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Damned if I know. At the outset of this argument I mentioned in passing that the Problem of Evil doesn't have a satisfying solution. It's just that it's not the immediate problem…
17 Jul 2008, 00:55
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Come on, don't just "!!" me, explain - I'm genuinely curious. You are assuming that they are all random. What if you could cause them? Sure, why not. (Though I could've sworn …
16 Jul 2008, 22:31
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Only a condensed version in a Mahabharata translation - what's its purpose here? Supernovae have nothing to do with it, this is foreknowledge of death resulting from premeditated …
16 Jul 2008, 18:48
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Seeing such a spirited defense put up for murder on a planetary scale certainly gets one's hackles up.…
16 Jul 2008, 18:10
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By no means! Only if you're a consequentialist (utilitarian, for example) do ends justify means. And if you are, you've got more problems than it's worth. Is it truly hard to fa…
16 Jul 2008, 05:43
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What are you referring to? Where does it say that Urth is alive?! I wonder how it'd feel about being drowned, anyway Paul…
16 Jul 2008, 04:34
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Planets?! I'm sorry, I have no idea what on Urth that means. I imagine that, much like Typhon (from whom they may be descended if Scylla of BotNS is Scylla of BotLS), it's becaus…
16 Jul 2008, 04:00
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In my mind at least, the putative gap between the Hierogrammates and humans is not much greater than one between a human who knows mathematics and one who doesn't. Hierogrammates a…
16 Jul 2008, 01:12
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No, you misunderstand what I meant by invoking Baldanders, a scientist on a planet without scientists. He _knows_ more than other Urthlings, and can make better guesses than them …
15 Jul 2008, 14:42
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Accidental outcomes have nothing to do with it. I'm saying that an evil act that results in a good outcome is still evil, even if the good outcome was intended.…
14 Jul 2008, 21:08
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Okay, but then you're simply saying that evil actions can produce good results. That is a truism which doesn't help determine the morality of the Hierogrammates' actions, which is…
14 Jul 2008, 19:49
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You persist in making unwarranted assumptions. Tzadkiel says, and I doubt you'll claim he's lying in this case, that he made a probabilistic guess about Severian, which did indeed …
14 Jul 2008, 19:38
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If I recall correctly, someone else recently tried this as an explanation. The problem with it is that if everyone is part of God's Plan, then the concept of "morality" as we know …
14 Jul 2008, 17:40
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Good catch! Apparently this disturbing system of "morality" also defaults to a judgement of "good" in cases where a judgement can't be made. Paul…
14 Jul 2008, 17:29
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I see we haven't moved much farther. Firstly, I would suggest that you stop calling the Hierogrammates "angels". They are created by humans (Hieros), and you have yet to provide c…
14 Jul 2008, 17:17
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True, I'm curious about that myself! It seems evidence tying them to the Increate is hard to come by in the text, though at least they do mention it, though perhaps somewhat unusu…
14 Jul 2008, 16:53
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Really? I had always had a hard time picturing Severian literally giving birth to an astrophysical anomaly by having sex with an alien. I'd assumed it was something he was told o…
11 Jul 2008, 20:19
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I still stand by "confounding", simply because the humans aren't the aliens, and then isn't now. What is the common purpose of "the Yesodis" - how are they alike, and who are they …
11 Jul 2008, 20:10
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This term isn't terribly good because it confounds the human Hieros with the alien Hierogrammates, as well as confounding the present with the past. I don't see much evidence that…
11 Jul 2008, 19:31
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Hooo boy, really? What interview was this? Well, Wolfe is getting old, I suppose I can grant him moral exception (har) for cantankerous outbursts. Paul…
11 Jul 2008, 19:21
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Took the words right out of my mouth, you did. I did go back and read over the previous 60+ posts of "Ushas", about the only thing mentioned as evidence was Tzadkiel's statement t…
11 Jul 2008, 19:13
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Utilitarianism, which I defined rather than lectured about, is crucial to this despite what you may say. You base the argument for foreknowledge giving moral exemption on the assu…
11 Jul 2008, 19:03
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Yeah, and the bad society often goes hand in hand with secularism (or wrongheaded spirituality). Long Sun is of course the most obvious example of this, but I haven't read him des…
11 Jul 2008, 16:15
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Thanks I guess? One could always do worse than be compared to a fictional cop. Unfortunately I don't know too much about this one. Paul…
11 Jul 2008, 16:10
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The trouble with what Jeff says, and with what you're saying here, is granting the aliens higher moral freedom based on the assumption that they are closer to God (smarter, more fl…
11 Jul 2008, 15:49
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Okay, I think I understand what you're getting at. My own beliefs don't matter that much, but I'm certainly willing to entertain the notion that in Wolfe's books this sort of thin…
11 Jul 2008, 15:22
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Now I don't think I understand. If the Hierogrammates are morally justified in doing what they do, what problem are you discussing? What are you reverse engineering? I'm not qui…
11 Jul 2008, 05:04
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Eh, I suppose I got a little carried away there. A redaction is in order: Of the women he's met, Severian does not, in fact, do Agia, Tzadkiel, or Madame Prefect that runs Matachi…
11 Jul 2008, 03:50
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I mentioned in my response to Jeff why I don't think it's proper, or at least fun, to consider moral relativism. If nothing else, it's more fun to consider a problem than to dismi…
11 Jul 2008, 03:36
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Sure, moral relativism can solve any ethical difficulty, if by "solve" one means "circumvent". However, the reason it might be less interesting to pursue here is precisely due to …
11 Jul 2008, 03:19
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And this right here would in fact be a utilitarian argument - the greater good is achieved (assuming Ushas is actually so great, but that's irrelevant for the moment). However, "m…
11 Jul 2008, 03:13
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I think we're straying too far afield here. Wha?! Saying that murder on a planetwide scale is wrong is not an inherently utilitarian statement but a very general one. It doesn't…
10 Jul 2008, 22:50
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I don't understand the difficulty in holding a race of aliens, even an advanced race, to a moral standard. That, or perhaps more reasonably my argument would demand that the Hiero…
10 Jul 2008, 22:35
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It seems like you're challenging point 1.) However, remember that the Hierogrammates have performed stellar engineering, and have the ability to time travel to boot. They are not …
10 Jul 2008, 17:03
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The fundamental moral facts in this case are that 1.) we know they can save the population of Urth and 2.) they choose not to. This makes any outcome morally suspect according to …
10 Jul 2008, 16:06
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Sure, I'll take a quick stab at this, being of the aforementioned "Hierogrammates are not as good as they seem" persuasion. They admit to wanting to condition humanity to become t…
10 Jul 2008, 15:48
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I noticed that it's not a free-edit Wiki. How hard is it to obtain permissions? Furthermore, what is the spirit of this thing? From what I've seen there isn't a lot of consensus…
24 Jul 2007, 17:48
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But the thing is that according to Baldanders everything will get submerged, for example mountainous Thrax will too (the two methods of escape being ship [maybe] and airship - from…
24 Jul 2007, 15:46
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Now now, no need for hostility. I'm merely proposing a puzzle that I think is interesting. Perhaps it isn't, or it isn't even a puzzle at all, but it bears noting that your argum…
24 Jul 2007, 03:53
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As for who cares, perhaps Wolfe does. A theme of his is natural explanations for the supernatural, such as the magic of Devil in the Forest, or the mystery of the Pelerine cathedra…
24 Jul 2007, 00:09
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Right you are, I'd forgotten about that bit. That said, Baldanders seems to mean that the heat generated by a stronger gravitational pull would heat Urth and melt the water. Bald…
23 Jul 2007, 22:46
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That's fine, but it's about as difficult to explain sudden global tectonic shifts than it is to explain a flood.…
23 Jul 2007, 22:22
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That is well, but all it shows is what is already known, that Severian is capable of impressive recall much of the time. In fact, since Severian clearly takes pride in his memory,…
20 Jul 2007, 23:23
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Hahaha, no, the Russian psychologist Luria about his mnemonist subject S. The day a kabbalist can say something meaningful about facial recognition will be an interesting day indee…
20 Jul 2007, 19:10
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Really. That's pretty interesting - is that documented somewhere?…
20 Jul 2007, 16:20
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Well, Severian's attitude to details is famously bad - he tends to include, interpret and omit things liberally. It's furthermore not too surprising that he mis-identified the ol…
19 Jul 2007, 23:46
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I think it's nigh impossible for someone to infer from what Severian said to Roche that undines were involved unless they knew what actually happened down there. The boatman from …
19 Jul 2007, 20:39
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To save time and answer my own question, re-examining the old boatman's tale does make it clear that it's the "other event" case, that is his tie to Dorcas. He's obsessed with fin…
19 Jul 2007, 18:02
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The old boatman on the Lake of Birds? But how does he hear about Severian's story before Severian meets him? Or is he referring to some other event when he asks about seeing a wo…
19 Jul 2007, 17:45
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Oh, I see what you mean. I'd thought he referred to his much shorter capture by the Ascians in Citadel, which admittedly seemed much shorter than a year, since he says the Autarch…
19 Jul 2007, 05:42
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