The Cult of Gnon
Prompted by Surviving Babel, The Arbiter of the Universe asks: “Who speaks for reaction?”
Nick B. Steves replies: “Nature… or Nature’s God… or both.” (Jim succinctly comments.)
“Nature or Nature’s God” is an expression of special excellence, extracted (with subtle modification) from America’s Declaration of Independence. For Steves, it is something of a mantra, because it enables important things to be said in contexts where, otherwise, an interminable argument would first need to be concluded. Primarily, and strategically, it permits a consensual acceptance of Natural Law, unobstructed by theological controversy. Agreement that Reality Rules need not be delayed until religious difference is resolved (and avoidance of delay, positively apprehended, is propulsion).
“Nature or Nature’s God” is not a statement, but a name, internally divided by tolerated uncertainty. It has the singularity of a proper name, whilst parenthesizing a suspended decision (Pyrrhonian epoche, of which much more in a future post). It designates rigidly, but obscurely, because it points into epistemological darkness — naming a Reality that not only ‘has’, but epitomizes identity, whilst nevertheless, for ‘the sake of argument’, eluding categorical identification. Patient in the face (or facelessness) of who or what it is, ‘we’ emerge from a pact, with one basic term: a preliminary decision is not to be demanded. It thus synthesizes a select language community, fused by the unknown.
If The Arbiter of the Universe merits abbreviation (“TAofU”), Nature or Nature’s God has a much greater case. A propeller escapes awkwardness, and singularity compacts its invocation. NoNG, Nong, No — surely, no. These terms tilt into NoNGod and precipitate a decision. The ‘God of Nature or (perhaps simply) Nature’ is Gnon, whose Name is the abyss of unknowing (epoche), necessarily tolerated in the acceptance of Reality.
Gnon is no less than reality, whatever else is believed. Whatever is suspended now, without delay, is Gnon. Whatever cannot be decided yet, even as reality happens, is Gnon. If there is a God, Gnon nicknames him. If not, Gnon designates whatever the ‘not’ is. Gnon is the Vast Abrupt, and the crossing. Gnon is the Great Propeller.
Spinozistic Deus sive Natura is a decision (of equivalence), so it does not describe Gnon. Gnon’s interior ‘or’ is not equation, but suspension. It tells us nothing about God or Nature, but only that Reality Rules.
Heidegger comes close to glimpsing Gnon, by noting that ‘God’ is not a philosophically satisfactory response to the Question of Being. Since Heidegger’s principal legacy is the acknowledgment that we don’t yet know how to formulate the Question of Being, this insight achieves limited penetration. What it captures, however, is the philosophical affinity of Gnon, whose yawn is a space of thought beyond faith and infidelity. Neither God nor Un-God adds fundamental ontological information, unless from out of the occulted depths of Gnon.
The Dark Enlightenment isn’t yet greatly preoccupied with fundamental ontological arcana (although it will be eventually). Beyond radical realism, its communion in the dread rites of Gnon is bound to two leading themes: cognitive non-coercion, and the structure of history. These themes are mutually repulsive, precisely because they are so intimately twisted together. Intellectual freedom has been the torch of secular enlightenment, whilst divine providence has organized the perspective of tradition. It is scarcely possible to entertain either without tacitly commenting on the other, and in profundity, they cannot be reconciled. If the mind is free, there can be no destiny. If history has a plan, cognitive independence is illusory. No solution is even imaginable … except in Gnon.
[I need to take a quick break in order to sacrifice this goat … feel free to carry on chanting without me]
ADDED: Connected thoughts from Anomaly UK.
Great post, Nick. I am curious where you get “cognitive non-coercion” from, as opposed to Satyagraha plain and simple, the truth-force through and through. My own encounters with Gnon, if you will, have led me to a more stubborn or perhaps bitter (read: salt-like) conception which goes beyond both “Right” and “Left” views. I thus wonder what role Wisdom has in your thinking? This abyss, for me, seems to be connected intimately with gnosis and wisdom, out of which enfolding a stead-fast non-violence in and through dialogue emerges. “Libertarian” non-coercion (or non-coercion otherwise than “libertarian”) will not suffice to me, as it all too easily becomes weaponized as an object of investigation in its own right. I would like to insist or cognitively coerce you to consider the Gandhian truth “as old as the hills” to be continually rethought and re-enacted as new. I would like also to have this dialogue with you in the near future. My best wishes to you in the future.
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admin Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 12:48 pm
The cybernetics of intelligence are more self-excitable than those of ‘wisdom’ (a vaguer concept, but typically associated with homeostatic arrangements). That means intelligence is more capable of looking after itself in harsh, disrupted environments — so Reality likes it more.
I don’t know much about Gandhi, except as a sociopolitical figure (whose influence was quite disastrous). Is there any particular web-accessible reading material that you’d recommend?
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“I believe so that I may know.” St. Augustine
Augustine, the Father of Western theology (and consequently Western philosophy) came to realize that belief always comes before knowledge. The “Gnon” you speak of cannot be understood without positing something beyond itself because it cannot explain itself. God is our name for the absolutely transcendent and immanent First Being that does explain its own being. Aquinas went so far as to state that God IS Being Itself without qualification.
Without getting too deep into philosophical musing, consider this: can you predict what anyone else will do with absolute certainty? Augustine argues that you cannot make such predictions precisely because of human free will. Although we have a range of action, human nature does not determine how we act. Nonetheless, we are acted upon by the universe since we are part of the created universe. Only human thought and free choice separate us from the rest of the cosmos. Yet, for those faculties to function properly, we must believe. Accordingly, Augustine states “I believe so that I may know” as well as “I know that I know.”
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admin Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 12:56 pm
Augustine is far too recent a figure to be “the Father of … Western philosophy” — almost everything important that would ever happen in Western philosophy had taken place over half a millennium before he was born.
Does the equation God = Being help us to understand either God, or being? I’m not seeing how, but it’s a topic worth discussing seriously.
On belief and knowledge, my sympathies are far more Pyrrhonian. It is, of course, difficult not to believe — exploration is always difficult.
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Orlandu84 Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 2:03 pm
By Western Philosophy and Theology I am referring to the intellectual project that continued after the Fall of Rome. I do not think that Greek philosophy counts as Western per se. Instead, I consider Greek philosophy and Christian belief to be the basis for a new synthesis of thought. How does this thought differ from both Christian belief and Greek philosophy? The concept of the heart as the highest way of relation – both will and thought coming together.
“God = Being Itself” is a true statement.
“Reality = being + limits” is also a true statement.
How do we define the “limits” is the difference between Plato, Aristotle, and most other philosophers. For Augustine, however, the question is mostly irrelevant. Happiness is what counts, not pure intellection. Any system that does not help you to be happy is wrong. Accordingly, the rubric of judgment (objective standard) is in reality the deepest way of being human (subjective love). Augustine posited that the two are not mutually exclusive but coherent with God – love of God and neighbor leads to both wisdom and justice. Augustine’s concept of the heart, unfortunately, has been largely lost and replaced with imitations.
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admin Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 2:35 pm
“Any system that does not help you to be happy is wrong.” — this strikes me as utterly erroneous. How does happiness acquire philosophical authority? Since we might expect people to cling to comforting lies, the exact opposite of this claim is far more plausible.
Thales Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 1:18 pm
I would liken this Gnon to the belief in Free Will. The existential question of Free Will is secondary — acting as if you have Free Will provides the “propulsion.”
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admin Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 1:28 pm
Thomas Ligotti has some soul-scourging stuff to say about this in The Conspiracy Against the Human Race — raising the question: What would an abandonment of the intuitive certainty that man is metaphysically free really entail? It’s an easy thing to deny glibly and intellectually, but to really believe oneself to be a perfect puppet — which unspeakable depths of psychotic strangeness would that plumb?
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Thales Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 2:01 pm
We would build Ziggurats, prop-up dead relatives in the corner and listen to our respective kas telling us what to do on a moment-by-moment basis as we tilled the earth, not even knowing we were “puppets” sans narrative analog “I”. However, I do not believe it possible (at least for highly-mutated/evolved “Caucasian” folk) to divest oneself of this consciousness. It seems not only memetic but genetic at this stage. The Will is a thing of conquest — it is its nature to subjugate everything within its grasp.
WTT Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 3:03 pm
The question of freedom in that regard is a question of causality, isn’t it? At least, Spinoza suggests as much. It seems to me that the error is to posit causal agency in particular bodies (in the Spinozist sense) rather than in process. It does seem that this is one of those deep-seated notions, though- I think scientists now hold that the most basic form of sensibility single-celled organisms are capable of concerns distinguishing action that originates from within it from action that originates without and acts upon it.
fotrkd Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 6:22 pm
but to really believe oneself to be a perfect puppet — which unspeakable depths of psychotic strangeness would that plumb?
There’s an idealistic(?) femininity attached to this, no? Perfect submissiveness?
John Hannon Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 1:15 pm
That free will is illusory is suggested by some experiments conducted by the neurosurgeon Benjamin Libet.
Subjects were asked to spontaneously flex their wrists and note exactly where a revolving spot on a clock face was at the instant they decided to do so, while electrodes measured their brain waves. What Libet discovered was that the conscious decision to act was always reported as having been made an instant AFTER the detection of a brain wave pattern called a “readiness potential,” which is seen just before an action is carried out. Thus the subjects’ decision to act was not the starting point of the action – it had already started without them.
This implies that our sense of freely and willfully controlling our actions is but an after-effect of those actions – a story we tell ourselves later.
Seems we’re just here for the ride.
Funny how what I say on a whim is usually better than what I say when I think about it… I think, Nick, that you have summed up my thoughts on the matter a lot better than I could.
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admin Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 1:12 pm
Would you care for a silver chalice of goat’s blood?
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Nick B. Steves Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 10:41 pm
I should say summed up in the first three paragraphs… and then you ran with it in some… erm… unexpected directions.
I get my weekly dose of blood at Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, thanks very much!
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Thales Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Nick is the Interpreter of Nicks oracular scribbling? It must be something about Nicks….
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@ Thales
Your narrative has a Nietzschean bravado that is hard to square with the world historical events of the last half century. Are Caucasions incompetent or unmotivated? Given their slide off the cliff, it has to be one or the other.
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Thales Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 2:58 pm
I think you misread me. Consciousness itself has conquered all mankind. One would need to dig deep into the wilds for any hope of finding a person so untouched.
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admin Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 3:01 pm
OK, and I worry that I’m still not quite getting it. Consciousness is the problem? (I’m not especially resistant to the idea, and Ligotti certainly isn’t.)
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Thales Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 3:24 pm
Consciousness is intractable — once you have it, you cannot be rid of it (though Buddhist monks and drug users try). Nor can you refrain from passing it on to your kin through language. Is it a problem? Freud certainly felt that way, noting that the ego required a super-ego to reign it in, but that would be going into the weeds.
My point is that consciousness propels man into the Unknown, bringing the Outside In, even if its actual substance is ambiguous.
@ WTT
‘Originates’ is a strong word. To begin simple-mindedly, standard physical models allow for no causal origination anywhere other than
(a) The Big Bang, or possibly
(b) Quantum fluctuations
Neither provides promising territory for a theory of action rooted in metaphysical freedom.
Science (and scientifically consistent philosophy) is revisable, but only disciplined revisions count for much.
For these purposes, thinking about causality is a messy way of thinking about time.
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WTT Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 3:26 pm
I’m in complete agreement here. ‘Originates’ is precisely a strong word- it’s part of the illusion, isn’t it? My question is whether or not such a deep-seated illusion is absolutely inescapable in thought. Can you elaborate on the relationship of time to freedom? I was thinking about freedom, in the popular sense of the word, as a proxy for, as Spinoza suggests, an ignorance of the causal chain from which our activity emerges. I must admit that I’m not quite sure how time complicates this picture.
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Thales Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 3:49 pm
“I was thinking about freedom, in the popular sense of the word, as a proxy for, as Spinoza suggests, an ignorance of the causal chain from which our activity emerges.”
Well, I, for one, disagree, FWIW. That is only the illusion of freedom. Freedom comes when one turns the will in upon itself to subvert itself, to change. Khan may conquer the known world, but he is still a slave to his passions.
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admin Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 3:53 pm
Time has to be real as a necessary (but not sufficient) condition of anything remotely approximating to strong (metaphysical) free will. There are plenty of ways to run this, but the most straightforward is probably this: unless the future really hasn’t happened yet there cannot be any way to change it now. Hence, for Einstein — who (like Spinoza) thought the future was as settled as the past, eternally complete, with the difference between what is to come and what has been having no absolute meaning — strict necessity governed all things.
There’s a tendency in pop and even serious science to blend the freedom ‘problem’ together with quantum indeterminacy, but that’s because both refer to a deeper question of time structure. There cannot be real indeterminacy of any kind unless an open future supports it.
Time travel narratives offer intuitively tractable ways to explore all this, as Goedel realized. He wrote a time reversal story of such rigor that it couldn’t be differentiated from a hypothesis in cosmological physics.
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survivingbabel Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 2:00 pm
ime has to be real as a necessary (but not sufficient) condition of anything remotely approximating to strong (metaphysical) free will.
I’m not sure I agree, although perhaps this is a semantic disagreement. “Time” isn’t anything, in the same way that “color” isn’t anything. What actually exists* is causality, in the same way that light wavelengths exist. Time is how our brains interpret the distance between cause and effect. Causality is what negates the possibility of “time” travel, in the same way that you can’t simply reverse a chemical reaction.
*Okay, so maybe “exists” is a bad word, I’m just trying to disentangle this from our subjective brain-experience.
WTT Reply:
June 3rd, 2013 at 6:20 pm
Thanks for the explanation. In addition, a comment or post on Goedel, and the ontological (and maybe politlcal?) implications of his theorems would be much appreciated by several readers, myself included, of course, since I’ve noticed several short teases of his influence on you.
[…] if you repeat a mantra often enough, it finally gets noticed, i.e., by folks you actually care to have notice it. It’s my one (and only) trick, but […]
Posted on May 30th, 2013 at 7:31 pm | Quote@admin
Regarding the Ligotti book and human consciousness as the curse of man, did you follow up on Ligotti’s central inspiration? Peter Wessel Zapffe? Here’s his essay, ‘The Last Messiah’, great stuff. http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Messiah
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admin Reply:
May 30th, 2013 at 10:20 pm
Thanks, I’d been hunting for some cheerful summer reading.
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@ fotrkd
“… Perfect submissiveness?” … you might need to put a few additional twists into this, because submission is still an expression of agency.
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fotrkd Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 12:23 am
Yeah, what I was getting at and not phrasing very well is the obsessive, insatiable typically male desire – explored for example in Proust’s The Captive – to possess absolutely and extinguish all female agency. ‘Perfect’ submission in this jealous/crazed sense is without agency but for that very reason can never be practically realised (now thinking of Isabella Rossellini’s smile in Blue Velvet). But yes… puppets are better, you need to breathe life into them.
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If you remove agency, you happen to remove deep gender from the Universe… among other things.
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Posted on May 30th, 2013 at 11:27 pm | QuoteAppeals to nature are quite old. What I find particularly interesting, in today’s climate, is the appeal to ‘natural law’ which often seems to be at odd with a realistic understanding of nature:
http://occamsrazormag.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/is-natural-law-anti-nature/
AWC
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admin Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 2:19 am
Whenever I mention ‘Natural Law’ I’m thinking of this (one of the most brilliant essays ever composed).
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Nick B. Steves Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 4:54 am
At 14k words that “essay” is closer to a book. Let us say “pamphlet”. Jim has no link to that stuff from his blog, which is strange. I was reading him for years before I discovered his real work. His work on “Natural Law” is, I agree, spectacular. He’s an Aquinas working without the Apostle. Remarkably, they end up in very nearly the same place.
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admin Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 5:08 am
Aquinas partners up with Darwin in Deadwood.
Thales Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 2:30 pm
“When did you start thinking every wrong had a remedy, Wu? Did you come to camp for justice or to make your fuckin’ way?” — Al Swearengen on Natural Law
Did I just accidentally unleash Gnosticism on an unwitting reaction? I mean, how can I just arbitrarily dissect The Arbiter of the Universe from Nature’s God, unless TAofU is the demiurge?
I think I have to go reread the “Gospel” of Thomas. Or maybe some Crowley. Shit, I apologize, everyone.
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Thales Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 2:38 pm
Do you mean to imply that Neo-Reaction wasn’t already Gnostic?
——-
Neo-Reactionary: The Cathedral?
Moldbug: Do you want to know what it is? The Cathedral is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo-Reactionary: What truth?
Moldbug: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind….
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survivingbabel Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 2:50 pm
Well, personally I view it that way, and I would agree that reaction and Gnosticism share many qualities. I also know individual reactionaries who would slit your throat (figuratively) if you accused them of being Gnostic. It really is something everyone ought to grapple with, though, even if they end up rejecting it. As suggested by Nick, there does feel as though there is an unspoken agreement in our cozy little memespace to wall off philosophy from theology. Given how much of both is rolling around in my head, it’s an interesting mental exercise (recreational schizophrenia?)
It was interesting watching The Matrix Reloaded with a group of people, as the only person with background knowledge of Gnosticism. I basically taught a half-hour class at it’s conclusion.
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admin Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 2:51 pm
@ Thales
Superbly imaginative catch. (It’s a relief not to be on the receiving end of these occasionally.)
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Nick B. Steves Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 9:09 pm
There was no demiurge in my thinking… although I’m unlikely to slit anyone’s throat for thinking that I think it.
I just interpreted it as: How do you justify yourselves? And the progressives answer, “we conceive a reality that suits us–groupthink”. Whereas the reactionary answer is merely that we cannot deny what we see with our own eyes. If free will is an illusion then I don’t want to know. If agency is an illusion then I don’t want to know. If, beyond the edge of the epistemological cliff, there is nothing at all whatsoever, then I definitely don’t want to know. If perception and inference and logic are all meaningless then I don’t want to know. To say, “Nature or Nature’s God or both” is to take refuge in the reality that we perceive. And if that be insufficient answer to the Grand Inqusitor (my model of The Arbiter of the Universe), then “Woe to me for I am undone. For I am a man of unclean lips, and come from a people of unclean lips.”
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fotrkd Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 9:19 pm
But you’ve just stumbled upon the deeper point of reaction… you can’t refuse to see/know or you become the progressive with his own (newly restored) Cathedral, and everything will inevitably slide back on the same leftward trajectory. (Sorry, brief thought – oven just binged!)
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Nick B. Steves Reply:
June 1st, 2013 at 5:09 am
I have deep skepticism about piercing the epistemic veil. I suspect it is some sort of biological speed of light, beyond which no matter can cross. That is all. If free will is genuinely an illusion, then then it is meaningless whether I choose to believe this “truth” or not. It also happens to be a very sick joke to play on… exactly nobody.
@ John Hannon
Thanks for the Libet reference — I agree that it’s critically important research.
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Posted on May 31st, 2013 at 2:18 pm | Quote@ Surviving Babel
“’Time’ isn’t anything, in the same way that ‘color’ isn’t anything. What actually exists* is causality,” — an argument close to Aristotle’s (as I’m sure you’re aware), but the analogy isn’t going to hold together. Color reduces to electromagnetic wavelength (kind of, if it’s not the perception itself that is being investigated), but time doesn’t reduce to causality, without already being surreptitiously presupposed. No amount of ‘X leads to Y leads to Z’ gets you duration, unless it’s already there. Sure, time isn’t ‘anything’ (although in a different way than color isn’t anything), so long as we’re using ‘thing’ narrowly, to mean some kind of object (in time). Space isn’t ‘anything’ either.
One reason to accept the reality of space is its curvature, i.e. it is able to bear a property (rather than merely be occupied). Time curvature is less clearly understood, which enables time dismissal arguments to get further (but that will change).
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survivingbabel Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 3:32 pm
time doesn’t reduce to causality, without already being surreptitiously presupposed. No amount of ‘X leads to Y leads to Z’ gets you duration, unless it’s already there.
What is duration? Is it stasis, which is just another effect? A chlorine molecule (Cl2) is relatively stable; isolated from other molecules, it should remain a Chlorine molecule indefinitely. Introduce a hydrogen molecule (H2) and sunlight, however, and the Chlorine molecule is obliterated. The “time” between the creation and destruction of the chlorine molecule is measurable, at least in comparison to rotations of the Earth or revolutions around the Sun, but it’s also dependent on your velocity relative to the molecule. As another example, the “time” it takes to boil water is simply the interpretation of the distance between the higher-level cause of turning on the stove and the higher-level effect of the teapot whistling. “Duration” is just how we interpret the event at our high level; at a lower level, the heat introduced by the stove is causing lots and lots of low-level effects on each water molecule (and so on, and so on).
Of course, any causality argument surreptitiously presupposes the First Cause, and pushing it further would be akin to introducing some hydrogen and sunlight into our own isolated chlorine environment. Not interested (yet).
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admin Reply:
May 31st, 2013 at 11:21 pm
I think this point of engagement is hugely important (not to mention 2,500 years old, and still unsettled). Causality is needed to measure, or even just to register time, so a strong demonstration of the ‘priority’ of time is going to be difficult. A more directly time-focused post is the place to wrestle it into a new configuration, and fight it back and forth, for the exercise at least.
My terminal quibble at this stage is just to note that an elusive ‘first cause’ is not the key to time presupposition, since it is already strictly causal (and not durational). Duration ‘is’ that which cannot be satisfied by — or considered equivalent to — a series of events, however dense, but which is already needed for an event to be an event, and for a series to be a succession.
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craig hickman Reply:
June 1st, 2013 at 7:41 am
Yea, I always did like PKD’s insertion from the Exegesis:
“Time, then, is actually spatial expansion, layer upon layer. So the hologram is quite large— it is ubique; yes; here is the ur-significance of the word “ubique”: it occupies all space. It is the interface that is Real, in Malebranche’s system. I’m hot on the trail right now— since nothing exists outside of cosmos by definition, all info in it pertains to itself and permeates it and is self-causing. And identical throughout all loci. Then the info is eternally and ubiquitously retrieved and retrievable—A perturbation in the reality field— an irregularity, a departure from the normal— a tugging or pulling or bending. And that is all. Not even the thing, the perturbing body itself; only its effects on “the reality field.” Something out of the ordinary— like I say, a surd.
Dick, Philip K.; Lethem, Jonathan; Jackson, Pamela (2011-11-08). The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (Kindle Locations 12780-12782). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.
The Solar Eye …?
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fotrkd Reply:
June 1st, 2013 at 10:19 pm
RA!
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Thales Reply:
June 1st, 2013 at 10:46 pm
“We want the sun god,
the one and only true god:
Raaa! Raaa!
Ra! Ra! Ra!”
— Ancient Egyptian Cheerleader
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admin Reply:
June 2nd, 2013 at 1:44 am
I’m not sure about Taofu, but Gnon has clear Masonic resonances, because it has a comparable social ‘function’ — enabling a club to a built upon an unsettled doctrinal abyss.
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Kratoklastes Reply:
October 22nd, 2014 at 8:21 am
TAOTU has a lot more Masonic resonance than Gnon, admin… replace ‘Arbiter’ with ‘Architect’ (make it a creative entity, not a judgemental one) and you’re staring down Jahbulon’s barrel.
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Laruelle, François [2002] (2010), Future Christ: A Lesson in Heresy, trans. Anthony Paul Smith, New York: Continuum.
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Posted on June 2nd, 2013 at 9:26 pm | Quote[…] http://www.xenosystems.net/the-cult-of-gnon/ […]
Posted on July 13th, 2014 at 7:05 am | Quote[…] knowledge of Divine law, or if Gnon really is just Nature, all states must contend with natural law. If a state enacts policies which […]
Posted on August 19th, 2014 at 12:29 am | Quote[…] doesn't matter if it's nice; it matters if it's effective. Gnon has no pity and laughs at your human ideals…especially because he created your human ideals to help you […]
Posted on October 21st, 2014 at 7:09 pm | Quote[…] doesn’t matter if it’s nice; it matters if it’s effective. Gnon has no pity and laughs at your human ideals…especially because he created your human ideals to help you be a […]
Posted on October 27th, 2014 at 4:02 am | QuoteIs it necessary to anthropomorphize forces of nature and nature itself? Attributes like intent or sense of humor don’t belong there.
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admin Reply:
November 6th, 2014 at 9:57 am
Given the weaknesses of primate brains, it’s better to anthropomorphize in a spirit of evident irony than to pretend to avoid anthropomorphism, while almost inevitably failing.
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Peter A. Taylor Reply:
November 6th, 2014 at 2:07 pm
I strongly agree.
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Exfernal Reply:
November 6th, 2014 at 3:59 pm
I’m not sure. Has there been a personification of gravity or entropy?