> Probably including Aldryami, too, where we mean "the
> elves." Elves have individual consciousness. It is
> just different from human individual consciousness
> in many ways, especially that they retain the
> consciousness of much (not all) of pre-individuated
> existence.
Erg. Beware the unconscious gregging. Are you aware that there is something of a consensus on the list that at least a significant minority (highly likely a plurality and probably a majority; in any case, your "average" elf) of elves have only something that woud be more fairly called participation in a group consciousness than an individual consciousness? I think the consensus was that they vary across the range from totally immersed in the Song (to the point of failing to understand which is their Voice) all the way over to totally deaf to the Song. Along the way, you get "can hear the song, and knows which voice is which"; "can hear the song, knows which is mine"; "can hear the song, can leave the song temporarily"; "can hear the song, can leave the song for long periods, can change the key that the entire song sings"; etc.
> > >Note that if they do get to the "blue age" then
> > >they disappear as individuals.
> >I was thinking that any Black Age would negate
> >individuality entirely.
> When various races attempt to understand, though
> mythical experience (ie, Heroquesting) the world
> before they existed then they must inevitably come
> from their current existence.
Again, a bit too much of the subjective imposing itself on the world for my taste. I'd instead say that, when people heroquest, their experience is filtered or interpreted by their cuurrent existence. It may be that the black agr has lots going on, but if humans went there (and managed to come back) they'd not have any way to interpret what happened to them -- it would all be a big pile of confusion. I think we get to the same result, though.
> In the Green Age you and I are not separate things.
> We are members of the same people, not individual
> beings. We are the clan, for instance.
If there are different Black,, Blue, and Green Agess, then I don't buy this formulation. Valare could and did distinguish between things. But the distinctions lacked meaning, or had other meanings, as often as they had the right meaning. I'd buy this formulation for a Blue Age, if they are different things.
If the Black, Blue, and Green Ages are really the same things, understood by different peoples, then I'd buy this formulation and assume that the distinctions and meanings Valare sugggests are simply imposed by the mind after it returns to historical time.
Keith, replying to me, concerning me getting something "pretty much" correct:
> I'm afraid the "pretty much" makes this subject to a
> recount.
The comparison between the inability to distinguish what a "thing" is inability to distinguish what a "vote" is springs to mind, unbidden.
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