{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1899",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1899,
    "subject": "Science and Miracles",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-11-02T11:34:11+00:00",
    "last": "1999-11-02T11:34:11+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0342@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Nicholas Gevers",
        "address": "vermoulian at yahoo.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-11-02T11:34:11+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Science and Miracles",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I agree with other parties to our debate that the\never-present possibility of scientific explanations\nfor events enriches NEW SUN, lending it rigour,\nspeculative depth, and metaphorical power. But as LONG\nSUN makes clear, it is sometimes the possibility of a\nmiraculous explanation that is the most effective\nliterary device in Wolfe's work. I think that Wolfe at\ntimes intentionally misleads his readers into byways\nof scientific explication, in effect challenging them\nto see the wood for the trees, the Word for the World;\nwhen they fail to find secular explanations, or\ncontrive ones that are trivial and unsatisfactory,\nthey must perforce acknowledge the supremacy of the\nmiraculous. \n\nAnother point: a miraculous explanation for a textual\nincident doesn't entail capitulation to the\nintellectually slack fluffiness of genre Fantasy\nplotting. Wolfe intends us to understand supernatural\nevents as ultimately purposeful Divine interventions\nor concessions, not as the random conjurings of elves\nand wizards.\n\n\n====="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}