[BiTPR2] Hell Episode: Like a Bat

[Frozen_Feet]

Underneath the hood is a mess of short brown hair. The man slowly turns his head and looks at Sarah. There are dark shadows under his eyes and his eyes themselves are black save for white slits where the pupils should be. "Who is that?" , he asks calmly.

[Rater202]

"Uh... Sorry, this wasn't what I was expecting."

[Frozen_Feet]

The man blinks in confusion, then sighs, cracks his neck, stands up and stretches his limbs. "What were you expecting?"

[Rater202]

The man blinks in confusion, then sighs, cracks his neck, stands up and stretches his limbs. "What were you expecting?"

"I was expecting to find Mikael Rautiainen at the top of the mountain. Seamed like his style. But he didn't have eyes like yours and my memory's not so good right now and I can't tell if the rest matches."

[Frozen_Feet]

"Oh? What were his eyes like?"

[Rater202]

"...Human looking instead of black with white snake eyes... How do white pupils even work? In normal eyes, they're black becuase they're basically a hole into the inside of the eyeball and it's dark in there, but... How?"

[Frozen_Feet]

The man smiles faintly. "Maybe their purpose is to shine light on something, instead of absorbing it." Sarah gets the weird feeling she's standing on the edge of space, staring into a crack of white light against the black void. "Ancient Greeks used to think that's how all vision works. Know Superman? He shoots lasers from his eyes because of the same idea."

[Rater202]

"Maybe... Sorry. My name's Sarah. I'm just a bit confused about how I got here. The last place I was was as far from a snowy mountain top as you can imagine."

[Frozen_Feet]

The man silently looks down at the smaller humanoid for a while. "... I find your sentence contains at least one category error." He spreads his arms and slowly spins on place. "Tell me, where do you think this place is?"

[Rater202]

"Not too long ago, I was whisked out of my dreams into some kind of fabricated dream--one based on the life of Mikael. Part of it involved snowflakes shaped like an ouroboros. He has the same thing, but... I wasn't sleeping before I got here."

[Frozen_Feet]

"Sleep isn't the only altered state of consciousness" , the man says, turning to face her. "What I imply is that this is all in your mind. Distance is an illusion. In truth, this place never was any further than your own head." He puts his hands behind his back. "By extension, any similarity to what you have seen before exists because those things are imprinted as memories in your mind. Though I admit you have never seen me before. And probably never will."

[Rater202]

"...Then who are you?"

[Frozen_Feet]

"I am nobody" , the man says. "You are nobody as well. Is that what you came here to ask?"

[Rater202]

"...Are you a philosophy major?"

[Frozen_Feet]

"Haha. No. I am not" , the man says, amused at the question.

[Rater202]

"Really? Because you're talking like one. 'I am nobody, you're nobody...' I'm here. You're here. I have thoughts. I perceive that you are present. Even if this is all in my head for it to be in my head means I have to exist, and therefore be somebody. and if I'm talking to you, then you're real enough to have this conversation and therefore also must be somebody."

[Frozen_Feet]

The man smirks."Is that how philosophy majors speak? I don't recall meeting any, so I wouldn't know. But if you want to talk philosophy... you know Plato's allegory of the cave, yes?"

[Rater202]

"For some reason, presumably amusement, some people get some kids and chain them up in a cave. Every day they use shadow puppets in the cave, while the people inside can only see the shadows, so that's how they conceive the world to be as they grow up, since that's all they know. One day, after they've grown up, one man's chains come loose, curiosity over takes him, and he leaves the cave. At first he's afraid, so much new stuff that he can't comprehend--why, there's no ceiling, and that big ball of light hurts his eyes, and he's never even thought so much empty space could exists--but eventually he adjusts and goes figures out how the world really works. He goes back to explain this to his fellows, but they refuse to believe his fantastical stories--some versions of the telling indicate that the man fled the cave after realizing he could never go back, others state that he continued to try and convince the others and they killed him. It's supposed to be metaphorical of learning something major and then not being able to go back to how you were before because whatever it is you've learned is life-defining."

[Frozen_Feet]

The man chuckles. "That's certainly one version. But it's about more than that. It is also meant to teach how forms - the ideas upon which the world is built - give rise to the world that is seen. And how the world that is seen is not how things truly are."

The man points two fingers at his eyes, then towards Sarah's. "Up to this point, you have been one of the people chained in the cave. All you've seen of me, and all you've seen of yourself, have been but shadows on the wall. But since you cannot turn your head and see, you cannot tell what other things stand between you and the light."

"Those shadows are the causal world. Like those shadows on the wall, things in the causal world are born from ideas overlapping and blending with each other. Yet, their true nature is emptiness - spots on the wall where the light doesn't shine."

He returns his hand behind his back. "In short, ideas exists, but the self is an illusion. We are not our ideas. The consciousness perceiving all this is not the shadow named Sarah, and as for the man standing before you, there needs not be a separate consciousness behind him at all."

[Rater202]

"and now you sound like a guy with two hours of the study of nihilism under his belt. i get it, there's no greater purpose to anything, but that doesn't mean we don't exist. I think. I feel. I perceive the world. Things have happened to me. Even if I'm just echoes of some idea from some other place, or a record of electrical synapses in a brain, or some other third thing, that doesn't make me nothing."

[Frozen_Feet]

The man raises an eyebrow. "Nihilism?" He chuckles and shakes his head. "Platonism and emptiness of self have nothing at all to do with 'nihilism'. Only those call them nihilism who are unwilling to question their self-images and look beyond the causal world."

The man crouches and begins drawing on the ground with his finger. "I would even go so far as to state platonism stands in opposition to most forms of nihilism, because when applied to moral statements, it entails moral realism. That is, the belief that moral facts are like all other abstract facts, such as numbers, and they exist objective and independent of any human observer."

"A funny idea, isn't it? That good and evil exist, yet the self is illusionary?"

[Rater202]

"Ah, but we can observe that absolute good and evil do not exist: The afterlife is confirmed to exist, and yet there is no God nor is there an Anti-God: There is no being of Omnibenevolence nor One of Omnimalevolence, and with no such beings to judge morality against all morality becomes subjective--and ask a thousand people to define good and evil, you'll get a million answers and I guarantee the vast majority of those people will define good in such a way as that it includes themselves."

"I think therefore I am? That's what descartes said, I think. The fact that we have thoughts, feelings, senses... On the contrary, the self is the only thing that is 100% sure to exist."

[Frozen_Feet]

"What you call 'the afterlife' is just layers of the causal world. It is not more profound than life on Earth. Trying to make judgements based on what is or isn't there is an exercise in futility, it is just another shadow, no closer to the world of ideas" , the man says as he draws.

"What Descartes says only proves existence of consciousness, not that of the self. Everything that is part of your actual self-image could still be lies fed to you by a malicious demon, so 'cogito ergo sum' tells you nothing about the nature of self. Descartes, himself, only escaped this conundrum by presuming existence of a truthful God, so by abandoning belief in God yourself, you render the entire argument incoherent."

The man's drawing is beginning to take shape. It looks like Sarah, but in the way she was in life.

"By contrast, what I said neither presumes nor demands existence of 'God'. The problem of evil is entirely irrelevant to me and so are subjective opinions of people. Good and evil are not decided by popular vote anymore than value of Pi is. If you asked humans to draw a perfect circle by hand, all of them would fail, yet such a thing is trivial to mathematically define."

The man looks up from his drawing. "There is a being who might as well be called 'God', though. The Shinigami apparently call it a 'Soul King'. In Plato's terms, it would be the 'Demiurge'. It is what holds all of the causal world together, apparently. The Shinigami found their legal system on its existence. If you want to judge your morals against something in the causal world, it might as well be that. "

[Rater202]

"And how can you be so sure that this is all shadows on the wall then? How do you know that this isn't the true world and what you presume by the the true world isn't itself the casting of shadows? How can you be certain that any world is a true world? And if everything is simply a shadow of an idea, then is not the self an idea? What about the shadow of the idea of self? Is that not itself an idea?"

"One could thus argue that the self is real because the self is the embodiment of the idea of 'the self.' It's circular logic, but we've thrown logic out the window already."

"Thus, we can conclude that I, 'Sarah Smith', am real because 'Sarah Smith the Idea' is real and the only shadow or reflection that properly reflects the idea of 'Sarah Smith' is Sarah Smith."

"Or, in layman's terms, you're never going to convince me that the self doesn't exist, because I'm existing right here and now. Even if this whole world is completely fake, I'm still part of it and for all intents and purposes it's real from my perspective and if it's practically real than it, and everyone in it, myself included, is real in all ways that matter."

"You might as well try to get past the Wardens of Hell by explaining to them that they don't really exist."

"Likewise, even if you're only in my head, that doesn't mean you're not an extant existence: Right now, a part of my soul is running around doing God-knows what as a separate piece of me. You could be something that's like that, a Death God's soul-cutting sword, or some other spirit behaving similarly..."

[Frozen_Feet]

The man snorts. "You didn't listen the first time. There is an idea behind you, yes. But you are not your idea. 'Sarah Smith' is not a platonic form. Ideas are not simply any silly thing humans in the causal world have come up with. Like a snake biting its own tail, it is your own logic that is circular, because you are presuming your conclusion. "

The drawing of Sarah is getting quite intricate now. It is of... Sarah pushing herself through the gates of Hell.

"It is quite funny. In Plato's thought, the Ouroboros was made to be circular by the gods because out of all seven motions, the circular one was deemed most fitting for conscious thought. I think it was sort of an in-joke. After all, any attempt to found logic on logic collapses into a tautology in the end. "

He glances at Sarah while his hands keep moving. "The actual answer to your inane ramblings would be that non-existence of self does not mean non-existence of consciousness. It does not mean non-existence of matter. It does not mean non-existence of perceptions. The wardens of Hell know this. You must've noticed they all look alike. That's because they do not have selves. They do not have individuality. They exist beyond the illusion you cling to."

Having finished Sarah's image, the man has moved to detailing what is beyond the gate. Sarah might recognize a sketch of the resurrection pit and that strange procession.

"If you explained to the wardens how they do not have selves, they would just nod and then return to punishing you, because they do not need a self to do their duty. But if you convinced them that you have let go of your own illusion of self, they would leave you alone and wander off. That is why the other sinners move around wearing identical masks and cloaks. The power the wardens have only extends over those they recognize. They only have power over the consciousness who conflates itself with the shadow called 'Sarah Smith'."

The drawing now fills almost every inch the man can reach from his position. It shows the cloaked figures marching right out of the Gates of Hell, with the wardens standing idly by.

"Of course, in your case, such a disguise would be a filthy lie, an empty promise, for you do not want to let go of your self. You don't want to leave the cave. That is how you know for sure, in case you forgot. By breaking the chains that bind you to the causal world and leaving it behind. You said how you 'get' there's no greater purpose to anything. You didn't get anything. I never said there is no greater purpose. On the contrary, there are whole worlds of purpose and meaning outside the cave, once you have transcended the shadows. Once you've transcended your self."

The man stops drawing, satisfied with his work. "Of course, it would be a category error to say *I* know for sure. For I am nobody. But, I'll cut you a deal. I will break your chains for you, if you can answer me a single question."

[Rater202]

"At this point, you're defining 'self' in the stupidest possible manner. What else could one call an existence's consciousness and experiences and perceptions and emotions and will and memory if not ''the self?" To deny the Self is to deny the existence of consciousness, and memory, and emotion, and perception, and will. To forsake my Self becuase a self-admitted figment of my imagination said it doesn't exist would be no different from committing suicide: I'd rather cling to my alleged "delusion" than becomes a lifeless automaton like the Wardens."

"If you think there's a meaning to this world, this world that came into existence spontaneously billions of years ago, this world that was torn into pieces by the immoral actions of a handful of spirits who mutilated their alleged God for fear of his power... Wait, how do I know that?" She actually seems confused.

"Anyway, if you actually think that there's a purpose to anything in the world, then you're the one who is deluded. There is nothing that's absolute good. Nothing that's an absolute evil. No Fate. No Destiny. No creator. No Destroyer. Just mortal men. The only difference is that some are alive, some are dead, and some have no power while others have lots of it. That's a good thing. It means that there's nothing stopping you from redefining your own existence since the only meaning in it is that that you yourself define."

"And pray, tell, Figment, how exactly can you break my chains to the alleged false-world if I myself cannot? You're supposed to be part of me, part of my mind. You said so yourself. Ergo, you can't possibly possess any knowledge or abillities that I do not."

"But fine, ask your question. It's not like I have anything better to do"

[Frozen_Feet]

The man sits back down, cross-legged, leaning his left elbow on his knee and resting his head against his hand. He regards Sarah with vague amusement as she rants. "The stupidest possible way? I'd say you're free to think what you will, but that'd be a lie. You're the least free person I have ever seen" He snaps his fingers. "Ah, but I'm getting side-tracked. Here..."

He straightens up a bit and points at his drawing, specifically, the part where Sarah's pushing herself through the Gates of Hell.

"Are that girl's decisions your decisions?"

Sarah might gather he means her sword spirit. Or maybe he means her past self. Is there a distinction? Maybe the lack of one is the point.

[Rater202]

It takes Sarah an hour to answer.

"The answer is both yes and no. That girl is the sword drawn out of my soul. She's me, but she's also her. I guess there must have been some part of me that would have done what she's done, but it's not part of my conscious mind... I'd never kill myself, but she didn't seem to think that's what she was doing. She's her own soul, but maybe she's the part of my soul that's the crazy part of me?"

"The other girl is who I was at the beginning of this. I'm not that girl right now. I might be that girl again in the future, but right now I'm not and I might never get to be... But there's continuity of consciousness. Her memories, thoughts, and experiences are also mine, even if the experiences I've had since then have made me differant from her now."

"So, I, this, my current self didn't do the actions or decisions of either of those girls, but at the same time one of those is who I was and one is part of me so their actions are still mine. They both are and aren't mine, becuase all of us are equally real."

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Sarah isn't giving up her Self, BTW, so if that's what the 'breaking of chains' entails...

It'd be completly counter to Sarah's character and my intent in this arc.

[Frozen_Feet]

The man closes his eyes and apparently takes a nap while Sarah thinks, fading into the background. "To me, that just sounds like you haven't decided yet. But I suppose expecting you to have decided at this point was unrealistic" , he says after Sarah finally gives her answer. "I ask, because if her decisions are your decisions, it creates a contradiction. You do not want to be in Hell. You did not want to die. But while Hell has condemned you, it did not kill you. It did not demand you die this young, without chance to repent in life. It was her who wanted you to be in Hell now instead of later. It was she who killed you because she thought you would benefit from it."

"You can't have your cake and eat it too. I'd say that if you want Hell, or more importantly, others outside of it to take your claim of innocence seriously, you either have to disown that part of yourself. Or admit that you are insane."

He stands back up and stretches his arms. "But, now for what I promised. You asked how I can break your chains if you don't have such power. It's simple, really."

He steps over his drawings, closer to Sarah. "You talked of dreams. You may have once seen a dream where you were speaking to another person. Do such persons have physical bodies? No. Are they true external entities? Also no. Like me, they are figments of your imagination. Empty. But emptiness is summation of all energy. It is that which has not yet been limited by information. It is a place where new information and new abilities can come to being. "

He reaches to put a hand on Sarah's head. "It shouldn't be such an odd idea. People have been inspired by their dreams throughout the ages. People have gone to sleep not knowing how to do a thing, then woken up with the ability to do and think something they couldn't before."

"Please stay still for a moment."

[Rater202]

Sarah does so, though her player would point out that since Hell is an automatic process that Sarah's innocence and her Zanpakuto abusing her unjust condemnation aren't mutually exclusive.