Ripheus23

So, I have a theory that each Order fits into a ten-place spectrum with endpoints of maximal Honor and maximal Cultivation, which goes with a maximum for means-justifying-ends and ends-justifying-means. My first guess is: Honor Windrunners - Stonewards - Bondsmiths - Lightweavers - Skybreakers | Edgedancers - Willshapers - Truthwatchers - Elsecallers - Dustbringers Cultivation Windrunners would look at Skybreakers as "heretics" instead of "pagans," so to speak, as being on "the same side" but at the farthest remove from the Honor-point. Or, subconsciously, there would be such tension between Windrunners and Skybreakers. But altogether it would be Dustbringers, as the closest to the Voidbringers so to speak, who would be the "absolute" opposite of the Windrunners. I've tried to put the more Foresight-y of the Orders (as well as I can remember examples of them) on the Cultivation side. I think Honor would have been obsessed with free will and so that's the source of the prohibition on trying to see the future (since knowing the future would conflict with free will). Cultivation, though, would correspond to the ends of her representatives' means, thus making them future-oriented.

It is kinda weird to be gay, I spend every day wondering why I'm a mutant without superpowers

There are different senses in which it is the same, or different. As an abstraction, it has to be the same. As a concrete application, of course it's different. Now the follow-up to the Machiavelli question explains the sense in which "the end justifies the means" is acceptable, here: "that the journey is the destination" such that there is no gap between ends and means. But now as I said originally, "Now utilitarianism is a teleological ethical theory, in which the end justifies the means in the sense that the 'end' is an axiom from which the means are rationally inferred." Of course, in imperative logic, if an imperative A is inferred from an imperative B, B has "rational justification" as inferred. But that might be the only degree or form of rational justification it has. It's like in an assertoric argument: a conclusion might be inferred in a valid way, but from unsound premises. Anyway, therefore, I never denied that imperatives can be inferred from other ones and that those which are inferred, have such a justification. I pointed out that utilitarianism in its naive form is not rationally defensible because it lacks a rational grounding for its destination-imperatives. Humans can't compute the infinite future sums of the consequences of their actions. Moreover, there are ways to discursively justify imperatives besides appeal to inference from other imperatives. Discursion isn't all inference, or more precisely it's not reducible to generic deductive inference. There is also erotetic inference, for example.

Every Order has to swear, "Journey before destination." So every Order is non-utilitarian at the outset. Or, more specifically, let's say Honor represents deontological standards, Cultivation teleological ones. So the Ideals and their Orders depend not on an antagonism between naive forms of both perspectives, but a mature reconciliation thereof. In any event, however, the naive utilitarian calculus will not do, anymore than the naive deontological one ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you") would.

I hope not, but if there were explicit scenes of this character in the Cosmere books, I suppose t'would be so.

The idea of sacrificing a few, to save the many, is characteristic of utilitarianism. Now utilitarianism is a teleological ethical theory, in which the end justifies the means in the sense that the "end" is an axiom from which the means are rationally inferred. However, the Ideals of the Windrunners are deontological in character. Actually, "Journey before destination," is already deontological in character.* Therefore, there is no way that the 4th Windrunner Ideal is about sacrificing some to save the many. There's no utilitarian calculus in play. *Consider the difference between, "Go to the tower," and, "Go north, east, east, north, east, north, west, north, north, east, north, west." The first is a prescription of destination, whereas the second is a prescription of orientation. Teleological ethics amounts to the claim that prescriptions of the first kind are the only axiomatic ones, so that the only rational justification for accepting orientation is as a means of reaching a destination. However, things like "the greatest good of the greatest number" or the sum total of all future consequences for happiness, which are "destinations," are not computable by limited human minds. Accordingly, utilitarian teleology's axioms of destination are not actually rationally defensible in their own right, at least not as naively expressed as such. Kaladin's journey with Sylphrena is about trying, if perhaps eventually failing, to determine the actual rational, objective basis of moral judgment. Because naive utilitarianism is an intuitively attractive position (when one begins serious ethical analysis), it is conceivable that Kaladin might naturally entertain its propositions, but given his own temperament, he would probably end up rejecting them, maybe even "out of hand." Of course, deontological axioms are generally just as suspect, it would seem, so I'm not saying that Kaladin will immediately gravitate towards e.g. some Rosharan statement of the Golden Rule (or the "categorical imperative"), say. What I suspect is that Kaladin will appreciate that, especially in the Cosmere as he knows it, the subjective is so intertwined with the objective, that dismissing the problem of rational moral judgment on the ground that, "It's all subjective," is a serious intellectual mistake. We might not yet quite know what is objectively good or evil, right or wrong. We might notice that a lot of our beliefs about these things are unnecessarily tied up with prejudices we have inherited from our parents or traumatic incidents or whatever. We might mistake, "It's ethical," for, "It's commanded by God." And so on and on. But Kaladin and Sylphrena will recognize that the problem of morality is objectively real in itself, regardless of the subjectivity of our occurrent answers thereto. And they will recognize that utilitarian teleology is too simplistic an approach to ultimately solve the problem.

So, as part of my mental illness mystical theory of all the things, I have come up with a really weird interpretation of the Bible. Which Bible? Technically, the Ethiopian version. However, I've never actually read that one, so I'm admiring it from afar, so to speak. The whole "preservation theorem," that God must be a supporter of the Bible since He seems to have predestined it to survive for so long, and to spread so far, and whatever. Now Ethiopia was the first nation to convert to Christianity (before Armenia even, it turns out) and there's some irony in them having to fight off Italy during WW2, seeing as Italy is the geographical Rome and all that. Well anyway, setting aside the fact that I'm not able to quote directly from a book I've never read or even seen physically, let's just say I'm going off the extended canon of the Bible. So, like, I'm free to cite the Book of Tobit as scripture. That's not actually relevant to the OP in this thread, btw. It might be relevant later, though. SO, setting aside another fact, that I'm not even going to be quoting from the extended canon right now, I am going to present my wild theory in the following terms. The story of the Prodigal Son is remarkably similar to the legend/myth of Jacob and Esau. The story of the Prodigal Son kind of sounds like the Incarnation (the Son sends Himself from the Father and ends up in a miserable realm). Jacob = Israel, = Jesus Christ (mystically speaking, that is; Jesus-as-Israel is a historical theme, along the lines of the-Church-as-Israel). Therefore, the Son has a special brother. NOT Satan, though: the guy who competes with Jacob when it comes to the sheep is Satan: I.e. Jesus takes sinners away from Satan and builds the Church out of them. So who, or Who, is Esau? Elsewhere, in the New Testament, the Son says that He only does He sees the Father do. This must refer to the pre-Incarnate state, since the Father, for example, is not crucified, among other things. However, therefore, becoming Incarnate would therefore be one of those things that the Son does, that He saw the Father do first. The Angel of the Lord is the Incarnation of God the Father, is the Angel of Death, is Michael. Christ and Michael are Jacob and Esau, if you will. (OK, technically this makes the Father into the Brother of God, but God is His own Son anyway, here, so I'm not too upset with the implication, "logically" speaking.)

I think there's some special Realmatic thing that happens in a tri-Shard scenario, and the Ghostbloods either know or at least suspect this thing, so they're gunning for it. That or Ambition is split into 3 big Splinters and the Ghostbloods are relevant to that situation. (Ghosts, Shades, who knows?)

I think Kaladin is too bro-mode with Adolin, to end up going for Shallan in the future. T'wouldn't be honorable. Then again maybe it will be like WoT and we'll get some weird sort of polygamy out of the dealio

Unite the three Shards in the Rosharan system. Defeat Odium by forcing him to do that which he wishes least to do: take up another Shard, specifically the one he's slaughtered on Roshar. Poetic justice for the win

PROOF: Hoid has a special abundance of Fortune, which is just the Cosmere term for the Pattern. THEORY: The back covers of all Cosmere books are written by mysterious beings from the world covered in a given series.

Didn't the Elantrians NOT build Elantris? Like, the Aonic people found the city already there when they migrated? *Uses this as evidence in my long-suppressed "Adonalsium was a city" theory*

Actually, Cultivation allowed Taravangian to glimpse a parallel reality where the Cosmere is a series of books with a Cognitive-Realm machine-based analytic community devoted to predicting the future of the books. By a concerted application of so-called Arcana and a Feruchemical repository, Mr. T combined all the theories of the community to arrive at the Diagram. There's actually a website in the real world that is a simulation of the analytic group, I will spoiler-tag it just in case: Hope that helps!

Hoid will die, and haunt the remainder of the Cosmere as a Cognitive Shadow. *Cackles*

I'm in the midst of a re-read of WOK and noticed a reference to "the Ten Deaths." At first I jumped on this as part of a "there were actually 10 Unmade" hypothesis, but now I wonder, maybe, does it just refer to the 9 Unmade + the 1 Odium? Also the Lifebrother reference by Mr. T., seems Sibling-ish. I think I've seen another thread somewhere, where this idea was mentioned? If so, at any rate, I'm totally sold on "the Sibling is the spren of stone" or what. EDIT: Also in the first vision-scene, Dalinar feels the Thrill. Is he just remembering what it's like to feel the Thrill or is Nergaoul somehow reaching into the vision-world? That would be kind of odd as the visions are presumably made from Honor-Investiture which per the Coppermind is supposed to be a buffer against the Thrill. Also: So that makes it seem like Nergaoul has Spiritual-level power. Not unlikely or weird, I suppose, but... IDK... Before-I-have-to-edit-again: Oooooh a WoB!

From one of those Death Rattles, something like, "I [will] protect the one who killed my promises." Does this sound like an Ideal, maybe, and if so, a new one, or a coded version of one we've already had stated?

Proof: Edgli is interfering with Roshar via Nightblood, so why not via Returned also? Why else are there FIVE Ideals per Order??? THEORY: Tien was actually a Soother/Rioter, hence his ability to make Kaladin magically less depressed.

The real question is whether a kandra can bond a seon that bonded a spren that bonded a Nightblood that bonded Plate.

That and he would have to go into 2000+ centuries of worldbuilding detail to explain the positions, names, systems of magic than are based on/accessible in the act, internal philosophical monologues and plot twists revealed during the interlude, etc. and each scene would be 100 pages long, which would be the most awkward thing in history perhaps.

A modern Rosharan: "Why did the joke cross the road, the crossing joke did why?" An ancient Rosharan: "I don't know, to get to the Origin?" "No, to get to the other side." *Puzzled look* "I don't ketek."* EDIT: *"I don't get it." "Knock knock." "Who's there?" "The black sphere." "The black sphere who?" "No, the black sphere what!"

The Zombie Thread Apocalypse begins! Arise, my dead threads, ARISE

I love Lovecraft's work, so much so that I even wrote a legit Lovecraftian novella, https://www.wattpad.com/story/150826889-the-horror-of-the-war [The Horror of the War].

What I really hope happens, is that there's a threat, from magic plus tech, or one or the other, or whatever, of a new nuclear-holocaust kind of event, so the "final battle" is to prevent that event. It would give the meta-series some well-earned symmetry, if such took place.

Sanderson is just saving his ultimate-marriage-scene for a later book.

I feel like Kaladin could be self-deceived about the plausibility of his efforts succeeding. He might think that he actually can save everyone he helps, and he might think that if he didn't believe his efforts could be successful, he would give up on them. Now as for the 3rd Ideal, both examples of it that we've seen involve a reference to hate, and hate is the emotion of Odium himself, so I think there's a reason for it to be referred to, here.