Subject: (urth) Consensus? and Question

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 01:24:59 +0000

thought Silk was dead (soul departed) and Horn was living in his body, 
being influenced by his "kinetic memory" (brain, habits, "body and blood") 
to be a more Silk-like person -- as Christians (especially Roman Catholics 
like Wolfe) would say that feeding on Christ's body and blood is to make us 
more Christlike.
         But most disagreed, and it does seem Silk was merely dormant, and 
then gradually ascended to take his body back. Yet, what of Horn? It made 
no sense to me that Horn was dead and gone at the end, though some thought 
so. Some of us decided Horn was alive in Silk, but now in the background.
         Now there seems to be a consensus that Horn moved from Silk to 
Babbie as Silk woke up. I can live with that. If Scylla can ride Oreb, Horn 
can ride Babbie. Are we all now in general consensus about that picture?
         Indeed, since Babbie is "intelligent," is his race destined to 
rise in the future? And if so, then Horn-in-Babbie can have something to do 
with that future. Possibly the Neighbors give Blue to humanity so that 
humanity can guide the Babbie race into maturity, and getting a more 
Silk-like Horn into Babbie is part of their plan along these lines.
         A question I have, especially for our re-readers is this: What 
about the soul? I would postulate that the soul is indivisible, so that 
Silk-in-Mainframe is a whole Silk, as is Silk-in-Pig and Silk-in-Silk. 
Ur-Silk does not seem to "lose" any abilities as a result of being copied 
into Mainframe. His soul does not seem to be divided, only cloned.
         But, and this is where I have the question, it seemed to me that 
Mainframe gods when downloaded into human beings were still connected to 
their mainframe original, which governed them. They did not "go off on 
their own" so to speak. But the various Silks do not seem to be connected. 
Except that possibly Mainframe Silk would be connected to Silk-in-Pig, if 
other mainframe gods are connected to their avatars. Scylla seems to govern 
Oreb from afar. Or am I wrong? Do mainframe originals know what their 
avatars are doing? Does Scylla know what Scylla-in-Oreb is doing?
         The reason I raise this is that the developing consensus seems to 
be that Horn passes into/onto Babbie by stages as Silk awakens. But I would 
not think that only "part" of Horn goes into Babbie at the beginning, and 
"more" later on. Rather, the sequence seems to be:
                 1. Horn
                 2. Horn in Silk
                 3. Two Horns, one in Silk and one in Babbie
                 4. One Horn in Babbie
Is this the developing consensus?
         Also, is the consensus that part of Ur-Silk's reawakening is 
caused by a dump from Mainframe Silk via Silk-in-Pig? Does Mainframe Silk 
leave Pig and go into Ur-Silk? If so, this provides an analogy for 
Horn-in-Silk to leave Silk completely for Babbie at the end.
         This whole business of soul-cloning and soul-riding is central to 
all seven novels. It seems to structure the narrative.
         Anyway, I wondered if there is a consensus, and if I'm on the 
right track.

Patera Nutria

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From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 01:14:03 +0000

At 8:24 PM -0500 7/12/02, James Jordan wrote:
>         Anyway, I wondered if there is a consensus, and if I'm on 
>the right track.

I, for one, don't agree with the "Horn in Babbie" theory. And my 
sense is that there is no real consensus on most of the issues in the 
Short Sun books. Just look at the range of opinions just expressed 
about whether or not Silk committed suicide.
-- 

William Ansley

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 01:54:50 +0000

Okay. Just wondering. Didn't want to be . . . LEFT BEHIND!

Nutria

At 09:14 PM 7/12/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>I, for one, don't agree with the "Horn in Babbie" theory. And my sense is 
>that there is no real consensus on most of the issues in the Short Sun 
>books. Just look at the range of opinions just expressed about whether or 
>not Silk committed suicide.
>--
>
>William Ansley
>
>--

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 18:23:10 +0000

> avatars are doing? Does Scylla know what Scylla-in-Oreb is doing?

I think Pig gives us the most insight into how this works.  Downloaded
personalities can only stay in contact with their Mainframe versions if
their eyes can make contact with a terminal.  

>From the way Kypris says she's been watching Silk, it seems there may be a
lot of camouflaged termiminals about that the citizens of Viron are
unaware of, in addition to the sacred windows.  So when Chennille was
posessed by Kypris or Scylla, she may have been regularly making contact
to stay in sync with her Mainframe version.

But Scylla-in-Oreb and Silk-in-Pig are obviously stranded, and seem to be
completely isolated from their Mainframe versions.  Presumably, the longer
a posessing entity goes without synching up, the more it would diverge
from Mainframe.

-Rostrum

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From: Jonathan Dale <jdale at fla.fujitsu.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 10:44:44 +0000

I don't think this works - I suggest that there are only specific
terminals that can be used for up/downloads (bandwith or connectivity
problems?), so when Kypris says that she has been watching Silk, it is
probably from cameras with no up/download capability.

I also don't buy into the Silk-Pig download through eye contact.

Jonathan
---
> I think Pig gives us the most insight into how this works.  
> Downloaded personalities can only stay in contact with their 
> Mainframe versions if their eyes can make contact with a terminal.  
> 
> From the way Kypris says she's been watching Silk, it seems 
> there may be a lot of camouflaged termiminals about that the 
> citizens of Viron are unaware of, in addition to the sacred 
> windows.  So when Chennille was posessed by Kypris or Scylla, 
> she may have been regularly making contact to stay in sync 
> with her Mainframe version.
> 
> But Scylla-in-Oreb and Silk-in-Pig are obviously stranded, 
> and seem to be completely isolated from their Mainframe 
> versions.  Presumably, the longer a posessing entity goes 
> without synching up, the more it would diverge from Mainframe.
> 
> -Rostrum
> 
> 
> -- 
> http://www.urth.net/ To unsubscribe: send > "unsubscribe" to 
> urth-request at urth.net
> 

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 15:18:54 +0000

> probably from cameras with no up/download capability.

Well, the whole bandwidth issue is waved away with a magic wand anyway,
but you might only need a terminal for full up/download of a personality,
whereas the (hypothesized) ubiquitous cameras might have enough bandwidth
for synching up (like downloading a patch rather than the whole program).

-Rostrum

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 16:31:30 +0000

> I also don't buy into the Silk-Pig download through eye contact.

Do you mean upload?  Iirc, it was pretty explicitly stated that Pig is
possessed by Silk, and the only way the "gods" can possess humans is through
eye contact.  I don't think there's any explicit indication that Silk-in-Pig
is uploaded back into Mainframe after Pig gets Horn's eye, but it's at least
a plausible motive for Silkhorn's determination to restore Pig's sight.

(Although now that I think about it, while the downloading of AIs into
living brains through the eye is "plausible" in a skiffy sort of way, it's
gosh-darn hard to see how it could go the other way.  Eyes don't broadcast,
after all; and I don't see how a computer, just by looking into someone's
eye, could learn enough about the brain's neural connections to upload a
personality fragment with its attached memories.)

Otoh, I've never bought the idea that Silk's personality was erased from his
brain when Horn entered, or that Horn was repossessed by Silk through the
monitor at the pole.

--Adam

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 16:56:12 +0000

The eye is the window of the soul. - Leonardo da Vinci

Nutria

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