Peculiarities of the DO.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Most theologies would accept the notion that a GOD is a being who exists in all places and at all times. Is capable of being anywhere and anywhen.

 

Then there's the DO. We are given to understand that he/she/it is a being with godlike powers. Antithetical to The Creator. Powerhungry. Maleficent. All around bad, nasty, icky-poo. The Anti-GOD.

 

Then we have The Wheel. A creation of The Creator used to define all of time and space. The loom upon which the lives of all are spun out. All except the DO.

 

He supposedly is locked away somewhere/when outside the Wheel and normal existence. He wants to break The Wheel and remake all of existence according to his own design. He's supposed to have the power to do this if he ever wins free. He certainly has the power to transmigrate souls.

 

Yet, if one of his minions is balefired, that soul ceases to exist before he can intervene in order to preserve it.

 

Therefore, the DO is not a GOD. He does not exist everywhere and everywhen. He exists only now. He is not, in fact sealed away from The Wheel, but bound to it and experiences Time just like everyone else. He's not the Anti-GOD, he's just Darth Vader. Or, maybe Dark Helmet.

 

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Pick it apart.

[RobertAlexWillis]

If you're determined to stick to it, why bother picking it apart?

 

That said, the Dark One is in Prison. So he can't actually be anti-God, in the sense of equal and opposite, because the Creator imprisoned him. Perhaps being limited by Time is part of the Dark One's imprisonment ... since the Wheel is the Wheel of Time, and the Pattern that is spun on it is off limits to the Dark One (until the advent of the Bore), time itself seems to be one of the contraints, a metaphysical brick in the Prison's wall, if you will.

 

In other words, yes, I agree, he is not God. Your point being ..... ? Darth Vader wasn't God, but I wouldn't exactly want to meet him in a dark alley .... the fact that Shai'tan isn't omnipotent or omniscient is obvious from the start: he's in PRISON.

[Guest Majsju]

Not every mythology has god(s) being omnipotent. Actually, most doesn't.

[RobertAlexWillis]

That's very true ... every polytheistic culture in history has gods who get overthrown, killed, thwarted, drunk, frustrated, chased off, etc. all the time. In the Iliad, Aphrodite gets stabbed in the wrist, and Ares gets stabbed in the guts by Diomed, son of Tydeus. Thor gets tricked several times when he was drunk. It is, by definition, impossible for two (or more) omnipotent, omniscient beings to oppose one another.

[Mangin]

RobertAlexWillis:

 

Did it just feel like something cold went across your soul, like something just walked across your grave? Did something weird and creepy happen to you that made you suddenly contemplate your mortality?

 

YOU JUST NAMED THE DO!

 

[Osangar1282083176]

the dark one is an eternal being so powerful that he has to be imprisoned to keep him from breaking the wheel of time, and remaking it in his own image, which is what the creator did in the first place. doesnt that make him an equal with the creator. or at least a lesser cousin. i think that if the creator could have dealt with the DO on a more permanent basis he probably would have.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Yes they do. But it's only other godlike creatures who can kill, overthrow, imprison, or fool them.

 

Polytheism is a dynamic process between contending irresistable forces. The only limits on their power is that of ignorance. They're omnipotent but not omniscient. Omniscience may be a Judeo-Christian thing. Polytheistic gods are just smarter than the average bear. Any of them could certainly dismantle the universe if he/she/it wanted unless one or more of the others opposed that idea.

 

That kind of power is close enough to omnipotent for me.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Did it just feel like something cold went across your soul, like something just walked across your grave? Did something weird and creepy happen to you that made you suddenly contemplate your mortality?

 

YOU JUST NAMED THE DO!

 

Me and Shai'dog are buddies. I slide his meals under the Prison door.

[Gentled Ben]

I don't think it's a matter of dualism here, where the DO is equal but opposite to the Creator; I think it's more like the Judeo-Christian Creator/Devil relationship, wherein the DO is extremely wise and powerful, but less-than the Creator. Satan is still the source and embodiment of evil in the Judeo-Christian religions, and he's certainly powerful, but he's not so strong that the Creator can't handle him, perhaps by sending him to his room for an eternity-long time out, just like the DO.

[MetalMonkeyMood]

I don't think it's a matter of dualism here' date=' where the DO is equal but opposite to the Creator; I think it's more like the Judeo-Christian Creator/Devil relationship, wherein the DO is extremely wise and powerful, but less-than the Creator. Satan is still the source and embodiment of evil in the Judeo-Christian religions, and he's certainly powerful, but he's not so strong that the Creator can't handle him, perhaps by sending him to his room for an eternity-long time out, just like the DO.[/quote']

 

But the DO is not the source of all evil, as evidenced by the existence of Shadar Logoth.

 

I don't think you can transfer Judeo/Christian concepts of God and the devil to WOT like that. In fact, the whole structure of the mythology stikes me as much more Hindu (with other things thrown in of course), with the Creator as Brahma, the Wheel as Vishnu and the DO as a very, very dark version of Siva. The whole concept of rebirth just seems to support that, and if Shaidar Haran does turn out to be some sort of avatar, then the link gets even stronger.

[yolindamo]

The Creator can not deal with the DO once and for all because without evil good can not exist. Think Ying-Yang (and look at the Aes Sedai signal). The DO has to exist; the Creator can not destroy him. Do I think the Creator could destroy him? Yes. If he/she is powerful enough to imprison him then he/she is powerful enough to destroy him.

 

Which begs the question, is it even possible for the DO to win TG or would the Creator intervene before letting that happen?

[Bob T Dwarf]

I suppose that depends on whether you believe The Creator is paying attention or cares.

 

Most folks seem to be of the opinion that The Creator has retired and is off fishing somewhere.

 

Then there's the whole, "How aware is the Wheel?", and "What steps can it take in its own defense?", question.

 

The very ambiguous DIALOG at the end of tEotW has always troubled me. Who is speaking? Who is it that creates the stairway Rand climbs to battle Baalzy? The Creator? The Wheel? The DO? ( We are at the edge of the Blight and he might have the power to personally reach out that far )

 

Who is it that cranks up the world's biggest Drive-In and lets everybody see "The Clash of the Titans I" and "II" at Tarwins Gap and Falme?

 

Whomever it is, that being seems to have a lot of situational awareness and the power to effect the world in truly miraculous ways.

[Mardragon]

I suppose that depends on whether you believe The Creator is paying attention or cares.

 

Most folks seem to be of the opinion that The Creator has retired and is off fishing somewhere.

 

He doesn't appear to take a direct role does he? On saying that, since predestination and prophecy does pay a role in The Wheel of Time, and the very fact that the wheel spins out people as ta'veren from time to time suggests there is a guiding force somewhere. Surely these things don't happen at random?

 

Then there's the whole, "How aware is the Wheel?", and "What steps can it take in its own defense?", question.

Oh, ok. I suppose if the wheel itself is sentient, then maybe the creator isn't doing anything any more (appart from creating the wheel and spinning it in the first place). Then again if the creator is omniscient (and I'm not certain he is in the wheel of time) maybe he doesn't need to do anything any more. Maybe creating the wheel and in effect setting what is and what ever will be in motion was enough. I.e. it's not that he doesn't care, just from his point of view, he's already taken care of everything before it happens. I'm not saying this is the case, but it's an idea.

The very ambiguous DIALOG at the end of tEotW has always troubled me. Who is speaking?

I don't remember that very clearly- I'll check it out...

 

Who is it that creates the stairway Rand climbs to battle Baalzy? The Creator? The Wheel? The DO? ( We are at the edge of the Blight and he might have the power to personally reach out that far )

No, I'm pretty certain that was Rand. This is the same thing as skimming, (except with steps instead of a moving platform). Rand didn't know what he was doing of course, but quite often the first time he does something he doesn't know how he did it. Sometimes he's not even sure he did anything until later.

[Guest Majsju]

RJ touched upen the sentience of the Wheel in the interview that came with the E-book version of Glimmers:

 

And, no, the Wheel isn't sentient. Think more of a fuzzy logic device that uses feedback to correct what it is doing in order to do it in the most efficient way.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Which is why I think the VOICE is either the DO or the Creator.

 

The projection of the battles takes sentience and volition, as well. For Falme, in particular, we have no evidence that the DO can exert that much power at that great a reach when it occurs.

 

Ergo, The Creator is aware and is taking part to a greatly limited extent. So far.

[Guest Majsju]

What happened at falme was caused by the Wheel.

 

Question: At the end of the Great Hunt when Rand and Ishamael were fighting in the air above Falme, they appeared in the sky over many places and my question is whether this is something done by the one power or something down by the Creator, how did they appear in the sky?

 

Jordan: An effect of the Wheel, really. It wasn’t the Creator. The Wheel is more than a simple mechanism. Remember the Wheel can spit out ta’veren, can spit out Heroes as a self correcting device because the Pattern is drifting from what it is supposed to be. We are not talking about something as simple as a spinning wheel at all, we are talking something more along the lines of the most complex computer you could possibly imagine. There were at that time, two, there were false dragons that had a chance to create a lot of disruption. By the appearance in the sky at that battle, not just in Falme but in other places, those false dragons were taken off the board because there was only room now for one, for one dragon.

 

http://p079.ezboard.com/ftheorylandfrm30.showMessage?topicID=6.topic

[RobertAlexWillis]

Yup. The Wheel is like a fuzzy logic device, as I belive he said elsewhere.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Then Jordan is splitting his hairs very finely, indeed.

 

Any machine with awareness that pervasive and discrimination that minute and programming that detailed is semantically equivalent to sentient.

 

It has to recognize that one particular metaphysical act will accomplish one specific goal, and then cause that specific act ( the projection of the fight ) to occur.

 

That's close enough to Deus ex Machina for me.

[SinisterDeath]

I disagree.

Via your logic, the NPC's in the game Oblivion would be sentient. Which they are not.

Sentience is basically designed as being self aware of your self, and your sorroudnings. That doesn't un-sentience 'beings' can't be aware of there sorroundings... If that were the case, every animal would be dead with out the direct interference from a god like being.

If anything, the wheel is an AI, designed to go along a certain order of events. And try to correct events by twisting and nudgeing fate here and there.

Think of it kinda like 'final destination'. Except just an advanced program running in the background. Not sentient, but certainly artificially inteligent, and like true AI, give it a question, and it'll figure out an answer along the basic guidelines its been programmed to follow.

 

For instance, lets say theres a programming in there that a specific soul has to live long enough for another soul to kill it. But this partiuclar soul was born into a very very poor family. Infact, within a few weeks the family will starve to death.

Well the wheel has any number of ways to fix it.

Either, A) It gives them a good harvest season, so they live another year..

B) They find a treasure chest in there backyard.

C) It Could put a series of events into place that'll cause the soul to run away from home.

This doesn't necissarilly mean its sentient. Just 'craetive within its programming'..

 

www.dictionary.com defines Sentience as

 

state of elementary or undifferentiated consciousness; "the crash intruded on his awareness" [syn: awareness] 2: the faculty through which the external world is apprehended; "in the dark he had to depend on touch and on his senses of smell and hearing" [syn: sense, sensation, sentiency, sensory faculty] 3: the readiness to perceive sensations; elementary or undifferentiated consciousness; "gave sentience to slugs and newts"- Richard Eberhart [ant: insentience]

 

Insentience; without sensation or feeling; inanimate.n Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

adj.

Devoid of sensation or consciousness; inanimate.

So the main difference is 'senses', you know hearing, seeing, touch ect.

Then theres 'feelings'. I'm pretty sure the wheel is completely lacking anything called Feelings.

 

On Startrek, they had an Andriod named data. They struggled with this concept for YEARS.

Data did not have feelings. Yet he was Sentient.

How? He was self aware. He thought, therefor he is.

Self Aware in more then just the 'I exist'. I can't go into to many details, but they later came across a much less complex being, Very Smart AI, solve many problems, rather quickly in ways most people couldn't. Yet, only data could see that it was indeed Sentient, self aware. *one of the defining attributes of being alive, at least morrally obligated into not killing something alive, unlike something like an ant, which is alive, but not to the extent that we should feel to sad for killing it.*

 

The main reason he concluded it was sentient, was simply, self preservation. It was aware of its self, and its sorroundings. It even disabled its self from preventing its self from being destroyed...

It to did not have feelings..

 

Now the wheel, if you continue to say its sentient, its far closer to the rudemental, sentient being as the basic ai with self preservation. However, that can be 'programmed'.. relatively...

 

So simply the Wheel has

Smart quick acting AI.

Possibly self preservation. However that could be just the creators own programming, to fix any problems that threaten the wheel or the universe. Not necissarilly because it 'feels' it can't die, but because its program dictates. "get rid of anything threatening to destroy the universe or the wheel".

Combine that with the fact that RJ said its not sentient. Its not sentient, the 'self preservation' is simply programmed, and not something that developed from a bugged ai programming. That directive has always existed...

[Luckers]

I love when people bring religions into things. It gives me the chance to sound pretentious and piss people off... and hey, who doesn't enjoy that?

 

Most theologies would accept the notion that a GOD is a being who exists in all places and at all times. Is capable of being anywhere and anywhen.

 

This isn't true. The vast majority of religious traditions suggest that gods are falliable beings. Ancient Near East traditions such as Marduk, Ba'al, Yahweh (or Elohim) were all specifically bound to national boundaries. It is true that later on in the Judean faith, and therefore in the christian faith, that Yahweh withdrew and became something less physically tangible and more omnipresent, but this was an exception resulting from the effects of the disapora. Islamics still obey this understanding... its why they bow to Meccah when the prey.

 

The same for Greek and Roman faiths, Manechetism and the Gnostic faiths (which actually suggest that God is incapable of touching the earth because its impure nature would kill him) The faiths of the east are even more loose. God's are greater beings certainly, in Jainism, Hinduism, Doaism, Confucianism and so on, but they are neither omniportent, omniscient nor omnipresent. Buddha disdains them entirely.

 

Monotheistic, monoidolatristic, polytheistic, animistic and shamanistic faiths all have this to a degree. The only faiths that even come close to what you suggest are the pantheistic faiths such as witchcraft.

 

Additionally from a philosophical point of view, such an understanding of god is impossible. Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresense have seere theoretical problems which i wont get into. if you are interested though there is a thread in Debates by Kivam that gets into it. I believe its under the name Free Will, or something similar.

 

Therefore, the DO is not a GOD. He does not exist everywhere and everywhen. He exists only now. He is not, in fact sealed away from The Wheel, but bound to it and experiences Time just like everyone else. He's not the Anti-GOD, he's just Darth Vader. Or, maybe Dark Helmet.

 

He is not a modern christian understanding of God, but he'd certainly fit into the majority of other faiths understanding..

 

I don't think it's a matter of dualism here, where the DO is equal but opposite to the Creator; I think it's more like the Judeo-Christian Creator/Devil relationship, wherein the DO is extremely wise and powerful, but less-than the Creator. Satan is still the source and embodiment of evil in the Judeo-Christian religions, and he's certainly powerful, but he's not so strong that the Creator can't handle him, perhaps by sending him to his room for an eternity-long time out, just like the DO.

 

There is not evidence suggesting the Creator is in any way comprable to the christian God... As far as we know he might have been killed in the imprisonment of shai'tan. With one possible example (being the end of the Eye of the World) we have no seen any suggestion of either influence or power. They may very will be evenly matched. One has to lose in the confrontation between evenly matched individuals, and the fact that shai'tan still lives suggests that the Creators victory was not complete. Who is to say how wounded he was by what was done.

 

Indeed, it is entirely possible that the Creator is weaker. Historically the weaker force attempts to defend while the stronger attacks. It may be that the wheel was created as an attempt to protect himself from the Dark One... indeed, if the dark one is outside trying to get in, that doesn't imply imprisonment to me.

 

Pure conjecture... the point merely being that assumptions based on your own religions can be misleading. We really know nothing of the Creator, his intentions or his powers.

 

As for:

 

Satan is still the source and embodiment of evil in the Judeo-Christian religions, and he's certainly powerful

 

I suggest you study your Tenach. In Judean religion, and the old testament, Satan is not a figure of evil. He serves a decidedly nasty purpose of ensuring that peoples devotion to God is genuine by doing all sorts of unpleasent (but on the whole, not terrible) things to challange peoples faiths. That's literally what his name means... the Adversary--of humanity, not god.

 

Indeed the only truly catastrophic thing Satan does in non-christian texts is elsewhere claimed by Yahweh who states that "it is not he, but I, for I am Yahweh unrivalled, and all that is done, is done through me."

 

The evil of Satan only truly appeared in texts written after 539BCE following the Persian occupation of Judeah and the influence of their inherently dualistic faith, zoroasterianism.

 

Indeed i would suggest that to be the closest match, ideologically, with what occurs in the books. In Zoroasterianism there are two gods, Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu. There were both supreme forces in their own way, but utterly opposite. Ahura Mazda was god because he chose good, creation, light, life, strength, truth and so on, Angra Mainyu was god because he chose destruction, unmaking, chaos, lies and so on. They went so far as to attribut natures to everything, depending on whether they were positive or negative forces. The two beings were utterly opposite, utterly equal, and yet Ahura Mazda retained supremacy because his nature was creative, whilst Angra Mainyu's was reactive. He could only destroy that which was, not create, and therefore he was always held in check.

 

That to me sounds more similar to the Dark One and the Creator then either Christianity (of which i think there is little comparison) or Hinduism (of which there is greater levels of comparison, but still not anything solid).

[SinisterDeath]

You know, I was thinking about something earlier on the nature of the do and the creator.

You've heard of M theory right? To get simple, the idea is that the universe is made up of Membranes, and everytime a membrane colides, a new universe apears. This same theory claims there are 11 dimensions. 10 spacial, 1 for time. *and one, which connects every dimension with each other, that is less then a nanometer large, but infinitely long*

 

Anyways, we know the DO, has god-like powers. Just look at the boubles of evil.. He can pretty much do Anything he wants within his domain. Lets call it his universe, or more like a closet.. Not much room to get around.

Him, like the creator were born in the universe known as randland.

Or, in that infinitely long tube connecting all worlds together..

Now, the way I see it, The creator came first, then the Darkone, The creator isn't *all that is holy* Its more like a sentient being of pure energy that has the power to 'create' things... Theres several possible ways the Darkone came into being..

The creator tried to purge the evil from his heart.. Creating the darkone.

The Creator could have dreamt of something evil like the DO, and made it.. Or the DO could simply be a type of Virus to the Creator, that mutated, and gained part of the Creators powers.

Either way, theres the possibility as to why the Creator Imprissoned 'all that is evil'. If you have a threat, such as that, capable of destroying all reality. Wouldn't you kill him? Hell, would you lock a blood thirsty psychopathic maniac in your closet with a chainsaw? I wouldn't... I think theres an even more sinister reason why the Creator locked him up for all time.

Could it possibly be, for 1 of 2 reasons.

1) Destroying the DO, would destroy the Creator.

2) Destroying the Do, would destroy the balance in the universe. Thusly destroying the creator, and destroying the universe, into escentially just 'space' if there is even space....

 

I think #1 is far more likey, where as #2 would be simply a minor side effect, not anywhere near that destructive. As long as the Wheel is in place, the DO & Creator have to exist, or the worlds it governs, fall into complete chaos... Imagine a world were everyones being very very friendly to each other, and not doing anything unpleasant. like farming... You'd kill everyone through starvation...

 

Back to M Theory, It would be within the creators power? To create a tiny lil universe just for the darkone, that exists, everywhere within the randland universe, and nowhere. Infinitely big, and infintely small.. And that the DO's prime goal in its existance, is to destroy the Creator. Which it can't do being locked up in its own lil universe once it escapes, he will have the power to destroy, as well as to create. But he can only do that to such an extent in randland reality..

 

Also, remember how verin said if the do wins in another portal world, he wins everywhere?

 

I think RJ may have known about M Theory since 91' :P

[Bob T Dwarf]

Let me just deal with your expositon on Zoroastrianism here. I agree it offers a useful parallel to WOT's Creator/DO duality.

 

Ahura Mazda chose to perfect the skills of creation. Angra Mainyu chose to perfect the skills of destruction.

 

Notice, they chose.

 

Each is capable of the skills of the other, they simply choose not to practice them.

 

Likewise with other polytheistic ideologies. The gods choose their roles usually based on their underlying nature. Doesn't mean they can't do some other god's job, just that he/she got there first and staked out that territory. The power is universal, the job to which that power is applied is specific.

 

In one sense, what WOT is about is the DO saying, "Hey! I'd like to try my hand at this creation stuff.", and The Creator saying, "Sorry, kid. I got here first. Now, run along, yer momma's callin'."

[yolindamo]

Does his transmigration of souls have to do with creation? Not really does it? It's not creating it's just moving. Have we seen the DO create anything? Doesnt he just use stuff the Creator created?

[Bob T Dwarf]

There are families in which Mom never does home repairs and Dad never cooks.

 

That doesn't mean that Mom can't drive a nail or Dad can't boil water. It just means that their kids have never seen either of them do those things.

 

We simply haven't seen all of the things that the DO can do. Or, The Creator either.

[Iceman]

All this talk was interesting, but now I have a headache.

 

On the other hand, now I have an image of the Creator and the Dark One as just a 10 year old boy leaning over his fishbowl full of sea monkeys. He poured in the packet, watched 'em grow... and then got bored.

 

Now he has fun poking at 'em with a stick here and there, creating bubbles of evil and watching 'em squirm... He put in a few tiny goldfish to eat at the sea monkeys, until they learned to fight back... but he just puts in a new one or two once in a while. He even turned on a heat lamp over them, until they figured out how to cool their own fishbowl.

 

It's like his own fun little science experiment. :)