|
|
Post by imaginaryfriend on Jan 3, 2022 8:04:01 GMT
Beings like Coyote being able to break the rules does seem a bit unjust. ...but why would anyone think reality in the GCU would be just? |
|
|
|
Post by basser on Jan 3, 2022 8:11:07 GMT
Flashbacks to senior level quantum mechanics classes.
"Now I know you've all just spent several years learning the laws of physics. Unfortunately subatomic particles don't care about those laws."
|
|
|
|
Post by Tenjen on Jan 3, 2022 8:20:15 GMT
the significant positioning of Kat and Annie in the background, as well as their body language. They've had a version of this discussion long ago.
|
|
|
|
Post by maxptc on Jan 3, 2022 8:21:00 GMT
Beings like Coyote being able to break the rules does seem a bit unjust. ...but why would anyone think reality in the GCU would be just? I dunno, but in a world that wants to present itself as like our real world, but with magic, a group of people who insist magic is the reason injustice exists sounds very realistic. |
|
|
|
Post by flowsthead on Jan 3, 2022 8:25:35 GMT
Looking forward to nihilist bodhisattva, sitting in a French café with a beret reading Sartre.
|
|
|
|
Post by blahzor on Jan 3, 2022 8:27:18 GMT
The universe makes sense to me
Rule 1. There are rules
Rule 2. Rule 1 can be broken. The end
Rule 3. I'm just rule 2 being broken
|
|
|
|
Post by aline on Jan 3, 2022 8:49:42 GMT
Beings like Coyote being able to break the rules does seem a bit unjust. ...but why would anyone think reality in the GCU would be just? Yes. I mean, bringing justice into this is complete nonsense. Gravity isn't just, mountains and volcanos and tornados aren't just, they just are. Whether humans are able to formulate certain phenonemons into rules they can understand or not, the world is just what it is. Can you imagine a scientist going "Yeah, but quantum theory is really unfair, man, a thing is both there and not there at the same time? Not done, dude, not done. It's not ok unless it makes sense to me." What complete BS. |
|
caber
Junior Member
Posts: 77
|
Post by caber on Jan 3, 2022 8:56:54 GMT
I feel it is ironic that Jones seems to paradoxically intersect the two extremes of this: she is immutable.
She is a total refutation of all logic, reason, and quantifiable physical laws. At the same time she is the ultimate refutation of the power of the divine.
She seems to be the ultimate rule, and the ultimate breakdown of the rules.
|
|
|
|
Post by imaginaryfriend on Jan 3, 2022 9:20:46 GMT
Beings like Coyote being able to break the rules does seem a bit unjust. ...but why would anyone think reality in the GCU would be just? Yes. I mean, bringing justice into this is complete nonsense. Gravity isn't just, mountains and volcanos and tornados aren't just, they just are. Whether humans are able to formulate certain phenonemons into rules they can understand or not, the world is just what it is. Can you imagine a scientist going "Yeah, but quantum theory is really unfair, man, a thing is both there and not there at the same time? Not done, dude, not done. It's not ok unless it makes sense to me." What complete BS. Indeed, though I have to admit that I'm sort of excited for whatever psychic Lysenkoism is going to be described/advocated in the next update or two. Should be a fun read. |
|
|
|
Post by philman on Jan 3, 2022 9:38:20 GMT
Can you imagine a scientist going "Yeah, but quantum theory is really unfair, man, a thing is both there and not there at the same time? Not done, dude, not done. It's not ok unless it makes sense to me." What complete BS. I mean, that sounds like many scientists I know, including me. Science is pretty much all about things not being ok unless they make sense, and then doing all the investigative work required to make sense of them and making those data available to all (pending patents anyway). On the justice side of things, I get where Shell and Aata are coming from. If they are striving for equality and justice, then certain individuals being able to break the laws of reality at will using powers not accessible to anyone else is not equality in nature. If they make the laws of reality apply to everyone equally, then both humanity and etheric creatures will be on a level playing field. Looking at the actual actions of the Shadow Men, they seem to have gone way off piste with how they are going about it, but I can understand their original goals from a scientific and equality point of view. |
|
|
|
Post by rafk on Jan 3, 2022 9:42:21 GMT
Beings like Coyote being able to break the rules does seem a bit unjust. ...but why would anyone think reality in the GCU would be just? Yes. I mean, bringing justice into this is complete nonsense. Gravity isn't just, mountains and volcanos and tornados aren't just, they just are. Whether humans are able to formulate certain phenonemons into rules they can understand or not, the world is just what it is. Can you imagine a scientist going "Yeah, but quantum theory is really unfair, man, a thing is both there and not there at the same time? Not done, dude, not done. It's not ok unless it makes sense to me." What complete BS. You miss the point. Gravity and natural forces are completely fair - they are set rules which apply universally. In our world, you can't bribe thermodynamics, gravity will not let go of you because it dislikes you, there is no" chosen one" who gets to ignore the rules because they were born with special powers. Fairness and justice are not the same thing. |
|
|
|
Post by rafk on Jan 3, 2022 9:50:08 GMT
I'm interested to see GC get to this point.
I read El Goonish Shive where "everyone should have magic!" vs "if everyone gets magic rather than just the chosen few it will be fucking chaos" is a long term major plot arc. Long ago I read the Deryni books where Deryni powers were genetic (and the implications of an empowered minority vs an unpowered majority of humanity were deeply explored, as has been done in X-Men for another example).
We've never really seen what the GC verse looks like outside the protagonists' bubble and maybe now we are.
|
|
|
|
Post by blahzor on Jan 3, 2022 10:17:07 GMT
I feel it is ironic that Jones seems to paradoxically intersect the two extremes of this: she is immutable. She is a total refutation of all logic, reason, and quantifiable physical laws. At the same time she is the ultimate refutation of the power of the divine. She seems to be the ultimate rule, and the ultimate breakdown of the rules. I wonder if Coyote could kill Jones if he wanted to. Seems like no unless some stories come about killing the unkillable non-living living thing. As shown she can just be moved |
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Jan 3, 2022 10:57:25 GMT
I'm really digging the center panel here! I feel it is ironic that Jones seems to paradoxically intersect the two extremes of this: she is immutable. She is a total refutation of all logic, reason, and quantifiable physical laws. At the same time she is the ultimate refutation of the power of the divine. She seems to be the ultimate rule, and the ultimate breakdown of the rules. The Divine can still hurl her into space though. |
|
|
|
Post by mordekai on Jan 3, 2022 11:51:43 GMT
I am reminded of what Zimmy said: There is no"Ether", that's just a word for everything we can't perceive directly; there is no "magic"; that just a catch-all term for everything we can't understand...
What Aata does is assuming everything he can't understand or perceive comes from a single source he can isolate or destroy...
Aata is acting like a primitive man who thinks disease, floods and bad luck all come from a single unseen source he can placate or exorcise... "an evil spirit is the cause of everything I don't like!".
|
|
|
|
Post by aline on Jan 3, 2022 12:27:40 GMT
Can you imagine a scientist going "Yeah, but quantum theory is really unfair, man, a thing is both there and not there at the same time? Not done, dude, not done. It's not ok unless it makes sense to me." What complete BS. I mean, that sounds like many scientists I know, including me. Science is pretty much all about things not being ok unless they make sense, and then doing all the investigative work required to make sense of them and making those data available to all (pending patents anyway). Scientists usually question their theories about the world when things don't match up. They don't look at the world and tell it to get a grip and run in a way that seems more logical. To me it looks like a mental confusion between rules that have to be followed like "raise your hand before you speak" and physics rules. Etheric creatures are presented as beings that can decide to not follow the rules of the world and speak out of turn, it being "unjust". But physics rules don't work like that. They are just observations about the world, and if they don't predict some outcomes they're either wrong or incomplete. And it might be forever beyond humans to describe etheric phenomenons for some in-universe reason, but so what? And how would they know for sure that it's impossible, given the amount of real stuff that seems to make no sense and that we have yet to explain despite centuries of efforts? Seriously, WTF. I feel this comic greatly overestimates how rigidly science looks at the world. Real scientists would not be put off by the ether. They would be writing full shelves of unprovable theories about it and throw tea kettles at each other while arguing about which one is correct. |
|
|
|
Post by Corvo on Jan 3, 2022 13:41:54 GMT
As soon as I get my computer up and running again, I'm editing the last panel so it looks like Kat is saying "It's been 7 hours. Maybe we should eat without them?" as Annie responds "This staring contest was a bad idea."
|
|
|
|
Post by imaginaryfriend on Jan 3, 2022 15:23:03 GMT
I feel this comic greatly overestimates how rigidly science looks at the world. Real scientists would not be put off by the ether. They would be writing full shelves of unprovable theories about it and throw tea kettles at each other while arguing about which one is correct. You're not wrong though real scientists often had uphill struggles getting their theories recognized and some faced extreme persecution. imho science as an institution is full of people who shouldn't really be in there, as is any academic field, and it gets worse the farther from irl-applied stem or bus you get. Unpleasant example: The prof in one of my undergrad "history of" classes had a very weak grasp of the material they were teaching and often responded to questions they didn't know with scorn (both for the material and the asker). They were very good at name-dropping though and did so whenever someone they studied under/attended a lecture of/met at a cocktail party came up in the primary text. The set of answers on exams that got full marks on exams were those advocated by these luminaries; alternate but well-defended answers were C- work, and anything else was treated as objectively wrong. We have some reason to believe that the Court is, if not outright suppressing, downplaying etheric science which could offer alternate theories on how the world works. Even if those alternate theories are incomplete or wrong they're still potential competition that's being cleared outside of rational debate which makes me suspicious. |
|
|
|
Post by Gemminie on Jan 3, 2022 15:30:16 GMT
OK, post-holiday impressions for the last several pages without reading anyone's commentary so far. Let's see how far afield I get. Starting with page 14 of this chapter. Jerrek's considering just pulling his hair back (leaving the one forelock hanging down), but Annie and Renard have to go, apparently to meet Kat. Renard noticed Jerrek's behavior toward Annie. Annie's response suggests that she did too, but was being politic and not mentioning anything. Page 15: Shell's here! I get the impression that Annie and Kat didn't expect her to show up. She's not happy about whatever's going on; she doesn't recognize any of the New People, of course, because they're New and all that. I love that she graciously but angrily accepts Annie's compliment on her appearance. Page 16: We finally learn Juliette's last name. And this is kind of a big revelation. Juliette isn't afraid of Shell seeing her there – perhaps because she knows Juliette's no longer part of the Shadow Men. Is Juliette still a member in good standing, or has she officially quit too? Arthur greets Shell as "Arizona," causing Shell to realize that he's Arthur, suggesting that it's a nickname only Arthur calls her. The cat's out of the bag now – but this also suggests (but doesn't prove) that the Shadow Men don't know about Kat's project here. It's still possible that the higher-ups know but haven't told the rank and file, or hadn't told them by the time Shell left anyway. Page 17: They've relocated to a heretofore-unseen building to talk, so some amount of time has passed, during which explanations seem to have occurred. Shell seems grateful that Aata doesn't know about this, which suggests that he doesn't know, or at least he doesn't know as far as Shell knows. Evidently Aata was really kicked out of the Shadow Men, and Shell left with him. Juliette then expresses her intention to leave as well, which answers my question above about whether she's still officially a member. Arthur suggests that she not leave in order to be able to continue to protect the New People. Page 18: Llanwellyn's now the head of the Shadow Men, apparently, having wanted the job for years. Does this mean there's a new Headmaster of the school? Not that there really is much of a school anymore. Apparently finding Loup isn't a priority for the SM, but finding a new source of Ether for "their plan" is. Kat tries to clarify that she means their plan to leave the Court, as opposed to their Omega Device plan (assuming those are separate) or some other plan, but before there's confirmation, Juliette jumps in and says she doesn't know about the moving plan. It's (re)confirmed that not all Shadow Men know what all is going on. Page 19: The chapter takes a left turn and gives us some more information about Aata, who is apparently a Pacific Islander by origin, but he became a bodhisattva, meaning that he was probably a Buddhist first – was he raised Buddhist, or did he become a Buddhist during his travels? We might know more about his land of origin if we know whether he was raised Buddhist (somewhere with a significant Buddhist population). Page 20 (this page): Shell continues with Aata's story – he was unable to reach enlightenment (thus becoming Coyote's "failed cousin" and "beautiful failure"?) because he saw the Ether as unjust – the laws of nature are harsh sometimes, but fair, except an entity like Coyote can break the rules, apparently whenever he wants. Renard jumps in and suggests that there may be a deeper set of rules that humans haven't yet discovered, but Shell says that's what one would naturally guess at first. Sounds like she's about to remind us that there are things that happen in the Ether that defy codification; they happen just because they happen – the things that Zimmy says people call magic. And it sounds as if she's heading toward confirming part of my theory about Aata, which is that he sees it as unfair that some people have etheric abilities while others don't, so he supports the Court's project because he thinks it will make things more just. (By equally redistributing the Ether, or by eliminating it?) We may be approaching learning why he was kicked out of the "program" for saving Shell's life. |
|
|
|
Post by Gemminie on Jan 3, 2022 15:39:44 GMT
Beings like Coyote being able to break the rules does seem a bit unjust. ...but why would anyone think reality in the GCU would be just? Yes. I mean, bringing justice into this is complete nonsense. Gravity isn't just, mountains and volcanos and tornados aren't just, they just are. Whether humans are able to formulate certain phenonemons into rules they can understand or not, the world is just what it is. I would argue that gravity, mountains, volcanoes, tornados, and all of nature, are completely just, in the sense that they treat everyone the same way. They don't play favorites; peasants and kings alike can be killed by disasters and plagues. Nature is harsh but fair. But in the GC universe there are some beings who can alter things, put their thumbs on the scales of justice. Why should they get to decide who lives and who dies? Shouldn't everyone have an equal chance at life? I can kind of see why Aata would consider himself to have failed when he healed Shell – he himself did the thing that he considers unfair (although it could be argued that the death Shell was to have died also wasn't fair, as it was caused by Loup, not by nature). |
|
|
|
Post by theonethatgotaway on Jan 3, 2022 15:40:07 GMT
But there is a rule about "the ether":
1) There are no rules.
That's it, that's the rule. And just/unjust is just (LAUGHING ON LINE) you throwing subjectivity at an objective rule. "But mommy, it's not fair that my older brother can stay up past 7 and play videogames and do I don't know what! I don't understand what happens after I go to bed, so it's UNJUST! Change the rules!". The Court is just upset it doesn't understand that in fairy tales and folklore every single rule is one you made up yourself and attributed to a fictional character. There is just a "thing" that makes your dreams and wishes and thoughts get physical form, and that's beyond traditional understanding.
|
|
Karretch
New Member
Big alien robot
Posts: 19
|
Post by Karretch on Jan 3, 2022 17:37:32 GMT
As Neil deGrasse Tyson oft says, "The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you". Rules exist we don't know, and might never know, and that's just how it is.
|
|
|
|
Post by ctso74 on Jan 3, 2022 17:53:48 GMT
Looking forward to nihilist bodhisattva, sitting in a French café with a beret reading Sartre. Waiting for Pierre, no doubt. Maybe, Aata's new mantra is "Om being-for-itself is what it is not and is not what it is hummmm". |
|
|
|
Post by fia on Jan 3, 2022 18:04:43 GMT
It's funny, you know, I teach this topic in my ancient philosophy class when we talk about the Greek transition from Hesiod to early Greek philosophers like Thales and Anaximander.
Hesiod (and many others) traditionally describe Zeus as the God of "Justice," as "dike" is usually translated. "Dike" can also mean "order" or "custom" and a bunch of other things too, though.
That said, it does seem like when Xenophanes the early Greek philosopher criticizes the anthropomorphic gods, his main target is the idea that the gods are just/dike, when you consider all the atrocities they commit (just think of how Zeus commits adultery, rapes women, and plays favorites, for example). He concludes that they cannot possibly be really divine beings, because a divine being as he conceives it would be just.
This argument proved relatively influential and some partly credit it for the rise of monotheism in Greco-Roman times.
Aata's complaint seems similar, except on a level of moral complaint where he has visible evidence the chaotic polytheistic Gods exist and natural laws exist but there is no acceptable moral order. It's a bit more like Plato's Euthyphro dialogue, where Socrates asks whether being pious is good because the Gods approve, or the Gods approve because being pious is good. (Basically: is morality good because the Gods say so, or do the Gods just recognize that morality is good, independently?) If morality is good independently, then it is possible to confront even a God (or even the laws of nature) and say they're unjust.
The normative, that is to say, transcends the descriptive. Descriptively the world "must" function in a certain way, but normatively, sometimes we think it "should not".
It makes sense for Aata to be struggling with that problem. Of course, there's a question of whether we have a right to expect the world (and this includes the behavior of powerful beings and natural forces) to conform to our normative expectations.
At this point Annie has probably accepted it won't, having lost her mother so young and experienced so many crazy things, and still finds valuable things in her experience. Kat has not accepted it, or at least feels a personal responsibility to affect the course of events, maybe even dig further into whether there's some secret order to everything. Aata seems to have concluded there's a secret order or chaos of sorts and that it's completely unacceptable, and perhaps up to humans to course-correct.
|
|
|
|
Post by imaginaryfriend on Jan 3, 2022 18:12:48 GMT
But there is a rule about "the ether": 1) There are no rules. That's it, that's the rule. And just/unjust is just (LAUGHING ON LINE) you throwing subjectivity at an objective rule. "But mommy, it's not fair that my older brother can stay up past 7 and play videogames and do I don't know what! I don't understand what happens after I go to bed, so it's UNJUST! Change the rules!". The Court is just upset it doesn't understand that in fairy tales and folklore every single rule is one you made up yourself and attributed to a fictional character. There is just a "thing" that makes your dreams and wishes and thoughts get physical form, and that's beyond traditional understanding. Well, I think we can say a couple things. First, there is etheric power. Some beings have this power, others don't, but doubting the etheric exists appears to be irrational. Second, not every being with comparable etheric power can do the same things. From that we can infer there is something else in play. We can't rule out everyone's in the matrix or a Randy Disaster TM sim but what can be done with this etheric power isn't solely dependent on quantity or magnitude. |
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Jan 3, 2022 18:54:14 GMT
Aata is acting like a primitive man who thinks disease, floods and bad luck all come from a single unseen source he can placate or exorcise... "an evil spirit is the cause of everything I don't like!". While the modern man blames it on outsiders or minorities... |
|
|
|
Post by batsugars on Jan 3, 2022 20:55:24 GMT
Scientists usually question their theories about the world when things don't match up. They don't look at the world and tell it to get a grip and run in a way that seems more logical. [...] And it might be forever beyond humans to describe etheric phenomenons for some in-universe reason, but so what? It matters to the court because the ramifications of the ether are a big deal. The ether took Tony's wife without explanation; Coyote and Loup have destroyed much of the court and made them feel powerless. It's no wonder the court is so frustrated; as Anja says, under extensive analysis, the blinker stone is still just a stone. Humans have no tools with which to understand the ether at all. If we think about how humanity has reacted to past "unexplainable phenomena," then we see that disease and natural disasters have had the same consequences for humans in the past as Coyote and Loup have now. And when humans haven't understood the unfair world around them, they broke it down into what they could understand already. Zimmy actually brings this up too; for Newton and for many people of science, they were able to break down much of their world into mathematical equations, right? But at times and in places where humans didn't have such robust math to turn to, and faced with an unfair and cruel world, it's interesting that in many cases humanity has instead broken the world down into something else they understand: other people. They personified natural phenomena, and tried to literally reason with it like they'd reason with another human: "Please, we'll sacrifice to you or worship you, so please don't destroy us." And the ether responded in kind. In the case of the man in the desert, the ether shaped Coyote, a creature that must be engaged with and understood through social rules, not mathematical ones. So maybe in this way, Coyote's argument links up to Zimmy's (on Newton and the unseen world) and to even the present page's discussion. In the last panel, Kat and Annie seem to be remembering that they experienced one "set of rules as yet undeciphered by man" during their contract dealings with the arbiter in chapter 71, but they've encountered rules in the ether in the RotD too. Past humans, all the way from the man dying in the desert to Newton, have shaped the world by seeing it through different lenses: animal personification, laws of physics, fantastical realms, cardboard play-pretend, etc. Like, if each person's eye is glued to a camera that lets them see the things around them... the ether IS the lens. So it's no wonder it's so hard for the court to understand. If the lens is glued to your face, how do you see the lens itself? And what is world without the ether? Without a lens, what can be seen? At the most basic/literal, we experience the world through the five senses. With none of the senses - without sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch... well, it's truly an "unseen" world. (I feel like this is helping me understand what Zimmy was saying about the unseen world in "Moving," but I'm not sure how these thoughts hold up throughout the rest of the comic. Or maybe someone's already mentioned these ideas before!) |
|
|
|
Post by davidm on Jan 3, 2022 21:56:57 GMT
It makes lots of sense... there are 3 narns:
coyote/chaos represents the past.
jones/neutral represents the present.
boxbot/order represents the future and that is terrible, so terrible I think I will write a song about it:
A long, long time ago
I can still remember
How that magic used to make me smile
And I knew if I don't know why
That I could make those people fly
And maybe they'd be happy for a while
But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the magic died
You can already see it happening, now that coyote is missing, Annie is flirting with a "new person". You can't prove that it isn't true.
For more information please read my book: Lust for an Annie, The Gunnerkrigg Narns story.
|
|
|
|
Post by mordekai on Jan 4, 2022 0:08:59 GMT
Aata is acting like a primitive man who thinks disease, floods and bad luck all come from a single unseen source he can placate or exorcise... "an evil spirit is the cause of everything I don't like!". While the modern man blames it on outsiders or minorities... Or aliens. Or evil secret societies. Or the government. Or Communists. Or Jew bankers. Or Muslim terrorists. Or a Communist-Freemason-Zionist-Reptilian alliance... Pick your poison...
People living in the modern world can be primitives too. Modern people aren't immune to magical thinking... The difference is, today magical thinking and superstition are a choice... everybody can learn how Science works and how it helps us understand the universe, but some people just don't care...
|
|
|
|
Post by mordekai on Jan 4, 2022 0:24:00 GMT
I mean, that sounds like many scientists I know, including me. Science is pretty much all about things not being ok unless they make sense, and then doing all the investigative work required to make sense of them and making those data available to all (pending patents anyway). Scientists usually question their theories about the world when things don't match up. They don't look at the world and tell it to get a grip and run in a way that seems more logical. To me it looks like a mental confusion between rules that have to be followed like "raise your hand before you speak" and physics rules. Etheric creatures are presented as beings that can decide to not follow the rules of the world and speak out of turn, it being "unjust". But physics rules don't work like that. They are just observations about the world, and if they don't predict some outcomes they're either wrong or incomplete. And it might be forever beyond humans to describe etheric phenomenons for some in-universe reason, but so what? And how would they know for sure that it's impossible, given the amount of real stuff that seems to make no sense and that we have yet to explain despite centuries of efforts? Seriously, WTF. I feel this comic greatly overestimates how rigidly science looks at the world. Real scientists would not be put off by the ether. They would be writing full shelves of unprovable theories about it and throw tea kettles at each other while arguing about which one is correct.
There is a bit of both, I think.
First, most scientists would try to deny phenomena that doesn't seem explainable by the known rules of physics as lies of mistakes.
When evidence of etheric phenomena became too overwhelming to ignore, they would desperately try to make them fit our current knowledge of physics (because the prospect of having to throw away all we think we know and start from the scratch is terrifying).
Once they realized they couldn't make the Ether phenomena fit our understanding of physics, they would resign themselves to rebuild everything from the ground up, and would study the Ether and try to gleam some basic rules to start from.
When they failed at that, they would try to at least draw a frontier to define our non-etheric observable universe where our old knowledge of physics is still applicable, so at least they can write at the beginning of every book: "Physics of the observable universe" instead of just "Physics".
Then Coyote would break that frontier, and the scientists would get drunk. When they sobered up, they would start from the beginning... or they would seek a new job where they don't have to deal with Coyote...
|
|
