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Lovecraft for Squids: Scifi Religion Creation

Started by QueenThera, December 17, 2014, 09:43:41 AM

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QueenThera

Quote from: Demolition Squid on December 22, 2014, 04:32:41 PM
I absolutely adore a lot of Lovecraft's stuff... but.

The problem with lifting familiar names wholesale is that they immediately color your work towards parody. These days, the Cthulhu Mythos has been so heavily co-opted by the geek culture that they don't inspire any of the original sense of the unknown. They can't; everyone knows what these names mean in the fantasy/sci-fi/horror space. You're basically importing a whole bunch of baggage wholesale, so either you spend an inordinate amount of time explaining how your Cthulhu is different, or you accept the preconceptions your audience will likely bring with it. Mostly, these will be comedic - which is fine if that's what you're going for, but can hurt your tone if it isn't.

I'd suggest just using different names to bypass the issue completely. Its a little ironic, but pretty much the only way to invoke Lovecraftian ideas, these days, is pretty much to ignore all the existing Mythos and craft your own.
That would be sensible advice for a Lovecraft story, yes. I'll use it eventually, since eldritch horror does interest me a little.

But I am using Cthulhu Mythos for the ingeniopods because it IS part of the culture. I'm not trying to replicate the setting that Cthulhu and friends are from. Humanity in the story had Lovecraft write his stories, and the same geek culture. It would probably be weird if they tried to create knockoff gods while the humans are aware of the origin.
Often incoherent. Tends to ramble on about various topics.
Hopes to get beyond that.

Formerly BrotherPrickle

QueenThera

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on December 22, 2014, 04:42:57 PM
This is a good point. Plus, if you create your own pantheon, you can cherry pick the parts you like (tentacle sexdeath), and leave out what you don't (alien cone time-traveling librarians of Yith; racism).
...I like the Great Race of Yith, though.

http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/05/the-litany-of-earth-ruthanna-emrys

This story in particular managed to make them pretty cool for me.
Often incoherent. Tends to ramble on about various topics.
Hopes to get beyond that.

Formerly BrotherPrickle

Prelate Diogenes Shandor

#77
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 24, 2014, 04:51:42 PM
Quote from: S on December 24, 2014, 02:57:14 AM
Cephalopods lack proprioception entirely, if I'm not mistaken. Behaviorally, it's very interesting.

You are not only mistaken, but you are so very mistaken that I am wondering if you know what proprioception means.

It's possible they're taking wikipedia's article on proprioception overly literally where it states that the proprioceptors responsible for it are located in joints and in "skeletal striated muscles". If taken completely literally this would imply that a squid has little or no proprioception since a squid's skeleton has only one "bone" - and therefore no joints - and the muscles in its tentacles/arms aren't attached to it.

EDIT:
Also, regarding the Great Race of Yith, if I recall correctly the cones were only one of many forms that the Great Race had taken during its long existence.
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It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would plunge us back into the darkness -H.P.Lovecraft


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Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on December 27, 2014, 11:01:45 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 24, 2014, 04:51:42 PM
Quote from: S on December 24, 2014, 02:57:14 AM
Cephalopods lack proprioception entirely, if I'm not mistaken. Behaviorally, it's very interesting.

You are not only mistaken, but you are so very mistaken that I am wondering if you know what proprioception means.

It's possible they're taking wikipedia's article on proprioception overly literally where it states that the proprioceptors responsible for it are located in joints and in "skeletal striated muscles". If taken completely literally this would imply that a squid has little or no proprioception since a squid's skeleton has only one "bone" - and therefore no joints - and the muscles in its tentacles/arms aren't attached to it.

Good point, I edited it to clarify that the article is talking specifically about proprioception mechanisms in humans.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Q. G. Pennyworth

Nigel, you know from neurology things. What's your opinion on the multiple seats of consciousness thing? Most of my neurology stuff has been filtered through Oliver Sachs or Michio Kaku, and Kaku's not even a neurology guy so I'm betting I have some things wrong.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 28, 2014, 12:13:48 AM
Nigel, you know from neurology things. What's your opinion on the multiple seats of consciousness thing? Most of my neurology stuff has been filtered through Oliver Sachs or Michio Kaku, and Kaku's not even a neurology guy so I'm betting I have some things wrong.

Hmm, I've read some Sacks and I'm not really sure what you're talking about. From what I know so far it seems as if consciousness is a very complicated affair that involves our entire bodies to varying degrees, and is also remarkably resilient in that parts of our brains and bodies can be destroyed and we will still retain it.

I think that there are important processing regions that contribute specific elements to our consciousness.

I have no idea whether that answers your question but if it doesn't I'd be glad to try again.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Q. G. Pennyworth

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 28, 2014, 12:54:13 AM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 28, 2014, 12:13:48 AM
Nigel, you know from neurology things. What's your opinion on the multiple seats of consciousness thing? Most of my neurology stuff has been filtered through Oliver Sachs or Michio Kaku, and Kaku's not even a neurology guy so I'm betting I have some things wrong.

Hmm, I've read some Sacks and I'm not really sure what you're talking about. From what I know so far it seems as if consciousness is a very complicated affair that involves our entire bodies to varying degrees, and is also remarkably resilient in that parts of our brains and bodies can be destroyed and we will still retain it.

I think that there are important processing regions that contribute specific elements to our consciousness.

I have no idea whether that answers your question but if it doesn't I'd be glad to try again.

I wasn't so much thinking about anything Sacks had written in regards to that question, just explaining I've only gone through more "popular" science channels for this one.

Kaku was pretty big on the idea of two seats of consciousness in his book The Future of the Mind, relying on a lot of the split brain patient data that's out there. I'm sure you've seen or heard of some of the experiments, show one eye one thing and the other something else and watch the left brain try to explain why the right brain is doing something crazy. Kaku is (or was at the time or writing) in love with his theory that the brain makes up a bunch of possible future scenarios and dumps them all to the "CEO" of the mind (the seat of consciousness) that evaluates the possible scenarios and makes decisions based on that data. The left seat of consciousness is the one that does the talking and what we perceive as "ourself," the logical analytical bit that makes up excuses for what we do and the right seat is all the feels and pessimism.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 28, 2014, 01:52:45 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 28, 2014, 12:54:13 AM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 28, 2014, 12:13:48 AM
Nigel, you know from neurology things. What's your opinion on the multiple seats of consciousness thing? Most of my neurology stuff has been filtered through Oliver Sachs or Michio Kaku, and Kaku's not even a neurology guy so I'm betting I have some things wrong.

Hmm, I've read some Sacks and I'm not really sure what you're talking about. From what I know so far it seems as if consciousness is a very complicated affair that involves our entire bodies to varying degrees, and is also remarkably resilient in that parts of our brains and bodies can be destroyed and we will still retain it.

I think that there are important processing regions that contribute specific elements to our consciousness.

I have no idea whether that answers your question but if it doesn't I'd be glad to try again.

I wasn't so much thinking about anything Sacks had written in regards to that question, just explaining I've only gone through more "popular" science channels for this one.

Kaku was pretty big on the idea of two seats of consciousness in his book The Future of the Mind, relying on a lot of the split brain patient data that's out there. I'm sure you've seen or heard of some of the experiments, show one eye one thing and the other something else and watch the left brain try to explain why the right brain is doing something crazy. Kaku is (or was at the time or writing) in love with his theory that the brain makes up a bunch of possible future scenarios and dumps them all to the "CEO" of the mind (the seat of consciousness) that evaluates the possible scenarios and makes decisions based on that data. The left seat of consciousness is the one that does the talking and what we perceive as "ourself," the logical analytical bit that makes up excuses for what we do and the right seat is all the feels and pessimism.

Ahh. Yes, I'm familiar with those experiments. The brain has a lot of built-in redundancies, and in some ways it really is like we each consist of two conjoined brains. I think I'm having some trouble with the "seat of consciousness" phrasing, because it makes it sound like a robot with a driver's seat, in which sits a separate conscious being that controls it, and it's not quite like that. The entire brain works in unison with the entire rest of the body to make up our knowledge of "I". Parts can be lost, and sense of self retained, although it's valid to ask whether it's truly the same self. There is no one location in the brain that could be called "the seat of consciousness", and both hemispheres work together to create the sense of "I", so as charming as the idea is -- and indeed each hemisphere has a slightly different self-concept -- to think that we are two discrete consciousnesses inhabiting a single body, it's nonetheless a bit of a poetic fancy IMO.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

The whole right brain vs. left brain thing is also way more complicated than people used to think it was, too, to the point of being essentially a fallacy. For example, in somewhere around 90% of people spoken language is generated in an area of the left frontal cortex called "Broca's area", and language is understood in an area of the left temporal cortex called "Wernicke's area". And then you have some for whom they are generated in the right hemisphere, and some in whom they are shared across both hemispheres. In most cases, however, all information is shared across both hemispheres almost simultaneously so that it can be integrated.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Q. G. Pennyworth

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 28, 2014, 02:38:34 AM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 28, 2014, 01:52:45 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 28, 2014, 12:54:13 AM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 28, 2014, 12:13:48 AM
Nigel, you know from neurology things. What's your opinion on the multiple seats of consciousness thing? Most of my neurology stuff has been filtered through Oliver Sachs or Michio Kaku, and Kaku's not even a neurology guy so I'm betting I have some things wrong.

Hmm, I've read some Sacks and I'm not really sure what you're talking about. From what I know so far it seems as if consciousness is a very complicated affair that involves our entire bodies to varying degrees, and is also remarkably resilient in that parts of our brains and bodies can be destroyed and we will still retain it.

I think that there are important processing regions that contribute specific elements to our consciousness.

I have no idea whether that answers your question but if it doesn't I'd be glad to try again.

I wasn't so much thinking about anything Sacks had written in regards to that question, just explaining I've only gone through more "popular" science channels for this one.

Kaku was pretty big on the idea of two seats of consciousness in his book The Future of the Mind, relying on a lot of the split brain patient data that's out there. I'm sure you've seen or heard of some of the experiments, show one eye one thing and the other something else and watch the left brain try to explain why the right brain is doing something crazy. Kaku is (or was at the time or writing) in love with his theory that the brain makes up a bunch of possible future scenarios and dumps them all to the "CEO" of the mind (the seat of consciousness) that evaluates the possible scenarios and makes decisions based on that data. The left seat of consciousness is the one that does the talking and what we perceive as "ourself," the logical analytical bit that makes up excuses for what we do and the right seat is all the feels and pessimism.

Ahh. Yes, I'm familiar with those experiments. The brain has a lot of built-in redundancies, and in some ways it really is like we each consist of two conjoined brains. I think I'm having some trouble with the "seat of consciousness" phrasing, because it makes it sound like a robot with a driver's seat, in which sits a separate conscious being that controls it, and it's not quite like that. The entire brain works in unison with the entire rest of the body to make up our knowledge of "I". Parts can be lost, and sense of self retained, although it's valid to ask whether it's truly the same self. There is no one location in the brain that could be called "the seat of consciousness", and both hemispheres work together to create the sense of "I", so as charming as the idea is -- and indeed each hemisphere has a slightly different self-concept -- to think that we are two discrete consciousnesses inhabiting a single body, it's nonetheless a bit of a poetic fancy IMO.

This is why I ask before I open my mouth and make an enormous ass of myself. The structure he pointed to as the "CEO" was the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 28, 2014, 05:15:13 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 28, 2014, 02:38:34 AM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 28, 2014, 01:52:45 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 28, 2014, 12:54:13 AM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 28, 2014, 12:13:48 AM
Nigel, you know from neurology things. What's your opinion on the multiple seats of consciousness thing? Most of my neurology stuff has been filtered through Oliver Sachs or Michio Kaku, and Kaku's not even a neurology guy so I'm betting I have some things wrong.

Hmm, I've read some Sacks and I'm not really sure what you're talking about. From what I know so far it seems as if consciousness is a very complicated affair that involves our entire bodies to varying degrees, and is also remarkably resilient in that parts of our brains and bodies can be destroyed and we will still retain it.

I think that there are important processing regions that contribute specific elements to our consciousness.

I have no idea whether that answers your question but if it doesn't I'd be glad to try again.

I wasn't so much thinking about anything Sacks had written in regards to that question, just explaining I've only gone through more "popular" science channels for this one.

Kaku was pretty big on the idea of two seats of consciousness in his book The Future of the Mind, relying on a lot of the split brain patient data that's out there. I'm sure you've seen or heard of some of the experiments, show one eye one thing and the other something else and watch the left brain try to explain why the right brain is doing something crazy. Kaku is (or was at the time or writing) in love with his theory that the brain makes up a bunch of possible future scenarios and dumps them all to the "CEO" of the mind (the seat of consciousness) that evaluates the possible scenarios and makes decisions based on that data. The left seat of consciousness is the one that does the talking and what we perceive as "ourself," the logical analytical bit that makes up excuses for what we do and the right seat is all the feels and pessimism.

Ahh. Yes, I'm familiar with those experiments. The brain has a lot of built-in redundancies, and in some ways it really is like we each consist of two conjoined brains. I think I'm having some trouble with the "seat of consciousness" phrasing, because it makes it sound like a robot with a driver's seat, in which sits a separate conscious being that controls it, and it's not quite like that. The entire brain works in unison with the entire rest of the body to make up our knowledge of "I". Parts can be lost, and sense of self retained, although it's valid to ask whether it's truly the same self. There is no one location in the brain that could be called "the seat of consciousness", and both hemispheres work together to create the sense of "I", so as charming as the idea is -- and indeed each hemisphere has a slightly different self-concept -- to think that we are two discrete consciousnesses inhabiting a single body, it's nonetheless a bit of a poetic fancy IMO.

This is why I ask before I open my mouth and make an enormous ass of myself. The structure he pointed to as the "CEO" was the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

That is where most of our consequence modeling and impulse control takes place, so I think it's accurate to say that it's a major major decision making area, much as the thalamus is the major "switchboard". However, that paints an incomplete picture because amygdala, part of what is commonly thought of as "old" or "lizard" brain area, is critical to decision-making in ways that the analytical computer of the forebrain can't seem to take over. People with amygdala damage or deficiency tend to be very bad decision-makers when it comes to interactions with society and other people.

The prefrontal cortex helps us with foresight, predictions, and overriding immediate gratification ie. impulse control, but ultimately there's a lot more of the brain involved in terms of decision-making than just the prefrontal cortex. The brain is just not that compartmentalized.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


S

Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 24, 2014, 04:31:49 AM
Quote from: S on December 24, 2014, 02:57:14 AM
Cephalopods lack proprioception entirely, if I'm not mistaken. Behaviorally, it's very interesting.

:cn:

M. J. Wells (1964). Tactile Discrimination of Surface Curvature and Shape by the Octopus Journal of Experimental Biology, 41, 433-445

And please allow me to amend my statement: I find it very interesting.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

#87
Quote from: S on December 28, 2014, 08:21:49 PM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 24, 2014, 04:31:49 AM
Quote from: S on December 24, 2014, 02:57:14 AM
Cephalopods lack proprioception entirely, if I'm not mistaken. Behaviorally, it's very interesting.

:cn:

M. J. Wells (1964). Tactile Discrimination of Surface Curvature and Shape by the Octopus Journal of Experimental Biology, 41, 433-445

And please allow me to amend my statement: I find it very interesting.

Ah, I think I see your misunderstanding; the paper states that they don't appear to use proprioception in learning.

QuoteIn such creatures proprioceptive inputs giving details of bodily position
probably never penetrate to levels of the central nervous system concerned with
learned responses.

QuoteAttempts have been made
to train octopuses to distinguish between objects differing in weight, and these have
failed despite the fact that octopuses obviously compensate for the weight of things that
they handle. Muscle tension is increased to take the load, but the animals appear to be
quite unable to learn to recognize this as indicating a property of the object lifted
(Wells 1961a).

QuoteCephalopods, like vertebrates, evidently enjoy two mechanosensory
systems, one related exclusively to the local adjustment of muscle tension, the
other, superficial in origin, more immediately concerned with the animal's relations
to its external environment, signalling information to the highest parts of the brain,
where it can play a part in learned processes (see Pringle, 1963).
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


S

That seems very similar to "did not learn to discriminate between two different proprioceptive inputs in this test." It might have been because of their reliance on that really cool mechanoreceptor that apparently operates off sucker deformation, but if a creature cannot learn to discriminate between two sensory inputs can it be said to have that sense?

I absolutely accept that I've probably misread this entire thing but that was the exact process I followed to get to where I got.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: S on December 29, 2014, 09:06:21 AM
That seems very similar to "did not learn to discriminate between two different proprioceptive inputs in this test." It might have been because of their reliance on that really cool mechanoreceptor that apparently operates off sucker deformation, but if a creature cannot learn to discriminate between two sensory inputs can it be said to have that sense?

I absolutely accept that I've probably misread this entire thing but that was the exact process I followed to get to where I got.

You are confusing the process of cognitively processing sensation inputs with responding to sensation inputs. If you touch a hot stove and jerk away before you understand what happened, does the sensation that caused you to jerk away actually happen in the milliseconds between the reflexive response and the cognitive response?

It is fairly certain that flatworms have no cognitive reasoning and cannot learn at all, but they nonetheless have senses and can orient themselves according to relevant sensory inputs.

Sensation precedes, and indeed is necessary for, thought.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."