Weirdly enough, I’m under the impression that what Alison has done to shake Jadis out of her complacency has already been done and Jadis just hasn’t stuck her head out the window to see if what she said really came to pass.
That would be funny. They go in the machine to look at the shape of the universe and Jadis is like “oh shit, it didn’t look like that last time I checked…”
42 Fragments the Universe Beyond All Reintegration
I would love that scene, but I don’t think it fits. Jadis seems to be continuously aware of everything and will really know when everything changes. At the “head implodes” level of “really know”.
Mind you, if Allison is about to do something to change the timeline, then, within this particular, pre-determined timeline she _has_ already done it.
I like this. It would be awesome ending if the last page of KSBD would link back to the first page, starting the loop again and again as long as you had interest to keep reading. In a sense, Allison and her friends are both dead and alive at the same time.
IIRC Allison was a Philosophy Major. This is at least a situation that she has had placed before her as a theoretical in the past. Having it neatly “confirmed” and also placed in the middle of a bunch of trauma is another matter entirely, but at the very least these aren’t wholly alien philosophies to her.
Nopt sure “Allison” and “knows better” belong in the same sentence. But anyway, Jadis is making the heart of the machine wheelchair-accessible. Allison can roll right in.
Ok so…. Jadis saved, resurrected and healed Alice, for 3 years, then she invited her for a breakfast, only to show her the void of her life. And no breakfast is served yet. In place of Alice, I’d start wondering on that as well. Was that a lie?
don’t understand why is people so aggravated when facing this obvious truth. Our personal life matters (to us and few, very few others) in our small, oh so very small, personal scale. But in the bigger picture we’re completely irrelevant; this should be obvious to anyone with more than two working neurons.
Are we so desperate to feel like great protagonists of some epic tale that, when confronted with our mundane insignificance, so many of us fall into anger and denial?
I fully agree to this. My addition is that, determinism actually won’t strip off your responsibility over your decisions, and the need of you *having* to make them. If you just stop for a moment, and just wait on anything to happen, because things *will* happen, right? That’ll only reinforce in you, that you still have to think, you have to make decisions, you have to move, and the ‘freedom’ that you’ve been used to didn’t change or didn’t stop existing for you, and you probably only had the wrong idea about that so far.
I believe in unalterable fate through causality. Will, choice, hope, chance, all illusions, but fun illusions. Plus, we are unable to predict the future even if it is set in stone, so it’s not that important.
Besides, whatever we feel like, we are given a certaon amountbof time in the world. We can either do something with it or kill ourselves: the world will go on just fine. Might as well do something with it and not mope around too much.
It’s all a matter of scale.
Jadis seems really invested in proving to Alison that she should give up. Why does it matter? It’s like she believes in something or something.
Cause, I mean, she’s just arguing philosophy at this point. Is it a science fact that nothing matters cause the universe is deterministic? Okay, so what? Why is that information important, what can you do with it? What predictions can you make based on it? “You’re going to die in 35 years” isn’t a prediction that could prove or falsify Jadis’s theory; it can only prove she has seen the future. If you’re going to prove the future “can’t be changed” you’re going to need to try something, and evidence suggests trying things is not a priority for Jadis.
But if it is a philosophical question, then we can ask why it matters. What does Jadis get out of doing this, aside from being able to stand at the end of time and say “I was right all along”? If there’s no point to anything, what’s the point of giving up?
She even contradicts herself, standing (or floating) before a giant machine that she built. She had some sort of motivation, and that seems to fly into the face of her rhetoric.
Maybe Jadis doing it, because it is what she does. Like, if the whole world is a comic book, than it doesnt matter if you see the next page – it’s still will happen or already happened.
YISUN is only Paradox, and never Paradox. There is no nihilistic determinism, just as there is no existentialism. Everything is an infinitely small pawn with no free will, just as everything is an infinitely large consciousness of pure will itself. YISUN is all, YISUN is nothing.
Recall YISUN’s four lies. The Bearer of the Shape believes that the universe is an immovable block, every event constantly expressed in an endless state of nothingness, and as such, it is so. The Sovereign believes that the universe is an endlessly moving cosmos of will and change and identity, and as such, it is so.
And, as the love of self is the true exercise of the God called I, one is inclined to side with the Sovereign, who is closer to love of the individual than the Bearer of the Shape.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.
I like how the existence of souls makes no difference here.
I’d just be asking questions about how it all works. As somebody with philosophy instead of religion, I know, for example, that there is a perspective in which all moments in time are “frozen”. Doesn’t mean it’s the same perspective in which you determine whether there is meaning. Though it must be weird to naturally have that perspective while existing in time… Anyway, just because Jadis is all-knowing doesn’t mean she’s all-understanding.
I mean, “cease to exist” is a pretty limited way of looking at things. Since Jadis herself acknowledges that time is not linear, then all things always exist. Secondly, since we’re all effectively the universe observing itself, saying death brings oblivion is like declaring water has ceased to be the moment it’s evaporated.
It makes sense that The Witch in Glass wouldn’t consider any of this, though. By nature, a demiurge isn’t inclined to contemplate a universe that doesn’t revolve around them. Even the fundamental despair found in Jadis’s nihilism is born of the revelation that she ISN’T the centre of the universe. Same goes for Jagganoth’s rage.
Only a fool seeks royalty, after all.
If the tales of Aesma and the three masters taught me anything, it is that pure undiluted WANT has precedence over all natural laws, so why not also over the set spatiotemporal state of the universe that was observed by Jadis. WANT is the element of change. Allison is a walking point of divergence – or can be if she wields her WANT properly.
The future that was observed by Jadis – including Allison’s future – may no longer exist after what happens next.
After all, YISUN’s existence was described as cyclic before the great division of self – they experienced the beginning and end of all, the past and the future many times – and yet this sterile existence was broken.
Jadis if afraid of change, because if change comes, the shape of the universe she has seen – her ultimate achievement – will no longer exist and everything she ever was will be for naught.
But Jadis has perfect omniscience. She knows what kind of change comes, and how it changes her vision. In other words, she holds the shape of both the original and the changed version of the universe in her mind simultaneously.
She only says that she has perfect omniscience, what she really has is knowledge of a snapshot of the universe in the past, present and future. A static image.
It remains to be seen if there is a force that can change the course of history – to alter the future so it does no longer reflect what Jadis has seen.
It would seem that YISUN has known all of their cyclic existence before the great division, and broke it – torn the cycle, invalidated the snapshot and changed the future – by the great division of self.
It remains to be seen it Allison manages the same.
one only must look at the poet Durst who, in describing the plight and innermost thoughts of a hero that looked into the mirror that knew everything and began to despair, wrote:
“It portends to the endless, needless chatter of men and women,
I am of the opinion that you’d be better off no longer speaking such nonsense,
Ah good needed more triggers for my thanatophobia.
Weirdly enough, I’m under the impression that what Alison has done to shake Jadis out of her complacency has already been done and Jadis just hasn’t stuck her head out the window to see if what she said really came to pass.
Though with Abandon, nothing is certain.
That would be funny. They go in the machine to look at the shape of the universe and Jadis is like “oh shit, it didn’t look like that last time I checked…”
I would love that scene, but I don’t think it fits. Jadis seems to be continuously aware of everything and will really know when everything changes. At the “head implodes” level of “really know”.
Mind you, if Allison is about to do something to change the timeline, then, within this particular, pre-determined timeline she _has_ already done it.
Always good to get a Bros tribute.
Geez, I bet she’s fun at parties
I like this. It would be awesome ending if the last page of KSBD would link back to the first page, starting the loop again and again as long as you had interest to keep reading. In a sense, Allison and her friends are both dead and alive at the same time.
Awright, Allison, time to find Existentialism and wrap this thing up.
IIRC Allison was a Philosophy Major. This is at least a situation that she has had placed before her as a theoretical in the past. Having it neatly “confirmed” and also placed in the middle of a bunch of trauma is another matter entirely, but at the very least these aren’t wholly alien philosophies to her.
The only proper response to Jadis and this circular navel gazing bs is to not engage her.
“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”
~Wargames
For someone preaching unavoidable fate and absolute nihilism, Jadis is awfully active and possessing of desire.
There is no point. Do nothing. Ask nothing. Offer nothing. Wait for your inevitable end… …unless you’re talking out your butt.
If nothing we do matters, why is the frozen oracle putting so much effort into getting Allison into this chair?
Is this, perhaps, the choice that matters? Are these perhaps the lies that lead to her preferred future?
uh oh sisters…
Luckily, Allison knows better than to sit on a thing that looks like the control chair from Alien… right?
Nopt sure “Allison” and “knows better” belong in the same sentence. But anyway, Jadis is making the heart of the machine wheelchair-accessible. Allison can roll right in.
When you’re in need of therapy is not a good time to talk to Jadis.
Therapy is about learning to be your own therapist.
Jadis just has a sink-or-swim approach.
Just another Pseudo-God trying to challenge Alison with her misbegotten and treacherous world view.
Ok so…. Jadis saved, resurrected and healed Alice, for 3 years, then she invited her for a breakfast, only to show her the void of her life. And no breakfast is served yet. In place of Alice, I’d start wondering on that as well. Was that a lie?
This part just doesn’t add up at all so far.
Good point. If she can lie about breakfast, she can lie about anything.
The pro move is to kill oneself and prove the all knowing wrong.
don’t understand why is people so aggravated when facing this obvious truth. Our personal life matters (to us and few, very few others) in our small, oh so very small, personal scale. But in the bigger picture we’re completely irrelevant; this should be obvious to anyone with more than two working neurons.
Are we so desperate to feel like great protagonists of some epic tale that, when confronted with our mundane insignificance, so many of us fall into anger and denial?
I fully agree to this. My addition is that, determinism actually won’t strip off your responsibility over your decisions, and the need of you *having* to make them. If you just stop for a moment, and just wait on anything to happen, because things *will* happen, right? That’ll only reinforce in you, that you still have to think, you have to make decisions, you have to move, and the ‘freedom’ that you’ve been used to didn’t change or didn’t stop existing for you, and you probably only had the wrong idea about that so far.
I believe in unalterable fate through causality. Will, choice, hope, chance, all illusions, but fun illusions. Plus, we are unable to predict the future even if it is set in stone, so it’s not that important.
Besides, whatever we feel like, we are given a certaon amountbof time in the world. We can either do something with it or kill ourselves: the world will go on just fine. Might as well do something with it and not mope around too much.
It’s all a matter of scale.
Jadis seems really invested in proving to Alison that she should give up. Why does it matter? It’s like she believes in something or something.
Cause, I mean, she’s just arguing philosophy at this point. Is it a science fact that nothing matters cause the universe is deterministic? Okay, so what? Why is that information important, what can you do with it? What predictions can you make based on it? “You’re going to die in 35 years” isn’t a prediction that could prove or falsify Jadis’s theory; it can only prove she has seen the future. If you’re going to prove the future “can’t be changed” you’re going to need to try something, and evidence suggests trying things is not a priority for Jadis.
But if it is a philosophical question, then we can ask why it matters. What does Jadis get out of doing this, aside from being able to stand at the end of time and say “I was right all along”? If there’s no point to anything, what’s the point of giving up?
She even contradicts herself, standing (or floating) before a giant machine that she built. She had some sort of motivation, and that seems to fly into the face of her rhetoric.
Maybe Jadis doing it, because it is what she does. Like, if the whole world is a comic book, than it doesnt matter if you see the next page – it’s still will happen or already happened.
YISUN is only Paradox, and never Paradox. There is no nihilistic determinism, just as there is no existentialism. Everything is an infinitely small pawn with no free will, just as everything is an infinitely large consciousness of pure will itself. YISUN is all, YISUN is nothing.
Recall YISUN’s four lies. The Bearer of the Shape believes that the universe is an immovable block, every event constantly expressed in an endless state of nothingness, and as such, it is so. The Sovereign believes that the universe is an endlessly moving cosmos of will and change and identity, and as such, it is so.
And, as the love of self is the true exercise of the God called I, one is inclined to side with the Sovereign, who is closer to love of the individual than the Bearer of the Shape.
Of course, all of this is a lie.
But it is a beautiful lie. Is it not?
A beautiful lie indeed.
Hey guys, I am starting to think that Jadis might be evil
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.
-RUMI (MEVLANA)
Colman Barks Translation
Yeah probably
I like how the existence of souls makes no difference here.
I’d just be asking questions about how it all works. As somebody with philosophy instead of religion, I know, for example, that there is a perspective in which all moments in time are “frozen”. Doesn’t mean it’s the same perspective in which you determine whether there is meaning. Though it must be weird to naturally have that perspective while existing in time… Anyway, just because Jadis is all-knowing doesn’t mean she’s all-understanding.
Dammit Jadis, giving someone spoilers without warning isn’t cool at all.
I mean, “cease to exist” is a pretty limited way of looking at things. Since Jadis herself acknowledges that time is not linear, then all things always exist. Secondly, since we’re all effectively the universe observing itself, saying death brings oblivion is like declaring water has ceased to be the moment it’s evaporated.
It makes sense that The Witch in Glass wouldn’t consider any of this, though. By nature, a demiurge isn’t inclined to contemplate a universe that doesn’t revolve around them. Even the fundamental despair found in Jadis’s nihilism is born of the revelation that she ISN’T the centre of the universe. Same goes for Jagganoth’s rage.
Only a fool seeks royalty, after all.
If the tales of Aesma and the three masters taught me anything, it is that pure undiluted WANT has precedence over all natural laws, so why not also over the set spatiotemporal state of the universe that was observed by Jadis. WANT is the element of change. Allison is a walking point of divergence – or can be if she wields her WANT properly.
The future that was observed by Jadis – including Allison’s future – may no longer exist after what happens next.
After all, YISUN’s existence was described as cyclic before the great division of self – they experienced the beginning and end of all, the past and the future many times – and yet this sterile existence was broken.
Jadis if afraid of change, because if change comes, the shape of the universe she has seen – her ultimate achievement – will no longer exist and everything she ever was will be for naught.
But Jadis has perfect omniscience. She knows what kind of change comes, and how it changes her vision. In other words, she holds the shape of both the original and the changed version of the universe in her mind simultaneously.
There’s no ‘if’ to her, only ‘when’.
She only says that she has perfect omniscience, what she really has is knowledge of a snapshot of the universe in the past, present and future. A static image.
It remains to be seen if there is a force that can change the course of history – to alter the future so it does no longer reflect what Jadis has seen.
It would seem that YISUN has known all of their cyclic existence before the great division, and broke it – torn the cycle, invalidated the snapshot and changed the future – by the great division of self.
It remains to be seen it Allison manages the same.
one only must look at the poet Durst who, in describing the plight and innermost thoughts of a hero that looked into the mirror that knew everything and began to despair, wrote:
“It portends to the endless, needless chatter of men and women,
I am of the opinion that you’d be better off no longer speaking such nonsense,
or I’ll leave you with a fat lip”