Humans appear to be one of a very limited number of organisms with the ability to speculate on theoretical issues. The fact that we are equipped to ponder our function/purpose really suggets that we are one of the few things that get to actually decide that for ourselves.
Which means that every humans first purpose is deciding what their purpose is. The second purpose is then fulfilling that purpose.
If we are wrong about that, then I’m afraid the Amarr win. A things purpose is usually determined by its maker.
It’s a lot easier to live with the horrible things a society has done if you claim it’s all part of a great big predestined plan and that you deserve it so much because the God who predestined it, who was definitely not made up to make your ancestors feel good about themselves, said so.
Man first had first to burn himself to learn the heat of fire, but his brother learned by his word. He believed him because of the pain in his eyes and the trust between them. So too was the word of god spread, through word before force, love to prevent pain. In the same way we all learned as children so too did the Faithful learn of god.
It is only those who called him a liar and touched the flames who felt the pain of the burn for themselves at first. It was not until much later to the sorrow of god and man that it was discovered some people would lie about the pain they felt or shirk from the heat and say they had felt it. These people out of fear or pride would tell others that there was no pain, that fire had no sting, and in doing so spread pain themselves. Mankind is foolish and will place its trust in places it should not be, would you let a man tell your child it was safe when you knew it was not?
The man who cries that the Faithful lead him to the fire is much louder than the legions who saw the truth and so you think also that the faith was spread first by the sword because his shouts echo over the seas between us. To the Faithful Mr. Tuulinen, the cries of those he lead astray are far louder. Violence leaves a greater wound and so also a more intense memory. Pain given by one you trusted stings much more.
The Empire has many places it is capable of reclaiming through military might but at what cost to peace? What rejection of god’s word will follow the wound of violence at the scale of regions and nations now? A single politician acting in ignorance can condemn billions to suffering and in times of war people often are forced to act in ignorance. Would you not want to avoid your children being one of those condemned by circumstance?
For more of The Empire’s history than not patience and conversion were the tools used and so they are now. If it should come to violence and force then it will but see the wisdom The Empire. See the converts in Federation space and Caldari who leave their homeland to learn the ways of god away from corporate masters or simply see the truth when they were not looking for it.
See that more Minmatar know the faith than their own pagan legends, the greatest number of practitioners of the faith outside the Empire are certainly in the Republic after all. God’s plan is vast beyond anything mortal or finite Mr Tuulinen, fire can do so much more than burn. If every man must start at the pain of touching it then how would we have built the vast societies we have now? So many have learned the truth through faith and word that it has become the forest you search inside for trees. Look around you at all mankind has built on the truth in god, do the faults not seem sharper?
A machine with only a single fault can still work well, it has to be something specific to cause alarm. So too can a philosophy serve many while still being wrong. The Gallente, the Minmatar, and yes Mr. Tuulinen, your own people all have far more in common with the Faithful than separates us. Those separations seem vast because in so many other ways we are close. Scientists across New Eden all search the same universe but come up with so many different answers because they go by different paths. Engineers all obey the same rules but create many solutions to the same problems.
It is not until a great deal of time has passed that ideas and machines are perfected until they begin to all meet and resemble each other. Those things that all have discovered in time are so much a part of who we are you do not notice them. The pulley, the wheel, the lever; All such a part of every nation and object that they fade into the background, they become the trees and are then lost in the forest.
The Faith is no different, it was refined in the same way, has grown the same way. There are passages in Archuran that mirror those in scripture, philosophies in the Way the Faithful learned thousands of years before, reverence in Matari Tribalism that is identical to that The Empire was built on. Like every engineer or scientist the philosophers of The Empire and The Faith are in a state of constant growth and discovery built on fundamental truths.
Would you force a child who had a wrong idea to be silent or would you teach him how he was wrong so that he could instead correct it? His mistake could lead to an innovation or truth that had not yet been revealed, but only if he continues to pursue the truth. Sadly a mistake could also bring ruin. Rushing into it, acting on ignorance, relying on force instead of reason and truth will lead to mistakes. A prophet could die with his words unspoken because a teacher had not the time to show him his errors and let him grow. A scientist could well give up his search because a rival was too cruel in correcting his mistake.
We are all god’s children regardless of the circumstance that has lead some of us from truth. The Faith is the truth, truth will always win out in the end. First though it must face every lie and untruth like any fact. This takes time when so many do not wish to see it, refuse to hear it, or never have the opportunity. It is what I see many of you here doing now, testing the lies your cultures told you, the prejudices you learned as you grew.
You test too the belief of the Faithful who heard the word and believed those they trusted but perhaps have not yet felt the sting of the fire themselves. It is a harmony in the Faithful and in the Apostate then, this crucible. It may seem like chaos but in enough time you will see balance. In this debate and discussion then the Faith always wins. Scripture grows more and more vast as truths are uncovered, the Faithful and the Apostate both learn better the truth of god.
The Empire is old and vast, more so than the young nations around it. It can well afford to be patient, to let the Faith grow from the seeds it planted. We Faithful have been gifted so much so that we can ensure every person has a chance to learn the fundamental truths of our foundation. This grace of time and security is to ensure that as many people can be saved as possible, that we can take care in how we proceed to avoid mistakes. Mistakes that could lead people to cling to nationalism out of fear of the unity they seek.
A man with a raised sword has clear intent, some will run to face him, some will submit, and most will simply run. A man who comes in silence to teach those who do not know how to sow will have a people gather around him because his intent is unclear. If he is struck down or cast out the seed will still grow. If his language is not understood the people will still know that water and light can grow living things. Unity should be defined not by the disharmony that refuses it but the harmony that unites it.
Have faith Mr Tuulinen, god’s will is being done and his chosen feel no pressure in the joy of life in his service. Nothing happens that is not meant to happen. There is nothing to fear from the truth.
synechdoche, n. a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa
“Stars,” here, represent the universe generally. Achura tend to see the stars in particular as windows into the will of the cosmos (Stargazers), so it’s actually a traditional framing.
You … still don’t get me at all, do you?
Of course I’m just a tiny bit of universal mechanics so tangled up in the rest of the universe that it’s really hard to draw a border between me and everything else. If we look at it in terms of mechanisms, I don’t have just one; I’m interconnected with stuff-- people, life, matter, energy (if there’s a difference)-- in billions and billions and billions of ways.
For me, philosophy is a matter of trying to understand, to really grasp, my situation: insight, understanding, perception. It’s about unwrapping the illusions we swathe this world in.
It’s not about making up stories to make myself more than I am. It’s about seeing what I am … and being able to be okay with it.
I guess having fun by playing around with a different set of terminology is more important to you, though. All those words, and actually I doubt we even actually disagree, except at the very edges.
Aria, you are a mechanism. Your bones are the scaffold, your muscles and tendons the motive engines, your blood the carrier of components and fuel, your brain the processor. You are an ecosystem for a microbiome that takes and gives. And this machine that is you is also a part of a greater mechanism, just as how a motor is a mechanism in itself and a part of a bigger machine that is a locomotive vehicle, which in turn is a mechanism in the logistics and transportation network, which are themselves the part of the mechanism of economics and migration, etc etc etc.
We are all individual machines and yet components of a greater machine. A machine that self-corrects and changes on its own depending on circumstance. Complex beyond imagining.
mech·an·ism
ˈmekəˌnizəm
noun
1.
a system of parts working together in a machine; a piece of machinery.
“the gunner injured his arm in the turret mechanism”
synonyms: machine, piece of machinery, appliance, apparatus, device, instrument, contraption, gadget;
2.
a natural or established process by which something takes place or is brought about.
“we have no mechanism for assessing the success of forwarded inquiries”
synonyms: procedure, process, system, operation, method, technique, means, medium, agency, channel
“a formal mechanism for citizens to lodge complaints”
I guess, particularly given the second definition, I don’t disagree, Mr. Egivand. That’s definitely a way of looking at my existence.
But-- even that way of looking at it, still makes me apart from (though a part of) the universe generally, and, actually, I don’t think there’s a tidy place to draw lines. There’s no socket, no specific place, I could be removed from. I’m less a machine, and more a mass of influences and interactions. Even these words I’m entering, and you’re reading-- in a sense, this is still me. Even if I die (or “break”), just after I enter this, my influence will still touch your mind if you read them.
I’m a mechanism for crazy numbers of things, sure. But I’m nothing so tidy and purposeful as we think of machines as being.
And, right now I’m feeling pretty upset-- not because I’m unhappy with my position in this world, but because a friend went and, I guess, tried to make a point about what’s real and important in this world by acting like we were talking about the same thing, when she knew precisely how we weren’t. And I guess she maybe wanted to say something about the uselessness of wandering off into abstraction, not realizing that abstraction’s not my dear friend either. If it had worked, it might have been a good, but still kind of a mean, point.
As it was, it was just … kind of mean. Arrendis intentionally created a misunderstanding, and let it persist for the sake of a pointless point.
She made a fool of me for no reason at all. … I guess she didn’t understand that, though.
I don’t think that has been to uncommon throughout history for most empires. For smaller nations joining willingly is probably the preferable option than getting creamed in a war, or your economy stall due to attrition. However, the Federation, Caldari State and even the Jovians were and are comparable in size to the Amarr empire. They have no good reason to give up their sovereignty.
Oh noes, we must capitulate at once! Won’t somebody think of the Amarr? If their Empire building plans are suffering, perhaps they’re doing it wrong.
Sorry Mr Tuulinen, my derision isn’t aimed at you.
This is a very polite way of saying “traded their freedom”, Pieter. I can understand some might find peaceful capitulation to be preferable to the risk of the horrendous losses particularly if sold on the idea of “one day, dear children, all of this will be yours” but that one little phrase hides so much exploitation.
You might actually want to take a look at the Pax Amarria, Ms. Ambrye. People seem to kind of conflate it with the Scriptures (for some reason, I guess because they’re both influential Amarrian texts), but actually it marks a kind of sharp turning point in their society-- an actual and pretty concrete “perhaps we’re doing it wrong.” Authored by an emperor, no less.
Ms Jenneth, just to avoid any misrepresentation that may, or may not, occur, could you define “life” here for us. I suspect Ms Arrendis will point out, rightfully so, that biological life is an emergent process. I suspect you have a different usage of the word life in mind.
Uh … not really? Not in a way that’d matter anyway.
People tend to assume Shuijing ideas are about something kind of airy and rarified and either abstract or spiritual-- imaginary, basically. Actually we’re about the exact opposite.
It’s okay with me if you take “life” here as please you. … It’ll probably be an accurate statement in some way regardless of how you do.
Humans may, if what we commonly call ‘free will’ isn’t just a mechanistic result of unfathomably complex stimulus-response recursion, have the capability to decide on a purpose… but that purpose would then be in addition to that fundamental function of all known life. It would be supplemental, not primary—because it would be contingent upon the species getting to the point of you existing in the first place.
Only if there’s a maker, and they haven’t come up with any data that requires there be one.
I did no such thing. You asked a question about how a rational mind justifies freedom. I answered that question. You asked questions about my answer, and I expanded on them. Nothing more. If anyone attempted to play word games and change the framework of the discussion, it was you when you started throwing in snark like ‘So, I’ve all of a sudden realized, my purpose in this existence is metabolizing oxygen’.
As I told Elmund, my invocation of ‘purpose’ was from an engineering viewpoint: ‘this is the primary function of X’. In this case, X was DNA. Your question had no mention of ‘purpose’ in it. ‘Purpose’ entered into the discussion of how a rational viewpoint justifies freedom as part of the structure of defining the function of society.
Then you objected to the use of the term ‘purpose’, and I said simply that I disagree (because I’ve been using the term from an engineering viewpoint), and then clarified why in my response to Elmund. And you got mad about that.
You’re now saying I’ve been playing word games by being consistent in how I mean ‘purpose’ in this discussion. That I’m ‘having fun by playing around with a different set of terminology’ when I’m remaining consistent in the use of the terminology I introduced to the question of how a rational viewpoint justifies freedom.
So please, Aria, tell me how introducing a term to the question, and then remaining consistent in how I use it, is ‘intentionally creat[ing] a misunderstanding’.
I know that you see yourself as a part of the universal machinery. You see yourself as a part of the universal machinery that is determined to peel back the layers and find a deeper understanding of what the universe is, to look past the physical, past matter, and energy, and physics, and chemistry, to find the deeper meaning behind it all.
A part of the universe, seeking to understand itself, and through itself, the universe… and through the universe, itself, on a spiritual, metaphysical level.
And that’s a story. It’s a story that makes you more than a rock. A rock’s not trying to understand. A 1400mm artillery cannon isn’t seeking deeper truth that lives beyond the physical existence of the universe.
There’s no indication—at all—that there is any level of reality beyond the physical existence of the universe. But you still seek answers there. The world is. That’s it. We can investigate what it is… we can investigate how it came to be in its current state… but this is all the work of physics.
You seek why. The Amarr made up a why and insist everyone else has to agree with them.
On the most concrete level, without abstraction and symbolic overlay.
Arrendis, did it never sink in that I’m a spiritual skeptic? That my entire sect is full of spiritual skeptics? That I not only regard the existence of a spiritual plane as unlikely, but actually kind of irrelevant because anything there would basically be part of the Totality with the rest of us? That when I talk about “illusions,” what I mean is stuff like symbolic representation of an inevitably MUCH more complicated underlying reality-- a symbolic representation that gets mistaken for a much more precise model of reality than it could possibly be?
That when you say this:
I agree with you and have from the start?
… but also that I find meaning in every little purpose and use people find for their lives? That I love finding out what motivates people, and why-- because for me, that’s the meaning that matters? That there’s nothing petty about the significance human beings find in their lives?
You … I’d like to say I can’t believe you. … but I can. Have you been patronizing me all this time, and I only just noticed now?