THE GREAT MOCKERY, PART 3, or 'Existential Idealism'

Hello all!

I hope you’re doing well. Anything happen over the week. Like, buying a book? (wink-wink, hard nudge). Don’t know about you, but Arkansas weather is cycling through all four seasons every other day now. The weather’s gotten wilder since I was a kid. Crazy to think that. First things first, I’ll get the glossary of terms up before we get to the main post. The following is boring paperwork, scroll down to THE ACTUAL POST STARTS HERE for the main body.

Make sure you have the wikis and Lexicanum up and running, too.

Codes Used so Far:

--‘James Morkshop’ or JM (Mork and Mindy)

--‘Battles of Fantastical Nature involving Hammers used for Warfare’ [BFNHW]

--‘Hammers 40.0’ or H-40.0, the knock-off variety of WD-40.

--‘there’s no Right and Wrong, only Perspectives and Motives’; or, NRWOPM

--‘Ologies’—my shorthand for ‘Philosophy, Theology, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Cosmology, etc.’

--Existential Idealism, the opening topic of this post!

Except not yet, I have to clarify a few things. When I was doing research, I was surprised to learn from news- and fan-based Youtube channels that JM and H-40.0 are being put under public pressure by [UNSPECIFIED POLITICAL MOVEMENT THAT RHYMES WITH] ‘coke’. I shouldn’t be surprised, given the nature of the [UNSPECIFIED POLITICAL MOVEMENT], but I am that they’d go after something so…obscure? I am, I am not. Then again, Wizards of the Coast [D’n’D], Paizo, Inc. [Pathfinder], and White Wolf [The World of Darkness RPG] have all bought into the [UNSPECIFIED POLITICAL MOVEMENT]. You can see it right in their RPG supplements. Paizo Inc. bought into the movement first before the others, what? A decade ago now? Not surprising, they’re based in Washington State.

So, uh, I have to do some political housecleaning first. I am not approaching my critique of H-40.0 from the angle of the [UNSPECIFIED POLITICAL MOVEMENT]. This should be obvious, given my contempt for Socialists, National Socialists, Marxists, Commies, the United Republics of Counselors (Soviets), etc.

Nor am I trying to do a ‘lore video’ on H-40.0. There are far better, more handsome, more intelligent people who do lore-and-explanation videos of H-40.0, such as Bricky and Luetin09 on Youtube. (The former is enthusiasm, the latter is basically the de facto loremaster and archivist of H-40.0; I can mention them because JM can’t go after these two without their fanbase going on a riot, they are both so popular.)

I am approaching H-40.0 as a work of literature, and as a cosmology. There’s so much complexity to the setting that me going on a deep-dive on the inhabitants that you’d need to dedicate a decade to understanding it. Or, be like me and grow up with it*. There is so much material, from 40 years and dozens of authors and game designers, that it would be madness for one person explaining it all in any amount of detail.

[*Same goes for Star Trek and Star Wars.]

So, let me be a madman and strike at the setting from an ontological standpoint.*

Later.

We have gods to talk about.

[*Mr. Pratchett and Mr. Teatime would be proud.]

THE ACTUAL POST STARTS HERE

When lase we left, I mentioned that the cosmology of H-40.0 is split into the (mostly) realistic Material dimension and the freaky-deaky, ‘space-magic’, Wyrd (‘weird’) dimension. Both overlap each other like shadows and both regularly influence, alter one another. Native life exists in both dimensions. Space Demons and Demon Gods exist because they are born of the evil, negative thoughts and desires of intelligent beings from the Material dimension, and said Space Demons make both dimensions utterly miserable.

I called this phenomenon the Revenge of Idealism, as well as Existential Idealism. It’s my phrasing. I don’t know how long it has existed in total, but Existential Idealism has been around for about 50 years or more of modern fantasy fiction.

The best example I have for Existential Idealism is the work of one British mad-lad, Sir Terence David John Pratchett OBE*, b. 1948-2015. He is most famous for his Discworld series of novels, with his first, The Colour of Magic published in 1983. Continuing with the great modern British tradition, Mr. Terry Pratchett is a demented genius whose Discworld series is a comic fantasy that lampoons the older and newer fantasy tropes of his time.

[*Officer of the Order of the British Empire]

I grew up on his books and read them, in order, individually, from Colour of Magic up to Thud! (2005), though I did not read Pyramids (1989), and all of them made me laugh. Granted, I was 12 when I read most of the books, speed-reading, so the higher-brow jokes and Pratchett’s views on cosmology went over my head. I even did a book report per month on each of them. Drove my literature teacher so crazy, she had to alter the rules of homework to stop me from going overboard. [God Bless you, Misses Clayton, and Amber-Lee—I hope both of you are well.]

Mr. Pratchett I think is the quintessential example of Existential Idealism. In his Discworld setting, belief creates gods. It powers gods. What is belief? Uh, well, uh, it comes from people? Maybe it flows from their willpower? Mr. Pratchett didn’t go that far. Anyway.

Any god can be made this way. If some poor, starving fool in a desert so desperately, dearly believes in having a ham sandwich before he dies—poof! He makes a god! A god, specifically, of ‘Eating A Ham Sandwich Before Death’. No, the newfound god won’t necessarily save the starving man, and unless the God of Eating A Ham Sandwich Before Death can attach itself to another living, believing thing, the new god will either die, or be so reduced in power that it becomes a helpless ghost and cannot affect the world any more. It is like a fate worse than death.

There’s even a graveyard of sorts, the Desert of Lost Gods, on the Discworld itself, where the powerless, forgotten gods wander in misery.

Now, let’s say that, as is appropriate in stories, the starving man is saved by a camel-riding nomad (I love you Terry Pratchett). Now the God of—eh, let’s call him Porkerz for short. Porkerz, God of Eating A Ham Sandwich Before Death. Now, Porkerz can attach, himself, to the rescued man and nomad. As is tradition, Porkerz declares the rescued man (call him Jeff) as his first prophet. Jeff, being a bit dense (it is Discworld), gives his gratitude to Porkerz and spreads the word of his wonderous deeds. Porkerz grows in power, in proportion to the belief of his followers.

Except, Porkerz is not a passive god. (Though, we are ignoring the other gods of Discworld for right now, because they’ll rope Porkerz into their gods-only club.) Porkerz can use the powers he gained to expand his portfolio—the aspects of reality he has control over. As a god of, specifically, Eating A Ham Sandwich Before Death, he would only start off with having powers in that very specific situation. His power would only be, at first, giving a person a ham sandwich, but only before they were about to die! He can use this. He can use this to save starving people, and having a sign from him, the people believe in him.

Now, with his growing powers, Porkerz can add more ‘domains’ to his portfolio. Though he does not have control over death, Porkerz can detect when people are about to die. He can expand his control to pork, pigs, and all piggy-related things. With enough leeway, Porkerz can become a god of disaster-relief. Maybe he becomes a god of the feast, of how food prevents Death. Perhaps, even, Porkerz can create a Ham Sandwich of Immortality (or a Ham Sandwich of Restoring Youth), so that his chosen few followers will never die (Death would get testy, but he’d still wait. Right, forgot, Death/the Grim Reaper is a regular character, who mostly deals with other peoples' dumb BS).

In this way, Porkerz is Existential Idealism made manifest—a living thing thought of something, that thought became a new being, and that new being is sustained, powered by more thoughts and beliefs. That new being, a god, can then cultivate reality to feed and power itself more by interacting with the world and shaping it for its own ends. Existence, preceding essence, and that new essence affects existence.

Does this sound like Memes, from one Richard Dawkins? Ideas, that come alive and propagate themselves? Perhaps Christians will recognize this as Principalities? Those faceless, spiritual forces that affect parts of reality, even affecting humans? What are those daft things called in Theosophy? ...Tulpas! That’s it, though Tulpas originally came from Tibetan Buddhism. I’ve got no doubts that Theosophy misappropriated them. (I have no love for Theosophy either; they're right there with the Commies.)

Existential Idealism is fragmentary. The essence forms around a fragment of truth, a small piece of an indisputable reality. Existential Idealism creates by Accretion, like how a grain of sand clumps together with more sand to, eventually, make sandstone. It is small parts coming together into a whole. It is not like Creation-by-Separation, where things are created by becoming more and more fundamentally distinct from one another. Accumulating different parts vs. having very distinct parts. Or, for the latter, take a mass of matter, and cleave away more and more stuff until it is a distinct shape, a distinct form.

With Existential Idealism, you take a fragment of reality, and interpret all the rest of reality by, for, through, with, and in it. This fragment can become a narrative, that you use to perceive things*. You can add more and more pieces around the core fragment, to quite a large extent, so long as you do not add pieces that do not contradict or conflict. Too many moving parts destroys the conglomerate from within. Too many competing fragments, though all true, vie for the center place, smack each other around.

[*Now, anyone with a sincere, honest understanding of humanity knows that humans perceive things by what they are used for, or the purpose of the thing. We don’t even think about it; we do it automatically, and we need training in philosophy or psychology to catch ourselves doing it! …But don’t think about your unconscious all the time, because then you’ll go crazy. It is not fun.]

It is why in H-40.0, and Dungeons and Dragons, and the World of Darkness RPG, and many other fantasy settings (games or books or shows), are so intensely vibrant and diverse. Build around a central Theme (or fragment), and interpret everything in the show through that. For ‘slower-paced’ media like books, films, or TV shows/stage plays, they are more self-contained. There is less inner variation because there is not enough time or resources for the author/producers to make them. In faster-paced media like video games and RPGs, it is as much the fans as the authors contributing. Settings like H-40.0 and RPGs get more powerful, not from more people buying into it, but from people contributing more to it. Sure, take what the franchise is giving you, and give it your own spin. Make it your own. Make your own variety. Build your own Theme Park with it.

Truth be told, we get right back to entertainment Genres and all the problems that come with that. Genres are theme parks. I’m not sorry to ruin your sense of wonder. Genres are theme parks, because they are common expectations that are popular enough to be sustained. For those familiar with it, this is Pratchett’s Theory of Narrative Causality—things happen because we expect them to happen, and those expectations are shaped by stories. It is tragically arbitrary, like Fate, because things ‘happen’ but for no real purpose but to ‘happen’. Existence is arbitrary, not generous…

Where does it start, if at all? Who builds the theme park or book genre? Authors build up books just as audience members write theme parks in their hearts. …They aren’t necessarily well-designed, mind you. It’s interesting, if grotesque, to make a complete puzzle by taking pieces from a dozen other puzzles. I don’t know, make a Christmas puzzle by taking pieces from 12 other puzzles that are or aren’t Christmas-themed. What the heck does that look like?

Are these fragments the same as First Principles—fundamental starting assumptions that can’t be broken down, and that we humans have to use to start thinking? We have to have the latter, because we can’t start thinking from nothing. Here, Fragments and First Principles overlap at the beginning. They diverge in the long run. First Principles scale infinitely. Fragments do not scale well. If it is a true principle, it contains all things smaller than itself; it gathers up different things and unites them as a common ground. Fragments reject or destroy things that don’t fit or that it cannot define in terms of itself. First principles contain the fragments but not the other way around. First principles grow into a distinct shape when they reach maturity.

Parts of truth, or a cohesive truth? Is reality in fragments or is it cohesive? You can try and be clever and escape that dichotomy, but then you’ll just open up more unsolvable weirdness. Wouldn’t recommend it. For us humans, specifically, is reality ‘as we make it’? It’s the eternal fight between thinkers who say ‘existence is invented by humans, starting with the mind’, and those thinkers who say ‘existence is of its own accord, with or without humans, and it can be understood first through the physical senses and then comprehended in the human mind’.

…

Oh dammit, I didn’t talk about the space demons. Oh well, next post.

More to follow!