A Lot To Answer For 2013-07-16

[Fairportfan]

yeah the problem with maturity is it has nothing to do with age and everything to do with mental development.

"Ve grow too soon oldt und too late schmart."

[Fairportfan]

The GGs pass the Turing Test.

[Dragon Hostler]

Having spent quite a few years in the Military, I can honestly say Kath's answer (having been Air Force) would more than likely be "I'm Fan-fucking- tastic." That was one of the first things I learned in the Army.

My thought exactly!

Always figured Tsillah's ears were motile. I believe this is the first time we see this though.
Whenever I think of Tsillah I start humming I Am The Highway by Audioslave.

[Jabberwonky]

That's really just the tip of the iceberg, of course. What hasn't been emphasized is what happened to Bud and Brandi's souls. They died before the Chimera destroyed Lanthis. How do you think they're doing?

A good question... and one which has been "hanging fire" for years, I think.

We know that the golems were made using the ashes of the murdered girls (Jin, too) and that the golems incorporated the memories and personalities of the girls somehow. I can't recall if Paul has ever stated definitively whether the girls' souls are in there as well. Not a trivial distinction... the golems might be "really them, transplanted into new programmable clay bodies" and thus "persons", or might be "not them, just good reproductions which were programmed to emulate" (and thus perhaps less than true persons?)

It hasn't been until fairly recently in Wapsi that the concept of a soul was really made "canon" (in Shelly's conversation with Conscience about Tina, I think). Now, we have reason to believe that a soul can play a critical role in defining an individual.

Apparently, a damaged soul (the Nu Gui) has been part of "Brandi" for thousands of years. It'd seem odd to me if the soul of the original living Brandi were not also able to "be in there".

The GGs pass the Turing Test.

For what it's worth, here's Bud's thoughts on the subject...

[Sideromelane]

That's really just the tip of the iceberg, of course. What hasn't been emphasized is what happened to Bud and Brandi's souls. They died before the Chimera destroyed Lanthis. How do you think they're doing?

A good question... and one which has been "hanging fire" for years, I think.

We know that the golems were made using the ashes of the murdered girls (Jin, too) and that the golems incorporated the memories and personalities of the girls somehow. I can't recall if Paul has ever stated definitively whether the girls' souls are in there as well. Not a trivial distinction... the golems might be "really them, transplanted into new programmable clay bodies" and thus "persons", or might be "not them, just good reproductions which were programmed to emulate" (and thus perhaps less than true persons?)

It hasn't been until fairly recently in Wapsi that the concept of a soul was really made "canon" (in Shelly's conversation with Conscience about Tina, I think). Now, we have reason to believe that a soul can play a critical role in defining an individual.

Apparently, a damaged soul (the Nu Gui) has been part of "Brandi" for thousands of years. It'd seem odd to me if the soul of the original living Brandi were not also able to "be in there".

Um. Lets say the GG don't have their ORIGINAL souls. (Personally I believe that personality and memory form the genesis of a soul, a newborn may have one as part of a reincarnation jig, or, it can be born without one and it grows with the personality)
And the Nu Gui is old, pissed off, and pissed off enough to exterminate anyone who might have a chance of knowing how to create more golems.

Brandi may have had her original soul all along, in the form of the Nu Gui, while a new 'integrated' soul grew from the ash-memories and new experiences Brandi gained as a golem.

Just a thought, and not really a particularly nice one, as it would mean the original, 'REAL', Brandi is now forever trapped in crystalline purgatory.

[Timotheus]

It was stated fairly early on that the Golem Girls didn't have souls. That they were lost in the process and that there was a "Hole" inside their personality as a result. That was part of the situation that caused Tina to sound the alarm when she noticed that Jin had the soul of an angry child in her that was causing her instability. This problem was never brought up again and the actual solution to Jin's mental instability didn't involve any ghostly hitch hikers, so that aspect remains unexplored.

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/nicetry/
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/quite-obvious/
Start at:
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/missing-element/

[Jay-Em]

Interesting discussion of the "soul" thing.

My thoughts? The "soul" gets shaped by experiences, it grows. In the case of f.i. Tina, I really believe (in the Wapsi-canon!) Tina got a "soul" through the demons deciding that doing "good" was more satisfying than being evil, and acting upon it. At thát specific moment, her soul became a reality. The cute thing about Tina, is that she's convinced she has no soul, and to me that's exáctly why I believe she has one.

Only by having a "soul", a character can understand and feel the importance of a soul.... Think that one over for a bit. "I think, thus I am"

Think f.i. of religious people. To thèm it's the most important thing in their lives to believe what they believe. To have a discussion with them, I have to imagine their Deity as a real, living entity -otherwise you'll be discussing about nothing, massively complicating things. And at thát moment, the Deity ís real, for me too, despite being an atheïst, if only for duration of the discussion.

A problem that has always stumped philosophers.

The Nu Gui was (to me, at least!) not a "soul", but just an entity hellbent on evil and revenge. It's often said that being full of revenge, will destroy a soul. In the Wapsiverse, I can imagine it to be reality.

But, then again, I am an artist, academy of the arts educated. To me a piece of art can have a "soul", be it a soul that's put into it by the artist. So, the "soul"-thing is more fluid to me than simply the nucleus of a living, breathing entity. (Or nót breathing, for the GG.. ) the clay-jars have a sense of right-wrong, they ponder existence, and thusly -again, to me- have a "soul", but they do not realize it, because they are convinced they cannot have a soul. The 'hole' is only there in their imagination, through their conviction they cannot have a soul. And in believing that, they project it as "reality" to the rest of the world.

Maybe it's a way to work through their traumatic past. Their violent Chimera-state, was the result of aimed removal of their souls by the priests, their rituals wholly aimed towards using just the anger and hate of the girls. The anger and hate fostered by their horrible deaths (Hey, magic, you know? ) In the Wapsi-verse, anger, hate, spite, all of those negative things, can apparently be separated, and used by a sufficient adept clique of priests/magicians, to shape an entity out of it.

In case of the chimera, they failed, because Jin chose her own death, and thusly leaving part of her "soul" intact. I wouldn't be surprised of having a "soul" is contagious too, in the Wapsi-verse. What I mean is this: If making a Chimera, be careful to destroy ALL vestiges of a "soul", otherwise, the chimera will be "tainted" and the tiny bits of soul left, will, like a bacterium, grow like mad, wrecking the chimera by imbuing it with a "soul" again.

In this case, the "good" part of Jin witnessed the carnage, "infecting" Bud and Brandi with her horror&shame, and planting the seeds in them for restoring their "souls" too. With all the results for the GG, in their quest to atone. *shrugs* seems logic, at least to mé, it does.

But hey, it's just the musings of a flunked philosophy major... About as valuable as €0,01, or a used paper plate at a BBQ.
So don't attempt to engage in a really deep metaphysical discussion with me. I'll only look back, mouth half open, unable to say more than "eeeeeehhhh" (imagine drooling idiot here )

[Radical_Knight]

Aww...Tsillah is sad, her ears are droopy.

[cmdrpowers]

Jay-Em- I think you've pretty much nailed this. Maybe you have a soul.

[jwhouk]

You're missing the obvious shock reply - one that would drive us all batty if she said it in response to Kath's inevitable question...

Kath: "Where's ATSALI?"
Tsillah: "YOU'RE TALKING TO HER!"
Kath: "....What?"
Tsillah: "It was ME. All that time. Or, at least, my shadow."

[Aleister Crow]

Charon: "Tsillah? Remember when I mentioned the Etheitians a little while ago? Somehow, all of them just turned up on my doorstep. That's right, their entire civilization. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

[DragonholderX]

Was not Kathy the shy, reclusive one who felt like she lived in a fishbowl? I'd say that now she's not just out of the bowl, she came out with so much force the bowl was turned into powder. Way to go Kathy.

[Julie]

Awww...sad Tsillah needs a hug! Yes, she totally put her foot in it by not thinking about how her actions could cause harm, but she's got a good heart.

It's becoming a bit untangled. Tsillah has been pulling the strings and using the library as a cover for her actions. Since MIB reacts to the libraries input and request all she had to do was make it seem like her actions were because the library told her and she passed them on.
Brandi's comment about the operator passing along information and instructions was Tsillah pulling the strings. She allowed Sali and Kathy to get into the game and used them to manipulate MIB and Brandi to fix what bugged her dad. All this time we thought the library was the one pulling the strings. No big impersonal device just another teenager trying to do something without thinking it through in the first place.

Ehhh...I wouldn't write off the Library's involvement yet. Yes, this might have started as Tsillah's idea, but I'm betting that she got the Library's buy-in and assistance...either for altruistic (in the interest of helping Brandi and free trapped souls) or selfish (in the interest of collecting data on a lost tribe) reasons, the Library was involved as more than just a cover for Tsillah's actions. After all, Bud's arrival at Mapimi was in the same "form" as Atsali's removal from the Library...which we learned was the Library's way of enforcing Atsali's time-limit in there...which then suggests that the Library sent Bud to Mapimi...which is probably not something that Tsillah could do on her own. I say that the Library was in on it and assisted with moving the pieces around since Tsillah might have trouble doing that on her own.

[Wdot]

That's really just the tip of the iceberg, of course. What hasn't been emphasized is what happened to Bud and Brandi's souls. They died before the Chimera destroyed Lanthis. How do you think they're doing?

A good question... and one which has been "hanging fire" for years, I think.

We know that the golems were made using the ashes of the murdered girls (Jin, too) and that the golems incorporated the memories and personalities of the girls somehow. I can't recall if Paul has ever stated definitively whether the girls' souls are in there as well. Not a trivial distinction... the golems might be "really them, transplanted into new programmable clay bodies" and thus "persons", or might be "not them, just good reproductions which were programmed to emulate" (and thus perhaps less than true persons?)

It hasn't been until fairly recently in Wapsi that the concept of a soul was really made "canon" (in Shelly's conversation with Conscience about Tina, I think). Now, we have reason to believe that a soul can play a critical role in defining an individual.

Apparently, a damaged soul (the Nu Gui) has been part of "Brandi" for thousands of years. It'd seem odd to me if the soul of the original living Brandi were not also able to "be in there".

The GGs pass the Turing Test.

For what it's worth, here's Bud's thoughts on the subject...

Oh thanks for this. Before I've had my first cup of coffee too. *cracks knuckles* (I've learned my lesson about drinking coffee while reading Wapsi)

Technically, we're all organic self-replicating machines so Bud could've been sly about that one. What matters isn't the container, it's what's in the container and what is in the container is information. It's the records of the experiences perceived by the machine that are important, not the machine itself. For example, if you buy a computer from a big box store and carry it into the parking lot and you drop it and it gets run over by a car. It will piss you off even if it was insured and you can go right back into the store and get another almost identical to it. If, however it was a computer that you have had for several years and contained a lot of valuable pictures, programs, and notes say for your Master's or what not. If that was run over it would be a real tragedy. If, you had all the information backed up on a spare hard drive or on a server in the 'cloud' again it would just be a matter of downloading the information back into a suitable machine and you'd be good to go. It is the information that is important.
Another example. A blank piece of paper or canvas. You burn it and it's no big deal. However, say it has something on it. A signature. Maybe George Washington's or Benjamin Franklin's. Burning it now would be unthinkable. Yet it's not the paper or canvas that is important. It's what is on the paper or canvas that is really important.
I just read about an anencephalic child turning six. Now anyone can see that it is human. If you did genetic tests on it, they would come back as 100% human. Now the question, the big question, is the child a person? This will cause a myriad of arguments. In my humble opinion it is not and never will be a person. It is a bunch of organs waiting to be donated to people that can use them. This point of view can be highly controversial to say the least. However, if it is true and acceptable, it divorces the concept of human==person-hood. So person-hood can exist separately from being human. So Bud is a person, but no longer human, which doesn't matter, because what matters is the recording, not what it is recorded on. (This being established, a certain Bowman's Wolf is also a person as well as most of the machines on that world.)
Since the akashic records exist, it's like all the beings in this universe are backed up "in-the-cloud" so to speak. It is the record that is the "soul." JMHO.

[meisdadoo]

Charon: "Tsillah? Remember when I mentioned the Etheitians a little while ago? Somehow, all of them just turned up on my doorstep. That's right, their entire civilization. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

He needs to get a bigger boat . . .

Charon wants to talk to Tsilah NOW!!!

Why, does she have a bigger boat? (--Sorry, couldn't resist, drops a blank check into the pun jar. . . .)

[Aleister Crow]

Charon: "Tsillah? Remember when I mentioned the Etheitians a little while ago? Somehow, all of them just turned up on my doorstep. That's right, their entire civilization. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

He needs to get a bigger boat . . .

Charon wants to talk to Tsilah NOW!!!

Why, does she have a bigger boat? (--Sorry, couldn't resist, drops a blank check into the pun jar. . . .)

Gods help her if he makes her handle the paperwork.

[Yamara]

Charon: "Tsillah? Remember when I mentioned the Etheitians a little while ago? Somehow, all of them just turned up on my doorstep. That's right, their entire civilization. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

He needs to get a bigger boat . . .

SOULNADO.




Edit: (in case anyone took the internet off this weekend: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... vie-summer )

[kingklash]

Oh thanks for this. Before I've had my first cup of coffee too. *cracks knuckles* (I've learned my lesson about drinking coffee while reading Wapsi)

Technically, we're all organic self-replicating machines so Bud could've been sly about that one. What matters isn't the container, it's what's in the container and what is in the container is information. It's the records of the experiences perceived by the machine that are important, not the machine itself. For example, if you buy a computer from a big box store and carry it into the parking lot and you drop it and it gets run over by a car. It will piss you off even if it was insured and you can go right back into the store and get another almost identical to it. If, however it was a computer that you have had for several years and contained a lot of valuable pictures, programs, and notes say for your Master's or what not. If that was run over it would be a real tragedy. If, you had all the information backed up on a spare hard drive or on a server in the 'cloud' again it would just be a matter of downloading the information back into a suitable machine and you'd be good to go. It is the information that is important.
Another example. A blank piece of paper or canvas. You burn it and it's no big deal. However, say it has something on it. A signature. Maybe George Washington's or Benjamin Franklin's. Burning it now would be unthinkable. Yet it's not the paper or canvas that is important. It's what is on the paper or canvas that is really important.
I just read about an anencephalic child turning six. Now anyone can see that it is human. If you did genetic tests on it, they would come back as 100% human. Now the question, the big question, is the child a person? This will cause a myriad of arguments. In my humble opinion it is not and never will be a person. It is a bunch of organs waiting to be donated to people that can use them. This point of view can be highly controversial to say the least. However, if it is true and acceptable, it divorces the concept of human==person-hood. So person-hood can exist separately from being human. So Bud is a person, but no longer human, which doesn't matter, because what matters is the recording, not what it is recorded on. (This being established, a certain Bowman's Wolf is also a person as well as most of the machines on that world.)
Since the akashic records exist, it's like all the beings in this universe are backed up "in-the-cloud" so to speak. It is the record that is the "soul." JMHO.

You're talking about the Well of All Sparks, aren't you?

[kingklash]

*puts on a hard hat, and a large turtle shell, in preperation for a whole lot of footwear about to be dropped.*

[illiad]

I can almost Predict tomorrows one cell strip...

Kath, large and in charge, fists balled up, arms rigid by her side, bent slightly at the waist as she leans towards Bud and Tsillah, screaming at the top of her lungs, sending Bud and Tsillah tumbling...

WHERE THE FUCK IS ATSALI!!!!????

erm, if you haven't been following the strips, she is at the orphanage....

first panel..

lets hope not too much 'strip time' is taken up by finding out where it is.... :\