It's like messing with a programming language.

>>41025832
>Why is it dangerous?
By calling them by their true name, you're making yourself known to them.

Because names have power. By calling something by its true name, you can attract its attention or even use magic against it.

>>41026040
This. In a lot of traditions there is such a thing as a true name. Knowing that one is like knowing what the soul of the person is called, and a part of learning magic is learning your true name.

>>41025832
Depends on the culture, really.

Being a bit of an /x/ fag, I've noticed something with the occult: when you know truth, you gain power. Power often corrupts or is exhumed as pure energy, and this is often represented in a chaotic form.

With knowing a true name, it mostly seems to be a power of summons. If you know their true name, and call it out, it will be summoned to you and come for you. Mayans would tell each other not to say Jaguar when in the forest because of that old saying, "Speak of the devil and she will come". Talk enough about the Jaguar, or even a little bit, and there's bad luck spewed all over the hunt and everyone's looking out for the Jaguar.

Know the name of a demon and it'll come to you upon request. Demons, angels, ghosts- basically anything with a soul- don't want anyone else to know their names for that reason.

On a slightly related note, isn't it strange that we only have given names in our society? A (wo)man is not allowed to have their own name. They have their given name and their family name, but few will ever know their name, their true identity made by themselves. Is it not also strange that no one knows the name of the Lord your God, but prefer to reference Him in a capitalized pronoun? The inference is clear, but still no one truly knows his name. I doubt Yahweh is correct, and more likely it's also mispronounced and mistranslated after a thousand and some hundred odd years.

True names are a matter of the spirit and soul. In World of Darkness, mages keep their names secret and go under surnames after awakening. Knowing the name of a mage makes it immensely easier to cast a spell on them, because you now have a direct link to their soul.

Aside from summoning, it's issuing a challenge of sorts, I think. Many ancient cultures considered saying your name and demanding someone else's as a challenge. Maybe it's the same for animals and ethereals.

It's the magic equivalent of getting doxxed.

I had a GM who once let his WoD players find out their "true" true names, for which he used the players' names.

It was pretty funny for the players who were playing the opposite sex.

>>41025832
This is Hedge Magic 101, man. When you know somethings True Name it creates a connection. You can, for example, create a doll of a person and write their True Name on it. You can then cast a spell on the doll and it will effect the person whose name you wrote.
In game terms it lets you negate penalties for casting magic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_magic

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beetlejuice

>>41026187
...Biggie Smalls

You're basically calling out to some unnatural horror "Fite me IRL faggot"

>>41026125
But what is the true name of a person?

What is my true name?

I, like a billion others have a generic name that is popular in my country.

I always thought true names where earned, like if some Native American shaman gave me a name, or even if I was baptized (to go along a more extended tradition where I live) with that name.

I was born and my parents gave me a name, but no religious baptism ever.

How can I know my true name?

>>41026441
>no baptism
go fuck goats. maybe your heathen idols can tell you.

>>41026472

Nigga, not my fault, my parents are 100% non religious.

Also I dont feel like doing it now myself.

I have done my tiny research and doings into the fagccult, and I do have faith somewhat, I just can't guess what my true name is, discarding the generic one I have (Which by the way does not have any meaning, like many names do)-

I do have a lamen but I dont think that means a lot.

>>41026532
Do whatever you want. I literally just typed "how to find my true name" into google.

I'll tell you the real truth about True Names anon.

True names aren't what you call yourself, they aren't what everyone else calls you. They're you. Your past, your present and your future.

You don't call someone by their True Name for two reasons. First, It's like being called in your full name, I mean your full first, middle, and last name, a sort of challenge, a statement of superiority a "I know what you are" kind of challenge. Second, it's not just what you are now, its what you will be. If other people know what you will be you become predicable, manipulable, and a tool in their schemes.

A True Name is all of your secrets laid bare, and many people, or spirits or entities, would fight tooth and nail, to prevent other's from knowing their deepest secrets. Other's submit and bargain, hoping its only a minor hassle they have to deal with.

The reason cultures esteem the idea of True Names is simple, people want knowledge to be power. It's ultimately a metaphor for familiarity. If you know someone well, but they don't know you, you hold the cards in that situation.

The idea is that a true name is something that represents the entirety of that being. Therefore knowing the true name is equivalent to knowing everything about that thing. In a world with causality such complete knowledge gives one absolute power over a thing, as no action can be taken by the thing that is unexpected. Remove causality and you remove the power of a true name. Alternatively true names can be limited by ones ability to know them, i.e. a person only has the capacity to learn x amount of true names.

>>41026441
It depends on the medium, but usually it was meant to be your actual name, the one you were born with, even if it was the average John Smith or another shit.
In that case, you'd simply use a fake name or an alias when interacting with such creatures; but, given the abundance of identical names, also some DNA or other body sample would be required for a spell to have effect (a locket of hair, some drops of blood, anything).
In fairytales not everyone had the same names; in fact, almost no one had the same name as someone else, because either there were enough few people to diversificate, or because of magic originality reasons.

That being the norm, even if you have an average name, it probably IS your true name. The moment you identify yourself more in some other name given to you, it stops working on you (example: Hellboy's name is Anung Un rama, but at a certain point he realizes he doesn't give a crap about a name only demons call him by, and snaps out of truenaming-magic control).
So true names can change, but most of the time it's your boring birth name.
Sometimes it can require actual knowledge of the person (example: I know your name is John Smith, but if I haven't got in mind the face related to that name it's going to work on a random John Smith or not work at all).

>>41025832
Mythological explanation is "you name a thing = you call it to yourself = you try to contrrol it".

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My game does the true name thing too, but because people's souls are the same as spirits.

Everyone has lived a million lives and will live a million more; the spirits are eternal and constantly going through cycles of being reborn as mortal then dying and returning as magical spirits. But a spirit's name can be called upon to extract both its attention, as well as magical favors and blessings. So a spirit with the name of 'Fresh blood on the snow' could be called to help with a snowy hunt, or transform blood to snow, or any number of related things.

But spirits are powerful, so when called by their names the spirits can curse those who anger them.

But if a mortal is born and someone finds out their true name; they can control the spirit soul inside of them; but that spirit is still asleep- so the person has much less power and if a cruel mage was to command that mortal for a favor or task, the mortal couldn't ignore it or curse him, he would be forced to obey. This is spirit magic, the work of shamans and their ilk. But people who do that shit will often regret it because as soon as that tortured soul dies and becomes a badass Godling it will come to extract some pretty serious vengeance.

>>41026441
>What is my true name?
In my mind, the true name of anything is determined by the cosmos. It's like an algorithm that assigns a hash to every ontological entity once it slides into existence. Naturally, it doesn't have to be something smooth or catchy, it can very well be WeopgEe!!3haz49e. So, the directory may be named "Jim Parson", but knowing the key allows you access to that directory and you can fuck shit up.

>>41025832
I'm no expert, but I think for instance cultures with totem animals/animals they considered sacred often did not call them by their real name, but used descriptors e.g. in Hungarian wolf=farkas which means "has a tail" and stag=szarvas which means "has horns/antlers", it is thought because of this that these animals were considered sacred during the times that the magyar tribes lived on the steppes as nomadic people, and these were the alternative to the real names of the animals which have now been forgotten.
Obviously I don't know about other cultures and am no sholar on my own either, so take this with a grain of salt.

>>41026532
With meditation and introspection, then many many hours of pondering and contemplating what it means to exist and experience the world, not just as a philosophy but as a core fundamental of existing, will you understand what a true name is and what yours -could- be.

But finding that true name is difficult. Don't expect it to come directly, it'll be a side effect of what you discover about the world around you.

From Knowing comes Wisdom, and Wisdom is the core of Being.

>>41026764
Understandable.

The English word for Bear has been lost to the ages.

"Bear" and its cognates like the Scandinavian "Bjorn" simply mean "brown one"

>>41026532
I have cast the bones of wisdom, and watched the patterns of smoke. The djinn's whispers guided me and the cards showed the way. Your true name is... Synder the Hedgehog

>>41026893
Presumably something along the lines of Harkt or Hurth, given the words for bear used by those Europeans who, unlike Germanic or Slavic people, didn't fear constant bear attacks.
The Russian word for bear, Medved, means "honey-eater", like the old English kenning for bear beowulf, or bee-wolf

>>41025832
Probably the oldest source of 'true name' stuff is the Ancient Egyptians.

They believed if you knew the true name of something, you had power over it. It was a major component of their medicine, which was perhaps the most advanced of the time, trying to find the 'true names' of medicinal plants and such.

In modern times, this is realized as "chemistry", where the medicinal components of plants are named and extracted and used specifically.

>>41025832
To know the True Name of something is to have power over it.

>>41026066
>>Being a bit of an /x/ fag, I've noticed something with the occult: when you know truth, you gain power. Power often corrupts or is exhumed as pure energy, and this is often represented in a chaotic form.


It's a part of human nature.

Imagine you're an ignorant ass early human.

Grog knows how to make fire. He can, out of nothing, create something that can save your life.

Mork knows about plants. If you get sick, he can just put some plants together and make you not sick. If he doesn't like you, he can put some plants together and kill you.

Gleera can make pictures of sounds. She can go back to a conversation you had a hundred moons ago, and tell you exactly what was said in that conversation because she made pictures of the sounds you make.

That shit is fucking magic.

For most of human history, we didn't have schools. We didn't have enough books for anyone but a small fraction of the population. We didn't have the net.

Pretty much everything anyone knew- from religion, to survival, to metallurgy, to warfare tactics- was taught to them personally by another human being. And most people only learned how to farm and live in their immediate environment. Information was very easily lost back then and taken much more seriously.

So a person who could read and write and had a lot of technical knowledge and could create/invent stuff was pretty damn impressive. A person who was very knowledgeable was a really big deal.

Thus, they were often conflated with magic/supernatural.

>>41026764
>>I'm no expert, but I think for instance cultures with totem animals/animals they considered sacred often did not call them by their real name, but used descriptors e.g. in Hungarian wolf=farkas which means "has a tail" and stag=szarvas which means "has horns/antlers", it is thought because of this that these animals were considered sacred during the times that the magyar tribes lived on the steppes as nomadic people, and these were the alternative to the real names of the animals which have now been forgotten.

People also tended not to use the true names of fierce animals/monsters for fear of actually summoning them.

Because people, spirits, and other things come when you call their name. Surely these bad things do the same.

Pretty much the same way as we tend to hate it when someone goes, "Well at least XYZ hasn't happened yet," out of the mistaken belief that by mentioning it, it will happen.

>>41026441
I dabble in /x/ stuff.

We had done a ritual in the evening, and then when I went to sleep I had a feverish, probably also drug-induced dream and god knows what else fuelled it. I stood in front of a bunch of people who kept asking me to repeat the same name over and over again. It felt rather nightmarish than just a cool dream, and it's one of those I remember most vividly.

It really felt like that was my real name though. I considered changing my own name to that one for a while, but then I'd rather not have everyone know it, for a reason or another that feels wrong.
But if I ever get a girlfriend that I trust sufficientely, I might ask her to call me that way in the end.

>>41029246

You don't go around being called by your truename.

>>41026441
Go jogging until you are a exhausted sweat ridden mess
Take a shower
Eat eggs and bacon
Flop on the couch and watch TV
Introspect

>>41029340
Then /fit/ must be introspective as fuck

>>41026066
>Is it not also strange that no one knows the name of the Lord your God, but prefer to reference Him in a capitalized pronoun? The inference is clear, but still no one truly knows his name. I doubt Yahweh is correct, and more likely it's also mispronounced and mistranslated after a thousand and some hundred odd years.

It's YWVH you fucking ignoramus

>>41026441
Your true name is Dongus

>>41029408
I thought he had a shitload of names and all of them are correct.

>>41029447
YWVH and Tetragrammaton are the only names of the Hebrew-Judaic god that are descriptive of his role.

There are something like ninety supposed different names for him, but they're more like throwaway accounts on internet forums.

>>41026066
>we only have given names in our society?

Watch any kid when their parents use their full name, first-middle-last, and tell me that doesn't have the power of a True Name.

Given names are True Names.

>>41029517
Yes

Exactly

>>41029460
And even at that, Tetragrammaton is just the Greek term for the name YHVH, and that is itself supposed to be rendered in some sort of proto-Hebrew True Language for it to count as the name of God.

Part of the thing is that even the closest we have to it is supposed to just be hints.

>>41026893
Campaign idea: an evil wizard has discovered the forgotten true name of the bear, and is using it to control an army of bears to maul anybody who opposes him.

Worse yet, overuse of the name may awaken the Great Brown One, the first bear, from his millenia-long hibernation and bring about the destruction of civilization.

>>41029408
No shit. But if you notice, as is normal in traditional Hebrew texts, the fucking vowels are left out, aren't they? Hence it could be YAWVEH or YEHVAH or whichever, pronunciation lost to time.

Saying the Lord's name is YWVH is like some snotty little shit going up to you and telling you that Obama's name is actually POTUS

>>41030934

>Tetragrammaton

I bet the Egyptians bullied him for that name.

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>>41027065
I don't know why this made me laugh so hard

>>41030934
>>41029460

BY THE GREAT TETRAGRAMMATON, GET THEE HENCE TO THE PLACE APPOINTED FOR YOU!

>>41029360
>bacon and eggs
>not brown rice and boiled chicken

>>41025832

Names are power, they either invoke that which is named or they give power over it.

It's like, one of the oldest superstitions of man.

>>41029408
you're the ignoramus. It's YHVH. Yahweh is from roman dummies who don't into the letter Vav.

Also, the lack of consonants in the tetragrammaton mean that's not the actual name. There are vowels, which are not recorded there, same with all ancient hebrew.

YaVa is only an approximation. The actual pronunciation is breathing out,then in. It is the name of god that sustains all life. Read your fucking Talmud, chamoyer du ainer

>>41025832
The people in those myths are trying to avoid reminding dangerous creatures of their own identities.

Yes, jaguars are intimidating beasts, but they are also very stupid. So, they often mill about not knowing what they're doing.

Then, some idiot comes around and calls it by its truename and it's all "oh, that's right, I'm a jaguar! Best get back to mauling!"

>>41029408
>>41029460
I thought "I am who I am" was the name of the Judaic god.

>>41033695
no, that's Popeye

>>41029246
>Giving a woman absolute power over you.

Good God man, are you literally insane?

>>41036968
dude, I don't care if you'd rather bond with some man or a child of yours or what, but if you can't form that kind of bond of trust with someone, anyone, you're broken as a person.

>>41037344
Broken person it is, then. I'd rather not let anyone even have a chance to control me.

>>41037575
Then no one will. Not even you.

>>41037601
>Let me just type this half-profound sounding thing, that'll make me look cool on the internet!
It's not about fucking trust, it's about common sense. Trusting someone- to save your life over their own, for example- is easy. Allowing someone to actually control your life is just fucking stupid. Not least because you could have made a bad judgement of character, and the stakes of losing that gamble are way too fucking high.

My true name is xXx_Sephir0th_xXx

>>41037344
Or maybe just not an idiot.

>>41037672
>I'll refuse to risk things because if I'm wrong, it'll be bad.

You don't even understand how afraid of living you sound, do you?

>>41031015
I thought the very reason that letters are left out of the name of God is that speaking his true name would instantly be the worst blasphemy you could possibly commit.

>>41026532
>I do have a lamen but I dont think that means a lot.
...what?

Your true name is important for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it can be used to identify you in basic, mundane terms. There isn't even anything magical in this, it's just a matter of people knowing who you are. When Odysseus fucks up Polyphemus, he says his name is Nobody. Polyphemus cries out anout Nobody trying to kill him, and the other cylopes think he's just drunk and ignore it. If Odysseus had given his actual name, Polyphemus' friends would have known something was up when he started shouting about a specifc murderer, instead of Nobody. As Odysseus sails away from the island, he taunts Polyphemus with his actual name, and Polyphemus immediately complains to his dad Poseidon about, mentioning Odysseus by name. Poseidon proceeds to fucks Odysseus' shit. If Odysseus had stuck to his pseudonym, he would have been fine.

In some contexts, speaking a creature's name is to draw its attention-- this is the reason for the saying "speak of the devil and he shall appear".This causes a lot of euphemisms to get used. A similar fear is that, rather than or as well as simply attracting a being's attention, you might also piss it off if it doesn't like the way you refer to it, which is why faeries get called shit like "the Good Neighbours". Nobody likes having faeries as neighbours, but they like pissing them off even less.

In some contexts, giving your true name is bad because knowledge of it can give power over you-- particularly in cases where language is power in and of itself, like with Kabbalah. In others, giving your true name is bad because your name can be taken from you. I can't think of an example from actual folklore right now, but look at Spirited Away and the people there who only have nicknames because their own, real names have been stripped from them, along with large parts of their identities.

Anyway, the takeaway is that there's no one reason true names are important that holds true across all cultures and contexts.

>>41025832
"To Name a Thing is to Know a Thing." Advice from my Grandpa.

It's also so you don't accidentally SUMMON something. For example, there is a widely held belief from ancient proto-Indo-European societies so powerful it still holds true nowadays in some places. Indo-European peoples have the idea of this massive, all-devouring, darkness-loving beast so terrible and easily angered, that to even speak its name would summon it and bring evil on all your house. The name of the beast was held secret, because even talking about it once would wake it up. So false-names, little honorifics and titles would be used to refer to the beast without drawing its ear.

And now, thanks to a conscious effort on the behalf of a lot of mankind, the original name of the beast is completely forgotten.

The beast was the bear. In ancient societies, the bear was portrayed as a fearsome thief, slayer and devourer. In cultures from the Indus valley all the way to the westernmost tip of Ireland, naming and talking about bears is almost forbidden. Respected, most certainly they are, but feared more. Bears in almost all of pre-industrial fiction are portrayed as either flat-out evil or as a merciless, pitiless force of nature. So, be careful the next time you walk neath the trees, and name ye not the Brown One.

>>41037575
>"Living in fear of limits is being free!"
HAHAHAHAHAHaH

>>41025832
less about scrutinizing the meaning of a true name and more about deconstructing the functions of a false name. Everything a false name empowers someone to do a true name removes. True names are binding in their responsibility and that is the greatest burden.

>>41038778
>I think freedom can only be defined as picking the impulsive option in every scenario without thought because thinking and situational awareness are too hard and a farcical exaggerated emphasis on the notion of 'freedom' conveniently validates and justifies all my inherent flaws as a person incapable of psychological adaptability, the one real unique trait dividing humans from snorting slobbering animals

>>41038880
Say whatever you want about Evangelion, but the last episode gave a great example of what true, absolute freedom is: A endless void with nothing to do.
If you are scared of commitement, alright, be so, but don't try to act like your fear makes you free.
You'd be more free if you'd just let yourself love and be loved.
Also
>I'll use big words to say that I am scared but look intelectual while doing so!
A little fear is fine. Letting it run rampant like that is not.

>>41031308
Ugh, sounds like a christian rock band, "Get Thee Hence" ugh.

>>41038880
man, I know fedora is meme, but goddamn son. you are Euphoric as fuck.

>>41025832

The idea is basically that a name is part of a person just as much as a body part or a part of their soul. In magical thought, if you can get a hold of a part of someone, you control them. Voodoo shit, right? Get some hair and fingernails and you can do weird stuff to them. Or the belief that eating certain parts of a notable enemy would imbue you with their power/virtue.

Well, getting hold of someone's name is like that. If you can possess it, you hold some aspect of their "essence". On the other hand, invoking true names is dangerous because you might accidentally summon the thing you're naming. This is why we have so many names for the Devil, as well as the saying "speak of the Devil" (which in full is to the tune of "speak of the Devil and you shall hear the flap of his wings")

>>41025832
When you Name something you create it. Until someone looked at a horse and said "That is a horse" there was no such thing as a horse, just another kind of running beast.
Judaic tradition takes this a step further, and has the Firstman name everything. G-d Created, but Man Made.
Even Creation is an act of naming though, before the birds and beasts, the fishes and trees, before day and night and the parting of the Waters there was the Word, and the Word was with G-d and the Word was G-d.
Further Judaic influence is found in the Book of Life, the celestial tome in which all sins and graces are recorded. Since this is supposed to apply to everyone ever and you know for a fact that your friend Solomon has been mistaken for another Solomon, and you also know that G-d is infallible it follows that He has devised a system to distinguish individuals. It can't be Given-Family, that's what we use here and it'd didn't help Sol. Perhaps there is a unique identifier, some name unique to ou, your True Name...

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>>41029246
I dabble in photography.

>>41025832
as others have said true names have Power. you can use it to command, but also so long as a thing is known, it will never fully cease to be. and some things that go bump in the night are more powerful the more things that know it. perhaps not its Name, but still things like Naagloshii gain power from being known to exist . one could postulate that the name for the type of creature could well also be a True Name of the species.

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>>41025832
Fun fact: the 3rd commandment is
>"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain"
Interpreting this to be about swearing was added by the puritans in the 1600s. The term vain means anything that has not been made holy by a priest. The commandment literally means "Do not speak the secret true name of god in a place that has not been sanctified."

>>41031840
yet vav had a "wuh" sound in classical hebrew, not the "vuh" sound it does today. Thus it would be YHWH. And the vowels used in the name "adonai" are believed to be the same as the actual one.

>>41039705
>hope you guys like Germans

That remark has no right to amuse me as much as it does.

>>41039053
seconding this ugh
ugh

>>41025832
In the home brew I will never finish, Naming magic is a field effect method of producing magical effects.

By speaking the name of an object, you gain it's attention, testing your authority against it's being.
Once you have an objects attention and have shown it who is boss, you can give it commands.

In some ways this works like programing where you give a list of commands and play out as you commanded them. (Usually object oriented programing.) In other ways, this can work like a conversation with a stump.

>>41038880
calm down euphoritron

>>41025832
In medieval alchemy it comes from the concept of Adamic language. That is, in the Garden of Eden the world ordered itself to Adam's words and not his words to the world. Thus if one could discover the original "true" word for something they could control it.

>>41025832
Because names are used to call people to you.
So if you say the same of something bad you are "summoning" it.

>>41025832
Eh, in ancient China no one was allowed to write the Emperor's name

When writing to or about him you simply called him the Emperor. If his name contained a character you needed to use in writing, you modified the character slightly as a sign of reverence.

>>41038066
That's just how Hebrew works, the vowels are left out of the written form, if they're indicated at all, it's via diacritics.

>>41033695
I am who am I?

>>41045159
I am that I am. Eyeh ahser Eyeh. Essentially meaning that God is God. Human minds cannot comprehend what he is or what he looks like or his form and mental capacity. Similar to looking upon an Elder god's image. Just head asplode or you go mad.

>>41039053
>>41043231
>Not knowing that it WAS the name of a terrible band in Metalocalypse

>>41025832
Truth is power, true names are just a way to connect your will to the object in question.

An anecdote of sorts: I was once part of a catholic prayer group that was more occult than others (Everyone called the leader a witch (with love) and she and others led the prayers, read tarot cards amongst other things) and part of the prayer was calling the names of god and his host of angels which made the room colder, another part of the prayer was thinking of the face of the person you wanted to help and calling its full name in order to pray for him/her. It was a good experience and an example of true names giving power to the prayer.

>>41045501
Aw shit howdyou know calling the names of the host wasn't just attracting their attention and the coldness being their disapproval?

>>41045591
I would think that disapproval would be more pronounced then a decrees in temperature

>>41045591
Honestly? Part of the dogma, I had faith in her knowledge and she told me that if the room starts getting colder then it was because there was a breeze in the room (Which there was) which were the wings of angels that were summoned around us and that if there were bad spirits then the room would start getting hotter, which never did.

I wished I kept going.

>>41045718
Sounds absolutely heretical and like you had a gnostic on your hands there. Though I won't lie and say I wouldn't be interested in it. Damn desire for knowledge.

>>41031010
that second one is actually dope as fuck

>>41031010
OST to your campaign

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryD8bPwFaAM

Do it.

>>41025832
Because then they can write it in the death note and you are fucked.

>>41045501
>>41045718
Yeah, I went to a Catholic school, and last I heard witches were not, um, in communion with Rome. You joined a cult nigga.

And actual serious answer to this question would be for a very long debate, but in a very simplified manner:
The problem lies in the very act of semiosis. That is - in the act of linking a symbol (in this case, the sound or visual representation of the word), and the object it represents.
This is something that most people probably never really consciously wonder about, but this very act is absolutely CRAZY. It's a huge, giant cognitive leap - we suddenly create a link, an assuption of identity between a THING, and between something COMPLETELY UNRELATED to that damn thing. But then you have to realize that the COMPLETELY UNRELEATED thing isn't actually identical to the original thing, but that it is identical with a whole bunch of another THINGS that are only tangibly releated to the first thing. They are the same - yet they are completely different things - you have the object, the generalized category, and then you have the symbol and it all flies in your head, you have to constantly operate with all of those on several different levels - and our brain has to juggle that shit around. That is no easy task.

The semiotic link we create is peculiar and even the best cognitive scientists have troubles explaining how it works. The... shall we say "awe" of people inspired by this very act seems to be a frankly fairly logical side-effect of the incredibly complex cognitive structure that such semiotic link requires.
The very idea that the two things are identical, and yet different is somehow intuitively fascinating to us.

The idea that a word is more than a word, and that story is more than a story then stems from that tension: between an object, a category and a name. The world - the abstraction of world (constructed primarily for the purpose of predictive modeling) and the word.

These three can get easily mixed in our heads - and we sometimes don't know which are we invoking. So... we have to be careful.

>>41045718
>>41045501
>Catholic prayer group
>Tarot cards

Catholics don't use tarot cards. You need to report this stuff to your parish so they can stop the spread of this insanity.

>>41039705
>The commandment literally means "Do not speak the secret true name of god in a place that has not been sanctified."
Or to some extent, don't spread stuff about God that he's not cool with. Anything God hasn't decreed shouldn't be said He had.

>>41046608
So, in layman's terms...when you say or read a word too many times in quick succession it's a semiosis? You engage a centipede's dilemma and cease to see the word itself as meaning what we link it to and more the abstract thought of what the sound/spelling is. Hell, spelling itself is a semiosis. A few squiggly lines mean sounds? Specific sounds depending on the other sounds around them? Words are symbols unto themselves in printed form.

I mean, say the word "the" fifteen times. At a certain point we cease to see it as a fragment, a cog in the narrative machine and more for what a cog is: a hunk of weirdly carved metal. Words are like Out of Place Artifacts then. Origin they may have, but as it is the only way to know the function of it is if someone else is familiar with it.

I've always had a thing for True-Naming, it's just such a cool concept.

>>41038567

I like the idea of a society that refuses to consistently name anything or anyone. Everything is referred to formally by a description. So you'd be called "4th born on the 12 day of of the 3rd month in the new town on the river." There'd probably be a shorthand version of it. People would have have a nickname chosen by rolling a dice or randomly from a list for use at work; another name for use with your family; a third for your friends. Being named, would be their version of capital punishment or outlawing.

>>41048257
Ultimately that seems to be what surnames might've been for? I don't know the history of surnames but a lot of them are just occupations or relations. Miller, Fisher, Hunter, etc. Jackson, as in, son of Jack. Mac/Mc- prefixes mean the same thing essentially.

>>41046608

I remember Carl Sagan talking about seeing an add for a piece of scientific equipment, it was a gadget to go under a microscope stage that was a parabolic reflector into which you put dry ice, the add claimed that it would 'focus the cold' and help keep slides on the stage from overheating due to light being shone through
them.

He was using this as an example of a type of cognitive failure caused by language. We had a name for a thing, therefore it must be real. When in fact there's no tangible thing as cold, there's only different amounts of heat and how we sense them. There's no tangible thing as darkness, there's an absence of light.

Our deepest fantasy, our collective fantasy as human beings is that semiosis is a two way process. That the manipulation of the signs we create can flow back into the real world. And it seems like it should, because we can influence ourselves and others just by clever manipulation of those signs and symbols.

>>41029517
I do always feel uneasy saying my full name out loud.

>>41029143
Or that old cartoon gag "How can it get any worse?"

And then, it starts raining.

>>41039705
I thought it was "Don't use God to justify being an asshole, asshole."

Learn the root meanings of your name.
Martin for example is a Latin name derived from the Roman god of war.
Wilke, wilken, are old German names that typically denoted filthy commoners and peasants.
My name, in its root forms is
>Mars of the heavens, a peasant that endures

>>41048483
I always feel kind of proud when I say my own full name. And for some reason it really gets my attention, so yeah, makes sense.

>>41025832
Because if you call something by it's name, you are invoking it, summoning. Sort of like your mom opens the window and shouts "Derp! Dinner is ready!".

So all primitive cultures were pussies and idiots who assumed that if you say "bear" a bear will show up and tear you apart.

Planescape Torment: the thread

Seriously, if you like RPG and can stand rtwp, I suggest everyone interested in this theme to play that game

>>41048642
aw man, my name means gift of god, those who live in thatched roofed homes. thats boring.

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>>41049121
>Implying so hard

>>41048350
In mst European nations that's how it works. Surnames are either derived from patro/matronymics (father's/mother's name; this is still used in Iceland for example, where people have surnames like Haraldsson or Sigrundsdottir), professions (like Smith or Baker) or places (for example, one of the most common surenames in Finland is Virtanen, derived from the Finnish word for stream/river).

Interestingly, I read a while agon that Chinese surnames don't actually mean anything, at least not in the dialects of Chinese that are commonly used today. Chinese first names on the other hand, are commonly derived from adjectives, like brave, skillful, beautiful etc.

>>41049185
Chinese surnames had meaning, loooooong ago. It was basically the clan you belong to, BUT clan organisation cease to exists somewhere in early Zhou dynasty - thus whole centuries before "classic" period for Chinese culture.

What's more fun is that there are roughtly 200 Chinese surnames, 1/3 of them sounding the same, but with different sign for it.
Let that sink in. There are about 200 surnames for 1,4 billion people.

>>41049185
>>41049645
At least PART of Chinese surnames have "meaning", in a sense of being given to specific groups of people. Not exactly like English "Smith", but more like "Everyone coming from that province and not having registered surname in the Tax Bureau"

>>41049185
>Interestingly, I read a while agon that Chinese surnames don't actually mean anything, at least not in the dialects of Chinese that are commonly used today.

Either you're a retard or whoever wrote that is a retard.

I'm fucking Chinese, born and raised in China. My surname in every fucking dialect has a meaning, and that meaning is "land, continent".

My friend's surnames having meanings like "carrier", "scholarly", "spiritual"

>>41049752
>There are some Chinese that have no clue it's just the fact their surname sounded like other word, so they now run under the same signs now
This is fucking disappointing. But on the other hand, what to expect, when your language does not support sounds in writing.

>>41049833
The whole fucking language got this problem, not just surnames. All the later myths that try to explain shit focus extensively on signs used to write down earlier versions, completely changing the meaning and point of story to explain shitty writing system.

>>41049841
>>41049833
>let me tell you all about your culture hurr

>>There are some Chinese that have no clue it's just the fact their surname sounded like other word, so they now run under the same signs now

No it's not the sounds you dumbarse, it's the fucking character it's written in.

I got an idea while reading the thread.
>have true name magic; knowing name means power over person
>baptism is common practise to obscure the babys true name

This could explain the difficulty in learning true names for the common folk. For daemons and the like it is difficult because they dont actually live in this realm.
Also opens an interesting flaw for players, not being baptised.

>>41049852
And the character is based on sound. And Chinese characters are fucking UNABLE to support sounds in writing. So when guy is named Wang, you just pick a character for Wang. It happens to be the same as for the ruler, oh great, the surname got meaning! Never mind the surname was originally a name of the clan and had nothing to do with kings or rulers.

Being part of any given culture does not comes with free "I know all about it" card

>>41050087
>And the character is based on sound. And Chinese characters are fucking UNABLE to support sounds in writing. So when guy is named Wang, you just pick a character for Wang. It happens to be the same as for the ruler, oh great, the surname got meaning! Never mind the surname was originally a name of the clan and had nothing to do with kings or rulers.

You fucking retard. The sound is based on the character, not the other way around. Chinese is not completely phonetic.

Do you even speak Chinese, nigga?

>>41048350
English surnames became widespread with the creation of the Domesday Book, at the behest of William the Conqueror. In order to take an accurate tally of his new lands and subjects it was often necessary to differentiate people with the same first name with a second name.

Surnames are mainly of three types

Patronyms - i.e. Jack Jackson is Jack, the son of Jack. Other patronyms include the prefixes Mac, Mc, O', Fitz, Ap and the suffixes -s, -son, sen

Descriptors - Either something physical about the person, like the surnames White or Brown or Short, or their occuption, Smith, Cooper, Fletcher etc

Place names - Popular among, but not confined to, the aristocracy, these surnames refer to the place where a person or family lived. Surnames like Wood or Lake are probably of this type, as are names like de Montfort or Von Oppersdorf

>>41050107
The entire point here is that Chinese it not phonetic AT ALL.

>>41048358
It's called re-ification; the idea that because something has a name it exists.

Words that describe an absence of something, e.g. cold, or dark are called privatives.

In Plato's works on his theory of Forms, one of the main objections is that people keep asking him if there is a Form for various privatives, and if there is, how does that fit with his idea that the Form of something must perfectly encapsulate what that thing is. So for example, if there is a Form of the Small, it must be the smallest thing possible, but then if every object that is small partakes of the Form of the Small, all those little bits of Small would add up to something quite large, and so the form of the Small would not be the smallest thing possible.

>>41048642
>>41049143
Could be worse. My first name literally means "Son of the Right Hand" which can more charitably be interpreted as "Favoured Son"

My full name would mean "Son of the Right Hand, Man of the Sea, Twin, Who Lives By the Church"

>Ctrl F
>Nobody posted it yet
Seriously?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRtyNkpS1i4

>>41048642
For myself (with some liberties taken, perhaps) I've come up with 'Belonging to Mars, a Goat' in the past. Goat of Mars or Goat of War, if you will.

And I can live with that.

>>41048642
I've 4 names, let's say they're 0, 1, 2 and Surname. Name 1 is the one I use and the one I get called. If you were to look up the meaning of my entire name you'd get this:

>Young man, descendant, famous Ing the fertility god, son of a lone heir

>>41050243
Indeed. In languages that use alphabets for writing, words and letters represent what the word sounds like. At least in theory. Some languages do it better than others; English and French for exampleare really bad at this, since word that's written almost the same can be pronounced radically differently, and in many cases the writing and pronounciation have become completely divorced from eachother (if you didn't know that is what pronounced that way, would you be able to figure that "colonel" is pronounced "ker-nul"?).
Japanese katakana/hiragana writing is also a very good example since all the letters represent specific sounds (this is why "Japanized" English words tend to get a vowel, usually o or u, added to the end, as the kana writing doesn't really do words that end in consonants).

Chinese (and Japanese Kanji, and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to name a few others) have instead symbols associated with specific concept. There's one that means person, one that means house, etc. The symbol itself carries no information on how the word would be pronounced. I could learn to read Chinese and be able to read a Chinese newspaper while being completely unable to read it out loud because just knowing how to read the words would tell me nothing about what they sound like. Same thing with Egyptian hieroglyphs. Even to this day we have very little idea on what ancient Egyptian laguage sounded like, despite being able to read the hieroglyphs just fine.

My last name derives from Lawman. So that's cool.

>>41050334
Hey Benjamin, what's up?

>>41048642
>>41049143
>>41050334
My full name would be something along the line sof 'Rock, Christian, Hole in a Tree'. Technically the last one refers to a type of bird's nest made in a hole in a tree, but there isn't a good English translation. In any case, it hardly makes sense.

>>41026441
take a heroic dose of acid
have notepad handy

>>41052300
Is your surname derived from Alexander perchance?

>>41026115
That's some meta shit right there.

>>41026441
Dresden Files has the most interesting take on True Names.

A mortal's True Name is their own full name as spoken from their own lips.

It has power over them. The dragon Ferrovax casually saying Harry Dresden (ignoring the two middle names) caused him to feel the weight of the dragon's power.

The thing about True Names, though, is that a mortal's name can lose it's power as they grow and change. That's the thing about Mortals, they're always changing. What your True Name is today might not be the same ten years from now because you've grown as a person. I doubt after becoming Winter Knight and Warden of Demonreach the times Dresden gave out his True Name before the series hold as much weight as they did when he gave those names out in exchange for information, like with Chauncy.

>>41052685
Expanding on this, Naming something also gives you power over it. Dresden gave Lasciel's Shadow a name and it died for him. Also made him brainpregnant. He constantly gives things nicknames, and it upset Uriel, one of the Archangels, to be called "Uri" (since the -el part means "of god"). He did consent to being called Mr Sunshine, though. He talked about Dresden Naming things as a way to give himself power over them, and how mortals are careless with names.

>>41052718
>brainpregnant
What?

>>41052747
Skin Game Spoilers:
In the latest book, Mab tells him that there is a dangerous parasite growing in his head, which encourages him to stay away from all of his friends.

In reality, it's the feelings and affections that the imprint/shadow of a fallen angel had for him after carrying her for a few books/years.These coalesce into a new knowledge spirit, gestating in his head. It then is born. From a reductionist view, his brain is pregnant. If this makes no sense, it's because you've got a 15 book series of context missing.

>>41052279
>English and French
>and French
No. This is a purely foreigner problem, when they don't understand that certains vowels can be silent. A french can pick every word in a book and pronounce them directly even if he never heard them before. For pronounciation the rules are very strict.
And I can't think of two words written the same way prounounced in a radically different way in French too

>>41045718
Dude, I'm Catholic, and none of what was happening there was Catholic in any sense of the word.

>>41052467
Not even a little bit.
At least, I'm almost certain it isn't.

Now, my surname could be either derived from the gaelic "Lagman" or it could come from a Latin (I think) word that means calm.

It's a French name, though. So I really have no idea. There are a bunch of Popes with this name.

>>41053105
I think he was trying to say that, for English and French, despite ostensibly being phonetic, frequently have words that are spelled differently than they would be interpreted phonetically due to the the evolution of the spoken language. And despite the rules being very strict, in casual use those rules sometimes DO get ignored, especially the more esoteric ones.
And if we're talking about all of the ways that the spoken language differs from the written one, when was the last time you heard a Frenchman use the passé simple in conversation? Or the imparfait subjonctif? These tenses used to be spoken, but fell out of use because of how people stopped using them in conversation. Similarly, pronunciation in languages changes gradually, usually so that things are easier to say.

French AND English spellings, from a purely phonetic standpoint, do not make much sense. But taken in context with the histories of those languages, they make perfect sense. Written language stays the same, but spoken language changes. The reason that foreigners have trouble learning the rules of French pronunciation at first is because the written language has gradually become divorced from how it sounded in Old and Middle French, when the D in "froid" and things like that were pronounced.

>>41053105
>And I can't think of two words written the same way prounounced in a radically different way in French too
Haha, that's fair.

>>41049143
Dude, get a little creative.
You could be
>god gift to those in thatched roofs

To me that means you're a fucking messiah

>>41050334
Favored son of the man of the sea, twin to to the pious man.

>bump

>>41049143
Are you a Burninator?

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>>41026066
>when you know truth, you gain power.
The truth that can be named is not really truth.

>>41033695
If you translate it directly it's "I am that I am" or "I am the I am" which... idk... feels more accurate and descriptive, even though it's grammatically incorrect.

This reminds me, in Islam God has 99 Names - all attributes of him, one way to explain him. Aside from Allah, there's also one other name, the Great Name, which holds power. It is thought that if you speak of the Great Name while praying, Allah will comply.

>>41025832
OP, we're on the Internet. If you've made enemies online, and your true name gets out, they can track you down in real life.

Now transfer this concept to a fantasy setting where, rather than the internet as a reflection of real life, you have the physical world as a reflection of the spiritual one.

>>41048642

>The great, venerable, handsome, bright, and famous one

That's pretty over the top.

>>41048642
Mine would be something like:

Teacher/Teaching Son of Gonzalo Smoking Place

I'm just laughing at everybody posting theirs here. like I'm gonna trust 4chan with my true name

>>41048642
Sea Guard who is tall

True Names Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be7Og9Gc_KY

>>41048642
The Eye (Iris) of the Wise Doctor/Slave Master (translation dependent).
Still amused.

>>41059599

>Implying any of you fucks can do magic

I plan of looking a lot into mysticism yet but by then I'll have forgotten all these names.

My name pretty much means Brown Rider of the Jungle. I have more names but it is curbersome to try and make ALL of them fit

>>41059599
>>41060398
Even under the assumption that some people on 4chan do magic (which I'm not assuming, unless we're talking knowingly pretend Alan Moore magic) what makes you think this bullshit your pulling out of your ass is your true name. Hell
>Implying that the truth of the thing in itself can be sufficiently expressed through mortal language, rather than just getting closer to an unattainable platonic-ideal/tao that may or may not be capable of existing relative to our flawed temporal existence.

>>41052279
>Even to this day we have very little idea on what ancient Egyptian laguage sounded like

No we do have rough idea. I literally learned basic ancient Egyptian words in high school history. You should learn 2 google.

>>41061054

>swiggly line

Scarab scarab falcon macarena man falcon eye eye scarab

Swiggly line macarena man eye, scarab scarab

>>41061169
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_language#History

Stop being so fucking obnoxiously ignorant.

>>41061169
Absolute poetry.

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Thanks for the true names, chumps.

>>41045501
Nigga, that's heresy of the first degree. That's like, excommunication tier; modern day witch burning tier.

>>41038938
>>41039105
>>41044615
>literally children

>>41045501
>Anno Domini 2015
>being this much of a LITERAL heretic

My true name is Rusty Shackleford

>>41045501

A lot of people might be going
>muh heresy
But I actually think that this is pretty fucking cool. It's not catholicism though, don't fool yourself into thinking it was. But it does sound really interesting

The cold room might be a bit too eery, but aside that whatever it was, it sounds interesting. Be glad about your experience

>>41062741
>don't fool yourself into thinking it was.

I never did but it followed the same beliefs so I really dont know what else to call it, it was just more occult and deviant about things. Another thing that I thought was cool was that the prayers were done in vernacular but with a recording of a choir singing in Aramaic language.

>>41063054

There are religions that follow beliefs that are close enough to christianity/catholicism while still being their own thing such as rastafari. Maybe you could dive into some later to find out cool things

>>41048642
Mine means "Elven counsellor, from the old house send by God".

I'm a psychologist.

>>41063641
>elves continue to infiltrate human society, details at 11.

>>41063641
Alfred?

>>41048642
I think mine would come out to "The Victorious Who is Like God."

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>ctrl+f Earthsea
>ctrl+f Ged
>ctrl+f Sparrowhawk
>ctrl+f Sea jedi wizard

Seriously, /tg/? Sigh, looks like I'm gonna have to be the one to mention this one...

In Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea books, there is the Language of Making, a language from which the world itself is formed. Wizards speak this language to draw magical power out of themselves and reshape the world to do their bidding. It is impossible to lie in this language, and if you say anything that isn't strictly true, it will come true -- say "I am a hawk" and you will become a hawk, because otherwise you would be lying. If you don't have enough magical power to become a hawk, you can't say "I am a hawk."

Now, on to true names. Everyone has a "call-name" which they use in everyday interactions, and a True Name, which is their name in the Language of Making. But more than just people have true names -- animals, plants, objects, even places like islands have true names. Nothing can have more than one true name, and knowing a thing's true name gives you the power to reshape it. If you want to "true polymorph" something, you do it by changing its true name -- a very difficult task indeed.

If any of this (and a lot of this likely will) sound familiar from Eragon, LeGuin did it a good 34 years earlier.

>>41048642

Mine would be "My god is the LORD, son of the ruler of the world, kin of the heron"

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Quick question /tg/. Someone mentioned Plato and forms, and I figured I might as well learn myself some philosophy.. What's the best source/translation, and are any of the other Greeks worth it? Pic semi-related?

>>41064880
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/93

>>41063838
The great thing about my own name, is that is common around the world, and there are subtle variations between each language. So, even if you have the right concept, you may not have the exact name. Think on 1:

One
Uno
Um
oдин
一个

So, yeah, good luck.

>>41064632
THANK YOU

>>41064880
I'll recommend Zeno of Citium and the Stoics.

Applies as well to the Roman emperors and philosophers, like Marcus Aurelius, who also tended to be Stoic.

>>41064880
I find Aristotle's theories on Virtue to be interesting.
He helped to establish the binary mentality of the West (man/woman, good/evil, etc), but posits the middle ground to be the most virtuous.
For example, courage. Everyone can agree that courage is good, but Aristotle defines it as the midway point between two extremes of a binary system.

Cowardice--------Courage--------Foolhardiness

This binary measures the amount of bravery a person has. Too little and they are a self-serving coward. Too much and they are a fool who will throw his life away without regard.
But in the middle is the Goldilocks Zone, the happy medium in which a person is willing to risk their life, but not when doing so would be pointless.

>>41064632
>If any of this (and a lot of this likely will) sound familiar from Eragon, LeGuin did it a good 34 years earlier.
Even back when I was young and naive enough to LIKE Eragon, I was pissed after reading the Earthsea books because of how obvious it was the Paolini ripped his magic system straight out of LeGuin's books.

>>41065333
>But in the middle is the Goldilocks Zone
Also predated by Buddhism which promotes a similar middle path.

Yet perhaps does not presume an inherent 'evil', only mostly that human suffering should be fought in reality.

>>41065360
Read pagan sagas, recall what happened to the pagans, then read of Tolkien's stuff.

>>41064935
>>41065310
>>41065333
Thanks folks, I'll check those out. Any ideas what would be the best read to learn more about Platonic forms?

>>41065457
Plato's theory of forms has perhaps been largely disproven by neuroscience, similar to ancient greek humorism.

He basically just said that 'the only reality is thought', which we now know is reflexively impossible due to the physical basis for it, which they were unaware of back then.

Recall that they did not know of human evolution, so saw humanity as more wholly separate from nature.

>>41065392
>Yet perhaps does not presume an inherent 'evil
I just used the good/evil thing because it's popular NOW and Aristotle's ideas probably had some influence in that sort of dynamic becoming popular.
You're right though, he didn't invent it. I admit I need to read up more on Eastern philosophy and such.

By the way, anyone looking for a good reference to old philosophy, religion, and real world beliefs about magic could do worse than go to this site:
sacred-texts.com

It's got a piss poor directory and a baby's first internet page design, but the material is excellent and they have a lot of it.
It's not very well organized, though. The Malleus Maleficarum is in the Wicca/Neo-Paganism page, for example.

I've been using this stuff to help my worldbuilding for awhile now.

>>41050295
"Leader of the people, Viking."

>>41048642
My name is apparently derived from an Irish term meaning "lover of wolves."
A friend of mine is a furry with a thing for wolves. He didn't stop laughing for the better part if an hour.

>>41065545
>Plato's theory of forms has perhaps been largely disproven by neuroscience,

METAPHYSICS DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!

>>41065622
Well, Aristotle could have independently surmised it. It's one of those fairly obvious things that overdoing and underdoing stuff like food both tend to be bad.

One thing not usually known in the West about Indian and East Asian is that the ancient nastika traditions like Buddhism and Jainism were very strictly "anti-theist", and believe that any idea of divinity unlinked to the physical condition of human suffering was immaterial to the resolution and defeat of that suffering.

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>>41065622
>The Malleus Maleficarum is in the Wicca/Neo-Paganism page

>>41064880

Okay, time for a crash course in Philosophy.

When it comes to the Greeks, the big names are Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Plato was one of Soc's disciples. Socrates is pretty much the father of Western Philosophy, which means his braindick is pretty big. Essentially, he went around the marketplaces of Athens and asked people if they knew shit. People said they did, in fact, know some shit, and when Socrates asked a series of questions to try to prove their certainty, people realized they didn't know anything at all. This pissed a lot of people off, and eventually, Athens agreed to just kill the nuisance off. Socrates, once convicted, accepted his fate and willingly drank a cup of hemlock.

After his teacher was tried and executed, Plato started writing down a bunch of the shit Socrates purportedly said and did. There's another pupil that did the same, but pretty much nobody cares about that guy, his name begins with an X or something and it's a bother to remember/pronounce. He's only important because he corroborates some of what Plato said. Socrates never actually wrote any of his stuff down, he was just trying to figure shit out for himself. Plato starts out sticking to what happened, as best as he can recollect, but eventually, realized that he could use Socrates as a mouthpiece for his own ideas. So, piggybacking off of Socrates' fame/notoriety, Plato started to getting his own shit out there. It's important to look at a timeline when you're reading any of Plato's works; the earlier it is, the more Socrates it'll be.

If you want to read Socrates' ideas, I recommend The Symposium, The Trial of and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues. Especially Phaedo, the last one. That captures him pretty well.

For Plato, it's best to check out The Republic (which is super fucking long). That captures the whole Theory of Forms and "kalos kagathos" thing pretty well.

>>41065697
Xenophon was the X mans name.

>>41065697
>the big names are Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle

I would vehemently disagree. Those are the philosophers that have been historically sanctioned by Western Dogma.

During the classical period, they were not as popular or influential personally.

Especially in other parts of the world like Egypt, where Imhotep's methods of medical empiricism were more highly regarded.

>>41065697
I'm working through the Republic now, glad to hear it wasn't wasted. But goddamn, shut up Thrasymachus. Shit is confusing enough without you interrupting.

>>41065697
>People said they did, in fact, know some shit, and when Socrates
Socrates was a fan of irrelevant polemics as well, like "I know that I know nothing", which many other philosophers considered logically incorrect and pointless.

Heraclitus is perhaps a much more entertaining read.

>>41065697

The basic premise of the Theory of Forms is that "all things are derived from an ideal version of that thing." A tree is a tree because it derives its essential tree-iness from The Tree, which is presumably floating out in the heavens in a giant sphere, because circles are the most perfect shape according to the Greeks. You may want to check out a dude called Plotinus, too. He tries to integrate Platonic ideals with Christianity and creates the concept of a One True Perfect God because of it.

Aristotle is Plato's student. He has a whole "fuck you, you're not my real dad" sort of reaction to the baseless claims Plato is trying to push. Ari goes full empiricism, and spearheads a lot of rudimentary scientific endeavors. Like, taxonomy. His system for naming animals was obtuse and based heavily on "is it a bird, is it a fish, or does it stay on land," but he got the ball rolling.

Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics are more or less the required skimming. Look out for The Four Causes and Doctrine of the Means, especially.

Also, note: this is all incredibly rough, generalized, and based almost entirely off of memory. So. Take everything I'm saying here with a few grains of salt.

>>41025832
Comes from the idea that words have power of their own. It's a really popular concept in European folklore and some other places where the written word became dominant. Places where there wasn't a written language don't seem to have it so much -- like Western Africa.

>>41065911
>Plotinus, too. He tries to integrate Platonic ideals with Christianity
Plotinus never mentioned Christianity.

The influence is the other way around, Plotinus' writings were used by the more early Christians.

>>41065776

Okay, so the big Greek names are Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, according to the contemporary Western civilization. There are other important names, of course-- I could talk about the pre-Socratics trying to decide what the world is made of, and one guy essentially getting atoms right because he looked at dust in the light, or how Diogenes was a badass filthy dogman that roamed the streets like a virtuous werewolf-- but this is just introductory, man.

>>41065767

Yeah thanks, it's that guy. Never actually read any of him.

>>41065832

Sure, Socrates was simultaneously pretentious and humble about his ignorance-based intelligence, and you have to cut through the vast amounts of Plato-worship in the works, but the Socratic method is pretty tight, all things considered.

Ask if a guy knows about a thing. Ask questions about said thing. Does he have answers? Are there inconsistencies? Is he struggling to think of something? Okay, maybe he doesn't know as much as he says he does. Maybe they ought to re-evaluate some of his life choices.

>>41065832
>Heraclitus
>>41065911
>Ari goes full empiricism, and spearheads a lot of rudimentary scientific endeavors.

Predated by Heraclitus.

Note that the philosophers you are listing are merely the ones promoted by Western Academia as "the best", or "the original", which is not necessarily true.

They merely perhaps had philosophy more compatible with the Middle Ages and Renaissance dogma.

For example, Heraclitus largely proposed the Pauli Exclusion Principle, and the natures of Thermodynamic Entropy. Albeit around 500 BC, so no one really got it.

>>41065979
Whoops, my bad. I'm rusty as all hell, clearly. Right, Plato passes ideas down to Plotinus, who in turn passes concepts down to St. Augustine.

>>41065832
I choose to interpret "I know that I know nothing" as "I should act as if I know nothing because it lets me learn more."

Reminds me of a story my martial arts teacher told me. An arrogant black belt went to a master and asked to be taught. This guy is fucking swaggering all over the place, acting like he's the hottest shit. The master pours the guy some tea, but instead of filling the cup he just keeps pouring. The black belt sits there for a while, then finally speaks up about the overflowing tea cup. "This is you," says the master, who then dumps out the tea and shows the guy the empty cup. "This is what you need to be."

>>41066167
>I choose to interpret "I know that I know nothing" as "I should act as if I know nothing because it lets me learn more."
That is the issue though. Socrates spoke in the asiatic style of pointless antagonism. He should merely have said "Assume nothing. Investigate everything. Discern the truth from reality yourself."

This is perhaps why he failed to produce more modern systems of investigation.

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>>41065961
Stupid.

We have lots of verbal taboos in west african languages.

I always found it interesting that there are two sides to the True Name thing, and it's all about power. If you say the name of something powerful, you can attract its attention. But you don't want your own true name to be known, because if someone powerful gets it they can control you.

>Ctrl F
>No Vernor Vinge

How casual you are, /tg/? Literally tabletop RPG played by cyberpunk hackers and not a single mention of "True Names" short story?

>>41027195
So the true name of water is h2o?

>>41038567

Reminds me of the little prince, where the fox explains what it means to tame something.

"To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world...."

>Ctrl F
>Single mention of Vernor Vinge
>It's complain about him not being mentioned
>Ctrl F
>Single mention of LeGuin and her Earthsea
>It's complain about her not being mentioned
Stay summer, /tg/

>>41046718
Tarot cards did stem from Christianity though.