2009-10-14: Stop asking questions.

[BandMan2K]

We're missing the most important thing here: Kawaii on panels 5 & 6 looked so extra cute that I'm REALLY wanting to pinch those rosy cheeks of hers...and gladly take the consequences (i.e. - End of Life.)

Now with that, let's see if my ability to kill a thread by posting in it holds up.

[No One]

Hmm... I'm going to take anything Chicanery says with an extra-large grain of salt, given that her name literally means deception.

[Initial B]

Leave it to Ellis to tell it how he sees it. I don't think he was born with the tact gene.

"Compensating for something"? I'm beginning to wonder if Anilis and Senilis are actually Bimbo and Ralph from EN, and maybe Exitialis is Jordan...

[Slamlander]

I recall Luminosita being called "semi-autonomous" or something along those lines once. Still a far step from sapience though. (Rant-tangent: argh it's not "sentience"! Dang dogs and cats and mice are all sentient, but none of them are sapient! [Though some pet owners would argue about that]. Sentient just means "feeling" [lit. "sensing"], it's sapient that means "thinking" [lit. "wise"], viz. "homo sapiens", meaning "thinking man" or "wise man").

There are a whole boatload of Science Fiction writers that would certainly disagree with you.

[Graybeard]

Except that there's still every reason to believe that the elven 'gods' did create everybody, while Luminosita was made by people. Also, the elven gods are a lot more advanced.

I was referring to them being sentient magical energy balls (post-humanoid or what ever), while the poke-god was merely a ball of magical energy.

Remember that we don't have an "objective" view of Luminosita to work from, at least not yet. You certainly don't expect Jon or Meji to be detached in their view of him, do you? Sarine could have been more so, in principle, but like all the other elves, she was locked away inside Praenubilus Astu when he came calling, and would only have been able to observe what happened when he hit their barrier, not Luminosita himself. Anita's view is just as slanted as Jon's and Meji's. And Ian, pre-Anilis, was strangely quiet on Luminosita during his long soliloquy on creation myths, or maybe he just hadn't got to the subject yet by the time Jon and Meji got bored and fell asleep. Given that (apart from his dislike of the elves and everything associated with them) he appears to have been almost spot-on regarding Anilis and Senilis, his view of Luminosita might have been interesting ... so, of course, Poe couldn't tell us what it was.

[runic]

Or we have the Messed Up Colony Ship Scenario (i.e., elves as colonists travelling in steerage, Anilis/Senilis/etc as crewmembers with access to Advanced Stuff, ... sort of like Zelazny's Lord of Light ...)

that brings me back to xenogears, except for the who made who part of the equation

[Forrest]

There are a whole boatload of Science Fiction writers that would certainly disagree with you.

Yes, that's why it inspired a rant.

[mindstalk]

Except that there's still every reason to believe that the elven 'gods' did create everybody, while Luminosita was made by people. Also, the elven gods are a lot more advanced.

I was referring to them being sentient magical energy balls (post-humanoid or what ever), while the poke-god was merely a ball of magical energy.

Remember that we don't have an "objective" view of Luminosita to work from, at least not yet. You certainly don't expect Jon or Meji to be detached in their view of him, do you? Sarine could have been more so, in principle, but like all the other elves, she was locked away inside Praenubilus Astu when he came calling, and would only have been able to observe what happened when he hit their barrier, not Luminosita himself. Anita's view is just as slanted as Jon's and Meji's. And Ian, pre-Anilis, was strangely quiet on Luminosita during his long soliloquy on creation myths, or maybe he just hadn't got to the subject yet by the time Jon and Meji got bored and fell asleep. Given that (apart from his dislike of the elves and everything associated with them) he appears to have been almost spot-on regarding Anilis and Senilis, his view of Luminosita might have been interesting ... so, of course, Poe couldn't tell us what it was.

Well:
http://www.errantstory.com/2003-10-13/156

"these aren't holy places, there was places forbidden to travel to". Seem to have been both, really.

http://www.errantstory.com/2003-08-25/137
we know the priests lie about the elven barrier.

http://www.errantstory.com/2003-08-27/138
Meji gives the Tsuirakuan view, down to bizarro versions of evolution, along with the crackpot view of "we were all placed here by a group of superadvanced alien life forms", which is silly because they also go on about elven and Veracian conspiracies and Northern Confederacy technology. Of course, we now know the conspiracies are real, the dwarves and their tech was real whether or not the Confederacy is using it.

Huh, you're right, he doesn't mention Luminosita here.

[Slamlander]

There are a whole boatload of Science Fiction writers that would certainly disagree with you.

Yes, that's why it inspired a rant.

and then there is that person that wrote about fuzzy sapien's ....

But I've often wondered if there can be sapience without sentience

[Forrest]

and then there is that person that wrote about fuzzy sapien's ....

I don't get this reference. Explain?

But I've often wondered if there can be sapience without sentience

I would say no, as sapience consists of reflexive sentience. (i.e. if sentience is "awareness", then sapience is "self-awareness"). But sentience without sapience is quite common; most sentient things are not sapient. Sapient things are a narrow subset of sentient things, which is why I'm a stickler for the right terminology: "sentience" is a much broader claim than "sapience", so saying something is "non-sentient" is equating it with something like a plant or at most maybe a goldfish, which is a bit much to say when all you meant to say is that something is not self-aware or conscious like a human.