D&D (2024) Comeliness and Representation in Recent DnD Art

[EzekielRaiden]

Yes, I was using sentient in the classic SF way - 'self-aware' - regardless of the pedantic correctness of it.

All of which has nothing to do with my original point. It would be nice to have a species that is both soulless and self-aware, just as equal as any 'ensoulled' creature. One shot at existence, no resurrection, no reincarnation, what you see is what you get, and not be considered "gross".

I dunno if it would even necessarily need to be "soulless." Perhaps they have souls, but their souls are the metaphysical equivalent of volatile memory or a wax slate. Scrape the slate, and whatever was written on it is gone. Doesn't matter if you bring the soul back to life directly or indirectly--the person they were just doesn't exist anymore.

Perhaps call them the "palim," after the Greco-Roman palimpsest. The you that is, is the only you that can ever be. Death, even for a moment, wipes away all you were. This works best with a synthetic race that can be understood in a "death means factory settings reset" kind of way, so that if resurrected they aren't literal infants incapable of speech or locomotion (mostly because that just has too many problematic/squicky connotations.)

 

[michaeljpastor]

"Sapience" is a somewhat more recent term in public usage (though quite old in scientific usage), which cropped up as a result of the casual, everyday use of the word "sentient" being at odds with its scientific definition.

Conflicts like this arise quite often in the contrast between scientific jargon (which is usually very precise) and common usage (which often latches onto whatever first happened and runs with it). "Bisexual," for example, originally meant "someone who has two anatomical sexes," e.g., what we now call "hermaphroditic" today. Kinsey, the well-known biologist and sexologist, particularly disliked the use of the term "bisexual" to refer to people who were attracted to both male and female partners, but he just flatly lost that battle in the long run. Now, "bisexual" is almost universally used as an orientation term, not an anatomy term.

And even the orientation term has been redefined to "to both people of the same gender and different genders" encompassing the broad spectrum of gender identity instead of the kinsey definition of both male and female.

 

[michaeljpastor]

I dunno if it would even necessarily need to be "soulless." Perhaps they have souls, but their souls are the metaphysical equivalent of volatile memory or a wax slate. Scrape the slate, and whatever was written on it is gone. Doesn't matter if you bring the soul back to life directly or indirectly--the person they were just doesn't exist anymore.

Perhaps call them the "palim," after the Greco-Roman palimpsest. The you that is, is the only you that can ever be. Death, even for a moment, wipes away all you were. This works best with a synthetic race that can be understood in a "death means factory settings reset" kind of way, so that if resurrected they aren't literal infants incapable of speech or locomotion (mostly because that just has too many problematic/squicky connotations.)

Which isn't my point. No soul, no tabula rasa reboot. Just a biological self-reprogrammable self-aware very sophisticated computer with a finite existence, to use an analogy. It's atheism as fact, not philosophy.

 

[Charlaquin]

While I know you have an edge on me in that particular race, it felt less than the best to say that on my end as well.

Because I also started out with "sentient" and it's been a process of re-learning for me, as well. It's part of how I have a sense of roughly when this started happening!

Lol I was about to say that I remember scifi works using sentient to mean self-aware as recently as the early 2000s… Then I realized, oh yeah, that’s (almost) 25 years ago.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I remember having been annoyed for decades for scifi using the term wrong.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There is no difference in effect between "it tastes better to me" and "just because." Plus when you're dealing with elf games, you don't need a "good reason." Any reason will do.

The term "elfgames" serve no purpose beyond being dismissive of other people's opinions. I find it insulting personally.

 

[Charlaquin]

The term "elfgames" serve no purpose beyond being dismissive of other people's opinions. I find it insulting personally.

Nah, it also serves the purpose of helping keep things in perspective. At the end of the day, it’s a leisure activity, and all these arguments we have about it are really not that important.

 

[michaeljpastor]

The term "elfgames" serve no purpose beyond being dismissive of other people's opinions. I find it insulting personally.

Earlier, the word "gross" was used for describing soulless-ness as well, and the pedantry around sentience and sapience has started to get a little superior as well. (It is possible to be pedantic and not dismissive).

Can we all just take a step back please?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There is no difference in effect between "it tastes better to me" and "just because." Plus when you're dealing with elf games, you don't need a "good reason." Any reason will do.

I would argue there is a difference, actually. "Just because" is capricious, borne from genuinely no value or interest. If any actual interest were to appear, it would evaporate in an instant. In a certain narrow sense, it lacks sincerity; there is no feeling or motive in the choice.

"It tastes better to me" does not have that ephemeral nature. Tastes can and do change, but in general they do so only very slowly, and rarely to such an extent that what was once hated becomes loved, or vice versa. Having personally experienced such a thing, I know it does happen, but it's rare and (in general) the result of revealing a long-hidden truth or the like.

That said, "I don't know" doesn't mean "just because." It means that, whatever the reason is, it is not something the person can easily put into words--but that's not the same as the flippant, superficial "just because."

Indeed, I would say an earnest, "I don't know why, but I know that it matters to me" reflects a significantly deeper connection. As an example of this sort of thing, one of my trans friends did not realize that they were trans until well into adulthood, but had liked and appreciated a number of things without fully knowing why until after that realization. I fear I've forgotten the specific examples, but they called out specific characters and media that had appealed to them because--as they now know--it represented their internal experience for which they had no name or concept yet.

Sometimes "I don't know" is just another way of saying "eh, I don't really have a reason, I just do it." But I think most of the time it means someone has an intuitive, emotive understanding of something that eludes cognitive description.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I remember having been annoyed for decades for scifi using the term wrong.

I grew up on it, but once I realized what it literally meant I wondered how that one had become the standard in SF. I'd guess someone influential started using it, and it just spread.