{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4276",
    "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": 4276,
    "subject": "urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 4, Issue 17",
    "messages": 3,
    "voices": 3,
    "first": "2004-12-07T19:50:00+00:00",
    "last": "2004-12-08T09:59:39+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<20041208034958.09D0E37CF1@sitemail.everyone.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "turin",
        "address": "turin at hell.com"
      },
      "date": "2004-12-07T19:50:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 4, Issue 17",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This is a very good analysis of the Thecla problem, and I want to throw out some ideas.\n\n<in the antechamber believes there is a lady present when Severian is <there, \n\nBack to Dan'l's suggestion about the holographic nature of Severian's acquisition of the Autarch and Thecla.  Is the information projected outside of the body in a similar fashion to the way Father Inire's mirror's work, is Wolfe talking about the pseudoscience, of quantum holography or something like that? Did it even exist then? Is Thecla's projection related to the reinstantiation/resurrection of Severian and the Triskele and Malrubius, because those three for specifically created by data using powerful A.I.  This is a question about Wolfe not souls.  Unless Wolfe tells us a soul is present does he leave us a way in the text to tell even if he has not, and after everyone's thoughts I don't think he has, especially considering TBOTSS, worked out a definite relationship between mind, body, and soul.\n\n//the Cumaen (sp?) knows there is another entity present at their ritual, \nThecla takes control of Severian to confront the Autarch, etc.  \n\nDo the witches preform magic? Can anyone, even Severian with the post facto white fountain explanation, be said to preform magic?  The same is true of Typhon's hypnotism or the duel with the shaman.  This is an important point because it blurs the lines between what seem to be easy genre distinctions, scifi, and fantasy.  I don't know if there is any magic in TBOTNS.  It obviously exists in the later series, but this is something which I can't decide.  Is Wolfe reiterating Clarkes law, especially with the heirodoles, are technology and magic for Wolfe, the same at a certain level of complexity/incomphrensibility?\n\n//Later on, \n//Severian will say that the Claw brought Thecla back.  At one point \n\nThe claw is a red herring.  I mean Severian finds the bush with the thorns and Wolfe suggests he is the conduit for the miracles and later in Urth it is the proximity of the white fountain.\n\n\n//Though there is no direct evidence for this, note that the \nThecla-in-Severian references cease in the last part of UotNS, and I like to \nthink the reason why is that when Tzadkiel gives Severian his Reward -- a \nnight sleeping with a woman he never sees, but knows is Thecla -- Tzadkiel \nhas taken Thecla out of Severian and given her another body,\n\nI have never thought of that; that is an interesting reading.  What about Severian's admission that Thecla is a what a selfish and foolish woman. I don't know if he still loves her very much at the end of TBOTNS.  He seems to have lost everyone, and it could be argued the personae of the Autarchs contain and limit her.  Is there anymore evidence of this?\n\n//Speech is breath is spirit.\n\n\nThis calls to mind lots of nasty philosophy of math, the language of thought theory, of grammatology, and wave functions.  I won't talk about it if no one wants me to.  Severian and Able both give metaphors that creation is an infinite set of finite modes (like the alephs in set theory), which basically means there is no language to describe reality, only a an infinite set of more accurate languages.  It also means reality is continuous and not chaotic in some situations.  I understand the metaphor of the logos, but I don't think Wolfe is equating it with language.  I do not know if he is equating it with communication, possibly, but it's obvious he believes god \"talks\" to us, but I don't know if he would call it communication.  In the same way whenever Wolfe treats people like data, I don't know how much he wants us to think about souls. Im his work, I think this distinction, even if cannot be made, is the essence of the A.I. debate.  His opinion might change. It is perfectly possible he disguises or presents the soul as information in TBOTNS then changes it to an informational singularity in TBOTLS.  It feels like this shift happens to me, but it can also be correlated to the more explicit Catholicism of the later Sun novels.  \n\nEOT;"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<000a01c4dcec$aefe23e0$7e3ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "2004-12-07T22:11:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 4, Issue 17",
      "in_reply_to": "<20041208034958.09D0E37CF1@sitemail.everyone.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Turin wrote:\nDo the witches preform magic? Can anyone, even Severian with the post\nfacto white fountain explanation, be said to preform magic?  The same is\ntrue of Typhon's hypnotism or the duel with the shaman.  This is an\nimportant point because it blurs the lines between what seem to be easy\ngenre distinctions, scifi, and fantasy.  I don't know if there is any magic\nin TBOTNS.  It obviously exists in the later series, but this is something\nwhich I can't decide.  Is Wolfe reiterating Clarkes law, especially with the\nheirodoles, are technology and magic for Wolfe, the same at a certain level\nof complexity/incomphrensibility?<<"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "In LEXICON URTHUS, under the entry for \"Magic in the Urth Cycle\", Michael\nAndre-Driussi writes:\n---------------------------------------------\n[t]here is no \"magic\" in the Urth Cycle. As Gene Wolfe notes in a magazine\ninterview, \"I view The Book of the New Sun as science fantasy -- by which I\nmean a science-fiction story told with the outlook, the flavor of fantasy.\nThere are _no_ fantasy elements involved -- no \"magic\" in the fantasy sense.\nThere is time-travel, but that belongs to sf, not fantasy. There are\nhypnotism, sleight of hand, and a few other things, but those belong to the\nworld of reality, if not the world of science.\" (_Thrust_ #19, 1983, p. 7).\n-------------------------------------------\n\nFWIW\n\n-Roy"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<1f76173704120809591405c820@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "danldo at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2004-12-08T09:59:39+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 4, Issue 17",
      "in_reply_to": "<20041208034958.09D0E37CF1@sitemail.everyone.net>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Turin -\n\nI've been too busy to reply in detail to many of your excellent posts, but \nI want to thank you for bringing a new energy to this list.\n\nI think the various appearances of Thecla (i.e., in the waiting room) are\njust another example of Severian's unconscious use of his/the WF's power\nthroughout the BotNS. Note that many individual incidents of Sev's life\nare designed to parallel incidents of Jesus' life (the most blatant being the\nTempting in the Wilderness). These parallels are often twisted, as in the\nfirst sequence, Sev's \"baptism,\" in which the role of John the Baptist \nappears to be taken by Juturna (or one of her sisters).\n\nAnyway, I suspect the appearance of Thecla in the antechamber \nparallels the \"Transfiguration,\" in which Peter and company see \nJesus walking and talking with some OT figures. (Moses, Abraham \nand Elijah? I'm too lazy to check right now...) One might think the \nappearances of the aquastors a better fit for this, but the point here \nis that _someone else_ sees the dead Thecla."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "... I understand the metaphor of the logos, but I don't think Wolfe\nis equating it with language.  I do not know if he is equating it with\ncommunication, possibly, but it's obvious he believes god \"talks\" to\nus, but I don't know if he would call it communication.  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Based on this and some other things you've said I think it might \nhelp if you did a little reading up on Catholic ideas about the\nEucharist. You mentioned in an earlier post that \"communion is\nwith God,\" or something like that - this is true but incomplete; the\nidea in Catholicism is that \"communion\" is an act of \"community.\"\nTo receive communion is to \"communicate\" with God but also to\n\"commune\" with the rest of the Chuch and the \"communion of\nSaints.\"\n\n--Dan'l"
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\nFreedom has no barcode.\n     --J.G. Ballard"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}