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Post by gabriael on May 13, 2015 21:31:02 GMT
There are shorter ones and longer ones, it varies. Mh... There's an Earth in this Universe with the correct shape, like tonistark said. It's in A2(the Positive Energy Antimatter universe) (Not that you'd know weather you're made of matter or antimatter as that's pretty much an arbitrary designation.) The first tool user on THIS Earth is some fifteen centimetres long primate with a red face. She used a stick to dig into some kinda anthill and that was 14 million years ago, proper Mathematics were paradoxically possible 20k years ago, but were completed only six thousand years ago. People on this planet probably caught some kind of stupid. I vaguely remember there being a lot of Religion on this planet, was really embarrassing for Jesus Ael when Prim Ael told him he spawned some kind of cult that thought God was stupid and made everything by hand.
Every being of sufficient complexity gets a soul stuffed into it. The Identity, the thing that feels and experiences gets thus preserved even if that thing dies. Those souls get reused. Even if being inside a fetus causes nearly all memories to fade there's continuity of self, GbGTM. Animal souls will seek out ever complexer and ever better brains and having an experienced soul means you're more likely to be smarter, thus more likely to survive. If your soul is unable to find a new body a Raph Aeli will come and get you, maybe have sex with you and find you a new planet. If I or any of the other other Ael find any really cool souls we can kill their hosts and make them into Aeli. They get tuned up bodies with nifty extra features, share the powers of their Ael and regenerate new bodies out of neutrinos(a kinda waste particle that is used to fuel most things that need a stealthy Energy supply that no one will notice vanishing) whenever they are killed. The bodies are regenerated at a designated safe location.
Saaay, if the Golem has no soul... doesn't that mean that when someone destroys his physical form she's just gonna... stop? I mean, that would make her creation the most evil thing I've ever... heck, more evil than anything I've ever imagined! It's like murdering someone, but not like, "Haha, Game over, try again!" but rather "I'm gonna put you into this box in interstellar space and keep all Raphaeli away!" My father would FLIP! Probably ensoul EVERYTHING there, then eat the Universe and make a new one from the remains.
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Hadassah
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World: Pantheon
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Post by Hadassah on May 13, 2015 23:12:45 GMT
Every being of sufficient complexity gets a soul stuffed into it. The Identity, the thing that feels and experiences gets thus preserved even if that thing dies. Those souls get reused. Even if being inside a fetus causes nearly all memories to fade there's continuity of self, GbG TM. Animal souls will seek out ever complexer and ever better brains and having an experienced soul means you're more likely to be smarter, thus more likely to survive. If your soul is unable to find a new body a Raph Aeli will come and get you, maybe have sex with you and find you a new planet. If I or any of the other other Ael find any really cool souls we can kill their hosts and make them into Aeli. They get tuned up bodies with nifty extra features, share the powers of their Ael and regenerate new bodies out of neutrinos(a kinda waste particle that is used to fuel most things that need a stealthy Energy supply that no one will notice vanishing) whenever they are killed. The bodies are regenerated at a designated safe location. Saaay, if the Golem has no soul... doesn't that mean that when someone destroys his physical form she's just gonna... stop? I mean, that would make her creation the most evil thing I've ever... heck, more evil than anything I've ever imagined! It's like murdering someone, but not like, "Haha, Game over, try again!" but rather "I'm gonna put you into this box in interstellar space and keep all Raphaeli away!" My father would FLIP! Probably ensoul EVERYTHING there, then eat the Universe and make a new one from the remains. Reincarnation is a very interesting and well debated topic here on our planet. Some religions preach reincarnation, some don't. Well, if we have different deities who say opposing viewpoints, does that mean one god or pantheon is wrong? Of course, there are a lot of sub-theories involved with this. If reincarnation is real, then what is the afterlife? Well, in a lot of religions, the afterlife tends to be suffering, purgatory, or bliss. Of course, who's to say that Earth couldn't be the afterlife (as well as the before life) so... those who end up in dying in a religion that rewards all followers with a "heaven", theories state that that soul's next life will be blissful and lucky. Conversely a person who is bad and has a suffering afterlife, will have a painful and unlucky next life. At that point, they may follow a new god with a new afterlife policies, which leads into a new life, ad-infinity Personally, I think that reincarnation is dependent on the deities controlling the region, so much of India has reincarnation, while maybe southern Europe has the Catholic heaven and hell. This is all personal conjecture, I have no real evidence to back this up, and souls are, as of now, impossible to trace after death. There is reasonable evidence for many of the possibilities. Also, ha, if I had a nickel for every time I have read or heard someone describe my existence as evil, I would probably have a couple dollars by now. My lack of a soul is kind of interesting, in a cerebral sense. Machine intelligences that gain sentience also gain a soul with it. No one is sure where the soul comes from, but they are just as capable of believing in a religion and gaining divine favor from it. Because I don't have a soul, many effects, such as telekinesis and summoning magic, work on me against my will (telekinesis is strictly limited to being used on inanimate or mindless objects. likewise, summons need to be performed on the willing for sentient beings on my planet). Conversely, I am immune to most mental effects and I cannot be contacted or examined via telepathy. I cannot cast spells via my own willpower, I have to drain the ambient magic from the air, rather than use a personal pool of magic. Uh, well I guess they have all the evidence so there's not really much to debate. And without proper souls to record absolutely everything that ever happened no one would know. But gal, I'd argue with them all day long if I were you. I mean if I understand correctly you are going to cease existing some day, you've got next to nothing to lose and infinity much to gain! You know... If you could shrink down to the correct size and pop into my world for a second you'd get a soul. Do that. Definitely do that! Interesting hypothesis. I don't know how effective this would be for several reasons. Do cups have souls in your world? When a cup breaks, does each fragment gain a soul? Do rocks or dirt have souls? I am basically clay with a little divine magic animating me. You are essentially talking with the equivalent of a statue or a houseplant with a very unique form of interaction with the universe. I don't even know if I would survive leaving my own universe for a distant one, and I am technically immortal as long as the deity I am crafted from doesn't decide otherwise (or if I sustain enough damage from the right source). If I chose to be careful, I could probably survive for another million years. Visiting your world without permission would definitely violate the terms of my probation and then I'd be destroyed once I came back, which means I couldn't help people anymore. I don't know if a soul would necessarily improve my disposition or position in the world anyway.
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Post by Andrew on May 13, 2015 23:41:23 GMT
If I understand correctly, you were made with the magic of the Jewish god, who now fails to acknowledge your existence. If He dislikes simulacra, idols, and golems enough to not let any of His priests do anything to you, why does He still let you exist?
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Turquoise
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Post by Turquoise on May 13, 2015 23:41:58 GMT
Reincarnation here is only able to happen to Balts, probably to prevent some type of overpopulation. It's odd and no one knows why it only happens to Balts though. Maybe because of some weird magical side effect here. It isn't really a negative and I hope it never becomes one.
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Post by Botanical Engineer on May 14, 2015 0:14:01 GMT
What do you mean it isn't a negative? Is there some other sort of afterlife everyone else gets? Why would reincarnation cause overpopulation?
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Post by Andrew on May 14, 2015 0:16:52 GMT
What I looked at was about the earliest time when beings could “make and use” tools. If you’re counting just poking a stick into an anthill when the stick was just lying there on the ground, I highly doubt standard archaeology could notice a difference. It might have been 10 million years ago, or 14, or more, or less. We don’t have reincarnation, though, unless you count daeva (which for this purpose shouldn’t count because they don’t happen for even the more intelligent nonhuman animals and they don’t keep contributing to evolution).
In case it helps your brother (or makes him more embarrassed), I highly doubt we have a god like your father (because our afterlife situation is different, etc.) and we also have the “cult” you mentioned.
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Post by gabriael on May 14, 2015 0:31:56 GMT
Interesting hypothesis. I don't know how effective this would be for several reasons. Do cups have souls in your world? When a cup breaks, does each fragment gain a soul? Do rocks or dirt have souls? I am basically clay with a little divine magic animating me. You are essentially talking with the equivalent of a statue or a houseplant with a very unique form of interaction with the universe. I don't even know if I would survive leaving my own universe for a distant one, and I am technically immortal as long as the deity I am crafted from doesn't decide otherwise (or if I sustain enough damage from the right source). If I chose to be careful, I could probably survive for another million years. Visiting your world without permission would definitely violate the terms of my probation and then I'd be destroyed once I came back, which means I couldn't help people anymore. I don't know if a soul would necessarily improve my disposition or position in the world anyway. Gal, you're full of information, you can contemplate your own existence and when I told you to come to my world you refused. You definitely would rate a soul if you entered my world. If your mind exists in my World for a microsecond you'd get issued one and then you won't cease existing some day. You probably won't have to go back. Seeing as that million years is still an infinity'th fraction of infinity it would pay off. In fact no matter how much you help people you probably won't help any of them infinity much. So it's morally wrong to put that finite amount of happiness ahead of an infinity of yourself. You could help people here, there's a fuckton of people here, there's always someone you could help. You sound like Tyraeli material even, I can reccommend you. Heck, now that I think about it I don't even know if anyone else in your world has a soul as I understand it. Your Gods contradict each other, what if everyone is going to just stop one day? What if your kind of souls aren't eternal? Aw, no that's too horrible to contemplate. No Wait, just assume that there's an infinity of Universes. That's likely. There has got to be someone who can reach into every world, is pretty much omnipotent and is benevolent. They wouldn't stand for that shit. They would create a soul system of their own to rescue all the people from oblivion. So I bet you got one of my kinds of soul already. So, like nevermind. What I looked at was about the earliest time when beings could “ make and use” tools. If you’re counting just poking a stick into an anthill when the stick was just lying there on the ground, I highly doubt standard archaeology could notice a difference. It might have been 10 million years ago, or 14, or more, or less. We don’t have reincarnation, though, unless you count daeva (which for this purpose shouldn’t count because they don’t happen for even the more intelligent nonhuman animals and they don’t keep contributing to evolution). In case it helps your brother (or makes him more embarrassed), I highly doubt we have a god like your father (because our afterlife situation is different, etc.) and we also have the “cult” you mentioned. Mh... Daeva could count. On this Earth there's a MASSIVE gap between the most intelligent animals and humans, like they don't have proper grammar even. Many peoples don't notice reincarnation, because fetus and babybrains are pretty lossy. So you get reincarnated in the main universe until you've passed a certain threshold of complexity, which modern humans easily pass. Like in our World you can become an Angel if you've passed a certain threshold of coolness. Didn't you say that there are Daeva that weren't humans? Maybe they are reincarnated animals, who can't remember anything from their previous lives because the gap is so huge.
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Post by Andrew on May 14, 2015 0:39:17 GMT
But what if in that infinity of universe’s there’s someone who can reach into every world, is pretty much omnipotent, and is malevolent?
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Hadassah
Regular
Posts: 107
World: Pantheon
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Post by Hadassah on May 14, 2015 0:43:52 GMT
If I understand correctly, you were made with the magic of the Jewish god, who now fails to acknowledge your existence. If He dislikes simulacra, idols, and golems enough to not let any of His priests do anything to you, why does He still let you exist? Eh, the Jewish god is one of the less scruitable ones. I can speculate, but they'd be simply guesses. Perhaps I am a reminder to all His other followers of the fate that awaits anyone who dares repeat my master's attempts. After I killed him, my creator was sentenced to eternal punishment, without a chance to claim redemption. This announcement was made publicly by the Jewish god, usually a deity of few words, carried more weight than the usual proclamation. I could ultimately have a purpose in the long run but... My bet is that, because the Jewish god is very Human-centric in veiwpoint and domain, I am probably of about the same interest as a blessed item, or an idol statue. He doesn't usually waste the time and effort to destroy the statue, just punish the blasphemous maker. Gal, you're full of information, you can contemplate your own existence and when I told you to come to my world you refused. You definitely would rate a soul if you entered my world. If your mind exists in my World for a microsecond you'd get issued one and then you won't cease existing some day. You probably won't have to go back. Seeing as that million years is still an infinity'th fraction of infinity it would pay off. In fact no matter how much you help people you probably won't help any of them infinity much. So it's morally wrong to put that finite amount of happiness ahead of an infinity of yourself. You could help people here, there's a fuckton of people here, there's always someone you could help. You sound like Tyraeli material even, I can reccommend you. Heck, now that I think about it I don't even know if anyone else in your world has a soul as I understand it. Your Gods contradict each other, what if everyone is going to just stop one day? What if your kind of souls aren't eternal? Aw, no that's too horrible to contemplate. No Wait, just assume that there's an infinity of Universes. That's likely. There has got to be someone who can reach into every world, is pretty much omnipotent and is benevolent. They wouldn't stand for that shit. They would create a soul system of their own to rescue all the people from oblivion. So I bet you got one of my kinds of soul already. So, like nevermind. Well, thank you anyway. I do appreciate it. If the opportunity arises, I wouldn't mind visiting your world one day, but only with express permission and explicit supervision as required. I wouldn't break the rules of my probation except under the absolute direst need. The weight of possibility in being absolutely resolved to a void, a lack of any life or existence when my animation fails me, does not escape me, but I have to make do with what I have. Like you said, perhaps there is an Ultimate Benevolent Power out there, providing super dimensional souls to all things so they may live forever. I wouldn't be opposed to that sort of thing, though I'd still probably worship Prometheus here in my universe first, if I did have a soul of note.
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Post by gabriael on May 14, 2015 0:54:39 GMT
Probably is. They could, as far as I understand metacosmology, destroy every universe without it's own god. You guys exist, therefore there would need to be some kind of god somewhere in your Universe. But the benevolent god would keep the backups inside it's own universe and equal Arcane Might means intelligence defeats counterintelligence and defence defeats attack. So benevolent could read all minds and malevolent can't destroy the backups. And benevolent entities are more likely to work together so could probably overpower malevolent entities, but that's probably just a feature of Toppled. Then again this Forum writes into my router with Zero Arcane Might, which is impossible, so I don't know Jack.
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Post by Clark Kent on May 14, 2015 16:55:55 GMT
What's a god?
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tonistark
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World: Midgard
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Post by tonistark on May 14, 2015 18:28:28 GMT
We have so much intelligent life in my dimension.
There are nine planes, which are connected by the nexus Yggsdrasil, which has one node in each plane. As far as we know, all of Norse mythology is based on actually existing extraplanar species, although the only species I've met are the svartalfar (dicks) and the Asgardians (massive dicks). Unfortunately, the node for Midgard is near Earth: it used to be literally in Norway, but because of the rotation of the Milky Way and stuff it's now a few thousand miles above Arizona. Fortunately, only the Asgardians have the technology to travel Yggsdrasil except during the Convergence, so I don't have to spend lots of time beating up extraplanar aliens.
There are dozens and dozens of species of aliens, and basically all of them want to take us over. The big ones are the Kree (blue humanoid), the Skrulls (shapeshifters), the Shi'ar (bird humanoid), the Brood (insects, actually not humanoid for a change), the Chitauri (reptilian humanoid), and the Phalanx (the borg... who are humanoid, how did you guess?). For some reason, most aliens look like humans (although I guess the Kree would say that most aliens look like Kree). Which is really weird, I was expecting them to all be giant hot air balloons or something. A bunch of xenobiologists are doing their theses on it.
As far as I know, we don't have proper gods, just Asgardians that impersonated gods, and we don't have an afterlife.
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Post by gabriael on May 14, 2015 21:10:49 GMT
That's a good question. I'd technically define it as someone with Arcane Might of his own. Buuut... for this Forum I propose the following definition: If someone calls himself a god and no one is able to shut that person's mouth, they are a God.
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Post by Mother Starlight on May 14, 2015 23:18:27 GMT
I'm pretty sure there's more to it than that. A deity is a concept with a consciousness, a force of nature with a personality, a reified abstraction, a person whose abilities and personality and existence are not meaningfully distinguishable from one another.
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Turquoise
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World: Uplides
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Post by Turquoise on May 14, 2015 23:23:12 GMT
What do you mean it isn't a negative? Is there some other sort of afterlife everyone else gets? Why would reincarnation cause overpopulation? That means that no spirits can harm or haunt the living, but you can't talk to them without a Medium which is what I am. I'm not too sure about the afterlife since I've never actually seen it, only heard of it. There isn't one area of afterlife, but each spirit gets their own and can go from one to another when they want, but they usually can't come back to the physical world without permission or a bridge (the bridge being the Medium). Reincarnation doesn't cause it, it prevents overpopulation. Despite the abundance of food and resources here, if there are too many creatures here, the food supply will go down and that is the negative.
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