I tend to decide my characters faith according to their story, but I don't really have any "lone favorite" among the TES powers.

There are a handful I like more then others though... Mephala because she reminds me so much of Lloth, Azura due to interactions back from TES:Morrowind, Hermeaus Mora because books... (and tentacle hentai) or Akatosh (because... dragon!)

There is only one god who created mortals and gave them the gift of free will, and was punished for this. Who even after "death" served as defender of mortals: Lorkhan.

Armitas wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

This system came to be by no reason at all out of nothingness which never was. But whenever nothing is changed, it has to be something, otherwise it would not have changed.

I don't think that you can change nothing without reifying nothing. There is no prior state in which "something" is changed from. Step 1 - something just beings to exist without a reason.

There was one thing I couldn't understand about the model you described. It seemed that the something that began to exist is highly ordered and full of designods that make it appear ideal. But that seems odd to me, because if something can come into being out of nothing isn't it much more probable that it would be chaotic and contain far less of the designoids that make it appear ideal? There is also another lingering question. If something can just begin to exist from nothing for no reason then why isn't anything and everything popping into being from nothing? Why do only universes full of designoids appear that give it the illusion of being ideal? It would seem that such an unrestrained capacity that would allow anything and everything to pop into being without a reason would result in a much more chaotic universe than we experience. You could be walking down the street and literally get run over by a galaxy with no insurance.

No, universes are just a small part of the system - it is infinitely large, so anything is just a very small part of it. This nothing, which I am talking about at the beginning, never was. It is just lack of expression in our language that I am using this. I thought a lot about this model, before I actually accepted it as a possible way in how all could come to be. No one could actually have done this, because it is a closed system, there is no outside to it, nothing can effect it. It is created by it's system axiom "there has been change", which I put like this as well due to lack of a better expression. The initial event did not have a before, there was no time and there is none in this initial state. it just popped into existence in a complete and infinitely large state (not in a spacial manner large though) and all gave each other meaning - this is just like in a language, which describes aspects of reality - there is no definition in it which would not be based on another which is again based on another. There is no beginning to it - nevertheless the whole construct has meaning - it is auto-induced meaning, just like the system itself popped into existence by no reason - a reason would have to have causality - and there is none - so it does not have a reason. It just happens to pop into existence - and a pop into existence is a change - so this is the system axiom.

The whole thing is basically just math - and that is why we can describe it so well with math, because it is math. A lot of it might be math though, which we did not discover yet and which we describe very poorly with our current human math, nevertheless I think it is just math, just virtual, it exists, but it is nowhere and it has no spatial size at all - it's virtual.

Edit: and no, the initial state is not ideal - it is total information, but no knowledge at all - because it is contradictive. that is the strange thing about truth - if it is complete truth, it is contractive and so this is not all-knowing, having all the information, but it is no knowledge at all - because it is contracting itself. This is as well, why there cannot be anything all-knowing or all-powerful - it is just impossible.

Sorry, if I respond very slowly, I am watching the live stream from EVE online fanfest from Reijkavic.

Armitas wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

1)No, universes are just a small part of the system - it is infinitely large..... because it is a closed system, there is no outside to it, nothing can effect it.

2)It is created by it's system axiom "there has been change", which I put like this as well due to lack of a better expression. The initial event did not have a before, there was no time and there is none in this initial state.

3)The whole thing is basically just math - and that is why we can describe it so well with math, because it is math.

1) So if understand right the multiverse, or all the universes is an infinite set of things. I think that would be a potential infinite right?

2)I don't understand that. An axiom would be an abstract object and by definition they don't stand in causal relationships. Do you mean that it exists by the necessity of it's own nature?

3)Oh yeah I have heard about this. It's basically taking the vacuum energy and mathematically rendering it as nothing via the structures and terms of mathematics. So for example +200 and -200 can be viewed as nothing in mathematics, they just cancel each other out. Is there another equation out there that deals with nothing as an actual nothing and not a mathematically rendered nothing?

Yeah nothing is like time, really hard to convey in common language.

Well this is as model I have developed myself to get my mind around what might have been before the universe. I can even say with this model, that universes are for certain not any near to the beginning of the system, in which they are in. And that is due to the amount of logical things which are in a universe, which take quite a while to evolve in the outer system. Complex adaptive system have a tendency to create more logical matters and neglect those, which are irrational. This is because more logical stuff is highly predictable and allows for a better adaptation chance. This is why this kind of system has the tendency to become more logical over time. It started by being highly contradictive and it takes quite a while until local regions (in the network, it is not a spatial region) will have a vast majority of logical relations with a lesser amount of contradictions. More and more structure which are more and more complex evolve as well this way, but it takes quite a while until all that is in place to actually have something like our universe.

So this was basically my approach to find an explanation about what was before the universe and what kind of system that actually is and how ti can come to be - and it is very simple:

It has just one axiom - "there has been change" - which is obvious and so it is an acceptable axiom
It has just one building block - relations
it has just one principle of basic operation - complex adaptive

All the findings we have made inside that system are correct - but at the same time not what really drives it. It is a bit like in the "game of life" - it could resemble life if it would be huge enough and there could be computers in it as well, which could be described by automata theory and it would be correct. Nevertheless this would not describe what drives these computers, because the only thing what really drives the "game of life" are those rules which Conway described - and those are mathematically forming an 8-ary boolean function. This shows, that what you see, does not have to be how it actually is.

Physics knows meanwhile, that the classical universe is not how it is - it is a useful description, but not how it is. The 2 possible things left are zero-universe (virtual) or multi-verse - my model allows actually for both to be part of reality at the same time - and quantum mechanical strangeness finds as well quite simple solutions in it. Never use things, which you find inside a universe, to judge the outer system, it does not have to be that way there. So things like energy do not have to have a meaning outside of the universe and rules there might be very different as well.

What is as well interesting is, that in that model there is no reason for the system to unfold in an absolute time - past and future could exist in parallel in it. And not just one possible past or future, but all of them (which is basically the well known multiverse hypothesis). The time, we experience, is inside the system, it is not what is describing the changes of the whole system. The whole system with all pasts and futures could actually have come into existence in a rather short time. It is mind blowing, but it is simple and it is really hard to tell, why it should not have been like this. It makes so much sense and it is simple - complex, but simple.

Edit: Axioms are what create a system, no axiom, no system. An Axiom is assumed truth, so it has to be pretty obvious to be true to accept it - like "there has been change" - we all can accept that, because it is obvious. And this is all what I have assumed - and thought about it, what does it mean when this is the only axiom of the system and all there is, what will happen? - And this led to this way to describe reality. it is not science though, even I use mathematical arguments - it cannot be proven nor be tested - so it's a philosophy with some mathematical underpinning, but nevertheless just a philosophy.

Armitas wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

It has just one axiom - "there has been change" - which is obvious and so it is an acceptable axiom
It has just one building block - relations
it has just one principle of basic operation - complex adaptive

Edit: Axioms are what create a system, no axiom, no system. An Axiom is assumed truth, so it has to be pretty obvious to be true to accept it - like "there has been change" - we all can accept that, because it is obvious. And this is all what I have assumed - and thought about it, what does it mean when this is the only axiom of the system and all there is, what will happen? - And this led to this way to describe reality. it is not science though, even I use mathematical arguments - it cannot be proven nor be tested - so it's a philosophy with some mathematical underpinning, but nevertheless just a philosophy.

I think you explained the way time works in a multiverse really well. I fluctuate between A and B theory all the time, sometimes it feels like A sometimes it feels like B. Somehow I think both describe time and were just shy of a few bits to complete the picture and maintain free will.

I think I understand the relational building blocks, it makes sense. It's kind of like mixing drinks the completed drink has some of the properties of the separate mixtures. But I guess I don't understand the first relation. What is the first relation? The first something has nothing in which to have a relationship with so it can't build upon a first discrete relationship. Without a discrete relationship to externally derive it's order and designoids it just inexplicably comes into being with all the necessary causality to formulate and unpack an ideal world. Wouldn't a random and chaotic world be much more probable than the one we see?

I don't think that truths, axioms or abstract objects can stand in a causal relation with something. They basically just describe reality. They can't create something or bring something into being. Like for example the truth statement "the pen is red" is not true until the pen is red, but the pen could have been blue; it's not contingent on the truth statement, the truth statement is contingent on reality. The pen has to be red before or simultaneous with the truth statement the "Pen is red". It doesn't have causal power. It seems possible that nothing could have just remained nothing, so it doesn't seem like it exists from the necessity of it's being.

I'm not sure "there has been change" is an axiom. Change is the transition from one thing to another thing. Nothing is not a thing. You can't change from nothing to something because nothing is not a prior form. I think the real axiom would be that "the universe began to exist". The universe didn't change into being it began to exist.

Lysette wrote: »

Sorry, if I respond very slowly, I am watching the live stream from EVE online fanfest from Reijkavic.

Take your time. I'm playing the game and just enjoying the conversation when it happens. I just replied now cause my game crashed and the thread was still up underneath (that 64bit though). What's great is your perspective is your own so I get the chance to learn something I wouldn't otherwise have learned.

You always say universe, I describe a system which is far before the universe. Something what no one has ever tried to do (simply because to do that would be a risk to their career, especially when there is nothing to gain, because it can neither be proven nor tested). But I have nothing to loose, I am not dependent on a budget to go on - so I can be that crazy.

I think if you see the first step as "change" to nothing or "begin of the system" is just a problem we have with our language - I see it as a change to nothingness, which never was. But step 1 did as well not exist in time, it is a timeless state, which is quite important, because this allows for an infinitely large system to unfold instantaneously and be complete - which would never be possible if this state would have to happen in time. It is as well important, that it is just a virtual system, because this allows for the argument that everything which "could" be described in math will actually be in this system. Like every number in the set of natural numbers exists, even if they have never been pronounced or be written down. Or the even larger set of real numbers, which could not be written down even in an eternity - far bigger then the infinite set of natural numbers.

Already these simple things in math - real numbers - are mind-blowingly complex - how many have a problem to imagine infinity, but even more are unable to imagine a set larger than countable infinity. Still these things are real in mathematics. Just to add this, an infinite set is "countable", if there is a bijection between that set and the set of natural numbers. We scientists count with infinitely large sets and simply describe the relation which makes this happen - a bijection.

The first step in this model is the hardest to understand, because I argue with both Gödel's incompleteness and a timeless state, where all is instantly popping into existance - but this is again just a notion of our language again, because nothing "is popping", it is just there - basically out of nothing - even there was never a nothing. The problem here is just our limited language to describe it, but it can be described in the language of math.

Key thing is Gödel's incompleteness, which I will put in layman's terms to make it easier to understand. And I use with these as well the implication this has all in one. So here we go:

1. Every decently enough complex system has undecidable truth. (i.e. at least as complex as the set of natural numbers)
2. Every decently enough complex and complete system is contradictive.

Theorem 1 is telling us, that regardless how huge such a system is, there are always systems, which are even bigger and their additional content is true. In a system which is fully mathematical, this means that this truth exists, regardless if someone or something will ever make use of it. If all such systems are unfolding instantaneously (they do not unfold, it is again a matter of language, they are just there) and it takes no time to build this set of systems (it is as well not building up, but just there), it will be infinitely large and complete and with theorem 2 we know, it will be contradictive - now imagine this, it contains all true equations, but they contradict each other. This feature becomes important in step 2 - where information starts to propagate in time, because it will create local differences in the amount of contradictive truth - and the less contradictive it is in a local region (not a spatial region, just a region in the network of relations), the higher it's adaptive capability will be later on.

Another thing to understand is, that entities relate to each other - a formula like e=mc² is meaningless, if e, m and c have no meaning by themselves. An entity is itself a set of relations which describe it, but this entity has something special over a random set of such relations - it relates as a whole to the rest in an own way, this makes it an entity. Now, when a complete set of equations is suddenly there, it's meaning is auto-induced, because all those equations are valid at the same time and give each other meaning. All of physics is just a huge bunch of mainly differential equations and they have meaning - but they have this meaning, because they give each other meaning. They all describe each other and their relation to each other. There is no starting point in this - either the whole set is there, and it creates this meaning simply by being there, or it would not work. So there is no first relation, like you called it - the whole infinitely large set of equations appears and has meaning. Again it is not appearing, this is just a matter of our limited language - it is just there when the system begins to exist.

Edit: and to your '"pen" example - I say, there is no pen, nor is there something what is you to recognize this color, nor would there be a color red, but just a wave equation "interpreted" as being red - red is a label, which gives this wave equation the meaning of "red", but it isn't red at all, it is not even there as a real entity, it's virtual. Nothing of that is real, not that pen, nor you. It just feels as if it would be there, but it is in fact just a virtual network of relations. Basically just like Tamriel in ESO is not there at all. Nor is your avatar. Still it feels like there would be your avatar in Tamriel. But what is really there of it?- Just the relations which describe the world of tamriel and your avatar - math, computed on a computer, interpreted by a computer, rendered by a graphic card. And voila this world of Tamriel and your avatar appear to exist - even they don''t.