RuneScape Forum Archive | Transcendental Creatrices?

AttilaSquare

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Analysis: Round 1

Here are some confused thoughts on the matter:
The idea of time-determinations comes from Kant's Critique of Pure Reason . He writes of 'persistence, succession, and simultaneity,' and treats of 'alteration' as a totally different kind of concept. 'Persistence' is like constancy, and 'succession' is like 'progression.' Aristotle writes of 'potentiality' and 'actuality,' as well as the 'motion' which brings potentiality to actuality, and 'alteration' is a sort of such 'motion.' We might see 'reversion,' 'constancy,' and 'progression' as loosely related to 'past,' 'present,' and 'future,' and 'potential' and 'alteration' as related to 'passivity' and 'activity.' But all of these are weak comparisons, just the beginning of an attempt to make sense of why these are the elder gods. What vision inspired them to be associated with time-determinations and these time-determinations?

27-Mar-2014 20:37:38 - Last edited on 03-Apr-2014 05:04:28 by AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

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Analysis: Round 2

Thank you, Mod Rowley! This is very helpful. I understand that the elder goddesses are supposed to be beyond mortal comprehension, but for as long as there is lore about them, I hope it is acceptable for us to do our best to explore their meaning. Also, it might be interesting to explore in the future why they are incomprehensible to us mortals.

In light of your comments, here are some of my thoughts on the elder goddesses:

(1) I think I have an idea of how to explain them without 'time-determinations' and 'states of being.' This won't do much to make them more comprehensible on the surface, but it could give us something: we could associate them with 'transcendental components of experience.' I say this because in in his phenomenology, Edmund Husserl identifies as the two deepest structures of consciousness (and therefore of experience) temporality and associativity . Temporality has three components, and associativity possibly has two. I'll unpack these with respect to the elder goddesses.

(2)

Jas is associated with progression, progress, the future. This is not the future strictly, i.e. time that has yet to come, but the anticipatory component of the present moment, the openness of the experienced present to the future. In every moment, there is a present awareness of the continuity of time and the constant approaching of the future. Jas represents this necessary, transcendental expectation. In complex creatures, this manifests itself as the projection of goals into the future and the pursuit of them driven by desire.

27-Mar-2014 20:38:53 - Last edited on 03-Apr-2014 04:57:30 by AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

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(3)

Ful is associated with constancy, with the ever-presence of the present, of the 'now.' Just as Jas represents a part of the present, so too Ful represents a part of the present: the part which contains the fullness of present experience, the vivacity of perceptible experience. Things of which we are aware right now have with them a kind of fullness or salience, which things of expectation and memory do not; the things of the present are truly present .

(4)

Wen is associated with revision, i.e. with a return to beginnings. This entails a connection with the past, with memory. In memory are stored all of the projects completed, desires fulfilled and disappointed, perceptions experienced. In every present moment, memory guides the interpretation of the perceived and the projections of the future.

(5)

Bik is associated with alteration. While Jas, Ful, and Wen reflect the components of time (in its every moment), Bik governs, in a pre-conceptual way, how objects of perception, memory, and anticipatory imagination are grouped or associated, and so how they are understood. Objects are associated according to likeness. When like objects arise in experience one after another, patterns of interpretation and expectation are formed; these patterns are called 'types,' and they are stored in memory.

27-Mar-2014 20:39:43 - Last edited on 03-Apr-2014 04:55:12 by AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

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(6)

Let us say we experience a number of like objects, and we come to recognize them as objects of the type X. For example, this may be the type 'Mahjarrat.' Another object Y appears before us. It resembles X, so we interpret it to be an X and we expect it to behave like an X. But then it does something different than any previous X; our expectations are 'disappointed.' Then we must ask ourselves: Could this still be an X? Must we expand our concept of X? Or is this something entirely new, something of a new type Y? For example, in a future meeting with a Mahjarrat-looking creature on Freneskae, I might ask myself: Is this a Mahjarrat? Might its slightly different look be the result of having remained on Freneskae for so many more millennia than its Gielinorian relatives? Or might it be one of the Mahserrat or the Chelon-Mah?

(7)

In every moment, we interpret the objects of our experience according to types, and with every act of interpretation these types are altered . If our expectations are fulfilled, then the types become a little stronger, a little more stable; if they are disappointed, the types are adapted accordingly (either through the creation of new types or through the expansion of old ones). In complex creatures, this process is also manifested in questions and decisions such as: Should my fulfilled expectations give me greater confidence in the way I understand the world? Should I draw new distinctions, expand my thinking, or adapt the way I see the world? Bik is associated with alteration in this sense: the constant development of patterns of interpretation and expectation in every moment of experience.

27-Mar-2014 20:40:03 - Last edited on 03-Apr-2014 04:54:41 by AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

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(8)

Mah is associated with potentiality. This is the potentiality of types for alteration. Let us examine an example of a perception of a given object. I understand it as an X. Therefore, I expect it to behave like an X. This means that I set boundaries upon the behavior I expect from the object. I have set boundaries, for example, on the behavior of my computer. I do not expect it to rise from my desk and fly away. If it did, this would violate my expectations; my expectations would be 'disappointed.' Further, I would be surprised. Our capacity for being surprised indicates the existence of these patterns of expectations (as well as the role of memory which might inform me that my computer was sitting on my desk a moment ago). Finally, if my computer rose up and flew away, I would likely have to abandon my earlier notion of computers entirely. No longer could I expect computers to function as they have in the past, either working as I expected it to work or not working as I expected it not to work, but now I would have to be open to the possibility that a computer might fly away. Or, I could discover that my computer wasn't a computer at all. In any case, in the course of experience the potentiality for types to be strengthened or undermined is actualized: one or the other happens; either I grow in confidence in my understanding of what computers do or I come to rethink in a new way what computers do.

27-Mar-2014 20:40:30 - Last edited on 03-Apr-2014 04:52:34 by AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

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(9)

But these occurrences refer to alteration. Mah is the goddess of potentiality. Therefore, in order to understand her more deeply, we must attend to the notion of boundaries, before they are reinforced or violated in the course of experience. Let us look at the two ideas through which she expressed her own essence: light and darkness. These further support the idea of a boundary. In our model, the light corresponds to the expected, and the darkness to the unexpected. That which remains in the light develops according to what is already understood; that which presses into the darkness, reshaping the boundaries of the light, develops in new and unexpected ways. Before the darkness, one yearns to know the unknown: the light yearns for the darkness; before the understanding of another, one admires that understanding: the darkness admires the light. This is the relationship between Zaros and Seren.

(10)

Further, Mah is said to be childlike because of her stunted growth, but it is possible that even if she had had sufficient anima available for her development, her personality may very well have retained a childlike character, and for following reason. Young children have a love of boundaries, a love of rules, a love of types. They may be slow to accept rules laid down by their parents, but in their play they invent rules, types, and all sorts of ways to fix their patterns of interpretation. This is the very meaning of games, the invention of rules which govern play; and it is fitting that children should live with an acute if implicit awareness of their own potentiality for growth, for alteration in the course of time. Mah created Zaros and Seren as her playthings. This is significant. Even if more anima may have given her greater mental and magical capacities, a goddess of potentiality should not have outgrown the notion of play.

27-Mar-2014 20:40:57 - Last edited on 03-Apr-2014 04:52:09 by AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

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(11)

As mortals age, 'play' comes to fall under the notion of 'leisure,' and for those attuned to the deepest of mysteries, with the notion of 'worship.' On the surface, this may sound like an odd notion of worship. In both leisure and worship, one attends to the potentiality for alteration in everything one knows; one suspends one's interpretations of the world, the past experiences which inform them, the expectations born from these interpretations, and the consequent projects one has for the future. All of these are relaxed, and one accepts one's own vulnerability to change. In this state, one is free to reinterpret, to play, to live within a different set of boundaries, to discover something new. If such a state is to function as worship (also if the rituals of worship have not been drained of meaning), the object of worship must be something or someone close, something or someone accessible. For this reason, Mah chose to keep her children close. She alone among the elder goddesses maintained relations with her creations, and did not cease to speak until she no longer could.

(12)

This discussion is an attempt to reveal the transcendental potentiality with which we associate Mah. Her absence from among the other elder goddesses in the creation of the current universe/multiverse may explain to some extent why no god ever appears to be sufficient for man. The very one goddess of the elder pantheon who makes worship possible is missing; the goddess who is responsible for a closeness between creatrices and creatures is not there. If she was, perhaps the creatures would even accept their fate of dying for their creatrices, just as the Ilujanka have accepted theirs. But without Mah, there is no religion of the elder goddesses among mortals. Finally, this may explain the elder goddesses' choice of the name of Gielinor, an anagram for what they lost in Mah from the last revision: i.e. religion.

27-Mar-2014 21:27:42 - Last edited on 03-Apr-2014 04:54:16 by AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

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To summarize the above, perhaps we can associate each elder goddess with a

'transcendental component of experience.'

Jas: the progression of time

Ful: the constancy of the now

Wen: the beginnings of understanding

Bik: the alteration of understanding

Mah: the potentiality for alteration

As seen from the six posts above, fitting these together systematically calls for reflection on the deepest structures of consciousness. Making these ideas more understandable, if that's possible, will require a lot of work...

==========

Taking a step back from the reflections above, it is worth describing the psychological/phenomenological model on which they are based.

According to the model, at its most fundamental, pre-reflection, pre-theoretical level, consciousness consists of two components. The first is temporality. Consciousness experiences/constitutes/entails time. The experience of time is threefold. There is an awareness of the immediately present, i.e. the impressions of the now. There is an awareness of the future just about to arrive. And there is an awareness of the just past. These three components allow for the continuity of time, and they make up the wholeness of our experience of the 'present.'

For the sake of simplicity, we can call the second component interpretation. Consciousness interprets objects according to ideas or types it possesses in its memory. These are not necessarily concepts, but pre-reflective, pre-conceptual patterns, which are flexible, always open to change. Thus, they exhibit potentiality for adaptation in each new experience.

Everything else in consciousness, according to this model, is built upon these fundamental components. Therefore, I found this to be an interesting collection of ideas for speculation about the elder goddesses.

28-Mar-2014 17:33:44 - Last edited on 03-Apr-2014 04:51:19 by AttilaSquare

Vhaldez

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Wow, that is a lot to take in.

You are a very wise person to have come up with a theory like this, and while I do my best to understand all of it, I'd like to apologize beforehand if I've misinterpreted something.

You strike a very good point with Mah. This might be the one reason the Elder Gods are starting over again this time. While we do not see what is wrong with the 'perfect' Gielinor, the Elder Gods deem the fact that we don't accept our fate without having a say about it as a flaw. Almost every person in the multiverse lacks this trait, and therefore the multiverse is flawed in the eyes of the Elder Gods.

I do wonder what the world would have looked like if Mah wasn't stillborn. I also wonder what would happen if Mah were to be drained so much that she cannot reincarnate anymore. Would religion never be able to return to the souls of mortals?

All in all, this is a very interesting thread, and something you should definetly not be reading in the middle of the night when you're doozing off all the time. Expect a more detailed respons in the future, and more knowledgeable posters as well.
Guthix never really died. He lives on in all of us.

28-Mar-2014 18:38:38

AttilaSquare

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Thank you, Vhaldez,

I don't know if the elder goddesses will bring about the Revision because of any flaws in the universe; it may just be that the anima of the universe has reached a level that is sufficient for them to awake and begin again. Further, some mortals may be happy with their fate, but humans in particular seem divided and dissatisfied. I think they seek a closeness and a freedom in religion that only Mah understands (if she can be said to understand at all).

I like the questions you've raised. Perhaps mortals in the next universe would retain a desire for religion, but without the influence of Mah maybe it could never be satisfied. Maybe we could relate your suggestion, that religion could disappear altogether, to the desire of Ocellus Virius: maybe he is seeking to destroy in mortals an element they have indirectly inherited from Mah. I look forward to further conversation!

28-Mar-2014 18:54:26

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