…if Amelia dies, the speed I’ll drop this novel with…
Icl it’s probably the same with the other women.
Jfc I just imagined Ainar dying, I would flip this whole shit over
Part of the problem is I feel like the quality of the story now compared to early on does not measure up so I don’t trust the author to do justice to deaths that would be so significant
Saw everyone commenting so I figured I would read today rather than waiting.
I think everyone is being set up by the author in thinking that Bjorn experiences a betrayal by a trusted ally but the exact context is trusted …. ally…… betrayed….
I think Bjorn is the one to betray a trusted ally and again the context is open for future benefits. From their perspective he betrayed them but instead he saved them. It will likely be the chancellors daughter.
I also don’t think the 3 allies will die, again this novel is old have to be experience a crazy flip onto its head for that to happen.
If you read it as Bjorn gets separated by his 3 allies like via time travel or something along those lines he then knows what he must do now to get back to the present.
I'd suspect bjorn betrays baekho after baekho trusts him, baekhos name could always be missing from record stones, not that none are about him just that he is always redacted.
Very curious gem that Gavis dropped about Baek Ho, and it made me really think. Either Baek Ho is not marked by fate, or he is marked beyond fate.
Or… since he and Bjorn are almost like two sides of the same coin, what if their fates are tied together, and the name refers to one or both of them?
Of those who monitor fate (that we met), including Gavis, the Witch, and Leatlas herself (Ruin scholar can feel those of great fate but not see it, we’ve only seen Gavis interact with Baek Ho. I wonder how the others would perceive him… or if there’s something else about him that’s special
Also, Bjorn, do you really wanna party with these guys would serve each other up on a platter in a heartbeat? Would they even count ad companions? Maybe… could be kinda genius tbh
I think you nailed it. The prophecy doesn't necessarily have to be about Bjorn, people are just assuming that. That's what makes these prophecies annoying and potentially unchangeable. Baekho and Bjorn are probably backups for each other. One of them is bound to fulfill it if the other can't.
Finally! We see the old cunning Bjorn we're used to. Just like before, the way to change “destiny” is to not change it. He didn't min/max his gains with Amelia's sister but it was good enough.
Now a huge pet peeve Ihave is when people bring up dimensional travel/time travel, or destiny without actually understanding what the implications are. The author jas don't all 3. The issue with destiny, is that if it's real, that means it happens no matter what. This means free will doesn't exist. It means no one is ever actually making any decisions, which means there is no such thing as good or bad. Life actually ceases to have any meaning at all.
If that’s how you see it, then why breathe, and why think at all?
He only touched on it slowly but he hit the nail on the head. There's literally no point to anything. Even if he kills himself, that wasn't a decision he is just fulfilling a destiny that he never had control over. It's ironically what we are witnessing with him as a character right now. Bjorn is a character in a novel that isn't in control of anything, the author is. Even if Bjorn magically becomes self aware and knows he's a character in a novel, he can't do anything differently. The story is already written and nothing he does will change the letters on a page.
This is true with us as well. If destiny is real in our universe then free will doesn't exist, which makes us no different from characters in a book.
Thankfully there exists no material demonstration or proof of destiny conceptually IRL.To hypothesise about the Record Stone, I'd suspect it was a type of “fate sealing" artifact, ex everything written must be true, someone or someones made it, read it, didn't like the story, and smashed it in an attempt to create enough wiggle room to change the ending. Similar to if you have a novel that is missing pages you can work within the missing boundaries to create an ending or a continuation of the story where the gaps lay.
I'm not actuality sure wtf the record stone actually is or does since we see a similar example of it with Bjorn changing the future with a God's help with the village chief. If it's what actually happened, and the god didn't just show him an illusion to manipulate him or something, then all instances in time are happeneing simultaneously at the same time eternally on a single timeline. The fact that a future exists (which is technically impossible) has so many implications as well that there's no way the author actually thought it out. This means at any point in the timeline, you're always in the past, present and future simultaneously. In this universe, the future is real which means that's what destiny is, which makes it inescapable. This means the past is actually unchangeable as all instances of the future are already happening which include you going back to the past and changing it lol. The author just created an infinite regress of stupidity which strips the world of free will since no one, including the gods within the system of time, can actually change anything. This is the problem I initially pointed out. Everything is meaningless to the ones in this universe, and it's sole purpose is to have us readers enjoy the parts of the story in between the lines or pages as you pointed out. Given the author’s level of writing, there's no way this sort of meta self awareness is on purpose, he just doesn't know what he's doing.
part of me thinks that fragment is talking about when he had to fight dreadfear in the original crystal cave and “lost” his three companions only for them to come back to life, especially since Auril couldn’t tell him when that was referring to
first thing that came to mind with the prediction was “well, good thing (and awfully conenient) that you have a whole different party with you right now, eh“
It's funny, first Bjorn was like… what kind of disfunctional party is this, and now he’s like, you guys make a great team – join me!Lol if I were them I'd find this hella sus, especially after talking with Gavis who said they were all insignificant.Would be kinda neat if he could have them as a “shadow” party though. Anabada being his team in the daylight/city, and Baek Ho's team in the shadows, doing the things that can’t be done in the light. Then again, the only benefit would be to infiltrate Noark (which they wouldn’t do) or tackle the higher levels of the labyrinth, which they can’t do with it closed. They’d need to pressure the royals, and Baek Ho just promised not to target them anymore.I’m curious as to precisely why Baek Ho wants to expose the king – was it to kill him, capture him, confront him, question him?
The only benefit he wants from them is to die so his real comrades don't have to. He just needs 3. It would have been a real baller move if after Gavis showed him the record, Bjorn immediately asked him if he wanted to be comrades
I just saw the last part you wrote and I just assumed it was what I alluded to earlier. He must also think there are other ways of getting home which is why Gavis told him he won't find what he wants there. Baekho has always been straight forward about what he wants and that's to return home.
For sure, I just meant, I wasn’t sure what he was planning to do to the king to accomplish his means. Did he think the king's existence held the key (ie. Killing him as the goal) or perhaps that the king had an artifact or magic that could send him back (ie. capturing/torture/blackmail as the goal) etc.Just my curious musings 😛
This reminds me of that old story about fate. Something along the lines of a son marrying his mother and killing his father and to avoid that goes against fate only for it to come true. Bro gonna twist fate in his favor 🤔
Oedipus, yep, right on the money.Also, Bjorn should know by now that his random luck draws are garbage without Aynar around. From losing ppl to betrayals, he has a heavy fate in store for him
The thing with the Oedipus prophecy is that it was really easy to avoid. Don't marry anyone older than you. Or marry at all. That one was completely in his control. Bjorn's is different because you can assume he just kills himself. Then the prophecy remains but it just means it wasn't him it was referring to. The prophesies that are specifically about people are the ones that can be broken.
I remember studying that story in class years ago and I recall our discussions falling into 2 camps – one that trying to avoid your fate will instead lead you to it (ie. If they did nothing, it would not have come to pass) and that fate is generally unavoidable (if they took different actions, the same thing would have occurred but differently). We concluded that you can never really know for sure which is the case until the future is realized (when it becomes the present/past) – until then it’s all just speculation. This really stuck with me throughout any story i read/watched involving fate, and I draw upon that again for this too
Kittens and I touched on this briefly. The outcome is binary though and you knowing about the outcome is irrelevant to the fulfillment of prophesies. Either a prophecy comes true or it doesn't. That simple. If a prophecy comes true 100% of the time then that's destiny. Destiny is inescapable. It's literally the future. It's what will happen. If you can alter a prophecy then that means destiny isn't real, as the accuracy is less than 100%. With specific prophecies about specific people, it's easier to test such prophecies. Once he learned of his fate, if he just killed himself then the prophecy fails no matter what. Straight up debunks destiny.
Thats certain one valid perspective. I have a slightly different view on this, and I liken it to the principle in quantum mechanics where a quality is unknowable until observed. If the instance of observability is the point in time after an event occurs, we can know for certain the sequence of events that led to that point. However, before the observation, we don’t know for certain what sequence would have led to that outcome, or if the outcome is certain.For instance, I, in 2025 know that WW2 ended in 1945. If I traveled to 1935, I would have the perspective that this was a sure thing that was going to happen, since I've observed it (via history – not that i was there). If I then informed someone (Joe) from that time of this, to them, it might not be a sure thing because it could be changeable – they havent observed it but are aware of it (prophecy). Another person, Lisa, has no idea of my future knowledge. Then if 10 years later it happens as i informed, it would appear to be destiny, and if not, then maybe my telling Joe changed history. However, it’s possible that the choices of ppl (including me) at that time led to this outcome, and different choices may have led WW2 not happening. In this example, depending on the perspective, WW2 was predetermined (Joe), or a result of free choice (Lisa), and from my unique time-travelling perspective, a case of both.Sorry if im not that great at communicating this idea – I know it requires a bit of mental (and temporal) gymnastics to walk through
No you're explaining fine, this is basically just Schrödinger’s cat but that example doesn't apply to this as that's only meant as quantum measurement. You're confusing epistemology (knowledge of the future) over ontology (what the future is.) For instance, a lot of people misunderstand Schrödinger’s cat as being literally alive and dead. That's wrong and not what the point of that is.Again, destiny is either true or not. There's no in between. If it's anywhere in between then that means it's not true, as destiny is what the future will be no matter what. This is true regardless of what knowledge of the future you have or what antone tries to do to change it. It means there are no variables and everything is accounted for in the future already.In the example of Oedipus, it is true that if he dies before the prophesy is realized, then it won't come true. There's no getting around that. Which means he literally cannot die before it’s realized if destiny is real. So if he tried to kill himself by jumping off of a cliff, he'd probably hit his head and forget who he is or something then fulfill the prophesy. That's not meeting the requirement of him killing himself though. It's something that can't be reconciled if destiny is true. He must be alive in order for it to be true. If he can kill himself, then destiny is immediately debunked. This is the only logically consistent possibility. Any others run into contradictions
Yeah I love that Schrödinger's cat example was really just a thought experiment he proposed to highlight what he believed to be the absurdity of the concept. Shows how sassy he really was 😅I guess I was just trying to say the concept of destiny might be defined differently for beings of different temporal awareness – at least from their perspectives. Someone who operates outside of time may see no difference between knowledge of the future and what the future is – to them what happens in finality is just the convergence and collapse of various possibilities. Someone who operates within the frame of time but has future knowledge may view the future as one of several possible futures, or perhaps that there is one sure future. One who operates within time, but has no future knowledge might only see possibilities (or not care at all).For us mortals without true foresight or exotemporal omniscience, I truly think we are limited in our conceptualization of destiny. Still,I think the conception of it that you defined is arguably our best bet at a concise answer. That being said, it might not be seen the same for someone like Leatlas or perhaps a higher dimensional being from our frame of reality.
Correct. This is the answer ontologically and epistemologically speaking. Only beings outside of the constraints of time altogether can actually know whether destiny is real as they'd know if it's 100% accurate and beings within that system can only guess and measure. You've actually just anchored your explanation to an objective standard. That means whether or not destiny is real, is still a matter of fact only observable by outside observers, and forever unknown by those inside. It still means that destiny is ontologically true or false. To beings like us or Oedipus, we can only know for certain if it's false. We can never know if it's true. That's epistemology. Us knowing doesn't change the fact that it either is or isn't true though. Just to make that clear.I don't actually think the gods of that world qualify as outside observers. Being outside of the system of time means they're eternal. They've always existed and always will. They can also manipulate time at will if that was the case. Not just one point but all points simultaneously. Quite frankly I don't think any of this is within the wheelhouse of the author. This is incredibly complex and most people wouldn't be able to follow it directly.Honestly though, good job. You're the first person to anchor anything to an objective standard and distinguish between ontology and epistemology. If you've read my exchanges with the others here, you can see how rare that is. Most people cannot grasp that basic concept. This is true for philosophers as well. Hume humbled some of the biggest names in philosophy with this simple concept. You can see how even smart people like kittens and ashlen fall prey to contradictions and unjustified assumptions. Arrogance is poison to critical thinking and reasoning.
Thanks! It’s a theory I had since reading a Wrinkle in Time as a kid, and fostered through discussions and media on destiny, and it seems to make sense to me (most of the time)
That's because you intuitively arrived at the same conclusion that every origin theorist does. An external cause of everything. Religions call it god, meta-physicists call it god by any other name. Whatever it is must be a causality that doesn't self generate nor rely on any of the systems (which is all of them) that it created. It's why most religions explicitly have their god’s be described as “truth” itself. It's modally necessary for that to be the origin of everything. Aquinas, Kant and Spinoza touch on this a bit.
Source for “most religions" please.God is equivalent to truth is only a Fundamentalist Monotheistic take as its core is conceptually incompatible with a deistic pantheon.As to your other claim of “existing outside time" do you not realise that if something is outside time it cannot act? Because acting changes a state which requires a concept of time to perform. Please explain how something outside time could create anything as that action requires time. Or how that being would ever communicate with a living, time bound person, no conversation is possible when because waiting is impossible.So much special pleading I find it hard to know where to begin with your bs.
I already told you this before, but if you don't understand ontology vs epistemology, or objective vs preference, a lot of things are going to sound like bs to you. I'm even nice enough to tell you exactly what it is you need to know to fill in your faulty foundations. Even now, you try to engage without even trying to understand what's being said. That's not just foolish but it's lazy.
God is equivalent to truth is only a Fundamentalist Monotheistic take as its core is conceptually incompatible with a deistic pantheon
I'm going to be really nice again and actually spell it out for you since you're lazy and can't be bothered to even Google it. In Hinduism, Brahman is the supreme principle (truth) that all other gods are anchored to. In the Greek pantheon, truth is broken down between different gods. Each god adds a different aspect of objective truth to the whole. Ma’at in the Egyptian is the earliest explicit example I can think of but i may be wrong. That one is insanely advanced for how early it was. How about no gods like in Buddhism? That's the whole point of the Dharma.Religions understood that their beliefs had to be anchored to truth or none of their beliefs would be true.
As to your other claim of “existing outside time" do you not realise that if something is outside time it cannot act?
Wow. This is wrong not just metaphysically but just plain old physically as well. Relativity explicitly allows timeless phenomena. You're also making such a confident unjustified assumption that is literally impossible to ever justify within the system of time itself. Even atheistic metaphysicians don't make these assertions. Chalmers accepts atemporal worlds as coherent for instance why don't you exactly? Especially since it's tied to physics as well so not purely metaphysics.Hey man I'm going to be honest. I think you know that you're out of your depth and used to being the “smart” one but have never actually had to defend your beliefs because of it. It's clear that you view yourself as smart and well-read but suffered from some cognitive dissonance when those beliefs were challenged. Be serious, do you know anything about modal metaphysics? Do you even know what that means? Same with ontology and epistemology? Have you ever read Hume? Have you ever read the critiques of your beliefs and reconciled them? You definitely didn't do that with utilitarianism because Hume completely deconstructed it and utilitarians have never been able to reconcile it, yet you didn't seem to know that. Which means you're lazily defending something that's already broken. Isn't that embarrassing? Why can't you just admit you don't know what you're talking about and check your ego dude?
Your AI is leading you astray.Brahman as a concept refers to an ultimate unchanging reality. Personal Worship of Brahman is achieved in Hinduism through multiple gods. This isn’t “truth” that’s your claim you’re smuggling in. I could just as easily say “heat is Brahman, for without heat the universe would be dead” I could also state “Brahman is time as without time nothing could happen" i could even state its a force involving both of those as its a concept. These hypothesis are far more interesting than the idiocy youre saying. You’re effectively saying “the concept of truth is like this concept of brahman" without realising Hinduism detaches Brahman from a deity, meaning it doesn’t help your claim at all of “God is truth, multiple religions say so"Source. Please.You’ve just introduced more unsubstantiated bullshit than before, show me primary divine text stating this, your assertions are meaningless.>Relativity allows timeless actions.It does not, relativity shows time is not absolute, this still requires operating within the constraints of time. Your claim is for a timeless beign operating outside time, which is impossible as any action requires a before state and an after state, without time the concepts of before and after do not exist. Source and example please.
This is so cringe, it’s not even funny. Your self image is really important to you isn’t it? I think it really got on your nerves that Blue was able to understand ontology and anchoring intuitively when you’re completely incapable of it. I’m assuming you looked up ontology and epistemology and your eyes glazed over when you couldn’t understand them. I say this because you never mention it or anchor anything you say to anything other than your preference. This is something you and Ashlen have in common. Every position and belief you hold is solely grounded in your preferences. It’s why you both argue the exact same way. It’s why neither of you understand is vs ought, ontology vs epistemology, or logic. You both are also used to coasting unchallenged relying solely on your IQ, and why you both crumble under a simple Socratic attack. You both pretend not to notice direct critiques or examples that you can't defend, just to preserve ego instead of engaging and exploring concepts you haven't thought of. Please tell me if I’m completely wrong. It’s fine I don’t care. However, if you don’t understand something, just admit it. Do you know what ontology is? Do you know what it means to anchor an argument to a standard? Do you know the difference between a description and a prescription? I already know the answer but I just want you to admit that you don’t so you can ask me to explain better or something. You don’t have to know everything dude, it’s okay to say, “I don’t know.”
Brahman as a concept refers to an ultimate unchanging reality.
I know that’s why I described Brahman as a supreme principle. I was being nice and only giving examples that didn’t involve monotheistic religions as you seemed to concede that the Abrahamic religions for instance, explicitly define god as truth itself. Also love, which is incredibly fascinating and full of implications but if you can’t even understand the concept of truth then that will go completely over your head. Just know that this is another similarity that it shares with Brahman which is the anchor of all reality which means both religions saw a common ontological need for both. Anyway, I only focused on the pantheistic religions you said were impossible and gave you several other examples which you simply ignored? I didn’t bother naming the several gods of truth in the hindu pantheon (which you can just freaking google, no AI needed) because I thought Brahman was a much better example that grounded, not just the gods, but literally everything in truth itself. Which is what an ultimate, unchanging reality is. It’s the same description of truth Socrates described. It’s also eternal, which means beyond time itself. A concept that wasn’t just thought possible now, in our lifetime, but even back then.
It does not, relativity shows time is not absolute, this still requires operating within the constraints of time. Your claim is for a timeless beign operating outside time, which is impossible as any action requires a before state and an after state, without time the concepts of before and after do not exist.
Okay, this is where it’s blatantly obvious that you don’t just misunderstand physics, but science in general. Any science, can never prove or disprove anything, ever. So saying something is scientifically impossible is not only arrogant but completely unscientific, lol. So what blue and I, and you to a certain extent in another comment on this chapter, were discussing is something called Block Universe Theory. This is what’s generally accepted as the standard interpretation of relativity. It does not mean it’s proven and what is actually true. It means that the theory is logically and scientifically coherent and valid. What’s neat is that even before the Theory of Relativity existed, Plato understood that atemporal causation was coherent, but he arrived at that conclusion purely logically. So I need to ask you why (I know how much you hate that question) you believe that atemporal causation is impossible, when:1. That’s an invalid position to hold scientifically, and2. It’s the generally accepted standard in physics today.You keep asking for sources but ignore the ones I always mention, lol. If you want to know what I’m talking about when I speak about “truth” then I already mentioned, Aquinus, Kant and Spinoza. Those are pretty big names, pretty common reads. I gave you several religions that explicitly anchor their ontology to truth that weren’t monotheist. The Abrahamic god covers 3 religions by itself that are currently still practiced today. I just mentioned block theory which is the standard interpretation of relativity. There’s a lot to read there. You need to read up on modal metaphysics to understand what is actually necessary in existence. I’ll give you a spoiler, time isn’t modal. I just realized you probably don’t know what modal means 🤣
Is your debate/conversation strategy to simply text dump, address nothing and impose your assumptions?For someone been “nice" you sure have interesting definition of the word.
It’s okay to say I don’t know
I’m perfectly capable of saying I don’t know. For example, “How was the universe created” I don’t know, you don’t either. Neither of us even know if it was created, we could both presuppose its an existential requirement and get along fine.
I know that’s why I described Brahman as a supreme principle. I was being nice and only giving examples that didn’t involve monotheistic religions as you seemed to concede that the Abrahamic religions for instance, explicitly define god as truth itself.
Yes and your example fails, as their text does not have the same opinion of brahman equivocating to just truth. Brahman. Is. Not. A. God. It. Is. A. Concept.As Brahman is a concept, not an agent that can act, we do have all the gods of truth and X which hindu's consider manifestations and give the capability to act to.A followup response, if all these different claims are made in divine text of different gods of truth, how do you propose to reconcile the conflict this creates when addressing correctness? Is it not simpler to just dismiss every single one of these conflicting claims as unsubstantiated and unproven when they conflict?How could one ever know which truth is true when they all lack support for been true in the first place?Your assertion is god is truth, god did material things, god exists outside time. Substantiate any of this, debunk any opposing claim that a different god is the god of truth, that a different god is the creator.If you’d like we can agree any God is just a human-made concept and there is no substance to support the concept been true?
Okay, this is where it’s blatantly obvious that you don’t just misunderstand physics, but science in general. Any science, can never prove or disprove anything, ever.
You really enjoy insults and playing with words instead of addressing the point.You really latched onto the word impossible, let’s be scientific, give me any experiment that could falsify your god? Don't have one? Cool guess it’s just an unsupported hypothesis and I should operate with the default assumption of “it isn’t useful to me for answering how does N work" questions.
Block Universe Theory
Aka eternalism?I presuppose the universe is eternal, no need for a God or creator infact that stance is more scientific than presuppossing a god existed to create the universe as we seek to have as few presuppositions as possible.The universe exists and always existed vs god always existed, god then made the universe. Is this really a conversation you want to have, you’re not checking your AI responses for where the topic leads.
This is what’s generally accepted as the standard interpretation of relativity.
Lmao, no.Block universe theory runs into problems with Quantum Mechanics, it is not accepted among the majority of physicists today due to issues that have arisen due to our capable to entangle particles and measure them! Infact it hasn’t been the populist view for over a hundred years!!To be clear, I don’t have a debunk for it as its unfalsifiable, just studies showing it is unlikely to be accurate due to new knowledge. Look up wavefunction collapse, also fact check yourself on “leading interpretation of relativity, because it’s still General Relativity & Special Relativity. It’s a trend that whenever you state something scientific you cherry pick something very controversial and assert it as commonplace.In relation to your claim of “god exists and operates outside time" Block Universe Theory also does NOT help you as time is still a core concept in that theory and it doesn’t provide mechanism or explanation for how something could operate externally to the construct or why it would even be necessary? The theory functions without a deity, the deity is an additional unnecessary postulate and can be removed.
1. That’s an invalid position to hold scientifically, and2. It’s the generally accepted standard in physics today.
1. I apologise for the colloquial use of the word impossible, I meant “unsubstantiated" and “mechanically unlikely” which in effect mean the same thing.2. It’s not. Your AI lied.
You keep asking for sources but ignore the ones I always mention, lol. If you want to know what I’m talking about when I speak about “truth” then I already mentioned, Aquinus, Kant and Spinoza.
Supporting quotes please, I'm not doing my conversation partners homework for them.
I gave you several religions that explicitly anchor their ontology to truth that weren’t monotheist.
Your claim mechanically differs, they have a concept of truth you state God is Truth. If i havent understood your claim please, please clarify.If all religions with gods of truth, speak complete truth, irreconcilable conflicts with belief systems arise, if one must accept all religions with a deity of truth as truth and the text describes any material concepts, actions, morales or mechanisms to achieve something, such as an afterlife, one must therefore operate within the constraints of all religions simultaneously OR cherry pick one to follow and hope that1. They picked correctly2. The correct answer actually exists and has not yet been “given" or was “lost" as there are many many extinct religions in the hundreds of thousands of years humans have existed that could have been pure oral tradition.An example of an irreconcilable “truth" would be abrahamic religions having divine word saying shit like to not follow any God but me, this excludes every other god of truth in pantheon based religions and potentially – depending on interpretation – all other readings and variations of other religions it shares its roots with.This foundationally does not function.It is much cleaner to surmise that the culture thst invented the belief system valued truth telling, thus they created a story of an authority figure that has that boon. None of that supports the deity been real and the story true.
The Abrahamic god covers 3 religions by itself that are currently still practiced today.
Does it? Serious question as this is one heck of a statement. Do you have any formal literature where all denominations of Islam and Judaism etc accept the concept of the Christian trinity? Jesus's divinity and one-ness with the Christian God is a major conflict point.Even internally in “Christian” religions the trinity is not universally accepted, Unitarians as an example only consider Jesus a prophet. They explicitly state jesus differs from God. The schism for Christianity is far from resolved regarding textual interpretations of the “divine truth" also.You're misinformed or outright lying.
You need to read up on modal metaphysics to understand what is actually necessary in existence.
I admit I had to lookup modal as its a word with multiple field specific meanings, I knew it as “the most frequently occurring data in a given set" I'll make a fool of myself and assume you’re using the logic definition of “the study of expressions that relate to the necessity or possibility of something being true” if im wrong please clarify so we can use the same terminology.As for “time is not modal" I would like genuinely appreciate reading material for theories supporting that viewpoint that aren’t immediately discardable" by the following:In our sole observed existence the following is true and measurable, a single Carbon-14 atom exists and is isolated, heat radiation is produced while time passes, that atom is now Nitrogen-14. Beta decay is real and occurs, this requires the passage of time and can be measured given the correct tooling and enough material.Furthermore our biological processes involve enzymes which convert materials from A to B for use every single day, this isn’t instantaneous thus time is necessary.I would state for 100% of observed “existences" passage of “time" existing is necessary when describing our reality.Speculatively an existence where that carbon-14 atom never beta decays into nitrogen-14 COULD exist (please wake me if we find one) but that has huge knock-on impacts to biological function ex chemical reactions would never occur, growth mechanics in biological entities would not work, speed as a mechanism wouldn’t exist which simply means1. No energy propagation2. No energy conversionWhich means all known life mechanically cannot function in that “existence"It means all know ways non-life exists also, could not function in that existence.You haven’t addressed my critique of “no time means no concept of before and after" if you intended to address that with “Block Theory" I simply presuppose the universe is eternal, no god needed.Edit:Fixed typos that affected the sentence. Clarified my point regarding brahman and why it differs to my understanding of your claim.Pointed out your lies about the popularity of Block Universe Theory, largely irrelevant as its philosophy not physical regardless.Gave example of conflicting processes in QM that reduce the viability of Block Universe Theory.Edit2: I reread this chain because you stated you had given examples, your example is
Chalmers accepts atemporal worlds as coherent for instance why don't you exactly? Especially since it's tied to physics as well so not purely metaphysics.
Why should I? There is no consensus on it and its unscientific as its untestable and unfalsifiable.As for impact on practical physics? Source please. My understanding is that no it doesnt as there is no way to test any theoretical cases associated with it, nothing can be done with it and it has no falsification statement, it’s a cool idea but does nothing, can’t be tested and can’t be disproven.
Okay, you’re actually really, really close to understanding what Blue and I were discussing. You actually conceded the entire argument without realizing it (How could one ever know which truth is true when they all lack support for been true in the first place,) which means you have an intuitive understanding about what’s being discussed so I’m going to try to format everything you just said in a way that pushes you to understand what we were saying. We can address each of the issues you have then move forward, because there’s no reason to delve deeply into a subject if you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what’s even being said . I’ll say your last comment was chock-full of strawmen but I’ll dismiss it as genuine confusion since it’s likely if you don’t understand what’s actually being said. So first, if you get disrespectful, I will return the favor. I warned you before that you did not want me to use rhetoric because I would steamroll you. There’s a reason why I don’t speak to Blue or anyone else this way, and why you and Ashlen deserve that treatment. I didn’t start my rhetorical assault until you were blatantly disrespectful during the Ashlen debate. Check your tone, or I’ll check it for you.Now, over all the things you had to look up, you didn’t look up the most important. Ontology and epistemology. This is the source for all of your categorization failures and why you get confused about what’s being said. So every argument requires that 2 things be answer in order. Ontology is the first. What is the thing (time, truth, good, destiny,) and epistemology which means how do we know it (how do we detect, measure, interpret, justify it.) Now, you need to understand what objective truth is. I’ve explained it before, but it’s basically a fact or reality that exists independently of beliefs, feelings or perspectives. This means it exists whether we can recognize it or not. Almost sounds like there’s no way to reach it epistemically right? Well, that’s what modal metaphysics is for.
For example, “How was the universe created” I don’t know, you don’t either.
Correct. This is true for almost everything. This is the point Blue made, which you can only arrive at by anchoring yourself to objective truth. Which you just did, lol. Since we can never know or prove what’s true, we would always only assume something to be true. Even if it is true we can never actually know with certainty. So how do we know truth is true? Well, using modal metaphysics, we’re able to demonstrate that we know objective truth is necessary without testing it empyrically, because it has to be true in all possible worlds in order for anything to be coherent. It’s a neat way for us to “know” something we have no business knowing. So we can turn an unjustified presupposition into a justifiably necessary component to existence. Same as with logic. That must be true everywhere and always in order for coherency. Nothing makes sense without A=A for instance. So before we move on, I want to make sure you understand the point that Blue and I were talking about. This is the foundation that we were starting from. I also saw that you don’t fully grasp modal metaphysics yet as the possible worlds that are tested don’t have to be physical or even real. You can make up a world of pure math and what it’s depends on in order to test necessity. This purely conceptual world still must depend on truth and logic for instance. We can’t move on until you have a firm understanding that you have to anchor to an ontology and not epistemology. If you don’t realize that you must anchor to an ontology that doesn’t depend on your preference, then you’re saying you are truth.So just so everyone is perfectly clear, neither Blue nor I are stating that what we said is descriptively true and what is actually happening. We were saying that if everything we assumed to be correct was in fact what is happening, then the only possible logical entailment is that only something outside of time can accurately know what destiny is.
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Let's not talk about the obvious solution? A prophecy was averted in the past by destroying the stone, do it again
Sacrifices, lol
…if Amelia dies, the speed I’ll drop this novel with…
Icl it’s probably the same with the other women.
Jfc I just imagined Ainar dying, I would flip this whole shit over
Part of the problem is I feel like the quality of the story now compared to early on does not measure up so I don’t trust the author to do justice to deaths that would be so significant
I am pretty sure Aruil Gavis wants Bjorn to break fate. That is the only reason for why he would show him the record stones.
Also, why won’t Bjorn ask Auril Gavis why he wants him to open the abyss. Even if he dodges the question it’s still worth asking.
Saw everyone commenting so I figured I would read today rather than waiting.
I think everyone is being set up by the author in thinking that Bjorn experiences a betrayal by a trusted ally but the exact context is trusted …. ally…… betrayed….
I think Bjorn is the one to betray a trusted ally and again the context is open for future benefits. From their perspective he betrayed them but instead he saved them. It will likely be the chancellors daughter.
I also don’t think the 3 allies will die, again this novel is old have to be experience a crazy flip onto its head for that to happen.
If you read it as Bjorn gets separated by his 3 allies like via time travel or something along those lines he then knows what he must do now to get back to the present.
Very curious gem that Gavis dropped about Baek Ho, and it made me really think. Either Baek Ho is not marked by fate, or he is marked beyond fate.
Or… since he and Bjorn are almost like two sides of the same coin, what if their fates are tied together, and the name refers to one or both of them?
Of those who monitor fate (that we met), including Gavis, the Witch, and Leatlas herself (Ruin scholar can feel those of great fate but not see it, we’ve only seen Gavis interact with Baek Ho. I wonder how the others would perceive him… or if there’s something else about him that’s special
Also, Bjorn, do you really wanna party with these guys would serve each other up on a platter in a heartbeat? Would they even count ad companions? Maybe… could be kinda genius tbh
Finally! We see the old cunning Bjorn we're used to. Just like before, the way to change “destiny” is to not change it. He didn't min/max his gains with Amelia's sister but it was good enough.
Now a huge pet peeve Ihave is when people bring up dimensional travel/time travel, or destiny without actually understanding what the implications are. The author jas don't all 3. The issue with destiny, is that if it's real, that means it happens no matter what. This means free will doesn't exist. It means no one is ever actually making any decisions, which means there is no such thing as good or bad. Life actually ceases to have any meaning at all.
He only touched on it slowly but he hit the nail on the head. There's literally no point to anything. Even if he kills himself, that wasn't a decision he is just fulfilling a destiny that he never had control over. It's ironically what we are witnessing with him as a character right now. Bjorn is a character in a novel that isn't in control of anything, the author is. Even if Bjorn magically becomes self aware and knows he's a character in a novel, he can't do anything differently. The story is already written and nothing he does will change the letters on a page.
This is true with us as well. If destiny is real in our universe then free will doesn't exist, which makes us no different from characters in a book.
part of me thinks that fragment is talking about when he had to fight dreadfear in the original crystal cave and “lost” his three companions only for them to come back to life, especially since Auril couldn’t tell him when that was referring to
first thing that came to mind with the prediction was “well, good thing (and awfully conenient) that you have a whole different party with you right now, eh“
This reminds me of that old story about fate. Something along the lines of a son marrying his mother and killing his father and to avoid that goes against fate only for it to come true. Bro gonna twist fate in his favor 🤔
Correct. This is the answer ontologically and epistemologically speaking. Only beings outside of the constraints of time altogether can actually know whether destiny is real as they'd know if it's 100% accurate and beings within that system can only guess and measure. You've actually just anchored your explanation to an objective standard. That means whether or not destiny is real, is still a matter of fact only observable by outside observers, and forever unknown by those inside. It still means that destiny is ontologically true or false. To beings like us or Oedipus, we can only know for certain if it's false. We can never know if it's true. That's epistemology. Us knowing doesn't change the fact that it either is or isn't true though. Just to make that clear.I don't actually think the gods of that world qualify as outside observers. Being outside of the system of time means they're eternal. They've always existed and always will. They can also manipulate time at will if that was the case. Not just one point but all points simultaneously. Quite frankly I don't think any of this is within the wheelhouse of the author. This is incredibly complex and most people wouldn't be able to follow it directly.Honestly though, good job. You're the first person to anchor anything to an objective standard and distinguish between ontology and epistemology. If you've read my exchanges with the others here, you can see how rare that is. Most people cannot grasp that basic concept. This is true for philosophers as well. Hume humbled some of the biggest names in philosophy with this simple concept. You can see how even smart people like kittens and ashlen fall prey to contradictions and unjustified assumptions. Arrogance is poison to critical thinking and reasoning.
I already told you this before, but if you don't understand ontology vs epistemology, or objective vs preference, a lot of things are going to sound like bs to you. I'm even nice enough to tell you exactly what it is you need to know to fill in your faulty foundations. Even now, you try to engage without even trying to understand what's being said. That's not just foolish but it's lazy.
I'm going to be really nice again and actually spell it out for you since you're lazy and can't be bothered to even Google it. In Hinduism, Brahman is the supreme principle (truth) that all other gods are anchored to. In the Greek pantheon, truth is broken down between different gods. Each god adds a different aspect of objective truth to the whole. Ma’at in the Egyptian is the earliest explicit example I can think of but i may be wrong. That one is insanely advanced for how early it was. How about no gods like in Buddhism? That's the whole point of the Dharma.Religions understood that their beliefs had to be anchored to truth or none of their beliefs would be true.
Wow. This is wrong not just metaphysically but just plain old physically as well. Relativity explicitly allows timeless phenomena. You're also making such a confident unjustified assumption that is literally impossible to ever justify within the system of time itself. Even atheistic metaphysicians don't make these assertions. Chalmers accepts atemporal worlds as coherent for instance why don't you exactly? Especially since it's tied to physics as well so not purely metaphysics.Hey man I'm going to be honest. I think you know that you're out of your depth and used to being the “smart” one but have never actually had to defend your beliefs because of it. It's clear that you view yourself as smart and well-read but suffered from some cognitive dissonance when those beliefs were challenged. Be serious, do you know anything about modal metaphysics? Do you even know what that means? Same with ontology and epistemology? Have you ever read Hume? Have you ever read the critiques of your beliefs and reconciled them? You definitely didn't do that with utilitarianism because Hume completely deconstructed it and utilitarians have never been able to reconcile it, yet you didn't seem to know that. Which means you're lazily defending something that's already broken. Isn't that embarrassing? Why can't you just admit you don't know what you're talking about and check your ego dude?
This is so cringe, it’s not even funny. Your self image is really important to you isn’t it? I think it really got on your nerves that Blue was able to understand ontology and anchoring intuitively when you’re completely incapable of it. I’m assuming you looked up ontology and epistemology and your eyes glazed over when you couldn’t understand them. I say this because you never mention it or anchor anything you say to anything other than your preference. This is something you and Ashlen have in common. Every position and belief you hold is solely grounded in your preferences. It’s why you both argue the exact same way. It’s why neither of you understand is vs ought, ontology vs epistemology, or logic. You both are also used to coasting unchallenged relying solely on your IQ, and why you both crumble under a simple Socratic attack. You both pretend not to notice direct critiques or examples that you can't defend, just to preserve ego instead of engaging and exploring concepts you haven't thought of. Please tell me if I’m completely wrong. It’s fine I don’t care. However, if you don’t understand something, just admit it. Do you know what ontology is? Do you know what it means to anchor an argument to a standard? Do you know the difference between a description and a prescription? I already know the answer but I just want you to admit that you don’t so you can ask me to explain better or something. You don’t have to know everything dude, it’s okay to say, “I don’t know.”
I know that’s why I described Brahman as a supreme principle. I was being nice and only giving examples that didn’t involve monotheistic religions as you seemed to concede that the Abrahamic religions for instance, explicitly define god as truth itself. Also love, which is incredibly fascinating and full of implications but if you can’t even understand the concept of truth then that will go completely over your head. Just know that this is another similarity that it shares with Brahman which is the anchor of all reality which means both religions saw a common ontological need for both. Anyway, I only focused on the pantheistic religions you said were impossible and gave you several other examples which you simply ignored? I didn’t bother naming the several gods of truth in the hindu pantheon (which you can just freaking google, no AI needed) because I thought Brahman was a much better example that grounded, not just the gods, but literally everything in truth itself. Which is what an ultimate, unchanging reality is. It’s the same description of truth Socrates described. It’s also eternal, which means beyond time itself. A concept that wasn’t just thought possible now, in our lifetime, but even back then.
Okay, this is where it’s blatantly obvious that you don’t just misunderstand physics, but science in general. Any science, can never prove or disprove anything, ever. So saying something is scientifically impossible is not only arrogant but completely unscientific, lol. So what blue and I, and you to a certain extent in another comment on this chapter, were discussing is something called Block Universe Theory. This is what’s generally accepted as the standard interpretation of relativity. It does not mean it’s proven and what is actually true. It means that the theory is logically and scientifically coherent and valid. What’s neat is that even before the Theory of Relativity existed, Plato understood that atemporal causation was coherent, but he arrived at that conclusion purely logically. So I need to ask you why (I know how much you hate that question) you believe that atemporal causation is impossible, when:1. That’s an invalid position to hold scientifically, and2. It’s the generally accepted standard in physics today.You keep asking for sources but ignore the ones I always mention, lol. If you want to know what I’m talking about when I speak about “truth” then I already mentioned, Aquinus, Kant and Spinoza. Those are pretty big names, pretty common reads. I gave you several religions that explicitly anchor their ontology to truth that weren’t monotheist. The Abrahamic god covers 3 religions by itself that are currently still practiced today. I just mentioned block theory which is the standard interpretation of relativity. There’s a lot to read there. You need to read up on modal metaphysics to understand what is actually necessary in existence. I’ll give you a spoiler, time isn’t modal. I just realized you probably don’t know what modal means 🤣
Is your debate/conversation strategy to simply text dump, address nothing and impose your assumptions?For someone been “nice" you sure have interesting definition of the word.
I’m perfectly capable of saying I don’t know. For example, “How was the universe created” I don’t know, you don’t either. Neither of us even know if it was created, we could both presuppose its an existential requirement and get along fine.
Yes and your example fails, as their text does not have the same opinion of brahman equivocating to just truth. Brahman. Is. Not. A. God. It. Is. A. Concept.As Brahman is a concept, not an agent that can act, we do have all the gods of truth and X which hindu's consider manifestations and give the capability to act to.A followup response, if all these different claims are made in divine text of different gods of truth, how do you propose to reconcile the conflict this creates when addressing correctness? Is it not simpler to just dismiss every single one of these conflicting claims as unsubstantiated and unproven when they conflict?How could one ever know which truth is true when they all lack support for been true in the first place?Your assertion is god is truth, god did material things, god exists outside time. Substantiate any of this, debunk any opposing claim that a different god is the god of truth, that a different god is the creator.If you’d like we can agree any God is just a human-made concept and there is no substance to support the concept been true?
You really enjoy insults and playing with words instead of addressing the point.You really latched onto the word impossible, let’s be scientific, give me any experiment that could falsify your god? Don't have one? Cool guess it’s just an unsupported hypothesis and I should operate with the default assumption of “it isn’t useful to me for answering how does N work" questions.
Aka eternalism?I presuppose the universe is eternal, no need for a God or creator infact that stance is more scientific than presuppossing a god existed to create the universe as we seek to have as few presuppositions as possible.The universe exists and always existed vs god always existed, god then made the universe. Is this really a conversation you want to have, you’re not checking your AI responses for where the topic leads.
Lmao, no.Block universe theory runs into problems with Quantum Mechanics, it is not accepted among the majority of physicists today due to issues that have arisen due to our capable to entangle particles and measure them! Infact it hasn’t been the populist view for over a hundred years!!To be clear, I don’t have a debunk for it as its unfalsifiable, just studies showing it is unlikely to be accurate due to new knowledge. Look up wavefunction collapse, also fact check yourself on “leading interpretation of relativity, because it’s still General Relativity & Special Relativity. It’s a trend that whenever you state something scientific you cherry pick something very controversial and assert it as commonplace.In relation to your claim of “god exists and operates outside time" Block Universe Theory also does NOT help you as time is still a core concept in that theory and it doesn’t provide mechanism or explanation for how something could operate externally to the construct or why it would even be necessary? The theory functions without a deity, the deity is an additional unnecessary postulate and can be removed.
1. I apologise for the colloquial use of the word impossible, I meant “unsubstantiated" and “mechanically unlikely” which in effect mean the same thing.2. It’s not. Your AI lied.
Supporting quotes please, I'm not doing my conversation partners homework for them.
Your claim mechanically differs, they have a concept of truth you state God is Truth. If i havent understood your claim please, please clarify.If all religions with gods of truth, speak complete truth, irreconcilable conflicts with belief systems arise, if one must accept all religions with a deity of truth as truth and the text describes any material concepts, actions, morales or mechanisms to achieve something, such as an afterlife, one must therefore operate within the constraints of all religions simultaneously OR cherry pick one to follow and hope that1. They picked correctly2. The correct answer actually exists and has not yet been “given" or was “lost" as there are many many extinct religions in the hundreds of thousands of years humans have existed that could have been pure oral tradition.An example of an irreconcilable “truth" would be abrahamic religions having divine word saying shit like to not follow any God but me, this excludes every other god of truth in pantheon based religions and potentially – depending on interpretation – all other readings and variations of other religions it shares its roots with.This foundationally does not function.It is much cleaner to surmise that the culture thst invented the belief system valued truth telling, thus they created a story of an authority figure that has that boon. None of that supports the deity been real and the story true.
Does it? Serious question as this is one heck of a statement. Do you have any formal literature where all denominations of Islam and Judaism etc accept the concept of the Christian trinity? Jesus's divinity and one-ness with the Christian God is a major conflict point.Even internally in “Christian” religions the trinity is not universally accepted, Unitarians as an example only consider Jesus a prophet. They explicitly state jesus differs from God. The schism for Christianity is far from resolved regarding textual interpretations of the “divine truth" also.You're misinformed or outright lying.
I admit I had to lookup modal as its a word with multiple field specific meanings, I knew it as “the most frequently occurring data in a given set" I'll make a fool of myself and assume you’re using the logic definition of “the study of expressions that relate to the necessity or possibility of something being true” if im wrong please clarify so we can use the same terminology.As for “time is not modal" I would like genuinely appreciate reading material for theories supporting that viewpoint that aren’t immediately discardable" by the following:In our sole observed existence the following is true and measurable, a single Carbon-14 atom exists and is isolated, heat radiation is produced while time passes, that atom is now Nitrogen-14. Beta decay is real and occurs, this requires the passage of time and can be measured given the correct tooling and enough material.Furthermore our biological processes involve enzymes which convert materials from A to B for use every single day, this isn’t instantaneous thus time is necessary.I would state for 100% of observed “existences" passage of “time" existing is necessary when describing our reality.Speculatively an existence where that carbon-14 atom never beta decays into nitrogen-14 COULD exist (please wake me if we find one) but that has huge knock-on impacts to biological function ex chemical reactions would never occur, growth mechanics in biological entities would not work, speed as a mechanism wouldn’t exist which simply means1. No energy propagation2. No energy conversionWhich means all known life mechanically cannot function in that “existence"It means all know ways non-life exists also, could not function in that existence.You haven’t addressed my critique of “no time means no concept of before and after" if you intended to address that with “Block Theory" I simply presuppose the universe is eternal, no god needed.Edit:Fixed typos that affected the sentence. Clarified my point regarding brahman and why it differs to my understanding of your claim.Pointed out your lies about the popularity of Block Universe Theory, largely irrelevant as its philosophy not physical regardless.Gave example of conflicting processes in QM that reduce the viability of Block Universe Theory.Edit2: I reread this chain because you stated you had given examples, your example is
Why should I? There is no consensus on it and its unscientific as its untestable and unfalsifiable.As for impact on practical physics? Source please. My understanding is that no it doesnt as there is no way to test any theoretical cases associated with it, nothing can be done with it and it has no falsification statement, it’s a cool idea but does nothing, can’t be tested and can’t be disproven.
Okay, you’re actually really, really close to understanding what Blue and I were discussing. You actually conceded the entire argument without realizing it (How could one ever know which truth is true when they all lack support for been true in the first place,) which means you have an intuitive understanding about what’s being discussed so I’m going to try to format everything you just said in a way that pushes you to understand what we were saying. We can address each of the issues you have then move forward, because there’s no reason to delve deeply into a subject if you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what’s even being said . I’ll say your last comment was chock-full of strawmen but I’ll dismiss it as genuine confusion since it’s likely if you don’t understand what’s actually being said. So first, if you get disrespectful, I will return the favor. I warned you before that you did not want me to use rhetoric because I would steamroll you. There’s a reason why I don’t speak to Blue or anyone else this way, and why you and Ashlen deserve that treatment. I didn’t start my rhetorical assault until you were blatantly disrespectful during the Ashlen debate. Check your tone, or I’ll check it for you.Now, over all the things you had to look up, you didn’t look up the most important. Ontology and epistemology. This is the source for all of your categorization failures and why you get confused about what’s being said. So every argument requires that 2 things be answer in order. Ontology is the first. What is the thing (time, truth, good, destiny,) and epistemology which means how do we know it (how do we detect, measure, interpret, justify it.) Now, you need to understand what objective truth is. I’ve explained it before, but it’s basically a fact or reality that exists independently of beliefs, feelings or perspectives. This means it exists whether we can recognize it or not. Almost sounds like there’s no way to reach it epistemically right? Well, that’s what modal metaphysics is for.
Correct. This is true for almost everything. This is the point Blue made, which you can only arrive at by anchoring yourself to objective truth. Which you just did, lol. Since we can never know or prove what’s true, we would always only assume something to be true. Even if it is true we can never actually know with certainty. So how do we know truth is true? Well, using modal metaphysics, we’re able to demonstrate that we know objective truth is necessary without testing it empyrically, because it has to be true in all possible worlds in order for anything to be coherent. It’s a neat way for us to “know” something we have no business knowing. So we can turn an unjustified presupposition into a justifiably necessary component to existence. Same as with logic. That must be true everywhere and always in order for coherency. Nothing makes sense without A=A for instance. So before we move on, I want to make sure you understand the point that Blue and I were talking about. This is the foundation that we were starting from. I also saw that you don’t fully grasp modal metaphysics yet as the possible worlds that are tested don’t have to be physical or even real. You can make up a world of pure math and what it’s depends on in order to test necessity. This purely conceptual world still must depend on truth and logic for instance. We can’t move on until you have a firm understanding that you have to anchor to an ontology and not epistemology. If you don’t realize that you must anchor to an ontology that doesn’t depend on your preference, then you’re saying you are truth.So just so everyone is perfectly clear, neither Blue nor I are stating that what we said is descriptively true and what is actually happening. We were saying that if everything we assumed to be correct was in fact what is happening, then the only possible logical entailment is that only something outside of time can accurately know what destiny is.