Intergalactic Summit

Yet the instance of running consciousness, the self-awareness is more metaphysical than scientific object of study. The problem is that you can acknowledge only your own self-awareness, but not the one of others. You know that you exist, and while you apply laws of physics to objects around you, it is difficult to say whether they are real or just figments of your mind (and our experience as capsuleers, when we obtain completely different type of sensorics, doesn't help it: just look at all these demented pilots). What creates all these laws, you apply scientific method then? The God? The Universe itself? Or your own mind only for yourself? Or, according to typical now ravings of demented pilots, that our life was just a game, where its creators have set its rules?

We could make an AI program who will imitate consciousness with this only purpose (and I don't ask to actually do this, as this could be CONCORD Omega-one-five directive violation, just imagine it), we would think that it could have soul and self-awareness while in fact it would be just a simple set of instructions to trick us.


Indeed, a world view.
And I don't agree that is actually has to be proven true or false in the end. Maybe with developments of scientific tools we would be able to shed lights on some aspects of the Faith, but core values would remain simply outside of scientific approach.
Just imagine again, an omnipotent figure, who actually sets all the laws in the Universe, and lets say it has consciousness and self-awareness. If this figure will want us to know about it, we would have already know.
But if it wishes to hide its presence from us, so we can't establish its existence by scientific methods, then we whatever we would do, we will never be able to find it out.

Or, another concept. What if the whole Universe is the God itself. What if the whole Universe has its own mind and self awareness. Each cube of space is a form of a computer, where data comes in (as a matter and energy), gets processed and flies away. What if the Universe itself thinks... Again, how we would be able to find it out? Our brains are tiny and we can't completely even comprehend our own bodies, realize and think about each cells of us ourselves, how we possibly could comprehend the whole Universe then?... As some of our philosophers were saying, we are just trying to embrace something unembraceable.


Just as my definition, there is no corporeality in the running instance of consciousness. It is feeble and elusive, and certain to only one "researcher" - the owner of it. Yet, we have to define it somehow, to give an exact description about what we are talking about. Like the God itself - each religion gives own description of the God, giving him certain qualities. You can easily find distinguishable features between the Amarr God, the Red God, the Maker, the Creator. These concepts are well known and defined. Why we can't define what the soul is? And shouldn't we concentrate then discussion on defining it instead of talking about its properties while we don't have defined concept yet? Because it is counterproductive. It would create silly arguments and fights over nothing.

The Church of Awesome believe that every Gallente corpse we collect contains some of their spirit.
As we collect more and more of their corpses they eventually lose the will to fight. (I'm sure you've heard the term 'lose their fighting spirit')


We must never rest - I have evidence that spirits are regenerated via the ship spin counter which the Gallente are expert at using.




Also:
When I collect Gallente corpses I photoshop a picture of Diana Kims face over the face on a picture of their corpse and send it to their families.

It is actually the point. As I said it is not about proving it true or false, for that it would by necessity transform Faith into something else. It will sound trite but nevertheless central to Faith : Faith is not so much about the end result (gates to Heaven, etc), but about the journey that will lead you there (and make you actually go to Heaven).




I took the example/analogy of quantum physics out of pure speculation and food for thought. It obviously has not to be applied per se to the concept of Soul in the Faith of Amarr.

But as for Science, new ideas, and more importantly, completely new ways of defining those ideas have to come up to face the new challenges that Faith faces every now and then.

The very issue with mortal interpretation of the Creation (and thus God) is that we interpret it with mere human eyes. We as humans/transhumans rely on a very linear space time continuity perception to place ourselves in the world we live in. This, I believe, can be challenged, or transcended.

And so, the current contradictions that the soul faces today with the case of empyreans, would solve by itself seen through different lenses.




As I said, I am far from a knowledgeable expert on the question of Soul, less even than on Theology. Some will probably have better explanations than mine.

The interesting thing about the soul is that it actually is a hard concept to grasp. It is the exact opposite of a rational and scientific fact : it is the very example and embodiment of the realm of spirituality.

Entry Six

Second candle meditation.

I've been asked to continue my meditations on the topic of candle-lighting, and to focus, especially, on what this means to me, and not merely to myself, but to my self, if there's a distinction.

It's a curious sort of question; I suppose I'd only thought about it implicitly.

If a candle is a beacon in the dark, where do I stand as I light it?

I don't feel like some lost, violent soul, to have my rage soothed by candlelight. I also don't think I'm some void-hollowed wraith, desperate for the slightest hint of warmth and light.

Though, in the past, I may have been both of these.

I don't think I'm quite the innocent Aldrith Shutaq seems to consider me. I've still killed maybe a couple dozen people, before he and I ever met.

Maybe that mere score of deaths does look like innocence, in a career normally drenched in blood.

In some ways, I guess, I'm still a child. But I'm not sure even children are really innocent. Looking back over Aria's reflections on her own childhood memories, I think ...

... children are cruel.

What I do know is that when I look up at the SFRIM Cipher, suspended in its hangar, I see a huge machine. Even if I can inhabit it, link my senses to its systems, manipulate it with neural signals, it's still in no way myself.

Even if it wears the same colors I do, it doesn't seem like a second body to me.

It's not even exactly a tool; it's more like an environment. It's a tool the way a building-sized mainframe or a laboratory is a tool.

It's so very much larger than I am. And, as tools of my trade go, it's tiny.

Eventually I'll be flying an entire university campus.

Aria wrote, many times, that we come to think of ourselves as ships.

That's not a feeling I think I'm very close to.

If the candle is a beacon for me, then, perhaps it's keeping my perspective at its own scale, helping to keep my self close to its self. Maybe it's helping to keep me grounded in my own body, helping me stay a single, small person instead of a huge machine.

It's a frail light. There's no reason it should hold me here.

Except that I know what became of me, the last time I wandered from the candle's glow. I read my own musings on the outer dark, what the Black was; what it was making of me; what it made of me.

It's not so bad, being small.

Perhaps I'll stay here, for now. And keep the candles lit.

Entry Eight

A few days ago, I met a man who insisted that the Amarr should be treated as ... inhuman. Demons.

Rather than accepting my critique that this view is a precursor to genocide, he laid it out as a matter of practical and necessary foreign policy that the Empire should be recognized as an evil cult, and treated accordingly.

Each succession is more tumultuous than the last, he said. They may have made it four thousand years, but they won't make it another thousand.

I'm not sure what the rising turmoil in the succession is supposed to prove, other than a trend of oddness. The universe seems to be full of those, and a trend isn't ... much of a strategy, really.

No matter how I turn it around in my head, I can't come up with a way this is a good idea.

If there's one thing my sojourn with the Amarr has taught me, it's that people are, by and large, people. Amarr is host to hard-hearted zealots, yes, but also to some of the kindest people my limited memory can recall. Sometimes it's hard to tell one from the other at a glance.

The problem isn't that some people are good and others bad; it's that we don't all quite occupy the same universe.

In our heads, we live in many worlds. In some, God exists.

In others....






(The thing that really gives me a chill is the idea that the Empire would be less dangerous if it fell.)

Entry Nine



Moved here from the original topic, so as not to risk derailing Aegis Militia's thread.

So, and, again, with much respect, I've been thinking over why this perspective bothers me so much.

I do try to stay neutral in these things, and to stick with describing rather than commenting too much, but ... this hits sort of close to home.

I realize that what Mr. Kithrus is issuing is a call to rise above all of that, and to be ... well, something better. Something that works for the sacred, rather than a corruption of it, even if it's not quite sacred itself.

... but to me it sounds a lot like something I might have done, before.

Demons for God.

Vampires for a Better Tomorrow.

Kumihos for Only Eating the Livers of People Who Really Deserve It.

I look in the mirror, and I don't see ... well, "Unlife". Though I can't claim to know what that would look like, I guess.

This is a disposable clone. I know that. I get that if I even jump clone, this body will be dead and my implants will be surgically transferred to a new host. I understand that the only thing at all lasting about me is this spark behind my eyes ... even if that's proven to be kind of fragile.

I also get that most people don't get to do that. And maybe there's a price, but....

If I've made a devil's bargain, it's not one I remember making. People keep telling me that I have a second chance, maybe even a new soul, but if that chance is corrupted from its inception by what I am, rather than what I decide to be or become....

Then I'm born into this world as one of the damned. And if I'm ever to actually believe in any form of deity or spiritual world apart from this one, that's an intolerable thought.

Every now and then, someone asks me when I'm going to convert and become Amarr.

Respectfully to all concerned, and to the faithful generally, I don't think that's likely to happen soon. But a permanent question when exploring a new religion is: could it really be true?

As an aspect of my personal explorations, the question here isn't so much whether something is intolerable and therefore untrue; it's whether I could bring myself to worship a god who arranged the world in such a way.

Mr. Kithrus' words were motivated by piety. As a form of duty, I respect its position and his belief to follow it for it seems he has found his place in the order of creation. However, a meaningful understanding of creation will not come from such piety. It is not the way forward, and perhaps there are some whose place is to remain pious in the face of the universe's questions. For one who has not yet sought out their position, their role within the order they find themselves in, such claims based in pious service should not be enticing.

Entry Eleven

"A whiny lost pup without a f****** clue in the world."

That's what you said to me.

Oh, my. I'm so many different shades of ...

... I don't even know what.

Not angry. Not really offended. Not really taken aback. Not ... upset. Not really.

Bemused, I guess. Amused? The insult's just close enough to the mark (or a mark) to be maybe worth taking a close look at.

Whiny ... no, don't think so. If thinking we're not qualified to be exempt from civilization is being whiney, though, I might as well own that one. Well-- that or having a navel-gazing habit.

Insert unhappy drooler whelp noise here.

Lost. Homeless, rootless, parentless, directionless. Yeah, fair enough; that's on the mark. Well ... mostly. I kind of think I have a home. I'm just not all that keen to go there.

Also, I'm kind of working at getting my bearings.

Pup.

... oh, dear. Well ... kind of, maybe, yeah. I don't feel all that pup-like anymore, though. I've got some confidence, now ... maybe more than I ought? I've been saying things I maybe shouldn't, lately. Taking positions that aren't mine to take. Maybe growing presumptuous.

... still trying to figure out my own stupid mixed-up head. (Whine, whine.)

Without an expletive clue in the world.

In its way, that kind of stings. Learning ... well. Yeah. I've got a lot of that to do, and maybe I shouldn't be indulging in my old habit of ... dire discussions. The world's difficult enough without getting lost in my own ideas of how it should be.

There's a certain arrogance in putting my own thoughts out here, even these ones. ... and it's not like doing this doesn't build an ego. It does.

Does that mean I shouldn't?

Though-- the other thing you said.

You implied that I don't have a spine.

... so ... it seems like what you really meant is that I'm immature, lost, clueless, whiny, AND weak-willed and/or cowardly. In combination ... I'm sorry; I couldn't help laughing.

Once, that would have had a sting to it. Not even that long ago, I guess.

Then I got tired of being weak. And fragile. And afraid.

... well ... I guess I'll take my insights where I can get them. Thank you for the help.

Entry Thirteen

... so ...

I was kind of hoping to talk with my superiors in SFRIM before saying anything ... well, directly ... about this in public. But I probably ought to clarify some stuff before the signs and portents get unbearably thick.

It looks like my time with the Amarr is coming to an end. And, in some cases, maybe not quite as amicably as I'd have liked. I'd planned to go and visit the Gallente, next, but....

It comes to this: in the end, most or all of the empire (and Empire) capsuleers are well-socialized, more or less civilized people.

And, I'm not.

I've got the trappings, sure: I'm well-spoken, well-educated (even if I don't remember how), and can interact more or less courteously within the rules of at least two distinct cultures.

I guess I've also got the basic human reluctance to kill, but I kind of blew past that in my first couple days in the pod.

Only ... that's just the surface. Apparently it's enough to get people thinking I'm kind of a delicate, innocent creature who needs to be guided and protected.

... and I guess maybe I was, sort of. But it wasn't going to last.

We live in a pretty brutal universe, and ... the thing is, I don't care. I don't feel any responsibility for humanity's well-being, or for the State, or the Federation, or the Republic ... or the Empire. I don't really care about ideals or principles, either, outside of my own integrity.

I only really care about people I've met and formed attachments to. That's baseline human animal loyalty, without any kind of social programming to finesse my circle of "care" into anything larger. My village, my tribe. The rest of you can fall dead, and it won't matter to me very much.

In the end, I'm a savage. I always was. The "Black" I was so scared of has been right here with me all along.

So ... the next stop is the Void. The capsuleers.

It's time I learned who I am. What I am. My strength, and how to use it.

My place in the cosmos.

... but I think I'll keep lighting candles, where I can.

(Thanks, Directrix.)