{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3847", "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": 3847, "subject": "TIDDAOSAOS", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2003-02-11T13:29:41+00:00", "last": "2003-02-11T18:05:35+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Fernando Q. Gouvea", "address": "fqgouvea at colby.edu" }, "date": "2003-02-11T13:29:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) TIDDAOSAOS", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've gotten myself into doing a short \"book seminar\" on \"The Island of\nDoctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories\" at my college. It's six\none-hour sessions, and students get credit just for coming, so it'll be\ncrucial to make it interesting. I expect a lot of \"I don't get it\"\ncomments, so I want to be ready with interesting things to say about the\nstories. Any pointers anyone might have to comments on the stories would be\nwelcome. (I already know to search the Urth archives, of course.)\n\nIn the first session, we'll probably be looking at the first three stories,\n\"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories\", \"Alien Stones\", and \"La\nBefana\". Luckily, these are not as difficult as some of the stories that\ncome later in the book. \n\nOn re-reading \"Alien Stones\", I did find myself wondering about one thing:\nif the aliens are some form of artificial intelligence, why do they have\nstar charts that the captain can inspect? Wouldn't any such charts simply\nbe kept as software? Is this just a slip of Wolfe's imagination (Homer nods\nagain?) or is there something I'm missing?\n\nFernando" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Fernando Q. Gouvea \nDepartment of Mathematics Editor, FOCUS and MAA Online\nColby College Mathematical Association of America\nWaterville, ME 04901 http://www.maa.org\nfqgouvea at colby.edu \n==========================================================\n\nDiscovering the Church is apt to be a slow procedure but it can take place\nif you have a free mind and no vested interest in disbelief. \n -- Flannery O'Connor\n\n\n\n-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2003-02-11T16:24:03+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) TIDDAOSAOS", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 11 Feb 2003, Fernando Q. Gouvea wrote:\nIn the first session, we'll probably be looking at the first three stories,\n\"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories\", \"Alien Stones\", and \"La\nBefana\". Luckily, these are not as difficult as some of the stories that\ncome later in the book." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I may have mentioned this in the archives, but I only got the meaning of\nthe quote from scripture at the end of \"Alien Stones\" when I re-read the\nstory following the Clinton scandals.\n\nThe woman asks \"Where is my husband?\" The alien replies, \"What is meant\nby 'is'? By 'husband'?\" I didn't properly attend to these statements the\nfirst time, but the \"What do you mean by 'is'?\" made me laugh the second\ntime.\n\nSo I remembered it when at the end Daw ponders the quote, \"Whose wife will\nshe be in the resurrection.\" Which explicates the alien's problem:\nWhere is your husband if he's dead? If he's dead, is he still your\nhusband? (And it's probably also Daw starting to wonder if/when it's OK\nto start putting the moves on her.)\n\nAlso, one of my favorite lines in the story: \"His religious beliefs\npermitted any degree of self-condemnation, though they caviled at the\napplication of the same terms to any soul except his own,\" strikes me, now\nthat I type it, as the sort of thing Chesterton would have said to\ncriticize \"Calvinists\" (I use the quotes because Chesterton was prone to\nunfairly tarring Calvinists (or his ideosyncratic conception of them) with\na pretty wide brush).\n\nI still don't quite understand who Wad is. A computer simulation designed\nto elicit responses from Daw which are taped to be used later in the\ntraining of a real cadet? But there seems to be some closer connection.\nIs Wad somehow a digitized version of Daw when he was young? That seems\nbeyond the technology in the story. And if the humans have AI that good,\nyou'd think the idea of a ship run by computerized beings would have been\nless foreign.\n\nThe best explanation I can think of for the starcharts (and it's not very\ngood) is that the Alien's \"simulation\" of the woman's husband might mean\nthey are in the habit of incarnating themselves in some sort of bodies\nwhich would use the charts. You have a similar problem with the existence\nof hatches and passageways in the ship.\n\n-- Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Brett M. Grace", "address": "bgrace at mac.com" }, "date": "2003-02-11T18:05:35+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) TIDDAOSAOS", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Right, the mystery ship's construction is a bit incongruent with the \npresumed needs of its crew, for several similar reasons (another example \nis Daw's pointing out the use of guide wires rather than bunks for \nsleeping purposes, which rely on a primate sleeping reflex to keep \nsleepers in place--what's the point?) Were there any details which \nsuggest that the ship really was designed to support AIs? I can't \nrecall at the moment. If not, I infer that Daw's conclusion about the \nship is true, that it was originally built by, or for, humans... or \nhuman-like beings. Perhaps the cube is a kind of ghost ship, whose \noriginal inhabitants have vanished, to be replaced by the opportunistic \nvisitors.\n\n I add \"or human-like\" above because the AIs treat this as a first \ncontact. But perhaps they merely mean a first contact with Daw's \ncivilization, as opposed to the other human civilizations that exist in \nthis universe. A corollary hypothesis would be that the AIs simply \neliminated their creators and masters, the original crew. (Maybe some \nnice contrasts with the use of AI on Daw's ship here?)\n\n I suppose the ship could also be an elaborate rat maze to conduct \ntests on the primates who find it, in which case, these difficulties can \nbe waved away. I don't really care for that theory, however.\n\n Personally I found the story to be a bit unsatisfying for some \nreason I can't quite put my finger on. Loved \"Tracking Song\" although I \nunderstood it less, or maybe not at all!\n\nBMG" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Michael Straight wrote:\n\nThe best explanation I can think of for the starcharts (and it's not very\ngood) is that the Alien's \"simulation\" of the woman's husband might mean\nthey are in the habit of incarnating themselves in some sort of bodies\nwhich would use the charts. You have a similar problem with the existence\nof hatches and passageways in the ship.\n\n-- Rostrum\n\n\n " } ] } ] }