|
A dreams B
|
B "wakes up" and begins to dream, thus, A becomes Amaranth, and B has CHIM
|
B dreams C

and so forth.

CHIM is waking up so as to dream your own dreams, being Amaranth is for your dreams to wake up (that is, become in some sense disinct from you) and dream their own dreams.

Regarding the reason Vivec can't save Morrowind - I'll just repeat the question: why do we think either being a god or having CHIM makes Vivec omnipotent?

_LPS, if I follow you correctly, then that's the sort of reasoning that leads me to say that CHIM is what makes the world real. I don't say this to deny that the world is a dream, but to expand upon the meaning (significance) of that assertion.

WKinkade, indeed I ARE ALL WE, and so, We ARE ALL ONE. But, insofar as I is composed of WE ALL, then WE ALL can be individuated from each other, and so individuated from I. What I'm trying to say is, the word "separate" has (at least) two different meanings which are relevant here. I can't speak for M'Aiq, but I'm only suggesting that different dreamers with CHIM can be separate in a sense which allows them to still be subgradients (and so identical with), the I. It might help to think of it as the way in which a part is separate, as well as not separate, from the whole.

Yes, there appears to be some miscommunication, because your diagram is exactly the same as mine.

A is the dreamer, thus, A has CHIM
|
A dreams B, but B is only an unaware product of A <- this is what I mean by artificial intelligence
|
B "wakes up" and begins to dream, thus, A becomes Amaranth, and B has CHIM <- I think A becomes godhead, not Amaranth.
|
B dreams C




He is omnipotent, yet he isn't. As I was trying to explain: he is only what the godhead wants him to be, because he still exists in the godhead's dream. So if the godhead thinks that Vivec's omnipotent actions are good, then Vivec is omnipotent. If he thinks they're not, then he would reset until before those actions and they would never have happened. Thus, Vivec is perceived as omnipotent because no one can perceive the changes of the godhead. As I said, no one in the TES universe has power over everything, because the godhead would think that a bad story.

If, as people claim, CHIM means you are basically the central focus, the lucid dream of a schitzo-god and therefore it's immediate avatar, therefore you are also everything in the uiniverse. Including the ministry. As a lucid dreamer can shape and alter, make and unmake the world around him or herself then he could have simply made the ministry cease to be, but instead he kept it as a threat. Ironic that Vivec's total lack of understanding what love is helped the Dunmer to understand, but whatever.

Another anology, think of Vivec like Dr. Manhattan when he allowed the pregnant woman to die. He could easily save everyone if he wanted, but he doesn't. Hell, that's my hypothesis of what happened to Vivec anyway. Like this:

Dr Manhattan:
Becomes a god, loses interest in living things, long period of apathy, regains interest in living things, leaves to create his own universe.

Whereas Vivec:
Becomes a god, loses interest in living things, long period of apathy, vanishes mysteriously.

basically, remove any sort of redemption. If you believe in CHIM, and further this Amaranth idea where a Dreamer wakes to dream independently, then perhaps Vivec simply ceased to be in the Aurbis entirely, making a newer one where people have no free will and bow only to him.

The largest difference between your way of seeing CHIM and mine is this:

In your way of seeing it, the one with CHIM becomes the avatar of the godhead and can do anything.
In my way of seeing it, the one with CHIM becomes one of the main characters in the godhead's dream, and gets to do some wild stuff as long as the godhead approves of it and thinks it provides a good story in his dream. This as I repeat over and over again, explains why Vivec just didn't snap his fingers and save everyone from the moon and so on. To every action there is a counter-reaction. It's still the godheads dream, and Vivec has no such power over a dream until he becomes the godhead of his own dream, which is then separate from the present godhead's dream.

The way it was explained to me using a metaphor of my own dreams:

last night, I dreamed that a woman with a massive drill erupted from my chest. I swallowed her and the drill whole then exploded (I've been watching a lot of weird shows). Now, I was dreaming from the P.O.V. of more or less myself. However, the woman and the drill were in my own mind. If I had, during the dream, realized I was dreaming (lucid dreamed) I would have realized all of those things were me. I was looking from the perspective of dream-me, but dream-me was an avatar and I could, if I chose to, have switched to the woman or even the drill. I was taught that CHIM was the godhead lucid dreaming through a particular person, but because the godhead has no identity that person either maintains their dream-self or dies.

I don't dispute that, I even suggest it as a possibility. I disagree with the OP's original assertion that the one with CHIM is somehow isolated from the world in their own private little reality which affects nobody else, an idea that is directly refuted by the fact that we can see Talos' affecting reality.

But again, the original discussion relies on third person observation, something which I'd posit CHIM doesn't allow for.

:turtle:

In my view of CHIM, what you just explained was this (although I might have misunderstood because it was a pretty messy metaphor ):

One without CHIM was dreaming about the woman and the drill in his own head. Those were his mind's creations, and he couldn't control them. Gaining CHIM means that you can willingly dream lucidly and control everything in your dream (such as the drill-woman), but you still exist in the world which you were born into. To become the godhead of your own dream, you must dream so "lucidily" that the characters in your dream begin thinking themselves and are able to acquire CHIM in your dream. It is unclear whether you are still in your original existence at that point.

This doesn't cover all the bases of CHIM in my view though (it wasn't a fitting anology for it), since another factor in CHIM is that the godhead of your present universe makes you his main character, so to speak.


If you want to join the discussion, you'd have to drop that, though, since I don't agree with that assertion any more

Sorry about double-post, but here's a sum-up of my current views on CHIM, it's hard to explain but I'll try:

The godhead is. There's nothing more to it, the godhead decides everything and if it decides to change anything, no one would notice, because what it removed would never have existed for anyone, anywhere, anytime. Thus, one can't perceive that the godhead does anything at all. Compare this with the laws of physics: something like gravity is just there all the time. One can't find a reason as to why it exists. One can find out the cause of its existence (gravitrons and what not), but one can't know why. It just is, and the world is designed to work with it in place.
Now, everyone is the product of the godhead. I call the universe the godhead's dream. The characters in the dream are the people of Nirn. If one of these persons realize that everything is just a dream of someone else, he gains CHIM. This basically means that he begins dreaming on his own; inside his head there is a new universe. But so far, the characters in his universe are under his control. Realizing that everything is a dream means that the godhead turns its attention to this CHIM-person, because that person is the only one who knows that such a thing as a godhead exists, and that he is just a part of the godhead's dream. The CHIM person has thus become a "rogue character" in the godhead's dream. Like Dumbkid said in his anology: "Have you ever experienced that, when writing a story, a character evolves his own persona, and writing something that goes against that character's personality feels wrong?" This is the case with a CHIM person. The person can start doing his own stuff in the godhead's dream, but the godhead is still in control and can erase the CHIM-person's actions from its story (a.k.a. its dream) if it feels that the CHIM-person's actions begin to go against the story that is unfolding in its dream.

So for example: Vivec has CHIM, but because the godhead wants the story to proceed and Morrowind be destroyed, then Vivec can't do anything because if he did, the godhead could just erase his actions and let the story continue anyway. The godhead could also just delete the CHIM-person if it wanted to, but because a CHIM-person is pretty much the most complex thing that can evolve in the godhead's dream, the godhead will probably not do so. Realize also that the current godhead is Bethesda, and because of this, whatever they consider official lore, Vivec can't do anything about.

I'm not going to get in a big-old "to do", but Ill take retconyism for 200 Alex...

Blarg, determinism. I always hated determinism in any form, real and fictional. That mentality goes quite some way into my own idea of CHIM. Namely, that Vivec after many thousands of years went somewhat mad. He did genuinely believe he was one with a god that was dreaming all of existence, and because he had divine powers from elsewhere there was no way of saying if his power was from one source or the other. That isn't to say he doesn't have interesting ideas or that CHIM is uninteresting (because it certainly isn't, it's quite fun to talk about), it's really just saying that by the nature of my interpretation of the character the Godhead and CHIM is bunk.

EDIT PS: Also, read my sig. I have too much respect for MK to believe that he would set up a character as a liar then throw away all that characterization when it became inconvenient, I refuse to think so low of his abilities as a writer.

My view of CHIM doesn't take away any characterization: remember that I said that the godhead is Bethesda.
If Bethesda (and MK) has chosen to make Vivec into what he is in all the lore about him: egocentric and somewhat mad, then this is what the godhead has wanted!
It might be hard to understand, but look at "The Many-Headed Talos", for example. Talos has the ability to transform all of Cyrodiil from a jungle into woodlands. Why? Because the godhead decided he could. How? By making the environment in Oblivion (the game) foresty and later writing "The Many-Headed Talos"! It was the will of the godhead that it would happen, and therefore, Talos could do it.
That is why I portrayed the godhead as a law of physics, one only has to accept that its there, it just is. There is no godhead this, godhead that.

That the godhead is Bethesda is easily the boringest thing I've ever heard.

Personally, I think the greater crime would be to throw away CHIM in order to keep with the characterization than would be throwing away the characterization to keep CHIM. Why make it up if its all just going to be a lie? But then, I don't think they're incompatible.

If that idea is boring, and my theory is correct, then it's Bethesda fault since they created the idea. That's why I said one should just ignore the godhead, because it just is. It doesn't matter if it's Bethesda or my grandma, it just is, and because of that it can't really be boring or funny or anything, the only thing one can judge is what it does, namely the lore and the games. Which I think are great.


At least according to my theory, they aren't.


To compare this whole scenario with the "dream" anologies from before: Bethesda, as a company, create the games and lore just like we create our dreams when lucid dreaming. Below is a quote where I've just replaced the word godhead and dream with Bethesda and game:



This might sound stupid, but think about it. It all makes sense. Who has the final word in the world of Nirn (or the world of the ES, I should say)? The godhead. Who is the only one who can permanently change something in the world of Nirn, or even roll back changes? Bethesda. But they need a character to do it ingame. That's where, for example, Talos comes in.