BREAKER OF INFINITIES 4-144
Prim came to a part of the road that was well worn. The path split and furrowed into pleasant little runoff trails, that twisted and snaked their way through groves of gently rustling trees. The undergrowth was thick and green and warm with insects and flowers. Prim felt some of the tension drain from her body and she rested a while under a tree, feeling quite relaxed.
After a while, she took a short and refreshing nap, and awoke to the distant voices of travelers a short ways down the trail. When she went out to greet them, she saw them clothed in white, and their faces and features were quite nondescript, as though washed in the ocean a while.
“Hello sister,” said they, “Who are you?”
“I am called Prim, who was the slave of Hansa, and now slave of the road,” said Prim.
“You are in luck, sister,” said the white-clothed people. “This is the end of the road. You are free!”
Prim gazed past the travelers through the treetops to see a broad and verdant valley, spotted with the trim rooftops of innumerable houses, each sporting a neat little plume of smoke. It looked like a very nice place to be, and Prim’s heart burned with a certain kind of longing she had not felt in a long while.
“What is this place?” asked Prim.
The travelers looked at each other, as if it was an odd question. “This the valley of Eternal Life,” they said. Prim was taken aback, as Immortality was one of the Three Forbidden Punishments. Seeing her expression, the travelers laughed stupidly, as though they had stumbled across a small and confused child.
“Don’t be so shocked,” said one of the travelers,”it’s true! Nobody knows want, hunger, or sickness. Our days are spent tending our gardens, talking to our neighbors and families, and praising God, who has granted us this boon. Death does not touch us here. People are neither born, nor die in this land. Our needs are cared for and the land is pleasant and green. What else could we want?”
“You should join us, sister,” added one of the travelers, “as God is good, you will know nothing but happiness in this valley.”
“Can you leave?” said Prim, who had an expression like she had tasted something sour. The travelers looked at each other in confusion. “Of course not,” said they, “why would we want to? It is impossible to leave the valley.”
“What else do you get up to?” said Prim tentatively, “Other than praising god, tending to your gardens, and talking to your neighbors?”
The travelers were very confused indeed, and seemed to think this was a very odd question. “Are you happy?” added Prim, as if this would help.
“Yes, of course,” said the travelers, smiling blithely. The expression on their faces was hard to read, but to Prim their words came out like a warm paste. “You will know nothing but happiness in this valley.”
“This land is terribly cursed,” said Prim, and moved on.
what for? because she can
Which requires more effort: to continue or to halt?
Inertia is a terrible thing.
Now I am VERY SURE Jadis has allied herself to Jagganoth.
Where is Maya?
That was Camus’ answer too in his essay, the Myth of Sisyphus.
Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to do a pointless, endless task for eternity in the underworld. Camus made the comparison between this Greek myth and our own short, mortal lives in an indifferent universe. Camus wrote this essay in response to what he considered moral philosophy’s most important question: with the understanding of cosmic absurdity, why don’t we just kill ourselves?
Camus’ answer was “We must imagine Sisyphus smiling.”
I always read that as a kind of laughing defiance in the face of absurdity. Camus’ absurdism is like the comedic twin to nihilism’s gloom. Nihilism gives us tedious, cliche heavy metal, absurdism gives us Monty Python’s fish dance. I personally prefer the latter.
*slaps you with a mackerel*
I have not seen the forbidden technique in decades.
Thank heaven you didn’t use the ritual weapon, Large Trout…
I’ve always enjoyed the existentialist’s take on existence, personally. Since the universe lacks purpose, we each of us get the wonderful (and terrible) responsibility of choosing our own reasons to exist.
After all, we are the universe perceiving itself. We are the arbiters of meaning.
“Is that all you’ve got, Universe? Ha! I spit on your vast, incomprehensible, uncaring face!”
Nihilism is only gloom to those that haven’t understood nihilism’s final lesson.
“If nothing matters, then that nothing matters, does not matter.”
Nihilism isn’t depressing. It’s liberating. The question isn’t why continue, but why not. And this lesson, is something I suspect Allison will teach Jadis shortly.
I’m a big, big fan of Camus as well. Nihilism is all about making your own meaning in a world that has none (and that’s all well and good), while Absurdism is about existing *in* the meaningless and still daring to be happy, to keep trying and struggling.
This is all as I’ve understood it, anyway. Philosophy is literature, and literature is interpretative.
Yes, philosophy is interpretive. And I think I share your interpretation.
I guess the difference between nihilism and absurdism was never very clear to me. Not being a professional philosopher, I’ve naively thought the difference was one of gloomy resignation versus cheerful defiance. But I see I have more reading to do.
But to bring this back to the dialog between Jadis and Alison.
Jadis is being extremely crafty by approaching Alison at this lowest point in her life. It appears that all of Alison’s friends have all been horribly torn to pieces and murdered–years ago. It’s much easier to spit defiance into the void when you’ve still got your friends around you.
I guess we’ll see if Alison has the inner strength to smile defiantly at cosmic indifference, having lost everything.
Why conquer reality? For the best reason.
Because it’s there.
“If Creation is not mine, what need is there to be a Creation at all?” – Triumphant
May she never return
Why have you chosen the path of suffering?
To quote Motom:
“Wrong question, dear.
‘Why’ is a question of the weak.
The proper question is ‘Why not?'”
Jadis: “There is no choice”
Also Jadis: “Why did you choose that?”
Umm, excuse me? I thought free will was an illusion?
What I thought too.
If it is, then Jadis has no choice but to ask.
You CAN have it both ways!
for only twenty payments of $19.99!
Free will is real, since Jadis knows what Allison does but not why. If she didn’t have the will to continue, she would stop, either now or in the future at some point. But she evidently does not.
pretty sure the author confirmed out of the comic that free will is not real in k6bd
I think free will is pretty obviously real in Kill Six Billion Demons. It just doesn’t mean what people usually think it means. You can make decisions without needing to be some magic entity outside physics.
Of course, KSBD *has* magic entities outside of physics, but lets assume that Jadis has foreknowledge about how all that works, and things like “soul flames” follow the same deterministic pattern as everything else.
Even so, whatever Allison winds up doing, it’s still *her* decision, even if Jadis can predict it. What we call “free will” is a higher order mental construct than the atoms in your body, or your individual neurons. It’s a broader computational ability performed by your brain as a whole. Saying we don’t have free will because our atoms can be predicted is like saying we don’t have eyesight because individual atoms can’t meaningfully store visual input.
Forgive me if you will, but vision and free will are two separate constructs. You cannot will the light to enter your eyes in a different way, you cannot chose what you see.
Free will inherently requires choice. If every ‘choice’ you ‘make’ is simply another motion in this scripted cosmic dance, then you aren’t free to decide anything.
If we assume the predictions are 100% correct and cannot/will not be defied, then the characters of the comic have no more free will than a stone released has the free will to chose whether it drops or not.
And what is the process by which you make those choices? If they are random, then are you really making a choice? If they’re not random, then aren’t they deterministic?
“Cannot chose what you see”?
Close your eyes, avert them, and behold! Choice!
Free will isn’t real. Royalty is the concept of having it anyway.
This is why Jadis failed. She had the knowledge to come to that conclusion but was literally frozen in indecision. This is also Metatrons flaw as an angel, since angels are by their nature too rigid to fully excise royalty.
Royalty is described as bkth a cutting motion(to cut yourself free), and the art of fools(who don’t have to care about destiny) for a reason.
The wise recognize free will as an illusion
Royalty knows the illusion of free will to be a lie
And Yisun is a consumate liar
It’s not like she had a choice in saying that.
I think it’s possible for reality to be both deterministic and meaningless. An accident and its consequences.
She never said that. She said she knows what you will choose and the consequences of your choice. She never said she would not play a role in it.
She has merely shown Allison the pointlessness of her existence which is just the first of the thousand pearls on the crown of omniscience.
There is no higher honour than to strive for that which is impossible. There is neither shame nor regret for the one who walks the path of Royalty. There is only certainty, certainty of violence, certainty of death. Most importantly, the certainty that nothing remains impossible within the heart of one who may attain Royalty.
Somewhere, the Man of La Mancha snaps his fingers and looks at this comment like Leo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Don’t forget the certainty of Taxes!
I’ll admit, I’m confused. She saw more than “nothing”, in fact what she saw was so much that it was hard to process and she had to hold up her hands to block it.
She didn’t see nothing as in she saw a lot. She saw everything.
What she saw was that everything is *meaningless* (at least that’s jadis’) interpretation . When confronted with the enormity of partial omniscience Allison was forced to reckon how pointless and meaningless her life and choices and everyone else’s is. What meaning did she see? what answer? “Nothing”
Ah, perhaps we have hit the point of this pointless discussion. “If you continue”. Then why ask these questions if all is preordained and she WILL continue? Unless they’re not and you don’t WANT her to continue?
We do what we do because we choose to. If all is preordained then what does pointing that out matter for we would still do them. If all is NOT preordained, then you lie and your words are empty. Everything may be nothing in due time but that time is not now. Are you a pawn in somebody else’s game, wise prophet?
Yes, obviously. Jadis is as much of a pawn as Allison is. Why did Jadis save her? Why give her this lecture, if it changes nothing? It is simply what she does.
But yes, if Allison has been paying attention, I’d expect her answer to be “Because I have no choice.”
Allison looking like the main character of “Consume Six Billions Meth Crystals” here
Wrong thread, accursed be the reply system.
Good post though
She spitting facts tho.
So does a student that learns by rote. We’re hoping that Allison is capable of learning, unlike Jadis.
I’m hoping that this is Jadis’ way of motivating Allison to get her shit together.
I’m feeling like it could probably lean more towards “it’s all pointless, Allison. Just give up and stay here with me where you don’t have to endure any more pain”
(I would stay because I’m a simp for Jadis but that’s irrelevant)
If there is no point, then she has all the freedom.
“The third man,” YISUN said, “checks his canteen, and finds he will soon be a dead man. Yet he is resolute, and presses onwards anyway, looking for his destination.”
“Does he find it?” asked Hansa.
“No,” said YISUN, “Quite plainly. His death finds him at the appointed time. Yet he presses on anyway, until the moment his corpse hits the dust.”
“What an idiot,” said Hansa.
“Absolutely,” said YISUN.
“What a magnificent idiot,” added Hansa.
“Hansa is observant,” said YISUN.
– Spasms
Quite peculiar that Allison has chosen the path of suffering. Not so much the path but that she was able to choose at all.
Assuming that this isn’t another conversation which simply happens ‘just because it always happens’, it does seem like Jadis is clawing back some of her previous statements on inevitability.
I think it’s time for Allison to become the master of want.
When you splat upon the wall of inevitability, you still have a choice.
Whether to do a back-flip or a star-jump.
I still like sad nihilism mommy even though her and Allison are locked in a battle of sloth right now.
I can’t decide which phrase in this post I love more – “sad nihilism mommy” or “locked in a battle of sloth.” They’re both so damn accurate, cutting, loving, and fun and the same time!
PUSH ME TO THE EDGE
This land is terribly cursed, Ys-Prim said
The only correct answer to this is “It’s what I do”
There is no such thing as reason or meaning: these are mental constructs.
There is only causality.
Things simply happen.
Please rigorously define “Things”, “is”, “causality”, “constructs”, and “happen”
when you know, you know
Doth the weeds – spiced and green – know inevitability? Doth not they knoweth the kiss of the sun? Alas, for what things knoweth they not?
I honestly have this strange feeling Jadis has an angle she’s pushing. Idw, how she’s explaining things and what she’s acting like just seems like a person obscuring something (I can’t really say truth because I don’t actually know if she’s lying, or just hiding extra information).
Brothers and Sisters be not fooled by the Demiurge of Sloth.
Give your lives your own meaning, in the face of infinite apathy turn around and say NO.
The universe may not care but that does not mean we have to follow it’s example!
Ok, so.. Alices has blue eyes at the beginning.. When they turn grey?!!
The same time her hair turned white.
Yeah. Not sure if it’s a side effect of being an Incubus emmisary, or wielding the key of kings.
So spoke the Vermillion Emperor, at the junction of the Möbius strip:
“You can continue on, or you cannot.”
“Then where is my free will?” Objected the Scribe.
“My people has a saying, A choice that is not a choice is not a choice.”
The Vermillion Emperor laughed and the mountains trembled.
“Ofcourse you have free will! You have no choice but to.”
hey, sorry for not talking about the actual page, but i need to ask: in the past i have used the names “31 thorn covered heart kills all love” and “an idiot” on my posts, but i want to use just one of them. so i decided to ask you which you prefer. thanks to everyone who answers.
It should depend on the nature of the comment 😉
Yes.
Do you want to present yourself as foolish or wise?
well, i am a fool, so presenting myself as wise would be very misleading.
okay, i decided to use the “a idiot” name on my comments from now on-thanks for the advice, friends.
oh gods you made it “a” instead of “an”. That…that’s actually even worse, by which I mean magnificent. I can feel my eye twitching in aggravation every time I read your new name. Nicely done, friend.
yeah, sorry, my English isent very good-not my first language
My dear fellow, it may well not be your first language. But at least you are smart enough to have more than one. And this is just a fool’s opinion. You write far better than I normally do.
haha, having said that you are fool, to present yourself as wise would no longer be misleading. Because it is a wise thought indeed, to know that you are a fool.
Ooooh…kind of an “apples to oranges” question right there. But if I had to pick one, my personal tastes run towards oranges – or rather, in this case, the name of “an idiot.”
“’This land is terribly cursed,’ said Prim, and moved on.”
So was the Land of the Lotus Eaters.
Lotuses come in all shapes and sizes. All one needs to do is to eat one, and surrender.
C’mon Allision you gotta
Do the impossible, see the invisible
Row! Row! Fight the power!
Touch the untouchable, break the unbreakable
Row! Row! Fight the power!
Don’t underestimate us. We don’t care about time, or space or… multi-dimensional whatevers! We don’t give a damn about that. Force your way down a path you choose to take, and do it all yourself! That’s the way Team Dai-Gurren rolls!
Predestination and free will are synonymous – any ceiling that bars one’s way is merely an illusion waiting for its nature to be exposed.
Let these words inspire others to rend such false mandates asunder, that they might find more pleasant things to be deceived by.
(Translation: What you gonna do is what you wanna do, just break the roof and you see the truth, uh huh – this is the theme of “G” comin’ through, baby: ROW, ROW, FIGHT THE POWER!)
ROW, ROW, FIGHT THE POWER! DO THE IMPOSSIBLE, BREAK THE UNBREAKABLE! ROW, ROW, FIGHT THE POWER!
Absolute Omniscient that knows all past, present and future and not only knows what you are going to say but also the state of every single molecule that compose every single neuron in your brain after she shows you the entirety of existence by throwing into a cosmic blender: “so, tell me, why you do things?”
You know, when I read “Why have you chosen the path of suffering?” I said “oh, fuck off” aloud to the monitor. That’s an answer as good as any other.
I don’t see her question as cruelty. She simply has to ask it, despite already knowing the answer–no, *because* she knows the answer.