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Volume I
This foreword I write in order to explain and defend the writings which can be found in this book. I am fully aware that it will be criticized, even heavily criticized. Perhaps my work will even be censored or banned.
I do not mend objective and constructive criticism and will accept anyone who can bring any reasonable arguments against what I have written. But I will and I do strongly object to any subjective or unreasonable criticism. Of course I strongly suspect the priests to slander my work with unreasonable arguments and their religious propaganda. One should not believe their lies, but rather try to form one's own opinion about what I have written. This is of course best accomplished by reading what I have written. I beg my readers to have an open mind when reading these words and not let their judgment be clouded by religious fundamentalism or propaganda.
The only defense I can bring forth is reason itself. And as long my critics can only slander, the light of reason will be still on me and not on them. If one is reading is reading my words in this attitude, one will clearly see that my words are reasonable and therefore truer than what the priests will say about my writings.
Part One: On Science
A lot don't consider science an important subject; some even say that it is unnecessary. Of course nobody says something against mathematics, since this is important in every day's life. Also alchemy is commonly accepted, even when I do not consider alchemy to be pure scientific. The reasons for this I will state later on. But as soon as you begin to talk about techniques and mechanics, people are no longer interested or even afraid. The Dwemer seemed to be the only people who understood the usefulness of those two things. I talked to a lot of people I consider to be intelligent and wise, but most of them gave me the following answer: "Why do we need technology, when we have magic?" This question I will answer in this part and it is my goal to prove that science is not only useful but that we need it.
What is science? There are different sections of this subject, which I mention quickly, so that there are no confusions. There are certain sorcerers who consider their "art" to be scientific and sadly some people believe in such lies. So, here are the different sections of science:
First I will distinguish between different groups of science. There are sciences which concern themselves with the intelligent beings of Tamriel, like men and mer. These sciences are history, rhetoric, archeology (this could also be described as "practical history"), art, music and lingual sciences (which concern themselves with analysis of literature, grammar, spelling and pronunciation). Then there are the sciences which do concern themselves with nature in some way. These are medicine, alchemy (there you have to be careful, what actually is science and what is magic), mechanics and biology (the science which concerns itself with living beings).
The first group is somehow accepted by most people or should I rather say by the nobles and intellectuals; the answer is of course that they do not touch the domination of magic. But natural science is concurrence to magic and therefore it is not spoken of or even banned. Of course the wise do sometimes practice medicine and alchemy, even biology and of course simple people from the countryside have sometimes a great knowledge about medicine. But mechanics are especially not common in our world, the only people which practiced this were the Dwemer. I want to show now that mechanics are also useful and necessary.
Most people consider magic to be sufficient in every part of life. This might be true: magic can solve a lot of problems. But magic stays the same, it doesn't change, there is no development at all. Not only this, magic is illogical and not bound by any laws of nature; it even acts against those laws.
Therefore I propose to use mechanics instead of magic. It is logical, reasonable and can be controlled far better than magic. Mechanics bring order into the mess of magic. Perhaps even one day Mechanics will explain how magic works? But I do not see the purpose of Mechanics to be to explain magic. I see the purpose of mechanics to improve our way of life. To this conclusion I came through the study of Dwemer ruins. The Dwemer had some fascinating inventions which could really aid us. Power through steam is one example. I found such devices on the Dwemer ruins on Stros M'kai and experimented with them. After some time of research I was not only able to recreate the "steam engine" (in lack of the original Dwemer name for this device, I titled it like this), but I found ways to power other devices, like a pump or an elevator.
These are the promises of Mechanics and the other sciences. Shouldn't we begin to walk on this path towards glory? We stand at its beginning, I and some of my colleagues are researching in this matter and we have made some quite extraordinary findings. We have found new ways to cure illnesses, one colleague of mine, a Dunmer doctor, even found a natural cure for the blight disease! If House Indoril doesn't babble something about "blasphemy against the tribunal" I can promise to you that this medicine will be standard issue in every store on Vvardenfell in some years. Ah, but now comes the most extraordinary discovery we have made: As a colleague of mine, he is archeologist, researched in some Dwemer ruins; he found a construction plan for an extraordinary machine: the printing machine. With this machine we can produce books in very short time; we are even now trying to improve it in our laboratories in Cyrodiil. At that very moment we are trying to use the power of the steam engine to improve the printing machine.
I know, the magical purists, like House Telvanni from Morrowind or the mages guild will accuse me of blasphemy, since they consider their magic to be divine. I answer to them: The gods do exist, this I cannot disprove. But I do not believe that perfect beings could create something as illogical and chaotic as magic. And that is a reason why I believe that the beings we call "gods" are not truly gods. Science is divine, not magic. Science represents the order of the universe, or if you wish to have it that way, the order of the gods or god. Science cannot come from the same gods which created magic, no; science must come from the being which is truly a god.
Volume II
The Empire claims that all the different gods are the same. I of course do understand the need of religion and the reasons why the empire claims all the gods to be the same (eight divines, as they are called). But the question still stands: How do we know that the beings we call "gods" are truly gods? I know that the Dunmer from Morrowind claim that their gods (the Tribunal) live and walk among them, but concerning these I would rather say that the Tribunal is three Dunmer magicians who somehow obtained immortality through profane methods, like the dissident priests claim. But aside from them how do we know that the other beings we call "gods" are true gods at all? The priests tell us to believe, but this I cannot do, since I'm bound to use my reason and logic. So where is proof that the gods really are gods?
Some say that magic originates from the gods. But you could also say that magic is just a certain kind of energy and everything is just as logical and clear as the laws of nature, only that we until now cannot explain how magic functions from a scientific point of view. Perhaps that is the reason why we invented the definition "gods": In order to explain things we do not understand, in order to look up to something greater than we are.
I knew very soon that I could not find the answer there. So I began to look elsewhere and my thoughts wandered. By doing this I began to think about the problem, why people do think that gods exist, and finally arrived at this question: How do we know anything? How do we gain knowledge? The wise (and most other people) would answer to this: "We look at an object, observe it etc. etc. and then come to a conclusion." But as I began to think, I came to a different understanding.
So I claim that it is different, it is just the other way round. The first question is: How can we trust our own senses? Do they not trick us? How do we actually know that anything exists out there? Or do we live in a dream? The answer is quite simple: We do not know. We can not trust our senses; they are not fit to give us any true knowledge about anything. To give a commonly known example: magic. By using magic you can change the appearance of an object and hide its true nature. So how do we know that reality is not just a great spell of the gods to hide the truth from us?
But what of our mind? Well, there it is also quite simple. Every person has different opinions, different feelings and more: we are actually bound to think in certain patterns. Without these patterns of thinking we couldn't gain any "knowledge" (of course we do not know yet if this knowledge is true at all).
We gain information from our senses. Our mind has to bring order into this. Because of that we think in patterns of space and time. But we do not know if those two things really exist, maybe the gods are playing some kind of trick on us. Then we also think in patterns of causality and identity. How do we know that a certain cause is followed by a certain effect? Or that a certain effect has a certain cause? How do we recognize something and know that it is the same? Both are inside our minds and we think in these patterns without knowing about their truth. We just accept that they are true.
It seems therefore that every person not only has an individual view of the world, but more, nobody knows if his view is correct or not. The conclusion is of course that we cannot gain any real knowledge of our own world of which we can be certain of. This means that the beings we call "gods" might not be gods at all, it means that those beings might not even exist or that our reality is not true. We have to believe or not believe. We will never know.
The problem is, when we cannot be sure of our own reality, what should we believe then? I think it is not possible for us to think something else than our present reality, so we must stick with it. But we know now that we can question reality. And this leads to the conclusion that we can also question our gods.
As you might remember, dear reader, I first asked the question if the gods truly are gods. We know that those beings do exist (of course only when we assume our reality to be true) and that they live in Oblivion. But are they gods? What is a god anyway? How is a god defined? By immortality? By powers which are greater than ours?
I have a different approach to the problem. A god is a being which is absolutely perfect, a being not bound to anything at all. Now let us see if our "gods" fit into this category. The gods live in Oblivion. This is a place in another dimension which we think to be divine. And here is the first flaw of our gods: They actually are bound to a place. By my definition, god cannot be bound to anything and certainly not to any location.
Now some would answer me that the gods have powers beyond our imagination. Yes, this might be true in our world. In our world the gods are powerful, but what is in their own world? And even in our world we can destroy the gods, or at least their bodies, when they take physical form. It is even possible to summon lesser divine spirits. When my definition of god is true then our gods cannot be gods at all, since they are not perfect (we can have a little amount of control over them and we can even destroy them when they enter our world).
This leads me to the conclusion that there must be something higher and more divine than our "gods" (which are not gods at all, as we just noticed). Something which is even more powerful then themselves and which has also created them. This being alone deserves the title of god, even when we cannot experience it. It is probably to divine to meddle in the affairs of mortals like ourselves and has created the beings we call "gods" in order to do that.
My conclusion may seem heretic to some, they will seem heretic to the priests, of that I am sure. But I can assure you that it is not my plan to destroy religion. The beings we call "gods" are divine, because they were created by god. This of course leads us to the conclusion that we are also divine, at least to a part. That is the reason why I think magic exists, something divine came on us from god when we were created. Magic must be the divine energy which we cannot explain at the moment.
I also want to point out that I am not the first one having these thoughts. The Altmer philosopher Erundil and the Dwemer philosopher Barik would agree with me, if they were still living.
Volume III
The last part of my book "Varieties of Thought" will concern itself with the history of philosophy in Tamriel and what different philosophers have thought, said and written.
As with everything else, the Altmer were also the first philosophers. Meryaran is considered the father of philosophy throughout Tamriel. When he lived exactly is unknown, but it must have been around the early heights of Altmer culture during the middle Merethic Age. His teachings and speeches were written down and kept in the libraries of Summerset Island. I had the honor to personally read some of his writings.
Meryaran taught his disciples that the ultimate question is "the question, what the reason is for everything". He himself called this question often "The Great Why". He also taught that the state of enlightenment would come through reason and thought and not through belief. This was when he had the first conflicts with the priests. In a brilliant speech he defended himself in front of a religious tribunal of the priests and came free. But he was more careful afterwards and taught his disciples only about nature and her laws.
Some say that he visited several cities of the Dwemer and learned much from them concerning science. But while the Dwemer were more interested in the practical use of science, like mechanics, Meryaran was more interest in theoretical science. Therefore he concerned himself mostly with mathematic and its use in theoretical science. His disciples followed him and the school which he founded became one of great thinkers.
His most famous disciple, Olquar, wrote a book about logic. Until today it is still the basis of logical thinking. Some of his disciples concerned themselves with natural sciences, like medicine or physics, like Rumare, who wrote a book about basic mechanics. Another one, Larindil, wrote four books concerning mathematics, especially geometry. In his fourth book he presented what should later be known as "Larindil's theorem". The theorem concern itself with the nature of right triangles. The Meryaranians, as they called themselves, existed long and out of their ranks came many of the famous Altmer thinkers and scientists.
Some centuries later the society of the Meryaranians had become an accepted part of Altmer society. They were often teachers and had schools and libraries. Also they were considered as wise and knowledgeable. Often they were quite arrogant.
In this time Erundil appeared. Erundil was the son of a merchant, but first he didn't think about taking over his father's business. Instead he first went to an academy of the Meryaranians. But soon he had enough of them and went his own way. He opened a little store near the market place of his home town Alinor on the Summerset Isle and began to talk to people. Not normal gossip, he began to ask people questions. Questions which made people think about their lives and their beliefs. He accused the Meryaranians of being arrogant and not true to the words of their founder. Soon he had a group of disciples around him and together they began to think about how people should live. Together they formed basic rules of ethics.
His teachings about ethics were accepted by most. But then he rejected the common version of the creation myth and proclaimed his own ideas. He told that the beginning was not Anu and Padomay, but that Anu and Padomay were actually creations themselves. They were the two sides of "The Great One", but in a major catastrophe in the beginning the Great One was parted in two, so Anu and Padomay came into being. Since the great parting, everything began to fall apart and the world of the mortals is only the latest step in this process. But, so Erundil taught, in the end of all everything will again come together and all will be once again the Great One as it always should have been. He also taught that this is a cycle and that the Great One is parted and put together over and over again for all eternity.
Erundil was brought before a tribunal of the priests and the Meryaranians. There he was accused of blasphemy against the gods and should he be found guilty, the sentence would be his death. Erundil defended himself in proving logically that neither his belief nor the belief of the accepted religion could be proven. But, so his argument, his belief was more rational, since it does explain everything better than the common belief and therefore should be accepted and replace the old "theory of creation". He was still sentenced to death tough and killed with a life-draining spell.
Erundil's greatest student, Volanaro, continued the work of his master and of him we know more, since we do possess his writings. Erundil's writings were all censored and burned. Volanaro wrote three books concerning ethics, but then moved on and wrote a book concerning the differences between the world of the mortals and the sphere of the gods, especially Oblivion of the Daedra. His greatest achievement was probably his book "On how to rule and govern". In the book he described a fictional realm which he describes as perfect. There all inhabitants are parted into different classes by their abilities. The highest class is the one of the Wise (the class of the rulers), the next one the class of the guardians, then follow the classes of the merchants, craftsmen, farmers. This perfect realm does no longer have any bureaucrats; everything is controlled by the Wise.
Volanaro also had students and he built a great academy in Alinor. Volanaro's most famous student was Imare, the first female philosopher. She concerned herself more with earthly matters than Volanaro had. It was also she who took up again the idea of "The Great One" which Elundil had invented. But she expanded it and called it "The Great Reason". For her, it was the answer to Meryaran's question of "The Great Why". In her book "On the cycles of existence" she presented her theory that everything moves in huge cycles, parting, melting together, creating and destroying. Everything seeks balance and tries to go together again. But by the opposite force of unbalance, it is torn apart again.
Those were the three great Altmer philosophers of the Merethic Era. We move now on to the other philosophers of this era.
The Dwemer had several philosophers which aren't widely known. They mostly described our world and the universe as something mechanical and mathematical, something to be understood. Also the gods themselves were part of this "Great Machine", as they called it.
But one of them is worth mentioning, he is the only one we know more about and he is the only one which actually had some influence on our world. His name was Barik Nzalaf and we know of him through his books. Some also think that Barik had a great influence on Kagrenac, a theory I myself believe.
Barik Nzalaf was very typical for the Dwemer culture, but he actually went a step further and led the Dwemer on the way which would finally lead to their disappearance. We know that Barik was a normal Dwemer craftsman, living near Red Mountain. If he had remained a craftsman, we would probably not know anything about him.
Barik soon came to the conclusion that he was not a good craftsman, so he began to write books. First he wrote books about crafting, but soon his writings shifted more and more towards philosophy. And that is how he became known among the other Dwemer.
His main philosophy was one of questioning the gods themselves. Through their study of Nirn and the Outer Realms, the Dwemer more and more began to think that the beings normally titled with "gods" had limits themselves. Barik was the first one to openly question the gods themselves. He asked, if the gods were really gods or just beings on a somewhat higher level of existence. The legends tell that the gods were created, so why do we call them gods? What is the definition of a god? His conclusion was that since the beings called "gods" were bound to certain limits, they couldn't be called gods. He redefined "god" as an absolutely perfect being with no limitations which is the reason for itself (meaning, a true god is neither created nor bound to anything else in order to exist; the reason for the existence of a true god must be himself). By his definition, every being until this time titled "god" was not a god at all. So, if those beings were not gods at all, perhaps mortal beings could reach this next level of existence. Or perhaps they could create a being of this higher level of existence.
And here it becomes clear why most historians, including myself, believe that Kagrenac was highly influenced by the writings of Barik. Barik was the one who formulated the idea of an artificial god; Kagrenac was the one who tried to create one.
During the Middle Merethic Era, the Orcs (or Orismeri) were transformed into what they are now. Their culture is and was very different from the ones of the other Mer. Orcs are adapted to war and fighting, so it their whole culture. Also their thinkers concerned themselves with such matters.
The most important of those thinkers is Lugrub gro Sharbag. Lugrub lived soon after the transformation of the Orismeri and he was troubled by this. He began to think about how the identity of his people had been changed by this transformation. Finally he concluded that the transformation was rather a blessing than a curse. In his opinion, the Orismeri were the race chosen to conquer or destroy all other races. To the Orismeri the "Gift of War" was given so that they could fulfill their "holy duty". He also added that the only way for mortals to reach immortality was to be remembered for ever. He introduced the principle of the immortal fighter, living for all times in songs and legends concerning his battles. The way of the warrior, so Lugrub taught, was the only way to achieve the status of a god. He also taught that the greatest warrior and conqueror would change Tamriel and that he would really reach immortality. Some think that this was a prophecy of Tiber Septim.