So Darth Invictus is doing another philosophy/religion centric thread. Anyways, let's begin, the force is said to have a "Will" throughout Star Wars media. What this means for the force's sapience or not is a related but different subject, but here I want to discuss what this means in terms of Eschatology, or in more simple terms, the End or Last Days. In the Star Wars context, this means the end of the universe and everything in it. The issue thus becomes, what happens to the force when the universe ends? The Living Force is based on living things, but the Unifying Force exists seemingly separate from the throws of the universe itself. Encompassing it, and yet also seemingly going beyond it. What is the Will of the Force for the end of Time itself? What happens to all sapient life that is connected to the force? Is it more of an Abrahamic end, with the evil doers cast into Chaos, and the righteous existing in some sort of harmony for eternity, or is it more Dharmic, with the cycles continuing for eternity? Most life seems to upon entering the Netherworld lose its conscious identity, and like water in a bucket tossed back into the river from where it was drawn, lose itself in the greater whole, while the denizens of chaos retain in some form their individuality. Does this mean ironically the Sith gain immortality after all? Its just hellish immortality? If I recall correctly, the non canon Supernatural encounters had even the worst Sith eventually repenting and joining the greater whole, so perhaps its more universalist. Given Ajunta Pall was redeemed after death, and certain people had hopes Jacen would be, then perhaps atonement is possible after death, something that is pointedly not the case in Western Abrahamic religious traditions(albeit that's a nuanced subject) and is pointedly more Dharmic. Sapient life aside, what is the will with regards to the universe? Will it emerge again, as part of the force's will, or it will its end, herald the end of physical reality as it is, in favor of something more transcendental? Is the fate of the universe something which proceeds from nature or from the Will of the force directly? What is the relationship of the force to the end of the universe? Discuss!
I'd like to reply to this but given it involves spoilers for the not everywhere released yet Star Wars Archives book I'd rather do so in that ones topic. In fact some of my replies there already adressed this in major parts. Nonspoilery so far take this: Energy conservation law ensures there is no final end to anything, just transformation to a new state of being, a new luminous energy so to speak instead of a physical mortal realm? Thus with finality out of the way, all that can happen is, if all physical life dies as you presume, that the Personal/Living Force vanishes into the Cosmic/Unifying Force. But that is like saying the plane of physical existance is only a tiny fraction of the true universe and rejoins the cosmic it encompassing and permeating Force and universe, the soul plane so to speak of also not incarnated souls. If that plane though knows good and bad, Jedi and Sith? Depends if individuality can be retained and for how long! Also depends if everybody can remain the "being" he/she was during life, or if a being post mortem dissolves into all parts that contributed to forming and becoming said individual as a joint experiment of life. Or if we are all part of a larger being, cosmic or planetary or other joint soul-networks forming larger souls. So what if post mortem you are not you but the ego dissolves and you are just a part of the larger? Or you are you... or you dissolve and are many smaller entities that made up yourself? I recommend reading the Soul related works by Carlos Dorofatti!
Me too... but it happens. Had that with lots of topics too myself. Maybe there are too many Force related topics around currently and you should repost it in one of those? As said, Archives topic is one that due to spoilers is rather contained there. Take your pick.
I think the will of the force might not be directing all things at all times. But rather to direct certain things at the right time to direct it to a future it wanted. As to what happens in the heat death of the universe? Who can say. Maybe everything will begin again.
I can agree with this. Reminds me of a podcast talking about the Thrawn Trilogy and the "Will of the force" got brought up...forgot a lot of the discussion but I do remember someone say thing "The Force didn't want Thrawn to win" hence the Force gave a few people the nudge in the right direction to make sure Thrawn didn't win.
The title "The Force Awakens" sort of points to the way it works as I see it. It sort of... jumps in when things get too sketchy. Or it's provided little bits of prophecy that are gonna come back and fix stuff later on. What's it doing when it's not all that engaged? Dunno. It's a bit like the Old Testament God in that sense.
The Force: Oh boy everything falling to peaces again....welp...Better give it a good kick the behind it needs....Okay...so what person shall be the chosen one this time.
Just a random baseless thought but.. What if the Chosen One working for the Force is yet another prophecy misunderstanding and it is in fact working against it? I mean, the more fans and authors personify the Force into god analogues, the more fallible it becomes and we end up with the same old questions of why didn't it intervene here and there but over there. Why is this and that imbalance but not these and those. In that case the Chosen One would be a luciferan Prometheus figure fighting for humanity against godly oppression/fated will. At least Nihilus and Kreia could work based on said thinking. Or did the Force get bored and create itself a nemesis to keep things interesting and test its own creation? Kinda like in the Matrix when Neo was a product of it and at the same time a safety mechanism to keep the Matrix going and the fight was a staged build in part of the Matrix survival for humanity needed the illusion of the fight and chance at escape. At least this is an interesting angle to ponder but it also contradicts what the Force, Chosen One, etc. is as per George Lucas. Still for the more god/christianity minded folks, have fun with this take.
One important thing to remember about the Force is that it is constantly evolving. “Life creates it, makes it grow.” The Force is intimately tied to life, in a way not often seen in other spiritual forces. It may not have existed before life, instead emerging along with it long ago, growing and evolving over billions of years. In many ways, I think of it as life itself. A close analogue might be the Overmind from Childhood’s End. In that book, there is a vast psychic intelligence with great control over the universe, formed from the psychic energy of many species, and constantly adding more to itself and growing with them. Its purposes and mind are unknowable, beyond that it wants to keep growing. That sounds a lot like the Force to me, and like life itself, as a whole, even in the real world. It’s a process that grows and changes and is primarily focused on survival and the balance needed to keep on living. And it has grown, or perhaps always was, beyond being merely physical. But to what end, for what purposes, I don’t think we can know.
One thing I wonder is how much the will of the force is involved in cosmological processes, such as the growth and decay of stars and the merger and formation of galaxies. At a universal level, this is more consequential than the dramas of sapient life.
Well the macrocosm of stars, galaxies, universe bubbles even resembles the microcosm a lot.. and with quantum physics looking beyond the tiniest pieces of life, one has to wonder if a version of macro-quantum physics would be best suited to do the same for macrocosm on an unseen level. If the Force is life, and we have it within us as much as it surrounds us, then we are a part of the universal life everywhere and need to find our place in it, not work against it. And If so, we are no different to the universe than the bacteria that make up our body are to us. The interesting thing is, in every direction, spacial, temporal, etc. mankind found infinity. It always goes on, continues. There literally is no end of anything. Energy preservation law states energy can only be transformed into a different state but not destroyed. Particle - Wave duality states that everything is wave and particle at the same time. String Theory amongst other likewise theories states that everything is the same and only the frequency/vibration and probability make the difference one percieves, be it what form it takes, how long it exists or else. Scientists discover a fractal makeup of the universe everywhere from tiniest to largest, as above so below is similiar, paralell, repetitive and cyclical. All is circles and cycles, neverending, only transforming and living. Biologists even found lifeforms that are in between animals and plants and other weirder lifeforms, they even theorize alien life possible based on other elements than carbon. That even anything to a degree could be alive or intelligent even if one can not communicate with it or percieve it as such. Back to infinity, taking all these into account at the same time, what if Infinity is just an expression of the same principles. I am not saying when you fly into one direction in the universe you come out at the other end and reach your origin point as if flying in a circle, though that may be. Maybe even time is circular but so infinitely huge we cannot notice it and our ancient past is our future and vice versa? Heck maybe as above so below is not only biblical but literal and science is just one step away from proofing it by realizing that the universe is within us as we are within the universe. Ok, mindtwisting multidimensional imagination needed for that one, but bear with me: What if Inside = Outside, Above = Below, Macrocosm = Microcosm, Past = Future and so forth is the explanation and missing link tying everything together? To speak more spiritual for a change, Life, the universe, us, everything would be as if God took a look inside himself, and the universe he is creating and playing with is nothing other than him, his body, his soul, he himself, like we are our own makers, and take care of our own balance and have a universe within us, as much as we are a part of one around us. And what if both are the same? And to get back to the "end" this topic is interested in. What if the end is the realization of what life truly is, neverending! All puzzle pieces falling into place finally and accepting their role and how it benefits them most, choosing it freely instead of being fated and forced to it. Death is but a door, and like a butterfly, we cannot look beyond what we may become, and yet we walk right through it, not looking back once we passed it.
Here's an idea that's a bit of a stretch. There's supposedly a reference book coming out next year, called The Skywalkers: A Family at War. Here is the description (emphasis mine): It's quite possible that this was written by someone who made the common mistake of thinking the immaculate conception refers to Jesus's conception, but that's not what immaculate conception is. I'm no scholar of religion, but here's how I understand it: Immaculate conception is the Catholic idea that Mary was born without the "original sin" and is therefore the only human to never have sinned. Wikipedia summarizes it thusly: "Mary, through God's grace, was conceived free from the stain of original sin through her role as the Mother of God." So, applying this to the phrase "Shmi Skywalker's immaculate conception," assuming the description writer hasn't made that very common mistake regarding the term, what we have here now is Shmi herself being a bit of a Chosen One. Therefore, decades before Anakin was conceived, the Force knew he would be and also made Shmi a special person as well. I will say that her portrayal in the films and TPM and AOTC novelizations certainly makes her seem sinless. Combine this with the idea that Anakin's conception is either a reaction to Palpatine screwing with the Force (per Luceno) or somehow directly caused by Palpatine (per Lucas/Soule). What does this mean in terms of predetermination?
Clearly the Skywalkers are a special family, and they seem to play an important role as agents or pawns if you will, in the Force's will. For what ultimate end? We don't know.
In canon or legends? It seems like they serve the same purpose but in different ways. In legends they were to fight the darkside, mostly head on. In canon they are there to support and help take down the dark.
I actually wonder if the Skywalkers are that unqiue in galactic history, they where very impactfull on a few events sure, but if we assume that after Cade they and their powers fade away more and more, eventually they will be forgotten, seen as just one family in a ten thousands of years long history. I mean families like that might have existed before, Revan and his descendants via Bastilla would come to mind, but how many people really consider them the most important family in galactic history? I suspect the Skywalkers will eventually become like that, a family that sure was impactfull during a 150 year long period but there where, are and will be other families like them in past and future. So I think they where pawns of the force for a time but hardly the only ones. In therms of ultimate end I would actually prefer if there is none. The force is said to be the reason life exists and without it there could be no life, so I feel it should be like life itself filled with struggles, with positives and negatives with suffering as well as bliss. There are no light, dark or grey side, the force is filled with a multitude of colours, but it doesn´t really have a goal, beyond keeping the cyrcle of life going. The struggle of (re)birth, struggling and eventual death. In my opinion there is no will of the force, at least not a conscious one.I think Jedi and other force users simply see what they want to see, interpret a will into events they can´t explain. In therms of visions I generally prefer the idea they have other sources, Palpatine created Anakins, and either Krayt or Lumyia created Jacen´s. Revan´s memories simply returned as he was reconnecting with the force. Maybe occasionally a character gets a genuine glimpse at the future but I would consider that more due to a brief direct link to the force rather than any deliberate action so to say.
Force Ghosts are the remnant of the spirits of powerfull force users who are able to, at least for a time retain their personality and sense of self after their death. I suspect their powers are rather limited tough, mainly only able to appear for short periods of time, only visible to other force users they had a strong relationship with. Also at least in legends I would say this state doesn´t last forever and eventually force ghosts will fade away as well, becomeing one with the force. Sith ghosts would be different as I see them more as tied to a specific place, like their graves on Korriban. They deliberatly hold onto that place and are thus unable to move on, allowing them to continue existing for far longer than the ghosts of Jedi. That said this state is also its own kind of hell as they are trapped in this place unable to really ineract with anything beyond a rare traveler. Their best and effectivley only hope is to possible be able to overtake/posses a living being coming to their resting place and live on through them. If a Sith is redeemed this will usually be through them accepting their own mortality and the non existance that awaits them by becoming one with the force, allowing them to move on.
Something I've certainly wondered about, myself - including what happens to all the regular Joes, personality wise. TROS didn't really answer that (or much else on a cosmic scale - nor about the Chosen One) with Han left ambiguous as a memory or projection. I assume for most Jedi, throughout history, they believed all rejoined the Unifying Force at the end, adding to the whole, but we know they were not always aware of the whole thing, and had lost understanding of many concepts by the prequels. The Clone Wars Lost Missions gave us more insight, on how evil within is reconciled, to allow self knowledge (fairly Vergere like, once more) and we get a sense of how time changes for the transcended, in the Qui Gon and Obi Wan stories from FACPOV. As for the ultimate eschatology (of the non bat**** crazy kind seeming to drive many in America or the Middle East recently) that will likely be left unclear/open ended. I kind of like the Universalist take, but for those who especially unleashed chaos or evil, there may be less of their wider self left, by the end. It's potentially like the mystic view about how 'demons' are really angels come to strip the unneeded bits from you, ala Meister Eckhart, and the film Jacob's Ladder. Chaos realm is therefore the one where there's not enough left of you to navigate out.
It all depends on point of view. And on what you cling to, how you define yourself. Sith are selfish and cannot look beyond the veil of death into the unknown, they fear it and imagine only loss of self and nothingness. Jedi on the other hand trust the Force and relish in the dissolving into the Force, becoming one with their God so to speak, merging with everything that is everywhere and everytime. Therefore, Sith percieve it as their personal hell and being ripped apart and Jedi view the same transcending process as letting go willingly and becoming more, wholesome, rejoining the source from which all once came. As you said, the mystic view of how demons and angels are the same thing may apply here with one's point of view and selfdefinition defining the perception and description of the afterlife. Definint oneself as the stagnant individual, soul, body, all parts making one up down to the microcosm, then you are bound to fear loosing parts and yourself in the process of joining a larger force that you are a tiny cog of. If you define yourself as the soul, or the whole, and not just the stagnant current combination of elements, then you can grow into something larger than life and transcend the flesh.
Well said. Mind you, I'm rarely in a great mood to discuss angels these days - be it of the kind Michelle Bachmanm and others are ranting about, in America, or Jon Cain's wife, saying many are coming to help Trump. Lorna Byrne is also interesting reading, but seems rather sanitized. And the last time I discussed swedenborgism with the OfftheLeftEye youtube channel, was a bit of a dead end. Still, the mythology overall works fine, given the SW grab-bag approach. Throw in Lucas' ideas of people as food for the Whills and the microbiotic realm, and it gets a good deal more unsettling, however.
