{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3112", "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": 3112, "subject": "verbal suggestions", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-03-30T07:01:35+00:00", "last": "2002-03-31T08:12:25+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "maa32", "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu" }, "date": "2002-03-30T07:01:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) verbal suggestions", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy, there was one more thing I wanted to comment on about the wording of the \ndust quote. It says: \"there could be little point in creating us in one place \nand creating us again in another. Besides, the dust of that whorl can \nscacrely be identical to the dust of this one.\" Now go down a little:\n\"I could not find Green there, or Blue, or the Whorl, or even the \nconstellations\" But he can see the light of the red sun from Blue, right? \nThat's the big objection I keep hearing. He can't see Blue in the heavens \nbecause he's standing on it. I don't know why he can't see Green - Hoof sees \nLune later on and calls it Green, \"Green came up, bigger and brighter than we \never see it on Blue. Or want to, either.\" (356). This makes it seem the \nsame, but then he says (2 chapters later) \"Green was up above the mainmast, \nand it seemed like if we put up the main top it would touch it. Our Green is \nnot as big as theirs, but ours was plenty bright.\" (366) BUT we know that the \nmoon was closer in Severian's time than it is in ours or Ushas, when the \ngravity upheavals of the solar system pulled it out a little. This is the \nthing: if Green comes closer than the moon (which it supposedly does, at \nconjunction) then it wouldn't seem smaller if it was big at all. It would \nhave to be itty bitty, and therefore have less gravity than we have been \ntalking about. I propose that it is the same size as the moon, but it has \nmoved back to the moons original orbit, but in an oddly unstable one which \ndecays and is then corrected, kind of like a fish tail when you lose control \nof your car: it goes to the left and to the right until it is straight again, \nat that middle distance between the farthest point and conjunction (note that \nconjunction is still not as close as the moon appears to Hoof). It will \nstabilize at the old moon's orbit eventually.\n\nRead this passage again, as well:\nThink of a whorl so old that even its seasons have worn out ... a whorl on \nwhich they had jungles like yours once, with wide-leafed plants and many \nflowers and huge trees. It is too cold for that IN OUR TIME, and when the \npeople of that whorls speak of the present they intend five hundred years. \n(384) RTTW \nOr this one in transit: \"everything else was changing anyhow except the sky \nand the water\" (346) Only the color changes and the stars come out for that. \nHe also talks about his father's voice: as if the words were being spoken a \nlong time ago.\nWhat does that mean: it is too cold for that in our time? why does he say when \nthe people of that world speak of the present they intend five hundred years? \nIsn't that an odd way of saying that the present is anytime in the last five \nhundred years? \nNormally I would agree with a statement like the first in a text negating the \ndust being the same, but it is set up so that if you believe that we are \nrelated to the Vanished People, then we must be in the same place BECAUSE \nthere is little point in creating the same people in two different places. \nAnd there is the old suggestive trick of talking in negatives: no matter what \nadjectives are included that temper or reverse a statement, if you want to \nsuggest something to someone you do it as follows:\nWhen Jessica says \"Don't Fight over me\" in Dune, she means \"Fight over me.\" \nThe negative isn't there because of the way our mind processes statements. If \nI wanted to suggest something to you without telling you, or I wanted to fool \nyou, I would use a light denial like \"scarcely\" : the suggestion of that \nstatement is \"the dust of that whorl CAN be identical to the dust of this \none.\" simply by the way it is worded. I am aware this is opposite to its \nmeaning - are there any linguists or behavioral psychologists who can help me \nsupport this claim - how linguistic suggestion works?\n\nSilk isn't reliable - he tells Hoof that his ring is Seawracks, but earlier he \nmakes a narrative point of saying that it can't be the same ring. So which is \nit? Can you believe blanket statements like that? (which aren't narrated \nevents but opinions he holds - how would Silk know if it was the same dust or \nnot? That's the difference: you can trust his depiction of most events, but \nyou can't trust his opinions.)\n\nI'm tired of writing about this, to tell you the truth. I can see your point. \n(All of your points) But I can see mine, too; and two or three statements in \nthe text can't overturn a hundred small clues that otherwise lead nowhere. I \nwould rather ignore three or four statements which can easily be chalked up to \nthe limited point of view of the narrators rather than ignoring all the little \nclues that Wolfe obviously planted (he he) in their testimonies.\nIn other words, Hoof has no idea if he is right or wrong when he calls Lune \nGreen - he does it unconsciously. Silk doesn't know if the soil is the same - \nhe just makes assumptions based on the knowledge he has - but we can know more \nthan our fallible narrators, as a precursory glance at PEACE or Fifth Head of \nCerberus should emphasize.\n\nMarc Aramini" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-03-31T08:12:25+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) verbal suggestions", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Date: Saturday, March 30, 2002 1:01 AM\nMarc wrote:\n[snip]\n-------------------------------------------\nRead this passage again, as well:\nThink of a whorl so old that even its seasons have worn out ... a whorl on\nwhich they had jungles like yours once, with wide-leafed plants and many\nflowers and huge trees. It is too cold for that IN OUR TIME, and when the\npeople of that whorls speak of the present they intend five hundred years.\n(384) RTTW\nOr this one in transit: \"everything else was changing anyhow except the sky\nand the water\" (346) Only the color changes and the stars come out for\nthat. He also talks about his father's voice: as if the words were being\nspoken a long time ago.\nWhat does that mean: it is too cold for that in our time? why does he say\nwhen the people of that world speak of the present they intend five hundred\nyears? Isn't that an odd way of saying that the present is anytime in the\nlast five hundred years? [snip]\n------------------------------------------\n\nMy reading of \"it is too cold for that in our time\" is straightforward.\n\"Our\" refers to those individuals present who are attempting to travel in\ndream to Urth, and \"our time\" means the present. The present, on Blue, is\nthe 23rd year after the lander that carried the colonists from Viron first\ntouched down; on Urth it is shortly after Sev found Triskele, which is\nseveral decades before the big flood. Ushas is in the future of Urth on that\nday when Silkhorn spoke those words on Blue.\n\nAs for the rest; Silkhorn is trying to put Juganu in the proper frame of\nmind necessary to accomplish the trip to Urth, where neither have been\nexcept in dream. He doesn't want to end up in the mating pools of Green,\nabout which Juganu is thinking. He is trying to impress on Juganu the\nantiquity of Urth--that it is worn out, used up, where very little changes\neven in five hundred years. When Juganu has trouble making the transfer,\nSilkhorn offers to go up on the roof and point out the Red Sun, around which\nUrth is circling. He speaks of Urth in the _present tense_ as he diverts\nJuganu's sexual appetite to dreams of fair Urth women. It works, and they\nall wind up on Urth.\n\n \"Father stopped talking, and it seemed to me that he had stopped a long\ntime ago someplace a long way from where I was. I opened my eyes and saw\ndaylight and stars . . .\" Hoof had gone to sleep, lost track of time as\nsleepers do, and when he woke up he was a long way from where he had gone to\nsleep.\n\nSilkhorn's dream trips are _always_ contemporary. There are no exceptions.\n\nAll this is just another way of saying--Blue ain't Urth.\n\n-Roy" } ] } ] }