Subject: (urth) AI souls

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 01:01:18 +0000

Sidestepping the dubious notion that chems were "implanted" with the brain
scans of particular human beings, let us look at another example of
machine-based autonomous entities in Wolfe's work, one in which the author's
presumed conviction that non-biological "persons" do indeed have "souls"
comparable to those of human beings can, I think, be more clearly
demonstrated. I refer to Sidero and his kind.

Sidero's kind started off as glorified spacesuits. He speaks first in the
following exchange with Severian in Chapter VIII of URTH:
---------------------------------------
"You asked how we came to be. Do you know how your
own race came to be?"
      "Only that we were animals who lived in trees. That is
what the mystes say. Not the monkeys, since the monkeys
are there still. Perhaps something like the zoanthropes,
though smaller. The zoanthropes always make for the
mountains, I've noticed, and they climb trees in the high
jungle there. At any rate, these animals communicated
with one another, as even cattle do, and wolves, by certain
cries and motions. Eventually, through the will of the
Increate, it came to be that those who communicated best
survived while those who did so poorly perished."
      "Is there no more?"
      I shook my head. "When they communicated well
enough that they could be said to speak, they were men and
women. Such are we still. Our hands were made to cling to
branches, our eyes to see the next branch as we move from
tree to tree, our mouths to speak, and to chew fruit and
fledglings. So are they still. But what of your own kind?"
      "Much like yours. If the story is true, the mates wanted
shelter from the void, from destructive rays, the weapons
of hostiles, and other things. They built hard coverings for
themselves. They wanted to be stronger too, for war and
work on deck. Then they put the liquid you saw into us so
that our arms and legs would move as they wanted, but
with greater force. Into our genators, I ought to have said.
They needed to communicate, so they added talk circuits.
Then more circuits so we could do one thing as they did
another. Controllers so we could speak and act even when
they could not. Until at last we spoke in storage and acted
without a mate inside."
--------------------------------

This passage describes the evolutionary paths by which both man and android
reached their present states, and it was by the Increate's will that it was
so. At some point Sidero's kind became self-aware. In the case of both
"races", speech was the defining element, what made a man a man and an
android an android -- that and the ability to act autonomously.

If men have souls, according to the Bible, and if the men of the Bible were
such as we, and if the Bible exists by the will of the Increate, then Sidero
has a soul, so far as Wolfe is concerned.

Consider this: at one point Sidero expressed regret to Severian for certain
actions he had taken against Severian. His conscious bothered him. To
experience guilt is to have knowledge of a concept of right and wrong. Such
knowledge, and the ability to act in accordance with that knowledge, are the
criteria by which, according to Wolfe's chosen religion, the Increate judges
men. That judgement implies a reckoning of some kind, which doesn't
necessarily happen in life. That's where the notion of the soul comes in. No
matter how good or bad a man may be in the eyes of the Increate, when the
body dies, as it will eventually, it isn't over. It is the soul that
survives and must endure that reckoning, to be rewarded or punished by will
of the Increate.

Sidero didn't fear Severian or "punishment" by Tzadkiel for his actions; the
worst Tzadkiel could do was "kill" him in some way. He was worried about how
the Increate would judge him. There was nothing to worry about if he didn't
have a soul.

-Roy

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 09:39:45 +0000

>actions he had taken against Severian. His conscious bothered him. To

I meant, of course, "His _conscience_ bothered him." Sheesh.

-Roy

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 11:15:27 +0000

I agree with Roy that Sidero expressing genuine regret for his actions does
suggest that Sidero might have a soul. But it isn't necessarily so. I'm a
bit at a disadvantage since I'm currently working a contract in Savannah and
all my books are in storage in Austin. Before I continue. Could someone post
the relevant text?

My conviction that the chems had *human* souls is a great deal more complex
than merely Rose's testimony. And Sidero, unlike Rose, never, as far as I
recall, considers the validity of his existence. Nevertheless, if it could
be proven that Sidero had evolved a soul it would at least show that Wolfe
had exemplified a situation in which Rose's rationale was irrelevant.

~ Crush

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 15:45:18 +0000

>>From Chapter XIII, Sidero speaking:
---------------------------------------------------------

"Let me explain before we argue again. I hurt you. It is
my right and duty to correct and chastise. Then I had joy of it."
      I asked him if he referred to his striking me when I lay
unconscious, and he nodded. "I must not." He seemed
about to speak further, but did not. After a moment he
said, "I cannot explain."
      "We know what moral considerations are," I told him.
      "Not as we. You believe you do. We know, and yet often
make mistakes. We may sacrifice men to save our own
existence. We may transmit and originate instructions to
men. We may correct and chastise. But we may not become
as you are. That is what I did. I must repay."
------------------------------------------------------------

Sidero considers himself and his kind the moral superior of men. When he
took pleasure in inflicting pain in Sev he crossed a line he shouldn't have
crossed--and he knew it. He felt he must make recompense, in this case by
excusing the dragooned Sev from the looming battle. He was pissed at Sev in
the first place for Sev having tricked him and then put him on like a suit
of armor. Sev was killed in a fall a few minutes later.

-Roy

---

From: Lisa Schaffer-Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 11:48:06 +0000

It's an interesting typo, though.  Oddly appropriate.
Don

On Saturday, December 4, 2004, at 09:39 AM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:

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---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 10:54:23 +0000

H'mmmm ... Interesting.  

Another example of machines MAYBE becoming ensouled 
would be the Talusses (Tali?) of the Long Sun Whorl.

It seems clear to me that Wolfe is suggesting that something
like a soul happens at a certain level of complexity and 
especially of _communication_. The word he uses is "speech,"
but I suspect that the word he is avoiding - and why should 
Wolfe not avoid key words and facts every bit as much as his 
own characters? - is "word," or rather "Word," _logos_.

God speaks World into existence, and all the creatures in
it; God then ensouls Man by "breathing" into his nostrils
- but the Hebrew word translated as "breath" can as easily
be translated "spirit" or "wind." And we speak with our 
breath. 

Speech is breath is spirit.

--Dan'l

-- 
www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
Freedom has no barcode.
     --J.G. Ballard

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 22:14:14 +0000

>Speech is breath is spirit.

Just so. And Wolfe goes out of his way to make Apheta and her kind have no
tongues. In Chapter XIX, aptly named "Silence", Apheta says:
--------------------------------------------
"You have listened to my voice for a long
while now, Autarch. Listen to this world of Yesod instead
and tell me what you hear, other than my words, when I
speak to you. Listen! What do you hear?"
      I did not understand. I said, "Nothing. But you are a
human woman."
      "You hear nothing because we speak with silence, even
as you with sound. Whatever noises we find we shape,
canceling those which are unneeded, voicing our thoughts
in the remainder. That is why I led you here, where the
waves murmur always; and why we have so many fountains,
and trees to stir their leaves in the wind from our sea."
--------------------------------------------

Then she shows Sev that she has no tongue. What is Wolfe trying to say? Sev
then beds her, and from that bizarre union the New Sun is born, which is
himself. I'm so theologically confused!

-Roy

---

From: zvi at vex.net <zvi at vex.net>
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 10:18:20 +0000

Roy write:
> tongues.
> [...] What is Wolfe trying to say?

I think it's further evidence that Apheta's kind are 'pure'.

In many cultures, 'tongue' is metonomy for 'language, speech,
communication'; further, it's often used in contexts where the
language/speech/communication is evil, tainted, 'bad'. 'Forked tongue' is
just one example; lashon ha-rah (Hebrew) is translated as 'evil speech'
but it's literally 'the bad tongue'.

Is it possible that Wolfe is literalizing the metonomy especially with
regard to the tongue's associations with evil speech? By definition, the
language of a tongue-less people could not be 'the bad tongue'.

Cf.:
http://www.mountzion.org/fgb/Spring95/FgbSP2-95.html
'The Evil Tongue' which contains some lovely lines:

  The apostle James in this Scripture,
  describes the evil of the tongue,
  “The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.”

  1. “It is a fire.” It burns with intemperate heat;
  it causeth the heat of contention; it sets others
  in a flame.

  2. “A world of iniquity.” It was at first made to be
  an organ of God’s praise, but it is become an instrument
  of unrighteousness. All the members of the body are sinful,
  as there is bitterness in every branch of wormwood, but
  the tongue is excessively sinful, “full of deadly
  poison” (verse 8).

--Zvi
zvi at vex.net

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 10:24:23 +0000

What Apheta's speech-through-silence has always reminded me of 
was the prophet (was it Ezekiel? Can't recall) who listened for God's 
voice only to find Him speaking in a quiet breeze.

--Dan'l

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 11:20:48 +0000

>voice only to find Him speaking in a quiet breeze.

It was Elijah. It reminds me of the spirit of the dead witch in THE KNIGHT,
whose voice could be heard in the falling rain.

I'm not convinced there's anything important thematically about Apheta's
method of speech (surprisingly, since I tend to see purpose in so many
things that others don't).  It strikes me as a clever possibilitythat has
caught Wolfe's fancy...speaking through anti-sound...the louder the noise
the more clearly one can be heard, etc.

This discussion has filled my mind with so many things and changed my view
on some things. I'll try to post something tonight.

~ Crush

---

From: Stanis³aw Bocian <sbocian at poczta.fm>
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 12:30:23 +0000

Tuesday, December 7, 2004, 7:14:04 AM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:

RCL> Just so. And Wolfe goes out of his way to make Apheta and her kind have no
RCL> tongues. In Chapter XIX, aptly named "Silence", Apheta says:
RCL> --------------------------------------------
RCL> "You have listened to my voice for a long
RCL> while now, Autarch. Listen to this world of Yesod instead
RCL> and tell me what you hear, other than my words, when I
RCL> speak to you. Listen! What do you hear?"
RCL>       I did not understand. I said, "Nothing. But you are a
RCL> human woman."
RCL>       "You hear nothing because we speak with silence, even
RCL> as you with sound. Whatever noises we find we shape,
RCL> canceling those which are unneeded, voicing our thoughts
RCL> in the remainder. That is why I led you here, where the
RCL> waves murmur always; and why we have so many fountains,
RCL> and trees to stir their leaves in the wind from our sea."
RCL> --------------------------------------------

Compare with the Hierodules in the Sword of the Lictor:

 "I asked, "You have left them these machines, then?" I was acutely
 conscious, as I spoke, of the eviscerated woman mumbling beneath her
 glass somewhere behind me, a thing that once would not have bothered
 the torturer Severian in the least.

 Barbatus said, "No. Those he found, or constructed for himself.
 Famulimus said that he wished to learn, and that we saw to it that he
 did, not that we taught him. We teach no one anything, and only trade
 such devices as are too complex for your people to duplicate."

 Dr. Talos said, "These monsters, these horrors, do nothing for us.
 You've seen them you know what they are. ...

 ....
 
 "Now we must go," Ossipago told Baldanders, and he handed him the
 Claw. "Think well on all the things we have not told you, and
 remember what you have not been shown."

 "I will," Baldanders said, his voice as grim as I was ever to hear
 it."

I wonder whether my ideas about Tolkien's Valar would not apply here.
I think that all supernatural forces in the Lord of the Ring tend to
act upon the material world in a specific way - they don't cause
anything themselves, but manipulate natural causes. I don't think here
about lesser natural spirits such as ents etc, but about more
powerfull being.

 For example Valar and the wind - the change of direction of wind at
 the battle of Pelennor is entirely natural, but it is no accident
 that it happened then, and not at any other time. The idea is, by the
 way, from Tom Shippey.

 Using an idea from modern science, the Valar and similar beings don't
 influence the probability wave, but set a particular result when the
 wave collapses, that is, when it is measured or reacts with some
 object. In other words, Sauron could roll any number he wanted on the
 dice without cheating - he could, to some extent, simply select it.

 The idea I want to express is a bit difficult. I want to say that
 such beings can influence events without exerting any kind of force.
 When something can happen, according to chance, one way or another,
 they can try to select an outcome. But this power doesn't allow them
 to cause anything which wouldn't happen by itself - they cannot cause
 anything which wouldn't happen naturally - although, of course, they
 are a great many thing which could happen naturally, but never do,
 since they are so unprobable.

 The most interesting thing in such a case would be that the cause of
 such an event would be entirely natural, since it would be only the
 more or less probable outcome of the forces operating independently
 of the Maiar/Valar. At the same time it would be caused by the Valar.
 Therefore, the event would have two independent causes, natural and
 supernatural. So the question whether the wind at Pelennor was
 natural or sent by Valar would have as the answer - both.

 I will not say that this is the only power of the Valar over the
 material world, but it is the one most often seen in the LoTR. Here
 belong such words of Gandalf, as "Chance, as you call it" etc. It
 explains also the limitations of their power. For example as Gandalf
 states on Caradhras, he cannot go against the nature of the things,
 he must have something to work on.

 "`If Gandalf would go before us with a bright flame, he might melt a
 path for you,' said Legolas. The storm had troubled him little, and
 he alone of the Company remained still light of heart.     `If Elves
 could fly over mountains, they might fetch the Sun to save us,'
 answered Gandalf. `But I must have something to work on. I cannot
 burn snow.'"

 The magic of the Elves seems to be mostly similar, if sometimes
 instinctive and not fully conscious.

 For the example the incident with the rope in the Two Towers: "He
looked up and gave one last pull to the rope as if in farewell.
To the complete surprise of both the hobbits it came loose. Sam fell
over, and the long grey coils slithered silently down on top of him.
Frodo laughed. `Who tied the rope? ' he said.  ....      'Then I'm
afraid it must have been the knot,' said Frodo.      Sam shook his
head and did not answer. He was passing the rope through his fingers
thoughtfully. `Have it your own way, Mr. Frodo,' he said at last, `but
I think the rope came off itself — when I called.' He coiled it up and
stowed it lovingly in his pack."

--

Stanislaus Bocian

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Startuj z INTERIA.PL!!! >>> http://link.interia.pl/f1837

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 12:59:24 +0000

Another statement of the obvious: the spirit/breath connection is 
cross-cultural, definitely not strictly Hebrew (though it is certainly 
important there). It's there, for example, in the greek - although I don't 
think that the communication aspect was originally tied to spirit in this 
way in the Greek tradition, though it may have been associated later on. If 
I recall correctly Aristotle does sort of place communication in a primitive 
"evolutionary" scale of mind, in that supposedly creatures without the 
ability to hear lack the ability to learn (and thus cannot proceed past a 
certain level of consciousness). One assumes he hadn't met many deaf people, 
but perhaps the point he was making there was metaphorical.

I was always struck by Apheta's peculiar non-speaking-speech, and I 
suspected that it reflects a general concept in some mystical traditions 
about the second type of wisdom, apart from that sort of logos that *is* in 
a positive sense and that we can speak of. You can vaguely associate it with 
Taoism, Zen buddhism, or even stick within the Hebrew or Greek traditions. 
In any event I was never really able to tell if this was an essential 
thematic element, or whether Wolfe just thought it was a nifty idea.

--
"You must not be soft, but cover yourself up; for you must discover an 
intellection abstractional and fraudulent."

---

From: maru <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 13:09:11 +0000

Y'know, I don't think that bit with Apheta is an isolated peculiarity- I 
recall, in one of teh Island stories, Dr. Island spoke to the patients 
in the same manner.  Seeing it twice leads me to think this is a mjor 
point, some sort of meaningful inversion.
~Maru

Chris wrote:

> important there). It's there, for example, in the greek - although I 
> don't think that the communication aspect was originally tied to 
> spirit in this way in the Greek tradition, though it may have been 
> associated later on. If I recall correctly Aristotle does sort of 
> place communication in a primitive "evolutionary" scale of mind, in 
> that supposedly creatures without the ability to hear lack the ability 
> to learn (and thus cannot proceed past a certain level of 
> consciousness). One assumes he hadn't met many deaf people, but 
> perhaps the point he was making there was metaphorical.
>
> suspected that it reflects a general concept in some mystical 
> traditions about the second type of wisdom, apart from that sort of 
> logos that *is* in a positive sense and that we can speak of. You can 
> vaguely associate it with Taoism, Zen buddhism, or even stick within 
> the Hebrew or Greek traditions. In any event I was never really able 
> to tell if this was an essential thematic element, or whether Wolfe 
> just thought it was a nifty idea.
>
> --