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Underground > Temple >

Why not fight evil this Christmas?

  
  

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penitentvandal
20:55 / 05.12.03
Okay. This is kind of a difficult thing to admit to, and it will probably, at times, sound vaguley apocaloidish, but there ya go. I have been having something of an ongoing weird experience lately, and I could use a spot of assistance in sorting it out. Okay? Okay. Here goes.

During the summer, as part of my ongoing metafictional magic malarkey, I spent some time trying to, well, unify the various fictions I've used for magical and semi-magical purposes: a couple of story-universes I'd created, plus aspects of my velvetvandal identity, etc. It all went quite well, but as it developed, one godform seemed to be taking on more and more power and importance. I call this godform the Cartesian: chessy Neil Gaiman rip-off I know, but it seems to like it. What I realised as I went about my weaving was that all the villains in my little story-universes were essentially aspects of this godform. This led to me creating a kind of uber-origin story for it, tying all their separate origins together in a feat of epic retconning.

This may, in retrospect, have been a bit of a mistake.

I became obsessed with this Cartesian godform, to the extent that it became unhealthy. As you might guess from the name, the Cartesian represents reason, scientistic dogma, 'fact', stasis, etc. As I'm a pretty fiction-loving guy, I quite frankly began to feel myself harassed by the cunt. But this didn't stop me going deeper in my obsession, devoting more energy to the bastard thing.

Before going any further, you need to know a little about the nature of this beast. This bit will definitely sound apocaloidy, but bear with me. The Cartesian is the embodiment of the concept of zero - Absolute Zero. It represents a world where nothing grows or changes, where all things are fixed. A world where physical processes take place, but there is no potential, no chance, no luck, no scope for fate or faith or magic. It is, essentially, a Big Fat Fucking Quimper, only worse. And now, the bad news.

During the past week I've undergone a series of experiences which succeeded in banishing this godform from my everyday consciousness. Which is probably a good thing, except I have an uneasy feeling that in banishing it I have, in fact, released it. Which might not be a good thing, because of what I think it wants to do.

To be an aspect of zero, the Cartesian must, of course, technically be a division of zero, which is, mathematically speaking, impossible - although dividing by zero is, in fact, required for forms of Newtonian calculus and so, in a way, a lot of our maths is actually based on this impossibility. Nevertheless (and if anyone can point out a flaw in my poets' math map of this thing I'll be grateful, largely because it'll help me fuck up the bastard), the fact remains that this makes the Cartesian, avatar of rationalism, essentially irrational, and therefore unable to manifest in reality. So far, so good. However, I think manifesting as reality is something it might be able to do, due to the peculiar mathematical relationship between the concepts of zero and infinity.

Jesus, I am sounding like a fucking apocaloid now. 'Congratulations, velvetvandal, you have become schizophrenic.' But I've gone this far now, so bear with me.

I think the godform wants to make a go of manifesting around Christmas - basically because that's the nearest point of the common ritual year when there'll be enough, ahem, 'birth vibes' in the air to support its manifestation. I, of course, have a plan to kick in the fucker, but I need your help to run interference. Here's how I see it going down:

1) The Cartesian is a mathematical god - that means it works by manipulating probabilities. What it has to do to manifest is to create - for one second of Planck time, because that's all it needs - a situation where zero equals one - a situation where all possibilties are non-zero; indeed, where all probabilities are certainties. What it would then do at this point is select a future in which it becomes the known universe - a universe devoid of change, hope, growth, etc etc. Now, then...

2) This, of course, makes it uniquely vulnerable during this time, because for that one second of Planck time, any other possibility has an equal chance of manifesting. What it relies on, essentially, is that only it will be projecting any deliberately willed possibilities into the ether for one picosecond around midnight on christmas eve. I, obviously, will be doing exactly this, using a sigil roughly along the lines of 'it is my will that this annoying rogue godform get fucked in the ass and start behaving itself', but as a bit of backup fuckery, what I want you to do is this:

3) At midnight on the 24th - and I'm aware that we need to debate exactly what, to a godform like, this, would constitute midnight on 24/12/03 - atomic clock? Local time? GMT? - and we will have that discussion - I want you to visualise, or just look at, a simple sigil representing your desire. You do not have to charge it - remember, this is a picosecond's worth of time we're talking about, if that. You need to just get a flash glimpse of the sigil, which should represent any desire you have. The important thing is not what you enchant for, but the fact that you will, essentially, be tying up the probability strings while the godform makes its play. Think of it as a form of cosmic mailbombing. You should make your own decisions about the degree of probability of your sigil - they should all probably be non-certainties, but some of you may want to go for outlandish ones, others for more sensible ideas. In any case, try to make them desires that, in some way, enhance the level of fun chaos in the world. While all this happens, I shall be springing my godform trap which, since I created the fucker as my archnemesis, should have a fairly high probability of success (due to the well-known law of comic book physics which states that the hero always defeats his archnemesis at the last possible minute).

Good Lord, looking over this thing just seems mad. I'm asking you to basically fire sigils into the void at midnight on chrimbo eve to help defeat some kind of ludicrous big bad godform I've summoned up before it makes the world terminally boring. But then again, what's to be lost? Either I've gone totally, 100 (rather than 85)% nuts, in which case all I'm asking is that you visualise a sigil at midnight on Christmas Eve, which shouldn't take much effort, and therefore doesn't matter, or I'm onto something in which case it would probably be a good idea to give it a go anyway. In any case a pop at the forces of stasis is always worth a go, and there is always the probability that - due to the effects of the 'everything is possible' moment involved in this - any sigil you visualise has a better than average chance of working. Maybe. I dunno, I'm just trying to sort this thing out - it could, in actual fact, constitute nothing more apocalyptic than a threat to my personal psychocosm, but it'd be nice to have the help. If nothing else, it's helped me explore my freaky apocaloid side.

Anyway, enough nonsense. Either (a) tell me I have gone nuts, or (b) sort yourself out with a sigil for the big moment, but give me a hand here. I'm dealing with a self-created godform which seems to have gone a bit rogue on me and, while it may not exactly be hard and macho and Bond-like, it'd be nice to have some help in capping the fucker. Thanks.
 
 
ciarconn
00:22 / 06.12.03
Jeez...
You and me share something...
In my personal mythologies, the "bad guy" is Nullity, the concept of lack of creativity, life, love. It's stiffness and stability. (and it would be interesting to see if somebody else shares this)
Nullity is represented mainly (but not only) by the men in black, the keepers of status quo.
Recently (the last month or two) I have been considering seriously to go over the dark side (I use to think myself as one of the "good guys"). One of my avatars/parapersona in my myths went over to the men in black.
I am going through a time of changes and decisions.
So, as long as I manage to stay on the Barbelith side of the moon...
I'm interested to co-participate in your project. I'm trying to believe again.
Just explain me the matter of the timing clearly, please.
 
 
--
03:03 / 06.12.03
Oddly enough, I've been working on a book for about a year now where I, too, became obsessed with the main villian, who I came to realize represented my dark side. President Arthur Loveshack. A sadistic world leader who wants to summon Yaldabaoth the Shit Lion into our world with the help of the Brotherhood of the Snake. I should say Loveshack visually is just a rip-off of the Smiler, though in personality he's more a mix of Hitler, the Marquis De Sade and Peter Sotos. Writing Loveshack's character was a good way for me to purge qliphoptic/control/misogny fantasies that had been obsessing me for some time (as I am basically very liberal, feminist, and anti-control).

Having said that, I don't worry about Loveshack coming into this world. Probably because he's already in the Whitehouse as it is.
 
 
Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown
03:05 / 06.12.03
Velvetvandal, a thought occurs to me, perhaps based on my innate enmity with mathematics. Please bare with me if I ramble a bit.

The Cartesian is a mathematical god. I'm assuming then that its geometric principles will manifest with a perfect number of sides, as you mentioned which is once again 0. Thus it exists in a form that we can comprehend. It probably works upon relativly Euclidean lines, since non-Euclidian is contrary to the status quo, I'd figure.

Ergo, and I may be totally wrong here, it is ALWAYS vulnerable, becuase it exists in a defined state that, while outside reality, is still completly definable. If its number is 0 then its small, probably about the size of the space between dimensions. Therefore, it is technically nowhere. Something that exists nowhere and exists along the lines of Euclidean geometry, judging by what I understand of it, cannot exist.

To further compound the non-status quo paradox of its existance, it was created from your mind. No matter what it embodied it is still no more powerful than the sum total of the people that created it. That's one person: you. Ergo it can be no more powerful than you are, becuase no matter how many stories have been tied into it has only a single being generating belief for it. That's what makes gods powerful: belief.

To you it has become the archetype of a given sort of fictional villain. It basically became a personal archetype for you. The fact that it had to exist in your head until you booted it out means that it is far less powerful than would originally be thought because it was bound by your will, and was then hurled out by it. Thus how can it be more powerful that the person who created, imprisoned, bound, and exorcised it?

Once it left your head it would have to find a form to take, but once again we return to the fact that it represents 0 and thus can take no form, but rather has to exist in a way that is directly counter and paradoxial to its nature. Ergo it becomes an ouroboros; anything it tries will be counter to the nature it exists to preserve, causing it to lash back upon itself.
 
 
penitentvandal
10:38 / 06.12.03
Hmm, some interesting ideas there. Slightly buoyed up by the fact that nobody so far has told me I'm nuts (which is fair enough because I do that roughly 46.73% of the time anyway - by comparison I tell myself I'm sane 33.27% of the time, and the remaining 20% of the time I tell myself I'm sexy and interesting, though this tends to reinforce the belief that I'm nuts whenever I try to act on said notion).

I'll deal with the points one by one.

Ciarconn - it is interesting that we do share the same conceptualized big bad, though I'd guess that as Invisibles readin' chaos magic types there are probably a lot of people here who'd consider godforms representing stasis to be eeeeeeeevil! But it is still interesting. Nullity sounds slightly cooler than the Cartesian, who, for some reason, I always imagine as manifesting in human form as a scary guy with a beard - probably because any godform with a supervillain name like that would obviously choose the most cheesy avatar possible. It's a wonder the thing doesn't wax its moustache and tie damsels to railway tracks, really. As to timing...I'm currently leaning towards midnight GMT as the time it'd manifest; something to do with Greenwich's connection to science and reason; and also, Greenwich Mean Time is, I believe, the mid-point in terms of global time zones - time in other countries is calculated by how far they are away from Greenwich in either direction, iirc. So it seems likely that, being such a logical fellow, Mr C would pick that time-scale to introduce himself. Also, zero is basically the mid-point between the positive and negative numbers, hence another Greenwich connection.

Sypha - Arthur Loveshack sounds a lot more interesting than Jehovah Pervert Wanker Bosch Jnr. It's always good to rip on Peter Sotos, as well: if any man in the world deserves to be repeatedly anally violated by a steroid-crazed, AIDS-infected gorrilla, it's that fucker.

Bard - interesting mathematical speculations there, probably a lot more on the ball than mine, despite your enmity (I do really wish, though, that a really mathematically-inclined magician could swing by here and just explain a really easy way to off this thing, preferably involving trapping it in a self-repeating equation, which'd be kinda cool).

Thus how can it be more powerful that the person who created, imprisoned, bound, and exorcised it?

Well, that's the rub. Is it less powerful than moi because it emerged from my subconscious, or is it more powerful because of the grand archetypal forces it represents? I'd like to believe the former, but I don't want to take my chances on it. Having said that, part of me does think it the height of egotism to imagine that a self-generated godform in my personal pantheon could wreak much havoc on the world. Even if it could only make my life, or at most those of my immediate circle, more boring, I still think it worth taking a pop at.

If it is , as you say, always vulnerable, and if, furthermore, it relies on my belief to sustain it, then the whole christmas eve thing isn't necessary - as long as I can convince myself to believe sufficiently that it'd try manifesting at any time, it would try to do so at that time. Which is an interesting thought, coz it'd stop the thing putting a crimp in my partying schedule. Hmm.

And, if you're on the money about the basic irrationality at the core of the thing - something I've been trying to tease out myself - it may well be that the best way to put a stop to this rogue deity would be to use its own basic irrationality against it: force it to become aware of the fact that it's completely irrational, and watch it buckle under from there. Hmmm. Again, maybe a completely irrational, self-defeating equation would be a useful sigil focus here.

Of course, were one to do this, one would have to summon the thing back first, but deliberately this time (when the Cartesian first emerged, it wasn't something I consciously willed - it just seemed to keep taking over bits of my story-universes until it was the villain in all of them). Hmmm. Spot of deicide on the cards, methinks...

I'm glad I actually overcame my fear of embarassment and posted this thing on here. Getting other peoples' perspectives has been well helpful in forming a strategy; I now feel a bit more confident in tackling the fucker, instead of sitting around and playing a game of magical siege warfare until Xmas Eve. And if all else fails, I can still rely on the last minute Christmas Eve trap plan, but hopefully I won't have to. I promise, however, that the next godform I create will be a lovey-dovey new age crystal-hugging whale-saver, instead of all this baroque 'concept of nothingness' malarkey. Scouts' honour. Honest. Really.
 
 
KnofC
13:09 / 06.12.03
if you need a mathematical trap, then theres a thing known as superstring theory. it was one of the attempts made by physisists to unite the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics to create a grand unified theory

now, this is all theoretical, various people have proved it to exist through complex mathematics (ie. pure logic), on the flip side to this many physisists don't like the theory for that very reason. you can't prove it using any experiment, and so it isn't 'physics' per say. you have to either believe it, or not.

so here we have the makings of a perfect trap, something that exists in logic, but has no actual physical truth.

to make things even better, string theory also states that there are a number of extra dimensions on top of the three space, and one time dimension we inhabit. these extra dimensions exist at every point in space, but curl in upon themselves and have no direct effect upon our reality.

i'm thinking that if you can force the godform into one of these extra little bits of reality, then he would be trapped in an endless looped dimension, with no way to get out.

thers the crux, i'm not sure how you would go about accomplishing this.

but there you go. i feel this would be a useful tool in this instance:
first, theres a large body of belife in the scientific community
second, it is a thing purely born of logic
third, it has no actual physically defined form

so, a beliefe structure to support a logically defined reality with no way to physically prove it. a perfect trap for a logically relient thought form with no proof to its existence.

i hope thats some help, i'll try to expound upon any details you would like, but i don't know how much sense it will make!
 
 
Perfect Tommy
19:45 / 06.12.03
I do really wish, though, that a really mathematically-inclined magician could swing by here and just explain a really easy way to off this thing...

Hi there!

I'm only midway through my undergraduate degree, but I still call myself a mathematician, 'cause I think it's a pretty potent-sounding noun.

First, I'm very interested in launching a sigil at the time you're describing; I've only just started refining my Big Plans (which I can summarize as "Ph.D. or bust!"), and I would really like to work out a good initiation to give some good fortune to the journey--kind of the equivalent of the sigil GM launched on a bungee jump before writing the Invisibles. Your sigil involved in keeping back the non-creative idea of math could dovetail very nicely with that. (It's a sigil I could use some help on... I might start a thread on that later.)

KnofC's idea of using superstring theory is intriguing, but to me, superstring theory is physics, using math, rather than being pure math simply because there aren't experiments present. Einstein worked out general and special relativity mathematically, after all--that's the split between theoretical and experimental physics. Additionally, there's the risk that... well... what if superstring theory is eventually proven correct? Then you've fed the Cartesian a bizarre mathematical construct that does have an objective validity, and he strolls into the back door of spacetime while eleven-dimensional violins* play a death march.

I've got two possible ideas. Your first ally is Kurt Godel (with umlauts on the 'o'). Godel proved that any sufficiently powerful 'formal system' (which, in short, is a system for proving statements of number theory in a very step-by-step, mechanical way) will have statements which cannot be proved to be either true or false. (Godel's masterstroke was figuring out how to represent statements about number theory as numbers, and then write the equivalent of the statement, "This statement of number theory has no proof"--if it's true it's unprovable, and if it's false it's proved true.) If the formal system in question doesn't have these kinds of statements, then it isn't powerful enough to say anything interesting about number theory.

So, either Cartesian is inconsistent, which is anathema to his nature and he vanishes in a puff of logic, or he's a big wimp.

There's a good chance I fouled up the explanation a bit, and you probably want to research on your own rather than take my word for it, so you might want to check out Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter--it's dense, but it is written for non-mathematicians on the subject of self-reference and symbols and all sorts of stuff. Another one to check out might be Godel's Proof (I forget the authors), which is specifically an explanation of Godel's Theorem for laypeople.

The other idea I had was inspired by your description that he was waiting for a moment when 1 was equal to 0. I'm going to show you something that I know has been proven wrong somehow, but I don't know how it's been proven wrong--I'll look around for it later but maybe you can find it online somewhere.

0 = 0 [True statement]
0 = 1+(-1) [Also true]
0 = 1+(-1) + 1+(-1) + 1+(-1) + ... [Expanded to an infinite series]
0 = 1 + (-1+1) + (-1+1) + ... [Rearranged the grouping symbols]
0 = 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + ...
0 = 1 [???????]

This was used as a mathematical proof that God exists (something out of nothing) in I-don't-know-what century. There's a flaw in that reasoning, but I don't know what it is (Lurid might). So maybe you can find out what is wrong and use that disproof as a weapon. It's less exciting and general than Godel's Theorem, but it's also more specific to something that you said.

Keep us posted, yeah?



* - See, 'cause they're super-strings. Super... strings... erm.
 
 
Dances with Gophers
20:06 / 06.12.03
Since you created this entity through fiction you could fictionalise trapping this entity then absorbing and transforming the energy as part of your working.

I have a vague memory that Dion Fortune said something about this in her book psychic self defence.
 
 
KnofC
21:17 / 06.12.03
well, velvet, if you are gonna run with using logic to trap your foe, then i suggest that you listen to perfect. he's crazy enough to want to do a Phd. in maths, and as such, is far more qualified for this kinda thing.

he also raises an interesting point with the whole 0=1 and the proof of god. i agree that if you can find out how it was disproved, you may well find your answer.
 
 
elmo oxygen
21:24 / 06.12.03
The Cartesian sounds like Zeno of Elea to me, as some sort of mathematic tyrant attempting to enforce the notion that motion and change are impossible. It might be a connection to explore, and possibly exploit for flaws. (Has anyone decidedly solved those damn motion paradoxes yet?)

Which brings me back to GEB and the wonderful Hofstadter stuff. Perfect Tommy already mentioned Godel's Theorem, which I think you could use profitably against your Cartesian. If you can weild with confidence the proven assertion that mathematics is neither complete, nor consistent, nor decidable, then I think you'll be fine.

If you're going to use this Godelian strategy, then I'd recommend reading up on the work Alan Turing did on a related problem. Turing's approach was to image a machine that would automatically perform mathematical functions in binary on a paper tape of infinite length divided into squares. The operations performed by the mechanical "head" were limited to (1) move left on the tape (2) move right on the tape (3) read the contents of the current square and (4) change the contents of the square (from 1 to 0, from 0 to 1). Turing proved that such a machine, if asked to perform certain mathematical functions, would never come to rest; therefore, some mathematical questions could not be 'decided.' (This was also the precursor to the modern computer, wherein both data and programs are stored side-by-side in the same medium. Also, Turing's theories on artificial intelligence should be interesting for a magician... anyway, I digress.)

Anyway, happy hunting --

elmo "mme. tortue" oxygen
 
 
penitentvandal
22:33 / 06.12.03
I'll check out Godel. His theorem (expressed mathematically) might be just the mathematical sigil I was looking for - I was toying with the idea that I could just write an equation dividing, squaring, factoring, multiplying, etc etc zero until the irrationality caused the godform to dissipate, but proving that he's either inconsistent or wussy might be better.

Incidentally, I'm beginning to think the actual secret purpose of the Cartesian was to force me, with my logomantic bias, to learn something about maths in order to defeat it - a Morrison-esque innoculation type opponent - I find maths scary, ergo reality decides to innoculate me against it by causing me to come across a mathematical big nasty. Well, maybe.

Xeno of Elea - I'd completely forgotten about him! God, yes, the Cartesian does sound a lot like him. I remember him from my interest in philosophy - he was the guy who proved that Achilles couldn't outrun a tortoise with a head-start, wasn't he? And thus reasoned that nothing in the universe moved. Philosophers are like that...

And the 1=0 thing; I actually came across that during my researches into the quirky nature of zero while investigating the Cartesian. It does depend on doing something slightly dishonest with mathematics, but it can theoretically be 'proved'. The author uses it to prove, for example, that Winston Churchill is a carrot (nothing equals one, one equals nothing, Churchill has one head ergo he has no head, he has no leafy top ergo he has one leafy top, he has two arms, two is one plus one, one equals zero, ergo he has no arms, and so on in a kind of mathematical equivalent of the 'find the lady' game). As to proving the existence of God, I suppose you could go either way with the 1=0 proof: either God exists, which means he doesn't exist, or he doesn't exist which means he exists, and round and round and round. The more familiar mathematical proof of God's existence is Pascal's wager, where, iirc, Pascal proposed that it is a more sensible thing to have faith in God than not because if you don't believe and you're right you derive no benefit, whereas if you don't believe and you're wrong you burn in hell. I'm paraphrasing wildly there; there's a lot more detail to it, and it involves the concept of infinity pretty deeply - I'll come back to it in the morning.

Phew. Y'know, if this thing is supposed to be a math-innoculation, I reckon it's working...
 
 
elmo oxygen
23:20 / 06.12.03
vv:

Here's a link to a recent academic paper that proposes a solution to Zeno's paradoxes. It includes a pretty good review of the variations of the motion paradox. The solution (which I think bears relevance to a specific part of your initial post, but I'll get to that) has to do with the illusion not of motion, but rather the illusion that time can be broken down into distrete 'moments' or 'instants.' To wit (from the paper):

...[A]lthough it is generally not realized, in all cases a time indicates an interval of time, rather than a precise static instant in time at which the relative position of a body in relative motion or a specific physical magnitude [e.g. velocity, acceleration, etc] would theoretically be precisely determined. For example, if two separate events are measured to take place at either 1 hour or 10.00 seconds, these two values indicate the events occurred during the time intervals of 1 and 1.999999... hours and 10.00 and 10.0099999... seconds, respectively. If a time measurement is made smaller and more accurate, the value comes closer to an accurate measurement of an interval in time and the corresponding parameter and boundary of a specific physical physical magnitudes potential measurement during that interval, whether it be relative position, momentum, energy, or other. Regardless of how small and accurate the value is made however, it cannot indicate a precise static instant in time at which a value would theoretically be precisely determined, because there is not a precise static instant in time underlying a dynamical physical process."

Compare this to your explanation of how the Cartesian "works" --

What it has to do to manifest is to create - for one second of Planck time, because that's all it needs - a situation where zero equals one - a situation where all possibilties are non-zero; indeed, where all probabilities are certainties.

Could it also be the case that Planck time, infinitessimal as it (at 10^(-43) seconds), is not an 'instant' but is a period over which dynamic changes MUST occur? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting what you meant to express with Planck time, but I though the connection was intriguing.
 
 
Unicornius
23:28 / 06.12.03
Why dont you try Lewis Carroll's "What the tortoise said to Achilles"?
Or better yet, use a 5th dimensional imp like mxyzptlk or ylzkz to opposse it.

NO wait this is a better idea, create a (I'm assuming that The Cartesian is male) female antagonist. If he is all order and mathematics, make her an artist, someone so beautiful he can't concuptualize in mathematical terems, who is constantly reminding him that he is too uptight and boring. Someone who can teach him how to dance. She could be a christmas present. You know a "genie in a bottle". Remember velvet opossites attract.

Or something like a Pinky to your Cartesian "The brain". Create a sidekick that is constantly thwarting his plans all in good faith.

And if everything else fails beat the crap out of that bastard as every teen mathematician are beaten everyday at school. Yes, create a "ultimate mathematics nullifier" (Kirby power dots included). Just think about it. The cartesian is Darkseid, all order and discipline.
Send Orion with the astro force against him or Green Arrow and the atom (ok I've been re-readig those JLA back issues).

My last suggestion send Captain Kirk. After all he always got the better part out of Spock, right?.

Hope this helps a bit.
 
 
penitentvandal
11:59 / 07.12.03
Elmo - that's a very good point about time. To be honest, my conceptualization of the Cartesian is starting to look a bit dull and peasant-like in light of all these higher-level points.

Mohrandir - interesting that you mention the superheroes. One of my first reactions to the situation was to do a pathworking and summon most of the Morrison-era Justice League - well, Bats, Supes, GL, Flash, J'onn J'onnz, Wonder Woman, Steel and Plastic Man, anyway, no Orion, Metron or Barda, though - for assistance. Probably should have got Metron in there but I thought he was too tied into continuity, being only a member for that Mageddon storyline. Ho-hum.

Oddly enough the Cartesian already does have a female antagonist, in the form of one of the first fiction-magic godforms I created. They're opposites in a lot of ways; in her universe he manifests as an alchemist who became part of the Cartesian as part of an experiment going wrong, whereas she's essentially a renegade angel who spends too much time partying on earth; one's a human who becomes part of something demonic, the other an angel who gets too close to humanity. Funnily enough, she is very good at dancing.

And I had a dream with Pinky and the Brain in last night, as well. The Brain was dressed as Captain America. Make of that what you will.

Probably worth reviewing my initial ideas about this godform:

The Cartesian will obviously not try and manifest during one second of Planck time around midnight on Christmas Eve, GMT or otherwise, for the simple reason that, as Elmo points out, it can't really create a totally discrete instant of time. So this, presumably is not what it's planning.

Given that, then, what is it up to? Going back to basics is probably the best thing to do here. The Cartesian represents stasis, lack of change, mechanistic logic, scientism, fundamentalism, literalism, 'absolute truth': a world with no potential for change. This is Absolute Zero: the temperature at which nothing moves. The Cartesian is a kind of spiritual equivalent of Absolute Zero. Now, then.

Ansolute Zero, like divisions of zero, and so on, can never actually exist. Actually, if I remember correctly, there is one lab in the world where they have cooled some space to absolute zero, and funnily enough it's in Greenwich, but...I may be wrong about that. I'm not sure how they can do that, anyway: whatever they use to cool space to absolute zero still has atoms in it which are in motion and generating energy, thus pushing the temperature above absolute zero. So in the physical world, absolute zero cannot exist. Rather like zero itself.

Nevertheless, the idea of absolute zero, which is at least part of what the Cartesian seems to be, seems rather powerful and compelling. However, it occurs to me that even if the Cartesian wanted to reduce reality to an absolute zero state, it couldn't; because to do that requires changing something, and the Cartesian is the antithesis of change. It might be able to change things by influencing people to create favourable conditions and having them do the work, but it can't do anything itself; at least, not without reducing its power and/or making itself a lot more vulnerable to the kind of attack we've discussed here.

Given all that then...what would it be up to? Let's put ourselves in its shoes. We're the spiritual embodiment of absolute zero. We want to create a world of stasis, a world where everything is nice and in its place and never leaves its place. What would we do?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
17:06 / 07.12.03
velvetvandal: Dude. Breath. Now, let's have a look at the concept of absolute zero.

Absolute zero, in physics, is zero degrees Kelvin. Y'know how stuff shrinks as it gets colder, occupying less and less space? In theory, if you could take something and cool it right down to absolute zero, it would have zero mass: in a way, it would disappear. Tell that to this Cartesian shithead the next time he bothers you.

You may also want to arm yourself with some info on Absolute Zero (courtesy of the nice people at Wikipedia).
 
 
--
18:47 / 07.12.03
No offense, but reading this thread has made my head hurt.
 
 
Wombat
20:00 / 07.12.03
Pardon my ignorance.
But isn`t this thread feeding it?
 
 
elmo oxygen
23:11 / 07.12.03
I don't this thread has the same empowering effect on a spirit-form (however you wish to conceive it) as, say, the creative-obsessive energy required in writing a character such as the Cartesian. Nor does talking about it in a public discussion thread grant the Cartesian any more objective reality, I don't think. Although that's a topic that could warrant more discussion.

I think if we are 'feeding' the Cartesian, it's certainly not the same 'food' he's used to, certainly not the 'food' his momma used to make. And by his momma I naturally mean velvetvandal.
 
 
Quantum
10:38 / 08.12.03
Dude, more when I've read the thread properly, but two pence worth-
1) I have a set of anti-Cartesian memes I will detail to do it over, based on refutations of the meditations and internal inconsistencies.
2) Since you know when it will try and strike it's fucked. Set a trap in the aether for ten to midnight to zoom in on wherever it is in astral space and mess it up, like anti-viral software. Fire and forget, no problem.
I'll be back!
 
 
penitentvandal
15:57 / 08.12.03
Which would be good, except I don't really think, at this point, that it'd do anything as stupid as the midnight on christmas eve thing. Which is annoying: aren't supervillains supposed to use ridiculously cheesy plans to take over the world?

Indeed Mordant, anything at absolute zero would in theory have to have zero mass; something I forgot to mention when discussing the physical non-existence of AZ above.

As to feeding it - I've considered that this thread may be doing that, in that it's exposed the meme to a wider audience; on the other hand, it has given me a lot more ideas on what to do with this thing or what it wants. I currently have 2 theories:

1) The Cartesian itself, as a thought-form, isn't that fussed with me, personally; however, some aspect of my personality appears to have became obsessed with it, and it's this obsession I need to purge; difficult, as trying too hard to purge it would lend power to the obsession, while avoiding it would stress me out and lend it power still;

2) The Cartesian exists, as discussed before, as a sort of innoculation of mathematical, rationalist energy I have to get to grips with, perhaps as some way of reconciling the magickal/poetic side of myself with its rational/numeric nature;

3) The Cartesian is both of these things, and a big bad godform that wants to take over the world, and anything else that might be mentioned in this thread, due to the relationship between zero and infinity.

In some ways it reminds me of a black hole, which, if the obsession hypothesis is correct, is kind of worrying, given that nothing can actually escape from a black hole. On the other hand if it was a wormhole rather than a straightforward black hole...

Hmmm. An idea occurs. Pray excuse me.
 
 
Quantum
13:24 / 09.12.03
Nice idea, if it's what I think, let us know...

Having read the thread, I like the Godel strategy and the mathematical defences and the paradoxes- here's some more suggestions;

The mantra 'Logical possibility is not a ground for reasonable doubt' which refute's the Cartesian premise of discovering true knowledge at source.
The fundamental problem of mind/body dualism, that if they are seperate incommensurable things they can't interact- so a purely Cartesian mental entity would be unable to affect the material world no matter what. (Descartes believed the interaction occurred through the Pineal gland)

You could get a bigger zero to take it on- the Tarot Fool would laugh at it and wup it's newborn ass for example.

You could do a Ged and summon the fucker, and re-absorb it into yourself like a shadow, using it to boost your math ability and reconcile your clashing aspects. That's the way I'd do it.

It strikes me that New Year might be a likely time for it's attempt, following it's apocalyptically cheesy nature-
It's a wonder the thing doesn't wax its moustache and tie damsels to railway tracks, really
as the old year becomes the new.

I was also thinking maybe taking it on with math might not be best, as that would be playing it's game, but it could be a case of fighting fire with fire, difficult to say.
 
 
grant
14:29 / 09.12.03
1. Anybody know anything about DeCartes? The fellow who gives us the word "Cartesian"?

2. This part: a situation where all possibilties are non-zero; indeed, where all probabilities are certainties.
doesn't sound all that bad, really. All probabilities are certainties? Isn't that the implication of Schrodinger's Cat? The whole quantum parallel universes, all probabilities come to pass in a different quantum state, thing? Isn't that where we already live?

I always think of "cartesian" in terms of maps. Is this map trying to equal the territory? If it did, could we tell the difference?
 
 
Z. deScathach
14:44 / 09.12.03
I think that I agree with your second premise, that you've created a good old-fashioned demon here. Nothing wrong with that. My suggestion. Get a bunch of math material. Re-absorb the stodgy asshole back into yourself, and start studying the math. This godform can't hurt you inside, it can't take away your creativity, because it is cartesian, a pole of duality. It needs the dualistic relationship to your chaotic self. Study some form of mathematics, but try to study forms that stimulate your imagination, so that you can work within polarity, and NOT within duality. Work with mathematics applied to something that you find interesting. Working within duality will just strengthen it due to it's nature. You had mentioned earlier that it represents archetypical forces. Yeah, but if you think about it, getting rid of that achtypical pole on a universal level would be way disasterous. You're dealing with an avatar. Due to his Cartesian nature, he can't take over the world, because he is by nature, a form dependent on another archetype, the shadow of chaotic randomness. He depends on his shadow for his own existence. When you look at it, if science is right, the forces that he represents will win anyway, when the universe winds down to stasis, as opposed to he pure chaos of the energy ball at the beginning. Until then, you have inter-relation.
 
 
Quantum
15:36 / 09.12.03
1. Anybody know anything about DeCartes? The fellow who gives us the word "Cartesian"?
Yes, I know Descartes well, and can run you through his 'Meditations on first philosophy' if you like- ask me anything. (Did you know he had a friend, Marin Mersenne, who is credited by some with starting the movement toward Literalism which led to the discrediting of magick in the west?)
The thing is, it matters more how much velvetvandal (our esteemed fruit loop gnome) knows about him as the thoughtform is only called that, it might bear little or no relation to the man himself.
 
 
elmo oxygen
16:27 / 09.12.03
Descartes also had the hots for cross-eyed women. From here:

Descartes furthermore argued that men can be conditioned by experience to have specific emotional responses. He, for example, had been conditioned to be attracted to cross-eyed women because he had loved a cross-eyed playmate as a child. When he remembered this fact, however, he was able to rid himself of his passion. This insight was the basis for Descartes's defense of free will and of the mind's ability to control the body.

We all have our fetishes, I suppose. Intriguing.
 
 
grant
16:46 / 09.12.03
Interesting images there - the cross (as in eyes, and as in x-y axis) and the mind-over-body thing.

Can't believe I mispelled the fucker's name. I knew it looked wrong. Dammit!
 
 
EvskiG
21:41 / 09.12.03
He finally shed his obsession with cross-eyed prostitutes when he learned to put Descartes before the whores.
 
 
roach
06:12 / 11.12.03
With regards to the Descartes thing, it's probably worth noting that the core of the Meditations is that the Body and Mind must be seperate because "I" can conceive of "me" (the Mind) without a Body, one of the most famous philosophical examples of proving something concrete by pure intuition. However, its also put in front of first year philosophy students as an example of how even the greats make really stoopid mistakes in their logic. So, maybe the route to look down on is to find the contradiction inherent in the Cartesian?

Im not entirely convinced by the Godellian answer. Graham Priest, a very very clever logician, has done some work on reformulating an arithmetic using paraconsistent logics to allow for the Godel paradox to be solved within the system. There's a little bit on it at http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/entries/logic-paraconsistent/ for anyone who's interested.

The two possibilities Id suggest are as follows. Firstly, for 0 to alter its state to 1, a -1 has to be involved somewhere. 0=1+-1. I would imagine the Cartesian will have to shed that -1 to manifest as an existent entity. If the energy of the -1 can be harnessed before it dissapates, and squared to produce the infamous imaginary number i, then you have an energy/entity which is even further from common-sense that the Cartesian, and should be able to whup it's ass.

Secondly, as a possible attack to use before it tries to manifest. If we express the state of the Cartesian as a proposition, we get "The Cartesian is a non-existent entity". The fact that we have to use "is" in the proposition means that we cannot then assert that it is a non-existent entity, as it is something that "is", ie, it exists. So the above proposition is necessarily false, and as we know that the Cartesian is not an existent entity, there cant be a Cartesian. Tell it that, or remind the universe of that.

Of course, the above examples assume the Law of Non-Contradiction, that a proposition cannot be true and false at the same time. The Cartesian, as a mathematical entity, can presumably use any variety of logic/maths, and thus could simply by-pass these attacks by using a paraconsistent logic. However, if it decides to do this, then, although it can be true that it exists, it can also be, at the same time, false that it exists. If it bases itself on paraconsistent logics, then it would appear to follow that it will be much much weaker than it could otherwise be.

Im going for a Phd in Philosophy. Can you tell?

Roach
 
 
Perfect Tommy
07:50 / 11.12.03
The Cartesian, as a mathematical entity, can presumably use any variety of logic/maths, and thus could simply by-pass these attacks by using a paraconsistent logic.

I have to admit bias, here. Given the way velvetvandal described the Cartesian, and since I'm interested in learning fancy-schmancy hip math so that I can study how a bunch of pigment cells can make zebra stripes without top-down organization, or how a bunch of neurons following physical laws can make, well, this conversation, I have been working under the assumption that the Cartesian represents old-school inflexibility and determinism (which, to my frequent dismay, is the popular conception of what math must be like)—if he's modern math with all its flexibilities then I'd be arguing for inviting him in. =)

If my conception is correct, then paraconsistent logic or not, Godel's Theorem is still a fine weapon. Rather, it's a pair of weapons: present the Cartesian with the dilemma of incompleteness or inconsistency, and either way he becomes defeatable. (Incidentally, I am totally going to look into paraconsistent logic—my point is that allowing theorems to be inconsistent is a nifty idea for extending math knowledge, but it's a pretty hefty price to pay, and one that sounds unacceptable to this entity.)

However, I definitely dig your other ideas, roach. The -1 idea that even an aetheric entity needs to 'push off' something to get anywhere (Newton's laws as applied to sorcery) is delightfully physical. (-1 squared is 1, though... I think you meant take the square root of -1 to get i.)

Hm... the first known irrational number came about through the square root. Imaginary numbers come about through the square root. I wonder if you might be able to think of the square root function as 'fission for numbers', converting a number into destructive energy. If you like this idea, vv, then perhaps the square root of -1 would make a good symbol for your power source.
 
 
Quantum
08:11 / 11.12.03
"i think therefore I am" , heh, not as bad as 'Descartes before the whores'
 
 
Quantum
15:12 / 11.12.03
Hullo? VV? Have you imploded?! Transferred to Earth Prime? Wa'gwan?
 
 
cusm
15:42 / 11.12.03
Here's how you kill it:

In the beginning, there was nothing. Zero. But in naming the nothing "zero", it became something. It became one, but one that was zero. 0=1. The birth of the Cartesian.

But in recognizing that it is something (1), it sees the difference between something and nothing, and thus 1 and 0. 1!=0, and this paradox angers the Cartesian, for it is antithetical to its purpose of 0=1. Nothing can not be nothing if it is something, as demonstrated by its ability to perceive itself as nothing. (Insert Godel looping here.) But it seeks ever to be what it was: nothing. 0. To achieve nothing, the equation must balance, and it must discover the opposite of the Something that it has become in order to negate it to become nothing again.

What then is the opposite of itself? Looking at itself, it looks to 1, for one is the key to looking being the only point of reference to grasping the nothing. However, looking at 1 does not reveal the nature of 1, only that which it contains: 0. Caling 1 returns 0, for 1=0. 1 in this case is thus zero, so in contemplating the negation of 1 the Cartesian is tricked into contemplating the negation of 0. An answer is returned: The opposite of zero is infinity. So in an attempt to destroy 1, it released infinity, exploding into limitless possibilities with the sound of OM.

So in other words, you remind it that it exists, and thus can not be the zero it seeks, forcing it to resolve the paradox of self and implode. More a Kirk solution than a Batman one, but no less the job of a super hero
 
 
Perfect Tommy
16:44 / 11.12.03
Not 'negative zero', but 'opposite of zero'... subtle, cusm. I like it.
 
 
roach
16:59 / 11.12.03
I completely agree, Tommy. That's kind of what I was trying to show through the last paragraph, that any involvement of paraconsistency would weaken the Cartesian irrevocably. I dont know if a godform of zero would be specifically for or against any kind of maths, though, it would be irrelevent to him how zero was being used. However, I do apologise profusely for the "square/square root" confusion. Thats what happens when you post stuff like this after 36 hours of no-sleep.

Cusm's inspired an interesting point, though. As much as I dont think gemetric pseudo-maths is relevent for dealing with an entity, the idea of zero as non-existent raises a massive point about how powerful the Cartesian really is. Zero and nothing are not the same thing, not in any way shown by metaphysics. Nothing is an absence of anything, zero is an abstract entity possessing the properties "being a number" and certain other properties related to maths. Of course, every other number has the same kind of properties, to the same extent. There's absolutely nothing about the number zero in and of itself that makes it any more special than any other number. If this is the case, then all we need are the godforms of a load of rational numbers, who certainly wouldnt be interested in getting screwed over by the Cartesian, and get them to smack him upside the head.

See, I told them philosophy had a practical use

Roach
 
 
roach
17:02 / 11.12.03
sorry, that should be "gemetric pseudo-maths is relevent for dealing with an entity entirely concerned with pure maths"

Still havent slept

Lets see how long I can keep this up
 
  

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