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Various unrelated questions.

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Various unrelated questions.

Postby Azazen » Sat Mar 20, 2010 11:31 pm

Hi, I usually try to stay on one topic but an interesting point came up in conversation the other day, and then I have two specific questions. :)

First, do animals have souls? I believe I would've heard something about this by now if they did but I haven't exactly heard anything to the contrary, and my next question depends on this answer.

Second, if animals don't have souls is it possible that animals on another planet evolved into aliens capable of space travel? I believe you've said that we're the only planet that life is incarnated on, but does that mean it's possible that there are aliens that simply don't have souls?

Now for the good stuff. Amps, I'm curious of what you use to power them. For the lower level ones anyway, do you connect it to an external power source or do you use the soul reactor?

And lastly, encryption. Is there anything you can tell me that might help give an idea of how to go about encrypting my spells, though I would think encryption might be something that you could deem safe to share outside of omni?

Of course I won't feel hurt if you choose not to answer any of these, I am certainly looking forward to the responses.
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Postby Psychokinetic Wannabe » Tue Mar 23, 2010 6:56 pm

As seems to be tradition here, disclaimer time: The following is based on my own speculation, contemplation, and such. While I use information I got from this forum in my reasoning, it has been passed through my mind and thus no longer represents the views/beliefs/etc of Omnimancy as a whole, or any of their members.

Since LordArt and everyone else is presumably busy, especially with the recent application thread culling, I figured I'd contribute with my tidbit of usefulness when it comes to answering this.

Azazen wrote:First, do animals have souls? I believe I would've heard something about this by now if they did but I haven't exactly heard anything to the contrary, and my next question depends on this answer.

Based on what I've learned from LordArt, I would have to say the answer is yes. I'll leave the details to him though, since I don't want to contribute to any possible misunderstandings.

My personal speculation is that they should have similar telepathy hardware in there, because I've sensed and influenced animal thoughts before, and I've certainly heard of plenty people doing the same, but because I don't actually understand the underlying mechanism of how telepathy works, I would leave that in the hypotheses bin for now.

Azazen wrote:Second, if animals don't have souls is it possible that animals on another planet evolved into aliens capable of space travel? I believe you've said that we're the only planet that life is incarnated on, but does that mean it's possible that there are aliens that simply don't have souls?

Well, LordArt just said he hasn't noticed/run across any other planet in this universe that life incarnates on, if I recall correctly. Given the general rarity of planets, just based on current scientific models, that can support an ecosystem vs. number of planets over all, this can go either way. I don't think Omni actually has projects where they sit down and catalog planets, scanning them one by one.

Personally, my own attempts at understanding how/why our soul is even necessary for the function of our bodies here in the physical makes me think that perhaps all sufficiently complex life requires some sort of maintenance or influence to function effectively. But I can't assume that yet, since my senses certainly aren't good enough to notice what happens in that transition between astral and physical.

On the other hand, this is something worth serious ethical consideration, because if sentient and intelligent life does form in the physical, and can exist without having a soul component, then in my eyes it'll be time to drop this warm fuzzy notion most cultures have of the soul as being something special. Because frankly, if their self-awareness and ability to experience is comparable to other 'incarnate' sentient life, then we have no right to not give them the same ethical consideration as we do for 'souled' creatures. In fact, more so, because from an ethics standpoint, killing an incarnate entity just kicks them out of their meat puppet - killing a physical-only entity, if such a thing is possible, would be the equivalent to soul obliterating one of us. Because at the end of the day, both are equal organisms, with their own intricate workings that make them tick, and some built-in way of 'thinking'. We just happen to be formed in a very malleable and completely 'astral' environment, while they would be formed in this one. Theoretically, if they get advanced enough, they could probably figure out the astral by taking a really long time to understand it from the physical, perhaps making more headway if they interact with life that incarnates. And theoretically, if they get far enough, they could then find a way to 'incarnate' into astral bodies, while leaving their physical bodies somewhere protected. So the difference would be merely one of in what medium their 'main' bodies formed in, rather than in intrinsic merit/worth as entities.

I don't want to wade into the other two because I honestly just don't know. If I get the chance to, I'd like to eventually have the chance to try to look at an 'encrypted' spell and try to figure out what's going on... doubt I'd get far though. On the other hand, I can't really guess about the amps, but I think that until you get to the ones that 'evolve you internally', you probably use outside energy sources. My guess from what the omnis have said on the various threads here is that there's probably too many ways to screw up your soul reactor if you don't know how to pull energy from it right, so earlier amps would have to use outside power just for ease of teaching them to the new omni students. Similarly, it would probably be a balance between 'how does your soul's casting hardware use energy' vs 'how does the amp increase the output there-of'. It seems to me like the soul's hardware should be pretty damn efficient, at least as far as people on my level are concerned. So unless it's really easy to make an amp be more energy efficient than the casting hardware, you'd have to balance how much potential energy you have left over for casting with what yield in effectiveness/strength/etc you get from the amp... So it kinda seems to me like it makes more sense to run amps, especially the early ones, from outside power sources. But I might be wrong there, since I don't know the exact energy consumption or efficiency of either system. I'm guessing once you go G7a and above though, they start leaning more towards changing the hardware itself, and at that point whatever change this has on the casting hardware's energy consumption is just permanently built into the hardware itself, which uses the soul reactor's output.

I think when they are able to get off the planet and use stars as power sources, they can probably get better amps before shit gets weird at G7-ish than soul reactor output would let them get, too.

Of course, I'm sure LordArt's answers will be far more informative, and far more knowledgeable than mine, but they were interesting topics so I figured I'd put in my own contemplations on the matter.
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Postby Azazen » Thu Mar 25, 2010 10:34 am

Psychokinetic Wannabe wrote:Based on what I've learned from LordArt, I would have to say the answer is yes.

Somehow I felt that the answer would be no, from some of the answers I've read in this forum. Like I said I think the topic would have come up in conversation with some of the people I deem competent though I've never specifically asked, hence my question.

Psychokinetic Wannabe wrote:My personal speculation is that they should have similar telepathy hardware in there, because I've sensed and influenced animal thoughts before, and I've certainly heard of plenty people doing the same, but because I don't actually understand the underlying mechanism of how telepathy works, I would leave that in the hypotheses bin for now.

This is my understanding as well, but I'm not sure that having some astral hardware necessarily means they have souls in the same sense as humans.

Psychokinetic Wannabe wrote:Well, LordArt just said he hasn't noticed/run across any other planet in this universe that life incarnates on, if I recall correctly. Given the general rarity of planets, just based on current scientific models, that can support an ecosystem vs. number of planets over all, this can go either way. I don't think Omni actually has projects where they sit down and catalog planets, scanning them one by one.

It should be as simple as looking for large sources of certain energies, I can't say for sure.

Psychokinetic Wannabe wrote:Personally, my own attempts at understanding how/why our soul is even necessary for the function of our bodies here in the physical makes me think that perhaps all sufficiently complex life requires some sort of maintenance or influence to function effectively. But I can't assume that yet, since my senses certainly aren't good enough to notice what happens in that transition between astral and physical.

My hypothesis is something along the lines of there needing to be certain physical qualities in a body for the soul mechanisms to be attached to it.

Psychokinetic Wannabe wrote:On the other hand, this is something worth serious ethical consideration, because if sentient and intelligent life does form in the physical, and can exist without having a soul component, then in my eyes it'll be time to drop this warm fuzzy notion most cultures have of the soul as being something special. Because frankly, if their self-awareness and ability to experience is comparable to other 'incarnate' sentient life, then we have no right to not give them the same ethical consideration as we do for 'souled' creatures. In fact, more so, because from an ethics standpoint, killing an incarnate entity just kicks them out of their meat puppet - killing a physical-only entity, if such a thing is possible, would be the equivalent to soul obliterating one of us. Because at the end of the day, both are equal organisms, with their own intricate workings that make them tick, and some built-in way of 'thinking'. We just happen to be formed in a very malleable and completely 'astral' environment, while they would be formed in this one.

I personally think all life should be treated equally and with respect. That doesn't necessarily mean we shouldn't respect the food chain as well, I personally don't like eating cow but if someone else does that's fine with me, as long as there is no needless suffering. Though that would imply that if there were a more intelligent race of beings that could eat humans for sustenance, it would be well within their rights to do so, and would suck. :P

I was wondering if they use a simple tether to plug directly into the amp or if there was a specific mechanism being powering it.
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Re: Various unrelated questions.

Postby LordArt » Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:46 am

I am monster busy at work, convention stuff, and application stuff, so I will be more breif than normal...

Azazen wrote:First, do animals have souls?

Yes. They aren't constructed like "human" level souls, or most spirits you'd talk to, but they have souls/spirits.

Second, if animals don't have souls is it possible that animals on another planet evolved into aliens capable of space travel? I believe you've said that we're the only planet that life is incarnated on, but does that mean it's possible that there are aliens that simply don't have souls?


I don't think I've ever said that aliens don't have souls, nor that this is the only planet that spirits incarnate on. I know there are other realms besides this one that spirits incarnate on. I'm 80% sure there are other planets within this realm that spirits incarnate on. I say 80% because the means of astral traveling there could mean that I'm actually in a different realm and don't know it. I haven't done enough investigation to truly say one way or the other, so I say what I've seen in passing. It was never an interest, so I never spent the time.

Amps, I'm curious of what you use to power them. For the lower level ones anyway, do you connect it to an external power source or do you use the soul reactor?


External for the lower ones. Initially, Ley lines, then poles of planets, then suns. Each successive one is better but is completely dependant if you are strong enough to reach them to make it worth while to use. Ie. if it takes more power to reach a power source than it returns, is it really worth using?

Powering an amp off a soul reactor (ie. your own) would be self defeating unless you are just going for a burst (but then you'd have to wait for the power build again) which to me isn't worth the effort. However, to be fair, the first real amp (G2) that was given to me, it came in an item that had a battery spell and the amp (and other things to guard it). The battery would constantly drain off of me (which sucked...litterially), but when I went to use my power for something, it would use the battery as that external power source to power the amp. It worked for what it was made for. I didn't even know about ley lines then, and to give someone something that required external power wouldn't make sense so I get why it was made that way. (And to put a power source inside the item wasn't realistic for lower level spells, and honestly I've never seen it done that way. They are always batteries of one form or another, but times change.). But I got battery tech and the G2 spell out of it, if you wanted to know those origins in the readers digest version.

And lastly, encryption. Is there anything you can tell me that might help give an idea of how to go about encrypting my spells, though I would think encryption might be something that you could deem safe to share outside of omni?


Hmm. A simple method is simple masking of the spell itself (ie. simply willing it to look like something it isn't). In a tech spell, the tech is scrambled so that the ordering doesn't make any sense but the attachments are still intact as not to negatively affect the operation of the spell. Also included might be dummy pieces of tech that don't negatively affect the spell but are dead ends for the person scanning. There are more "active" tech pieces to specifically mask and distort decryption. Think of something that might make the pieces look distorted or like something else. On a forum, it is hard to say beyond that.

I was wondering if they use a simple tether to plug directly into the amp or if there was a specific mechanism being powering it.


Just a simple tether. No need to get more complicated. Honestly, by the time an Omni gets to making more complicated power sources versus just tapping on pre-existing ones they aren't using external based amps which don't rely on power per se.

@Psychokinetic Wannabe - I'm not ignoring your posts, I just don't have the time to answer them. I have a 15 page document (40k words) to one of your other posts, and it may not matter based on what we discussed in PM, so yeah....It's not as easy to answer your posts because of the detail that I feel is needed.
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Postby Azazen » Thu Mar 25, 2010 4:16 pm

LordArt wrote:Yes. They aren't constructed like "human" level souls, or most spirits you'd talk to, but they have souls/spirits.

I see, do they reincarnate into other animals or even grow and eventually incarnate into humans?

External for the lower ones. Initially, Ley lines, then poles of planets, then suns. Each successive one is better but is completely dependant if you are strong enough to reach them to make it worth while to use. Ie. if it takes more power to reach a power source than it returns, is it really worth using?

Hmm. A simple method is simple masking of the spell itself (ie. simply willing it to look like something it isn't). In a tech spell, the tech is scrambled so that the ordering doesn't make any sense but the attachments are still intact as not to negatively affect the operation of the spell. Also included might be dummy pieces of tech that don't negatively affect the spell but are dead ends for the person scanning. There are more "active" tech pieces to specifically mask and distort decryption. Think of something that might make the pieces look distorted or like something else. On a forum, it is hard to say beyond that.

Thank you for your answers, they've been helpful as usual.


Now some new questions that have come up, even more random than the first ones. :)

I've recently become aware of a few things that caused me to question some people that have more knowledge on the subjects, the answer had to do with certain beings in the astral that create weapons out of "physical" material, binding certain lesser beings to them in the creation, the weapons are supposed to be very capable. I'm really just looking for confirmation on this and maybe a little further explanation, I apologize for sounding so cryptic but can't really say much else without getting into the details.

*Prepares for the "Look"* This question is going to be about astral dragons, what do you know of them? Specifically younger ones, or eggs.

I think this is the last one and it's going to be about astral locks. From what I understand certain groups of beings place locks on humans for various reasons, could you share any information about these "locks" or a way to deal with them yourself or with the help of another person/being?

I know some of those questions sound a little out there, I don't tend to believe in things without experiencing them myself or having some grasp of the abilities of the person the information is coming from. Shedding information on those specific topics from an omni member would be greatly appreciated, even if it's to say that I've been misinformed.
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Postby LordArt » Thu Mar 25, 2010 5:23 pm

Azazen wrote:
LordArt wrote:Yes. They aren't constructed like "human" level souls, or most spirits you'd talk to, but they have souls/spirits.

I see, do they reincarnate into other animals or even grow and eventually incarnate into humans?


I don't have direct proof but it seems so as far as reincarnation goes. I know a "human" level spirit by my view of how they evolved up, generally it is made from an intelligence spirit, an animal spirit, and a couple other pieces that I won't go over in a public forum.

I've recently become aware of a few things that caused me to question some people that have more knowledge on the subjects, the answer had to do with certain beings in the astral that create weapons out of "physical" material, binding certain lesser beings to them in the creation, the weapons are supposed to be very capable. I'm really just looking for confirmation on this and maybe a little further explanation, I apologize for sounding so cryptic but can't really say much else without getting into the details.


This sounds like something out of a Palladium RPG called rune weapons. Practicality says it's not likely. Can it be done? Anything is possible after a fashion. Personal experience says that if it really was an astral being made into a weapon, it would be killed in the process, just as much if someone was physically stuffed into a sword mold. Yeah, enough pressure and jabbing would make them fit and perhaps even hold together the resulting goo, but it wouldn't be inherently better. Anything advanced enough to do it and keep whatever alive wouldn't need to do it other than as a novelty or punishment. Certainly not for effectiveness. Even if they "stripped" a spirit just to get it's reactor, they would have to build up enough around it to keep that reactor stable and then it would be unwieldy realistically. Again, a lot of effort for something that could be done much easier and create a better effect. If they are just going for the "shock" value, then I'm sure someone has done it, but then it's done for the shock value, not to get any boon from it.

However, I have seen weapons created that have "biological" spiritual parts, and those were used to enhance the weapon's abilities, but that is because the creator of the weapon knew enough about astral biology and soul creation to take advantage of that and designed the weapon accordingly. But then they aren't taking existing parts, they are creating the parts to the specifications they need. So no meat grinder for fluffy's soul...

*Prepares for the "Look"* This question is going to be about astral dragons, what do you know of them? Specifically younger ones, or eggs.


*blink* I have personal pet peeve about astral races. I don't see the point of them other than evolutionary stage differences and defining races that way. Anything can change their astral body to look like anything else. I will begrudgingly admit there are astral races, however. I've known two dragons that have been students of mine, one that knew it and really didn't speak of it. The other found out while learning. Neither took to mean they were "special", just that is what they were, anymore than admitting that you have a mole on your leg. They weren't even of the same dragon race. Personal opinion is there is no such thing as a human soul anyways (I’ve never met one), everyone seems to be something else, just most don't have cool legends about them to identify them by a name. The current running theory is the soul "race" that someone is or identifies themself with is most likely their initial incarnated form. However, this thoery is COMPLETE speculation and I have nothing to back this up other than it just sounds good.

As far as eggs and the like, I've never really seen astral spirits go by the same biology of reproduction as incarnate animals. I've seen young spirits of many types. Depending on how they were created, they may have the memories and skills of the one that created them, or what they wanted the new spirit to have. I will also admit that the multiverse is a very big place and I will not claim authority of knowledge on every single way a spirit can be produced. If the more dragon people want to chime in, more power to them.

I think this is the last one and it's going to be about astral locks. From what I understand certain groups of beings place locks on humans for various reasons, could you share any information about these "locks" or a way to deal with them yourself or with the help of another person/being?


WELL, depends on the lock. That can mean anything from an outright shutdown (ie. turning off their magic/ability to project, etc.), to being incarcerated despite being incarnate (which manifests as either being a shit magnet or some other series of artificial limitations that are actively enforced). Most people aren't locked. The people that are locked may only be for political reasons.

As far as what to do about it, it REALLY depends on who is enforcing the lock and why. I find bribery works. Depending on how limited the organization that is doing it is, and depending on how powerful you are, threats work too. Bribery causes far less long term repercussions though. Sometimes the enforcement isn't quite legal, so this is where knowledge of astral politics is really handy. Power isn't just from magical ability, but knowledge of society (politics, law, etc.) and how to manipulate that to your advantage. The ability to get those bigger than you are to come to your aid, or simply not interfere with whatever you are doing.

If you have no personal or political power, I would petition those that do that you have good relations with to look into the matter. You may find that the individual just needs to learn something, or do some task or something silly like that. You may find they are pretty boned and there is nothing you can do about it other than my original suggestions. But my original suggestions only work if you have something to bribe with or have the power to threaten without real repercussions. The latter is dangerous because it can backfire and you can become something’s new play toy, so think REALLY REALLY hard before trying the threatening angle.

I know some of those questions sound a little out there, I don't tend to believe in things without experiencing them myself or having some grasp of the abilities of the person the information is coming from. Shedding information on those specific topics from an omni member would be greatly appreciated, even if it's to say that I've been misinformed.


I know my responses sound out there, not just on this topic. But I've seen enough of other forums to know that my responses are tame in comparison, so for the few that think I should lay off the narcotics based on my answers, it is worth helping the person that is asking honest questions. Take my responses for what they are...Another person on a forum. In the end, you have to see if the advice/knowledge applies to what you are dealing with or your situation.
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Postby Psychokinetic Wannabe » Thu Mar 25, 2010 6:20 pm

LordArt wrote:A simple method is simple masking of the spell itself (ie. simply willing it to look like something it isn't). In a tech spell, the tech is scrambled so that the ordering doesn't make any sense but the attachments are still intact as not to negatively affect the operation of the spell. Also included might be dummy pieces of tech that don't negatively affect the spell but are dead ends for the person scanning.

I kinda thought it would be something like this but it sounds like that's too... I don't know... decryptable? At least if your senses are good enough. But I suppose that makes sense, since that's the case with everything. If you're significantly better than the caster, you'll overcome whatever you're trying to overcome. Of course, when you got shitloads of dimensional directions and screwy crumpled spacial fabric to work with, you can probably do a lot with your encrypting.

I'm guessing the last bit you mentioned, the active tech that screws up decryption attempts, is probably the corner stone of truly good encryption. I'm guessing for the most basic of variants you could 'coat' some material over the actual spell's tech pieces that feel drastically different to the astral senses. I don't know how ... 'overlapable' the astral body and/or gaseous magic in general is, so if it's not, you could probably just make do with the outer layer. If it is, then you might be able to overlap the decoy material(s) with the actual spell's tech pieces - so long as that doesn't interfere with the spell's own workings. Given what I'm assuming the intricacy of typically used tech-spells is, actually, I'm guessing you already have so many different materials and parts in there that you can throw in entire sub-spells whose sole function is to perform decoy activities...

And of course I still haven't worked out exactly how the astral body 'feels' - namely how data from it poking stuff with its tendrils makes it's way back to the hardware that does the perceiving. So when you know that, entire new avenues of encryption methods probably arise.

Azazen wrote:It should be as simple as looking for large sources of certain energies, I can't say for sure.

But even if incarnate entities have certain energies that are easily distinguishable at large distances from disincarnate ones, one has to wonder, how exactly does the soul 'look' for different energy signatures? If it's part of the same 'poking-with-tentacle' sensing that we usually use, then you have to first feel the general traces of that energy before you can go look for the source. In that case, does astral physics allow for them to spread normally? Or is it like a drop of blood in water - something which will dilute out and become indistinguishable from the background? And that of course brings us to the next point - does the same 'resolution' gain in astral senses that amps give increase one's ability to pick up on dilute energy around them and/or figure out where that energy is coming from? Because if it does, then yes, it should be just as easy, but if not, then distance and ease of finding stuff aren't friends. Of course, I'm sure that if that IS a problem, the Omnis have found a way around it. No one here's really mentioned having difficulty in finding things at long distances...thought that doesn't really confirm my guess.

LordArt wrote:@Psychokinetic Wannabe - I'm not ignoring your posts, I just don't have the time to answer them. I have a 15 page document (40k words) to one of your other posts, and it may not matter based on what we discussed in PM, so yeah....It's not as easy to answer your posts because of the detail that I feel is needed.

No worries good sir. You have already taught me much, and accepted into Omnimancy or not, you will probably do so far, far more than you already have. I don't mind the wait. (Edit: Ugh, I just realized how badly worded this sentence was. I meant that 1, you've already taught me much, and 2, at the rate things are going I expect you will teach me a whole lot more, 3, regardless of whether or not I get accepted into Omni.) And 40k words, well, 40k words of intelligent, enlightening goodness is more than worth the time it's taken so far.

Azazen wrote:Though that would imply that if there were a more intelligent race of beings that could eat humans for sustenance, it would be well within their rights to do so, and would suck.

Surely when someone sees that kind of implication in their ethical theorizing, and it bothers them, a refining is called for? I remember running into this particular issue a few years ago. To me the resolution lies in recognizing that a large part of what's bad for an entity has to do with how much it can suffer from the event, and that there's something of a logarithmic curve relation between the suffering an entity experiences and how much of an ethical obligation one has not to harm it.

I'm gonna leave the rest of this to you two since frankly, you have this discussion under control, and there isn't much I can add without throwing another deluge of questions at LordArt. I WILL however say that perhaps soul species and soul races are a better distinction so you can keep the classification of a soul relative to the evolutionary stages separate from this dragon/other-dragon/probably-different-dragon/swamp-monster/whatever stuff. Using the same term isn't as great and people seem to care too much about the latter to let go of using soul race for that concept. Seems to me like it's more or less a matter of soul 'ethnicity' more so than soul 'race' - much like modern notions of race and ethnicity are barely actual biologically significant differences and mostly cultural distinctions.

Thus, I hereby declare myself part of the slime-mold soul 'race'. Anyone who wishes to join me may sign up by making themselves amoeba-like on the astral. We'll improvise the cultural differences thing until something coherent gets slapped together. EDIT: Hopefully that attempt at humor went over well.

- Lots o' Edit -

You know that bit where I said just a paragraph above that I would leave the conversation to you two because I didn't want to spam out questions? Turns out I lied. :D Seriously, I'll try to avoid asking too many questions of LordArt specifically. I just thought originally I'd let the natural flow of conversation run it's course before butting in in case anything is left, but this seemed worth mentioning and not-too-likely to come back up.

Azazen wrote:My hypothesis is something along the lines of there needing to be certain physical qualities in a body for the soul mechanisms to be attached to it.

Any chance you want to discuss what you think those are? Any specific ideas, or is it just a general hypothesis?

LordArt wrote:I don't have direct proof but it seems so as far as reincarnation goes. I know a "human" level spirit by my view of how they evolved up, generally it is made from an intelligence spirit, an animal spirit, and a couple other pieces that I won't go over in a public forum.

That gives me another clue in the whole understanding soul evolution puzzle. I think a good question here is (and this is something I meant to ask since our PM exchange, LordArt, but I've been putting it off): Do animal souls have inners/lowers? Are they just one aware (or just semi-aware, if aware at all) entity, or can/do they split off a facet of themselves to be the incarnate aspect of themselves, like we do?

Also, I just want to point out that no, I'm not assuming stuff about astral/soul 'races' and whether it's a cultural thing, whatever cultural differences exist/don't exist. I actually have a decent reservoir of specific questions about this, and an intent forming to research why exactly souls associate themselves with specific races as a subset of wanting to someday look into soul psychology as a separate matter from incarnate human psychology. It's just that, based on the bit's mentioned so far, it seems like it's more of a what-your-inner-decides-to-think-of-itself-as thing, especially since LordArt said in one of the threads with my inquiry spam that "They do exist, but fundamentally they are all the same." So I'm guessing the astral biology changes not at all, and it's more or less just a tendency to think of yourself as X at a subconscious level and project for X onto your astral body. If that's grossly wrong, I welcome any corrections on the matter.

LordArt wrote:That can mean anything from an outright shutdown (ie. turning off their magic/ability to project, etc.), to being incarcerated despite being incarnate (which manifests as either being a shit magnet or some other series of artificial limitations that are actively enforced). Most people aren't locked. The people that are locked may only be for political reasons.

Well, the former sounds (far, far beyond) harsh, but if I'm reading it correctly, it sounds like it confirms my thoughts that the same hardware that 'casts' is the same hardware that moves your astral body around. Unless both are just shut off at once. If this happens... can the soul thus shutdown even do anything? Or are they stuck just... being? If the telepathy hardware is shut down too, does that amount to being utterly screwed unless you have friends who'll find you and fix you?

P.S. Sorry if this edit happened while someone was typing a reply. I noticed LordArt online while I was writing this, so I probably overlapped this edit with his reply.
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Postby Azazen » Fri Mar 26, 2010 5:36 am

*nods* I've had a lot of strange incidents in the past week, I tend to believe my own experiences first but the information I receive from others about those experiences is completely debatable. Thanks for your input.



But even if incarnate entities have certain energies that are easily distinguishable at large distances from disincarnate ones, one has to wonder, how exactly does the soul 'look' for different energy signatures? If it's part of the same 'poking-with-tentacle' sensing that we usually use, then you have to first feel the general traces of that energy before you can go look for the source. In that case, does astral physics allow for them to spread normally? Or is it like a drop of blood in water - something which will dilute out and become indistinguishable from the background? And that of course brings us to the next point - does the same 'resolution' gain in astral senses that amps give increase one's ability to pick up on dilute energy around them and/or figure out where that energy is coming from? Because if it does, then yes, it should be just as easy, but if not, then distance and ease of finding stuff aren't friends. Of course, I'm sure that if that IS a problem, the Omnis have found a way around it. No one here's really mentioned having difficulty in finding things at long distances...thought that doesn't really confirm my guess.

You should simply be able to ask yourself to find another planet where beings incarnate. I've found that another way of finding someone if you don't know them or anyone who does, is examining an effect that has been caused fully or in part by them and asking yourself to go to the person you are looking for. I'm sure there are several other ways to do it.

Surely when someone sees that kind of implication in their ethical theorizing, and it bothers them, a refining is called for? I remember running into this particular issue a few years ago. To me the resolution lies in recognizing that a large part of what's bad for an entity has to do with how much it can suffer from the event, and that there's something of a logarithmic curve relation between the suffering an entity experiences and how much of an ethical obligation one has not to harm it.

Not necessarily, apparently animals have souls as well though less developed, that doesn't stop people from eating them. There are many very intelligent animals such as dolphins (as well as other sea mammals), horses, monkeys, elephants etc. and all of these animals are eaten regularly in one country or another. We could be just another dumb animal to beings that are capable of space travel, though I hope they would have a healthy respect for sentient life by that point even if we haven't, for our sake. The amount of suffering a being endures is determined by the amount of pain they can physically be aware of and the way that they are killed, though fish don't feel pain exactly like we do, it's all relative. I'd rather have free range organically fed animals but that's more for health purposes, I don't plan to stop eating other animals anytime soon. What about you? :wink:

Azazen wrote:My hypothesis is something along the lines of there needing to be certain physical qualities in a body for the soul mechanisms to be attached to it.


Any chance you want to discuss what you think those are? Any specific ideas, or is it just a general hypothesis?


No, it looks like I wasn't entirely correct anyway. Though I do plan to look into the mechanisms that allow beings to be connected to the physical body it seems it's already been explained in other threads under the term "astral biology".
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Postby Psychokinetic Wannabe » Fri Mar 26, 2010 11:22 am

My main problem with asking yourself is that you're just basically saying "Inner, I want to find _____. Make it happen." Which is great when you already have the sensory ability to find the target, just don't consciously keep tabs on it. But if you or your inner just simply can't find the thing you're looking for, either due to distance considerations or other reasons, then you're getting nowhere.

At least that's my guess on how 'asking yourself' ultimately resolves. It depends on your exact thought processes as to whether or not that's the case.

Azazen wrote:Not necessarily, apparently animals have souls as well though less developed, that doesn't stop people from eating them. There are many very intelligent animals such as dolphins (as well as other sea mammals), horses, monkeys, elephants etc. and all of these animals are eaten regularly in one country or another.

I don't really see how that doesn't work with what I said. The reality of the situation is such, yes. And my point still stands that animals like the ones you listed deserve better standards of treatment by merit of being able to appreciate their own suffering otherwise, than, say, plants or fungii. But of course, that's another reason I hope to someday get a better grasp of soul psychology. My conception of what animals / life-forms can experiences what degrees of suffering are basically guesses combined with the marginal research humanity has done in that so far. Understanding how different souls work/think/feel would be rather relevant to whether or not my current ethical principles apply at all or not.

Azazen wrote:We could be just another dumb animal to beings that are capable of space travel, though I hope they would have a healthy respect for sentient life by that point even if we haven't, for our sake. The amount of suffering a being endures is determined by the amount of pain they can physically be aware of and the way that they are killed, though fish don't feel pain exactly like we do, it's all relative.

I would like to modify that - the amount of suffering includes the amount of 'negative' psychological phenomena the entity experiences. Negative in the sense that they are distressing/unpleasant to the entity feeling them. This in turn is what I think justifies my argument of a logarithmic curve. As far as I know, a slime mold doesn't 'feel' pain, or any emotions. My guess is if it's controlled by something like a soul, that soul is not so well developed that it can have experiences in the sense that we think of them. (Again, something I'm keeping as just a working guess until I get sensitive enough to look into it without being unsure if I'm AOLing or not). But once you start getting into actual thinking and/or feeling entities, the circumstances have to get progressively more severe before it's ethically acceptable to inflict X suffering or Y harm to an entity. So the above about people eating the more intelligent of animals (by the way, pigs, and chickens when raised in the wild, are very intelligent animals as well. So are octupi - just saying for the sake of any reader of this that wasn't aware - though ideally said readers would go do some research on this on their own instead of taking my word for it) doesn't really negate what I'm saying. For every given case of it, either it's ethically wrong by my standards, or it's ethically justified (just barely) by a combination of the need to survive and cultural/social/physical circumstances that make eating the animal the only feasible approach to surviving. (Even here my ethics have other ideas weaving into them. There's deserving to survive, which is it's own abstract scale, but at the same time not deserving to survive doesn't necessarily mean anything else has the right to kill you or you don't have the right to keep getting food - again, barring other circumstances - it gets pretty intricate; but the simplified version aforementioned is good enough for this case.)

I think, given what I learned from Omni so far about inners, etc, I need to start working considerations of what that particular soul is trying to learn into my ethics. Ultimately it's the same principles as what guides my ethics over-all, just adds another layer to every situation, but anyway, whether or not the animal's soul is actually trying to learn something in this life, and whether or not it's ready to have it's incarnate body killed, would take a role in an 'ideal' situation where animal eating is concerned. But of course there's rarely going to be that kind of opportunity, so like anything else you go with the most ethical of available alternatives.

Honestly, I'd prefer (though I still currently eat animals, certainly) synthesized nutrition entirely independent of actual animals, whenever that becomes feasible and economically viable. Or some mechanism for sustaining the body through hooking in some new peaces to the overlay between the astral and physical bodies, and then getting power tethers to those. *Shrug* That's pretty far in the 'theoretical' ideas though, and I don't know if there's something I'm missing which would make this completely energy inefficient. I don't really mind people eating animals right now though, because it's almost a necessity in keeping a healthy body in this world.

Azazen wrote:No, it looks like I wasn't entirely correct anyway. Though I do plan to look into the mechanisms that allow beings to be connected to the physical body it seems it's already been explained in other threads under the term "astral biology".

Well, unless I missed a page of that threat (I meant 'thread' - I'm sure most people figured out what I meant, but you never know, so I figured I'd edit this in), I didn't see an explanation of the sort of depth I'm going for, but k. One of the reasons I asked, other than just for the sake of intelligent discussion and furthering knowledge, was because the context of this discussion made me think that it was possible that your hypothesis had to do with whether or not animals had souls or not - or rather with your working guess that they did not.

Anyway, I personally think that the actual control by the soul is at a very minute, molecular/atomic/sub-atomic level. But that's honestly just a guess because that's the only place where I can fit it in without taking a wrecking ball to some chunk of my understanding of biology as a whole. I might post a thread here about my general contemplations about where and how the soul and physical body interact, trying to get an exchange of ideas going, but that's not fully fleshed out in my mind yet.
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Postby Azazen » Mon Mar 29, 2010 4:14 pm

Hi, I've come up with a few more questions I'd like to ask. I apologize if these seem a little too random but such is life.

I've recently come across some devices that have tetrahedron and octahedron shapes, they also have sigils imprinted on the sides. Do you know of anything specifically like this and if so could you give some type of description or further information?

For some reason I imagine that different "species" or groups will come up with different types of tech, and I was wondering if the devices I'm describing were generally made by everyone or if they're mainly used by anything specific. When I say species I mean to differentiate Angels, Demons, and other things don't seem quite human, though I'm starting to think angels and demons are the same type of beings and are simply on different sides and whatnot.

I'm not sure how to put this. When learning to travel to what I think omni refers to as higher realm layers, what's the best way to learn to understand them? Learning to travel to them is fine but I find after what I think is the "mental" sphere I don't understand hardly anything, and it seems like I can only use skills that I've learned in the astral, but being in a place higher like that I imagine you should be able to do things a little differently and more efficiently etc. My question would be what's the best way to learn how to understand the higher realms and use that understanding to your advantage?

If you would rather answer these questions in PM that's fine, to me these seem tame compared to some of the other questions I have but now that I'm reading them some of the answers I'm looking for may be more than you're willing to post on the public forum.




To Psychokinetic Wannabe:

I apologize for taking this long to respond but I've found that we either agree or have ethical differences which there is hardly any point in arguing over. :P I meant that I feel animals should only be killed for food, self defense, or if their overpopulation is threatening an ecosystem (there are always exceptions and I'm sure I'm leaving some out). In which cases it should always be done in the most quick and painless manner possible. I do like the idea of free range animal farms since it seems they would enjoy their lives more, of course I'm a little bit of a hypocrite in that sense as I don't even buy that way most of the time.
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Postby Psychokinetic Wannabe » Mon Mar 29, 2010 10:40 pm

No worries Azazen. I do think ethical debates, when there are differences, are something which should be had, but when one side is unlikely to influence the other... Anyway, I don't really see too much disagreement anyway. We're more or less in agreement, with the only exceptions being rather minor and nuanced points.

In the meantime, I look forward to seeing what answers LordArt has to these. I would hazard a guess, but I might be significantly off. The only thing constructive I could add with my current knowledge is that the shapes and sigils might be the results of how your own mind presented the sensory data to you, or might be the result of the maker thinking that that shape should make it do something, or just thinking about it that way. So it might not be something that actually has to do with the approach to / type of tech, but rather just the result of the maker's thought processes.
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Postby Thill » Mon Sep 13, 2010 9:20 am

Good day to everybody , For starters I would like to apologize for resurrecting an old thread , but it seemed to me, that since somebody brought up a similar question before in this topic , there is little reason to start a new thread just for this.

My question would be , if there is a way to check (and be fairly accurate ) if somebody has been locked ? I am not interested (at this point ) in knowing "who" or "why" , just in a method to confirm or deny the existence of a lock on somebody.
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