{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5696", "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": 5696, "subject": "Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "messages": 130, "voices": 15, "first": "2010-08-09T21:28:04+00:00", "last": "2010-08-15T00:57:17+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-09T21:28:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Preliminary note- I think it is important to consider that if you are attempting\nto be forcefully domineering and authoritative in discussing a work of fiction which \nrelies on an unreliable narrator, it is not enough to say \"it is in the text!\". If you \nare attempting to make inarguable pronouncements I think you should both quote the text \nin question and make the statement \"it is here in the text and not contradicted, even once, \nanywhere else in the text!\" \n\n \nJohn Watkins and I are in disagreement over the relationship between Hierogrammates,\nBriah and Yesod. My view is that Briah precedes Yesod in the cosmic timeline, that \nthe birth of each new universe is what constitutes a \"manvantara\" and that Hierogrammates\nwere created in Briah by some version of humanity and escaped to Yesod. John feels that the \nHierogrammates' creation had nothing to do with Severian's universe or his race. \n \nThe text I base my views on: " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Severian- \"But on the ship I thought we had come to the end of Briah when we came here\"\nApheta- \"So you did...\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nAs the Ship approaches the end of its journey Severian sees, rising over the topmost sail-" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"the birth of a new universe, the primal explosion containing every sun because from it all\nsuns will come..\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nTaken together, it seems clear to me that as Briah ends in a Great Gnab it Big Bangs into the\nnew universe, Yesod.\n \n \nIn Yesod, Severian speaks to Tzadkiel who tells him, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"..I am as I am, your own race having made us so before the apocatasatis. Were you not told\nthat they had shaped us in their image?\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nLater Severian wonders why Tzadkiel disguised himself so he could hang out with Severian on the\nship. Tzadkiel explains that if Severian had had a childhood hero, it would be only natural, if \ngiven the chance to want to: \n \n\"walk with him, ..Stand beside him when he was in danger..Care for him, perhaps, when he was ill.\"\n \n \nThis seems clear to me. Tzadkiel is saying that Severian's race created his and that Severian, as\na major participant in this, is a legendary childhood hero of Tzadkiel's. \n \nI am open to hearing contradictory quotes from the text.\n \nHowever, I do not find that mention of vanished creations or a past manvantara to be contradictory. \nWhile one is in Yesod, Briah IS a vanished, long gone creation or past universe. I agree it can lead\nto some confusing speech.\n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lane Haygood", "address": "lhaygood at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-09T21:40:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wouldn't this contradict the notion of simultaneously-existing\nuniverses that are \"ranked' in order of ascension, a la the Kabbalah?\n\nI agree that it is difficult to compare Briah and Yesod as they\nrepresent different Kabbalastic concepts, but I've always thought of\none \"ascending\" (literally/figuratively) through Briah and coming out\nin Yesod, and vice-versa, as though the two can coexist temporally but\nnot spatially.\n\nWhich is not to say that Wolfe might not have intended the Kabbalistic\nparallels to actually run so parallel. He may have just thought,\n\"wow, these names sound neat. I think I'll use them.\"\n\nLH" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 4:28 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\n\nPreliminary note- I think it is important to consider that if you are attempting\nto be forcefully domineering and authoritative in discussing a work of fiction which\nrelies on an unreliable narrator, it is not enough to say \"it is in the text!\". If you\nare attempting to make inarguable pronouncements I think you should both quote the text\nin question and make the statement \"it is here in the text and not contradicted, even once,\nanywhere else in the text!\"\n\n\nJohn Watkins and I are in disagreement over the relationship between Hierogrammates,\nBriah and Yesod. My view is that Briah precedes Yesod in the cosmic timeline, that\nthe birth of each new universe is what constitutes a \"manvantara\" and that Hierogrammates\nwere created in Briah by some version of humanity and escaped to Yesod. John feels that the\nHierogrammates' creation had nothing to do with Severian's universe or his race.\n\nThe text I base my views on:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Severian- \"But on the ship I thought we had come to the end of Briah when we came here\"\nApheta- \"So you did...\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As the Ship approaches the end of its journey Severian sees, rising over the topmost sail-" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"the birth of a new universe, the primal explosion containing every sun because from it all\nsuns will come..\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Taken together, it seems clear to me that as Briah ends in a Great Gnab it Big Bangs into the\nnew universe, Yesod.\n\n\nIn Yesod, Severian speaks to Tzadkiel who tells him," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"..I am as I am, your own race having made us so before the apocatasatis. Were you not told\nthat they had shaped us in their image?\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Later Severian wonders why Tzadkiel disguised himself so he could hang out with Severian on the\nship. Tzadkiel explains that if Severian had had a childhood hero, it would be only natural, if\ngiven the chance to want to:\n\n\"walk with him, ..Stand beside him when he was in danger..Care for him, perhaps, when he was ill.\"\n\n\nThis seems clear to me. Tzadkiel is saying that Severian's race created his and that Severian, as\na major participant in this, is a legendary childhood hero of Tzadkiel's.\n\nI am open to hearing contradictory quotes from the text.\n\nHowever, I do not find that mention of vanished creations or a past manvantara to be contradictory.\nWhile one is in Yesod, Briah IS a vanished, long gone creation or past universe. I agree it can lead\nto some confusing speech.\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T00:31:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Wouldn't this contradict the notion of simultaneously-existing\nuniverses that are \"ranked' in order of ascension, a la the Kabbalah?\nI agree that it is difficult to compare Briah and Yesod as they\nrepresent different Kabbalastic concepts, but I've always thought of\none \"ascending\" (literally/figuratively) through Briah and coming out\nin Yesod, and vice-versa, as though the two can coexist temporally but\nnot spatially.\nWhich is not to say that Wolfe might not have intended the Kabbalistic\nparallels to actually run so parallel. He may have just thought,\n\"wow, these names sound neat. I think I'll use them.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI did suspect that literal interpretation of Kabballah terms might be\nbehind some of what I think is confusion regarding Yesod and Briah, but\nI didn't want to bring it up.\n \nNormally, I'd expect Gene Wolfe's choice of names to have deep significance\n(except for most of the saint names). But his own words eerily echo your\nlast speculation, Lane." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From the James Jordan interview:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "JJ: You didn't make up any words?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "GW: No, but some of them are typos. Ushas is not one of them though. Okay, \nthat is Cabalistic term for one of the circles of the cabala and as I say I \ndon't want to try to answer questions on the cabala. I never knew a great deal \nabout it and I have forgotten most of what I knew. But to find out what it is \nthat is the place to look. Read cabalic literature. I have the great disadvantage \nof not believing in it and so I can't get so caught up in it as cabalist really do. \nTo me it was someplace that I could steal ideas and names from." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nI guess Gene doesn't wear the red string bracelet then...;- ). \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<5812D15F-800B-4971-83D8-F829E9D0CC15@liftingfaces.com>", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T00:57:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Aug 9, 2010, at 5:28 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nPreliminary note- I think it is important to consider that if you are attempting\nto be forcefully domineering and authoritative in discussing a work of fiction which \nrelies on an unreliable narrator, it is not enough to say \"it is in the text!\". If you \nare attempting to make inarguable pronouncements I think you should both quote the text \nin question and make the statement \"it is here in the text and not contradicted, even once, \nanywhere else in the text!\" " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lee, this is a good point. But I think it's worth countering that, while the narrators may be unreliable, the author (GW) certainly is not. In fact, you might argue that the more unreliable the narrator, the more reliable the author needs to become, if (s)he is to be considered worth his salt.\n\nMany feel Wolfe is one of the best authors living today (do you agree?) which means he should be damn reliable.\n\nI totally agree with reading with suspicious eyes regarding Severian and what he observes, but it's the reader's job to become the active participant in sorting out truth from fiction, relatively speaking.\n\nI want to believe that Mr. Wolfe himself would like to claim that the answer to every single riddle ever posited on this mailing list since it began is answerable, and answerable in the text we're pondering.\n\nDo you think he would agree? Do you agree?\n\n...ryan" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C60AC5F.7090201@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-10T01:33:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That is a very interesting theory and piece of evidence. We know very \nlittle about the larger story---that is, the one that spans universes.\n\nThis starts to expose that narrative." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\n \n \nIn Yesod, Severian speaks to Tzadkiel who tells him, \n \n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"..I am as I am, your own race having made us so before the apocatasatis. Were you not told\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "that they had shaped us in their image?\"\n \n \nLater Severian wonders why Tzadkiel disguised himself so he could hang out with Severian on the\nship. Tzadkiel explains that if Severian had had a childhood hero, it would be only natural, if \ngiven the chance to want to: \n \n\"walk with him, ..Stand beside him when he was in danger..Care for him, perhaps, when he was ill.\"\n \n \nThis seems clear to me. Tzadkiel is saying that Severian's race created his and that Severian, as\na major participant in this, is a legendary childhood hero of Tzadkiel's. \n \nI am open to hearing contradictory quotes from the text.\n \nHowever, I do not find that mention of vanished creations or a past manvantara to be contradictory. \nWhile one is in Yesod, Briah IS a vanished, long gone creation or past universe. I agree it can lead\nto some confusing speech.\n \t\t \t \t\t \n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C60AE49.3030902@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T01:41:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/9/2010 4:28 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nThe text I base my views on:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Severian- \"But on the ship I thought we had come to the end of Briah when we came here\"\nApheta- \"So you did...\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This can be the physical or spatial end, like the end of the street. \nLike Frye says, \"I spent hours trying to deliver this package to Dogg-do \nseven; the universe ends after Dogg-do Six!\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As the Ship approaches the end of its journey Severian sees, rising over the topmost sail-" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"the birth of a new universe, the primal explosion containing every sun because from it all\nsuns will come..\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If he can see the Big Bang from the \"end\" of Briah, isn't he more likely \nto be at the earlier end, rather than the latter? It may also be that \nThe Ship has outraced the light of the universe's lifetime so that he is \nlooking back in time as well as away in space. This would again support \nthat he is at the physical end of Briah." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nIEEE Student Chapter Blog at\n< http://ieeetamut.org >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C60AE95.1010405@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-10T01:42:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My guess is that Wolfe is \"proposing\" by his use of names and terms from \ndifferent religions/systems that all have a partial grasp of the same \ntruth. Therefore, it follows that you won't succeed in figuring out the \ntruth by following one system.\n\nFor my part, I still think they all coexist, since the Hieros can move \namong them. Their \"actual\" order is irrelevant, since time-travelers go \nwhere they want and those who can't do so will never see more than their \nown universe. Presumably, universes can never actually be created or \ndestroyed, so they all drain to/from somewhere at their beginning and end." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lane Haygood wrote:\nWouldn't this contradict the notion of simultaneously-existing\nuniverses that are \"ranked' in order of ascension, a la the Kabbalah?\n\nI agree that it is difficult to compare Briah and Yesod as they\nrepresent different Kabbalastic concepts, but I've always thought of\none \"ascending\" (literally/figuratively) through Briah and coming out\nin Yesod, and vice-versa, as though the two can coexist temporally but\nnot spatially.\n\nWhich is not to say that Wolfe might not have intended the Kabbalistic\nparallels to actually run so parallel. He may have just thought,\n\"wow, these names sound neat. I think I'll use them.\"\n\nLH\n\nOn Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 4:28 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Preliminary note- I think it is important to consider that if you are attempting\nto be forcefully domineering and authoritative in discussing a work of fiction which\nrelies on an unreliable narrator, it is not enough to say \"it is in the text!\". If you\nare attempting to make inarguable pronouncements I think you should both quote the text\nin question and make the statement \"it is here in the text and not contradicted, even once,\nanywhere else in the text!\"\n\n\nJohn Watkins and I are in disagreement over the relationship between Hierogrammates,\nBriah and Yesod. My view is that Briah precedes Yesod in the cosmic timeline, that\nthe birth of each new universe is what constitutes a \"manvantara\" and that Hierogrammates\nwere created in Briah by some version of humanity and escaped to Yesod. John feels that the\nHierogrammates' creation had nothing to do with Severian's universe or his race.\n\nThe text I base my views on:\n\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Severian- \"But on the ship I thought we had come to the end of Briah when we came here\"\nApheta- \"So you did...\"\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "As the Ship approaches the end of its journey Severian sees, rising over the topmost sail-\n\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "\"the birth of a new universe, the primal explosion containing every sun because from it all\nsuns will come..\"\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Taken together, it seems clear to me that as Briah ends in a Great Gnab it Big Bangs into the\nnew universe, Yesod.\n\n\nIn Yesod, Severian speaks to Tzadkiel who tells him,\n\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "\"..I am as I am, your own race having made us so before the apocatasatis. Were you not told\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "that they had shaped us in their image?\"\n\n\nLater Severian wonders why Tzadkiel disguised himself so he could hang out with Severian on the\nship. Tzadkiel explains that if Severian had had a childhood hero, it would be only natural, if\ngiven the chance to want to:\n\n\"walk with him, ..Stand beside him when he was in danger..Care for him, perhaps, when he was ill.\"\n\n\nThis seems clear to me. Tzadkiel is saying that Severian's race created his and that Severian, as\na major participant in this, is a legendary childhood hero of Tzadkiel's.\n\nI am open to hearing contradictory quotes from the text.\n\nHowever, I do not find that mention of vanished creations or a past manvantara to be contradictory.\nWhile one is in Yesod, Briah IS a vanished, long gone creation or past universe. I agree it can lead\nto some confusing speech.\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T01:44:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<5812D15F-800B-4971-83D8-F829E9D0CC15@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 5:57 PM, Ryan Dunn wrote:\nI want to believe that Mr. Wolfe himself would like to claim that\nthe answer to every single riddle ever posited on this mailing\nlist since it began is answerable, and answerable in the text\nwe're pondering.\n\nDo you think he would agree? Do you agree?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I suspect that some of the questions we've considered\never-so-seriously would make Wolfe roll his eyes. I suspect that,\nconfronted with some of these questions -- I'm NOT guessing which ones\n-- he would say, \"You know, I never thought of that...\"" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C61302E.9050806@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T10:55:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<5812D15F-800B-4971-83D8-F829E9D0CC15@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " On 8/9/2010 7:57 PM, Ryan Dunn wrote:\nI want to believe that Mr. Wolfe himself would like to claim that the answer to every single riddle ever posited on this mailing list since it began is answerable, and answerable in the text we're pondering. Do you think he would agree? Do you agree?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No. I recall some questions to which he answered \"I don't think the \nstory answers that emphatically\" (or words to that effect).\n\nHe might claim that the important plot questions are all answered in the \ntext, but it would not be true except for a mind reader.\n\nI recall that he has said that he has no intention to make his stories \ninscrutable but often what he intended as clear just didn't carry to the \nreader.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T12:20:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C61302E.9050806@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson- >> Severian- \"But on the ship I thought we had come to the end of Briah when we came here\"\nApheta- \"So you did...\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This can be the physical or spatial end, like the end of the street. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nMy understanding is that the definition of a \"universe\" is that it has no physical, spatial\nboundaries or ends. This has been called into question recently but I think it was a very\naccepted fact back in the 70's and early 80's. Thus, for me, the end of a universe in this\nstory must be temporal." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If he can see the Big Bang from the \"end\" of Briah, isn't he more likely \nto be at the earlier end, rather than the latter?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nEarlier and later imply temporal ends. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From my interpretation, Severian would only see the \"earlier end\" of Briah if he was travelling to Abaddon \n(sorta like Hell), the universe lower than Briah. As he is travelling to the higher universe I think it is\nthe Yesod (sorta like heaven) universal creation he is seeing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nBut, it is just my interpretation." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff- My guess is that Wolfe is \"proposing\" by his use of names and terms from \ndifferent religions/systems that all have a partial grasp of the same \ntruth. Therefore, it follows that you won't succeed in figuring out the \ntruth by following one system." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI very much agree with this guess." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes- I suspect that some of the questions we've considered\never-so-seriously would make Wolfe roll his eyes. I suspect that,\nconfronted with some of these questions -- I'm NOT guessing which ones\n-- he would say, \"You know, I never thought of that...\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI agree. I saw an interview in which Wolfe was asked what he thought of the \nspeculation about BotNS. He answered that he was surprised at the large amount of\nattention that was being paid to some things and surprised at the lack of \nattention that was paid to other things.\n \nAllowing that Gene Wolfe takes great pains to make his stories internally consistent, it should be \nrecognized that a good artist can't devote all his time to that. He/she must work intuitively\nat times to produce good art, putting things together because they feel right, not because of some\nmechanical blueprint. While Wolfe has consciously put some puzzles in his work, he couldn't spend\n30 years winkling out every little possible shred of meaning in his stories. That is our job. And, \nin many cases, we can do it better than he, having the advantage of time and of working together. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C616809.1010603@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T14:54:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Jeff Wilson->> Severian- \"But on the ship I thought we had come to the end of Briah when we came here\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": " Apheta- \"So you did...\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "This can be the physical or spatial end, like the end of the street." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "My understanding is that the definition of a \"universe\" is that it has no physical, spatial boundaries or ends. This has been called into question recently but I think it was a very accepted fact back in the 70's and early 80's. Thus, for me, the end of a universe in this story must be temporal.\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Since he sees a Big Bang or Gib Gnab, I think it is likely to be the \ntemporal end of the universe.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<002e01cb389c$d03cf2e0$06ce4a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-08-10T15:00:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nJohn Watkins and I are in disagreement over the relationship between\nHierogrammates,\nBriah and Yesod. My view is that Briah precedes Yesod in the cosmic\ntimeline, that\nthe birth of each new universe is what constitutes a \"manvantara\" and that\nHierogrammates\nwere created in Briah by some version of humanity and escaped to Yesod." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "John feels that the" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hierogrammates' creation had nothing to do with Severian's universe or his\nrace.\n\nThe text I base my views on:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Severian- \"But on the ship I thought we had come to the end of Briah when\nwe came here\"\nApheta- \"So you did...\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As the Ship approaches the end of its journey Severian sees, rising over\nthe topmost sail-" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"the birth of a new universe, the primal explosion containing every sun\nbecause from it all\nsuns will come..\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Taken together, it seems clear to me that as Briah ends in a Great Gnab it\nBig Bangs into the\nnew universe, Yesod." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yesod is a universe apart from Briah and the other manvantaras, on a\ndifferent level. This is not my opinion; it is what Severian was told by\nMalrubius in CITADEL: \". . . Yesod, the universe higher than our own, where\nthey created worlds suited to what they [the Hierogrammates] had become.\"\nThere is an \"endless succession\" of these universes on the level below\nYesod, in one of which \"a race was born that was so like to ours that Master\nMalrubius did not scruple to call it human.\" That race is the one Apheta\nsaid was \"cognate\" (p-137) to Severian's." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In Yesod, Severian speaks to Tzadkiel who tells him," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"..I am as I am, your own race having made us so before the apocatasatis." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Were you not told" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "that they had shaped us in their image?\"\n\n\nLater Severian wonders why Tzadkiel disguised himself so he could hang out\nwith Severian on the\nship. Tzadkiel explains that if Severian had had a childhood hero, it\nwould be only natural, if\ngiven the chance to want to:\n\n\"walk with him, ..Stand beside him when he was in danger..Care for him,\nperhaps, when he was ill.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It wasn't just some childhood hero. Tzadkiel explicitly states in that\npassage that he was speaking of the Conciliator. (p-152)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This seems clear to me. Tzadkiel is saying that Severian's race created\nhis and that Severian, as\na major participant in this, is a legendary childhood hero of Tzadkiel's." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The paragraph you quoted from goes on to say \"I [Tzadkiel] have been such an\nacolyte, in a creation now vanished. In that too there was a Conciliator and\na New Sun, though we did not use those names.\"\n\nI guess you can look at it as a chicken-or-the-egg debate, but the universe\nSeverian was born in is not the same universe the Hieros formed the\nHierogrammates in, otherwise there would be no point in endless repetition\nof the same universe. (If it ain't broke, don't fix it.) And the text does\nsay that there are at least small changes in each iteration. Presumably the\nchanges are hoped to produce better results at some point, but that will\nstray into another tiresome religious debate.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<94C753843CC24501ACEFA3743D1C51E5@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-08-10T15:12:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<5812D15F-800B-4971-83D8-F829E9D0CC15@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Ryan Dunn\" \nI want to believe that Mr. Wolfe himself would like to claim that the \nanswer to every single riddle ever posited on this mailing list since it \nbegan is answerable, and answerable in the text we're pondering.\n\nDo you think he would agree? Do you agree?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I say no to both.\n\nIn the first place I think this list has probably posited many riddles on \nsubjects he has not even considered, because the riddles are based on \nassumptions that the author did not place in the text. for example (just \nusing this as a simple example) if Agia was not a sexbot, then the riddle of \nwhether she was Hethor's sexbot is moot, and the sound when her head hit the \nfloor was probably just intended to indicate that she took a nasty knock.\n\nIn the second place, I think he probably left some things ambiguous, i.e. \nwith no fixed answer. For example, he might have thought it would be \ninteresting if there were some hints that Severian might have had a sister, \nwithout making any decision one way or the other.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<6EB0BC07-F6C1-46A1-88EC-EBAA03F288C9@liftingfaces.com>", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T15:18:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<94C753843CC24501ACEFA3743D1C51E5@jill>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Aug 10, 2010, at 11:12 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\nFrom: \"Ryan Dunn\" " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I want to believe that Mr. Wolfe himself would like to claim that the answer to every single riddle ever posited on this mailing list since it began is answerable, and answerable in the text we're pondering.\n\nDo you think he would agree? Do you agree?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I say no to both.\n\nIn the first place I think this list has probably posited many riddles on subjects he has not even considered, because the riddles are based on assumptions that the author did not place in the text. for example (just using this as a simple example) if Agia was not a sexbot, then the riddle of whether she was Hethor's sexbot is moot, and the sound when her head hit the floor was probably just intended to indicate that she took a nasty knock.\n\nIn the second place, I think he probably left some things ambiguous, i.e. with no fixed answer. For example, he might have thought it would be interesting if there were some hints that Severian might have had a sister, without making any decision one way or the other.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think I phrased it poorly. Here's a better way:\n\nI think Wolfe made sure that every riddle he put into his text was answered in the text, without the coda UotNS. Meaning, in the text we've been presented, all of the questions should answer themselves. There are no broken spider web threads.\n\nNow, determining what is a riddle/clue is up to the reader, of course. But the power of deduction can be used in most cases.\n\nYou might be write that certain things were intentionally left ambiguous, but I just don't think so.\n\n...ryan" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C616FFE.3050109@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T15:27:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<002e01cb389c$d03cf2e0$06ce4a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yesod is a universe apart from Briah and the other manvantaras, on a\ndifferent level. This is not my opinion; it is what Severian was told by\nMalrubius in CITADEL: \". . . Yesod, the universe higher than our own, where\nthey created worlds suited to what they [the Hierogrammates] had become.\"\nThere is an \"endless succession\" of these universes on the level below\nYesod, in one of which \"a race was born that was so like to ours that Master\nMalrubius did not scruple to call it human.\" That race is the one Apheta\nsaid was \"cognate\" (p-137) to Severian's.\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "True. In fact, just after this very passage Severian says that the power \nto travel the corridors of Time is the same for escaping the universe.\n\n\"The hammer they wield is their ability to draw their servants back, \ndown the corridors of time, and to send them hurtling forward to the \nfuture. (This power is in essence the same as that which permitted them \nto evade the death of their universe--to enter the corridors of time is \nto leave the universe.)\"\n\nIf one had to travel to the beginning or end of the universe to access \nYesod [assuming I am understanding the propose model], then you would \nhave to have a separate method of Time travel to reach the beginnings \nand endings of universes.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C6171D4.5080006@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T15:35:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C616809.1010603@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/10/2010 9:54 AM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Jeff Wilson->> Severian- \"But on the ship I thought we had come to the end of Briah when we came here\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": " Apheta- \"So you did...\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "This can be the physical or spatial end, like the end of the street." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "My understanding is that the definition of a \"universe\" is that it has no physical, spatial boundaries or ends. This has been called into question recently but I think it was a very accepted fact back in the 70's and early 80's. Thus, for me, the end of a universe in this story must be temporal." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Since he sees a Big Bang or Gib Gnab, I think it is likely to be the\ntemporal end of the universe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "they would not be in one place ahead or behind the ship, but all \nencompassing as the fabric of space also collapses/expands." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nIEEE Student Chapter Blog at\n< http://ieeetamut.org >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lane Haygood", "address": "lhaygood at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T15:53:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C616809.1010603@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is where it gets tricky.\n\nIF Wolfe really meant to appropriate more than Kabbalistic names for\nthe story, the higher/lower distinction does not easily parallel our\nmodern \"better/worse\" distinction. Abaddon (Hebrew, \"the abyss\") has\nconnotations of an infernal nature due to its association thereto in\nthe Revelation, but in a Kabbalistic cosmology, a lower world is\nmerely further from the divine light. It is more material and less\nspiritual, baser, one could say, only if materiality is considered a\nform of baseness.\n\nWhich was a big philosophical topic a few thousand years ago all\naround the Mediterranean. Eternal, unchanging, and \"heavenly\" things\nwere considered tops over base, material and earthly things. This\nview persisted until Aristotle sort of stood it on its head with his\ntheorizing about universals and particulars... which in turn\ninfluenced the Scholastics, who influenced later Christian thought\n(early Christian thought probably found a lot more in common with\nJudaic/gnostic beliefs), which is where we get a lot of our cultural\nreferences today.\n\nI always interpreted what Severian saw as he traveled from Briah to\nYesod via the Ship as entering a black hole and emerging from a white\nhole, which is consistent (with what I know; philosophy student, not a\nphysicist) with some of the many-worlds intepretations of quantum\ntheory: every black hole is connected to a white hole in another\nuniverse. Now, as for what would happen to our individual perceptions\nupon entering the event horizon of a black hole, that's a good\nquestion. How do basically spatiotemporal creatures deal with gravity\nso strong it bends the fabric of space-time such that the\nfastest-moving thing in the universe is too slow to escape?\n\nThe question of the ordering of the worlds then becomes a little\nskewed. For instance, Neal Stephenson deals with this \"information\nflow\" between successions of universes in a one-way fashion:\ninformation propagates from the ideal, Platonic world to loads of\ninferior copies (or, as I call it, the Zelazny Model). There is a\nconstant \"signal degradation\" the further one gets away from the\nsource (which, in this case, would be a hypothetical universe Keter,\ncontaining the Increate himself). But it looks like information can\nrepeatedly pass back and forth between Briah and Yesod via a number of\nways. I am not sure why, exactly, Briah is \"lower\" than Yesod (on the\nTree of Life, only Malkhut is lower than Yesod, but Briah is the\nsecond of the four cosmic worlds). However, Briah is the domain of\nmen and angels (our world), which, at least to my mind, describes\nUrth, some far-future version of our present-day Earth. So Yesod,\nbeing the place where our creations have evolved to a higher state\nfits... but what is \"below\" us? Certainly not our Creator, who is at\nthe top... unless by some strange cosmology \"we humans\" of Earth are\nthe creation of yet another non-Increate being (which fits with\nGnostic thinking, but not Kabbalistic).\n\nLH" } ] }, { "message_id": "<353082.85313.qm@web84105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-10T16:42:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A universe's limits are definitely temporal. At very least, as you approach any theoretical physical edge, I'd expect a sharp curve in time, not space. I'm not sure how this would manifest itself. But...\n\nWhen we look deep into the universe, we see the deep past rushing at us at the speed of light. If we were to move into that past at near-lightspeeds, we might experience an FTL rush into the future, like two cars speeding past one another at twice the speed of either one by itself. This might be what Severian sees ahead. I don't think it's the birth of Briah, but the death, because by the time you get to the edge of the universe, the past (birth) is long gone and so is the edge.\n\nThe death of Briah, therefore, is a portal into Yesod created by going very fast. This suggests that Yesod lies \"ahead.\" Abaddon would then lie \"behind.\"\n\nYou would get into Briah from Yesod, and into Abaddon from Briah, by moving into the past. This is unimaginable, but then there are people who live backwards in time (even though they speak forwards), perhaps because they are from a universe that runs backwards. (Don't ask.) Or because they are outside time and can choose.\n\nTherefore, the universes may be arranged so that the overall future is beyond Yesod, but all coexist from an atemporal perspective (you can get to X from Y any time---it's never gone, even branches). \n\nI am beginning to think that the Hieros are indeed our future and that their creators were the future Us, not a past race in a past universe. Thus, all Hieros and all white energy come from this future, moving backwards through time to reach us. Since this means no other universes or iterations are necessary, the whole rerunning of Briah theory (as opposed to merely intervening on Urth again and again) can be dispensed with. It's simpler.\n\nDoes this make sense?\n\n--- On Tue, 8/10/10, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Lee Berman \nSubject: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\nTo: urth at lists.urth.net\nDate: Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 8:20 AM\nJeff Wilson- >> Severian- \"But on the ship I thought we had come to the end of Briah when we came here\"\nApheta- \"So you did...\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This can be the physical or spatial end, like the end of the street. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nMy understanding is that the definition of a \"universe\" is that it has no physical, spatial\nboundaries or ends. This has been called into question recently but I think it was a very\naccepted fact back in the 70's and early 80's. Thus, for me, the end of a universe in this\nstory must be temporal." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If he can see the Big Bang from the \"end\" of Briah, isn't he more likely \nto be at the earlier end, rather than the latter?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nEarlier and later imply temporal ends. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From my interpretation, Severian would only see the \"earlier end\" of Briah if he was travelling to Abaddon \n(sorta like Hell), the universe lower than Briah. As he is travelling to the higher universe I think it is\nthe Yesod (sorta like heaven) universal creation he is seeing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nBut, it is just my interpretation." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff- My guess is that Wolfe is \"proposing\" by his use of names and terms from \ndifferent religions/systems that all have a partial grasp of the same \ntruth. Therefore, it follows that you won't succeed in figuring out the \ntruth by following one system." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI very much agree with this guess." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes- I suspect that some of the questions we've considered\never-so-seriously would make Wolfe roll his eyes. I suspect that,\nconfronted with some of these questions -- I'm NOT guessing which ones\n-- he would say, \"You know, I never thought of that...\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI agree. I saw an interview in which Wolfe was asked what he thought of the \nspeculation about BotNS. He answered that he was surprised at the large amount of\nattention that was being paid to some things and surprised at the lack of \nattention that was paid to other things.\n \nAllowing that Gene Wolfe takes great pains to make his stories internally consistent, it should be \nrecognized that a good artist can't devote all his time to that. He/she must work intuitively\nat times to produce good art, putting things together because they feel right, not because of some\nmechanical blueprint. While Wolfe has consciously put some puzzles in his work, he couldn't spend\n30 years winkling out every little possible shred of meaning in his stories. That is our job. And, \nin many cases, we can do it better than he, having the advantage of time and of working together. ??? ???????? ?????? ??? ? " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T16:58:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<353082.85313.qm@web84105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 9:42 AM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\n\nI am beginning to think that the Hieros are indeed our future and that\ntheir creators were the future Us, not a past race in a past universe. Thus,\nall Hieros and all white energy come from this future, moving backwards\nthrough time to reach us. Since this means no other universes or iterations\nare necessary, the whole rerunning of Briah theory (as opposed to merely\nintervening on Urth again and again) can be dispensed with. It's simpler.\n\nDoes this make sense?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Almost.\n\nIt fails (for me) because it doesn't take into account Wolfe's open\nstatement that Briah is a previous iteration of _our_ Universe. This forces\niterative Universes into the equation." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T16:59:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I find the text confusing and contradictory in places, regarding cosmology especially. \nMy interpretation has been clarified by this exchange in the James Jordan interview:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "JJ: This universe that you set in Briah, or part of it--is that our universe? ...." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "GW: No. I thought of it as a long past universe. Something that we are repeating rather\nthan something that we are." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "JJ: ....But that is a past world just in your imagination." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "GW: Yes, I was looking at what past universes might have been like really and that is how...\nI began with the idea of what is going to happen to us if we just keep going the way we are \ngoing and continue to live on the continent of Earth without ever really going into the sea \nor going into space and we just wait for the money to run out. The do nothing future and thinking \nabout what that would be. And then I got into the idea of universal cycles. And decided that I \nwould show that this might be a past cycle. Some physicists at least think that the Big Bang is \neventually going to be followed by a Big Gnab in which the whole universe coalesces again which \nwill be followed by another Big Bang which is sort of like a succession of universe as piston \nimpulses in an internal combustion engine. I certainly don't have any great emotional investment \nin that idea but I do think it is a useful idea to play around with. Physics is coming nearer and \nnearer and nearer mysticism. It has been doing this now for over 50 years and it seems to me that is \na fascinating thing that much too little attention has been given to." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "JJ: That poses something of a difficulty in terms of Christian eschatology if there is to be a time \nand there is a resurrection where the world comes to an end. Are you making an attempt to unify those \ntwo ideas or just to play with the idea of a gnostic universe?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "GW: I was toying with those ideas, I think, rather than trying to make sense of them. Is our resurrection \ngoing to be in another universal cycle? Well, yes, maybe it is. I don't know. We don't know what is really \nmeant by the world coming to an end, and God rolling up the sky like a carpet and all that. It is all \npicturesque language. Figurative language to try to give a general idea to an audience that would not be \ncapable of understanding the actuality. And I am not sure we are more capable of understanding that \nactuality than they were. It is like the Genesis story. I don't believe in a literal apple and I don't \nbelieve that literally biting into the fruit had this effect but if you have to explain to a bunch of \nprimitives how men differ from animals and where men went wrong in differing from animals, this is a \npretty good way to do it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nFor me Wolfe's words suggests that the universe we readers live in is in the cosmological future of Briah. \nThe text suggests to me that Yesod is in the cosmological future of Briah. So, not an impossible conclusion \nthat we live in Yesod. It explains why a denizen of Yesod, Tzadkiel, has an identical name to one of our \nangels. And it fits Wolfe's assertion that Briah is a universe in our past." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy C. Lackey- Yesod is a universe apart from Briah and the other manvantaras, on a\ndifferent level. This is not my opinion; it is what Severian was told by\nMalrubius in CITADEL: \". . . Yesod, the universe higher than our own, where\nthey created worlds suited to what they [the Hierogrammates] had become.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nNo disrepect intended Roy, but that is your opinion. I see the same words and find different meaning. \nAs I understand, there is a succession of universes and Briah is succeeded by Yesod. One step higher on \nthe staircase, so to speak. I truly don't understand where you get the concept of Yesod being \"apart\" \nlike a single step or a ladder rung floating detached in a void. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T17:03:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\nFor me Wolfe's words suggests that the universe we readers live in is in the cosmological future of Briah.\nThe text suggests to me that Yesod is in the cosmological future of Briah. So, not an impossible conclusion\nthat we live in Yesod." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is an interesting possibility ... perhaps Yesod is a higher\ncosmos precisely because the \"Christ event,\" which is only\nforeshadowed by the Conciliator, actually takes place in Yesod, making\nYesod our Universe." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<6E768E26BF204375AEB7627AE1E2DDE2@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-08-10T17:14:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Lane Haygood\" \nI always interpreted what Severian saw as he traveled from Briah to\nYesod via the Ship as entering a black hole and emerging from a white\nhole, which is consistent (with what I know; philosophy student, not a\nphysicist) with some of the many-worlds intepretations of quantum\ntheory: every black hole is connected to a white hole in another\nuniverse. Now, as for what would happen to our individual perceptions\nupon entering the event horizon of a black hole, that's a good\nquestion. How do basically spatiotemporal creatures deal with gravity\nso strong it bends the fabric of space-time such that the\nfastest-moving thing in the universe is too slow to escape?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Many worlds\" interpretations don't really have anything to do with the \n\"many universe\" theories you are talking about. They can probably be linked \nto them as a way in which multiple manifolds might be formed but they are \nnot strongly related concepts. And quantum theory sits poorly with general \nrelativity at the best of times. The black hole - white hole concept comes \nfrom certain general relativity solutions (nowadays considered obsolete, but \nthat is irrelevant for a book written a quarter century ago).\n\nIf black holes do connect to white holes, the general relativity concept of \nblack holes near the event horizon must therefore be correct (this remains a \nreasonably popular position among physicists, though it is eroding fast). \nIf so, someone entering a large black hole feels nothing unusual. The logic \nis that no matter how curved spacetime is over a large region, if it is \nsmooth then locally it must still be fairly flat.\n\nMy interpretation of the 'Diadem of Briah' is that it is a 'starbow', i.e. a \nvisual effect arising from travelling through interstellar space at a \nrelativistic velocity. Stars behind will be red shifted, stars in fron blue \nshifted; the effect will be to render both largely invisible by shifting the \npeak emissions of average stars out of the visible region. Meanwhile \nsurrounding the ship, orthogonal to the direction of travel, there will be a \nring of visible stars - blue shifted on the forward edge, red shifted on the \nbackward one..\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<398707.58509.qm@web84106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-10T17:14:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<002e01cb389c$d03cf2e0$06ce4a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy, I think your evidence supports the given theory as much as it detracts from it.\n\n(1) Severian is the Conciliator. Tzadkiel may simply be trying to be tactful.\n\n(2) In Yesod, Briah has indeed vanished. All of human history is in the past. Yes, Yesod is \"above\" Briah, but what does that mean exactly?\n\n(3) The reference to another Conciliator and Sun may mean the Catholic one, in which case Tzadkiel is in our own future. Or it may refer to Severian under a different name at a different time. We certainly don't need to debate that point...\n\n(4) The word \"human\" and its cognates could refer to the same species at different points---millions of years apart. It doesn't require an entirely different race and universe.\n\n(5) The purpose of the \"endless succession\" is for the Hierogrammates to create their creators. This is illogical and pointless only within a single universe from a temporal persepctive. The Hieros'perspective is what we might call a mythcal one: their narrative is (a) myth. In a universe-explaining myth, this kind of illogical circularity is exactly what is needed.\n\n--- On Tue, 8/10/10, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\n\nFrom: Roy C. Lackey \nSubject: Re: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 11:00 AM" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nJohn Watkins and I are in disagreement over the relationship between\nHierogrammates,\nBriah and Yesod. My view is that Briah precedes Yesod in the cosmic\ntimeline, that\nthe birth of each new universe is what constitutes a \"manvantara\" and that\nHierogrammates\nwere created in Briah by some version of humanity and escaped to Yesod." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "John feels that the" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hierogrammates' creation had nothing to do with Severian's universe or his\nrace.\n\nThe text I base my views on:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Severian- \"But on the ship I thought we had come to the end of Briah when\nwe came here\"\nApheta- \"So you did...\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As the Ship approaches the end of its journey Severian sees, rising over\nthe topmost sail-" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"the birth of a new universe, the primal explosion containing every sun\nbecause from it all\nsuns will come..\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Taken together, it seems clear to me that as Briah ends in a Great Gnab it\nBig Bangs into the\nnew universe, Yesod." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yesod is a universe apart from Briah and the other manvantaras, on a\ndifferent level. This is not my opinion; it is what Severian was told by\nMalrubius in CITADEL: \". . . Yesod, the universe higher than our own, where\nthey created worlds suited to what they [the Hierogrammates] had become.\"\nThere is an \"endless succession\" of these universes on the level below\nYesod, in one of which \"a race was born that was so like to ours that Master\nMalrubius did not scruple to call it human.\" That race is the one Apheta\nsaid was \"cognate\" (p-137) to Severian's." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In Yesod, Severian speaks to Tzadkiel who tells him," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"..I am as I am, your own race having made us so before the apocatasatis." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Were you not told" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "that they had shaped us in their image?\"\n\n\nLater Severian wonders why Tzadkiel disguised himself so he could hang out\nwith Severian on the\nship. Tzadkiel explains that if Severian had had a childhood hero, it\nwould be only natural, if\ngiven the chance to want to:\n\n\"walk with him, ..Stand beside him when he was in danger..Care for him,\nperhaps, when he was ill.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It wasn't just some childhood hero. Tzadkiel explicitly states in that\npassage that he was speaking of the Conciliator. (p-152)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This seems clear to me. Tzadkiel is saying that Severian's race created\nhis and that Severian, as\na major participant in this, is a legendary childhood hero of Tzadkiel's." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The paragraph you quoted from goes on to say \"I [Tzadkiel] have been such an\nacolyte, in a creation now vanished. In that too there was a Conciliator and\na New Sun, though we did not use those names.\"\n\nI guess you can look at it as a chicken-or-the-egg debate, but the universe\nSeverian was born in is not the same universe the Hieros formed the\nHierogrammates in, otherwise there would be no point in endless repetition\nof the same universe. (If it ain't broke, don't fix it.) And the text does\nsay that there are at least small changes in each iteration. Presumably the\nchanges are hoped to produce better results at some point, but that will\nstray into another tiresome religious debate.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T17:15:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<398707.58509.qm@web84106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff- Therefore, the universes may be arranged so that the overall future is\nbeyond Yesod, but all coexist from an atemporal perspective (you can get to X from Y any time---\nit's never gone, even branches). " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is my view of the story also. It allows for the echoes of the past and future to influence\neach other. My twist would be to suggest a spiral shape rather than branches. It jibes with the\npreference for that shape in Yesod. Also, it makes universal transfer most likely between adjacent \ncoils, i.e. more identical universes. This would be needed if something like the Frankenstein story \nor a painting of the moon landing were to pass to another universe and remain comprehensible. \n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T17:17:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff- Therefore, the universes may be arranged so that the overall future is\nbeyond Yesod, but all coexist from an atemporal perspective (you can get to X from Y any time---\nit's never gone, even branches)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is my view of the story also. It allows for the echoes of the past and future to influence\neach other. My twist would be to suggest a spiral shape rather than branches. It jibes with the\npreference for that shape in Yesod. Also, it makes universal transfer most likely between adjacent\ncoils, i.e. more identical universes. This would be needed if something like the Frankenstein story\nor a painting of the moon landing were to pass to another universe and remain comprehensible. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<266683.33370.qm@web84101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-10T17:18:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C616FFE.3050109@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's a good point. But then there is ship-travel, and then there is other time travel. \n\nOr so I assume, since the green man does not ride the ship. If I understand correctly, Severian uses both methods at different times.\n\n--- On Tue, 8/10/10, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: James Wynn \nSubject: Re: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 11:27 AM\nYesod is a universe apart from Briah and the other manvantaras, on a\ndifferent level. This is not my opinion; it is what Severian was told by\nMalrubius in CITADEL: \". . . Yesod, the universe higher than our own, where\nthey created worlds suited to what they [the Hierogrammates] had become.\"\nThere is an \"endless succession\" of these universes on the level below\nYesod, in one of which \"a race was born that was so like to ours that Master\nMalrubius did not scruple to call it human.\" That race is the one Apheta\nsaid was \"cognate\" (p-137) to Severian's.\n? ? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "True. In fact, just after this very passage Severian says that the power to travel the corridors of Time is the same for escaping the universe.\n\n\"The hammer they wield is their ability to draw their servants back, down the corridors of time, and to send them hurtling forward to the future. (This power is in essence the same as that which permitted them to evade the death of their universe--to enter the corridors of time is to leave the universe.)\"\n\nIf one had to travel to the beginning or end of the universe to access Yesod [assuming I am understanding the propose model], then you would have to have a separate method of Time travel to reach the beginnings and endings of universes.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<372244.87671.qm@web84104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-10T17:20:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C6171D4.5080006@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No offense, but I think that's highly debatable, even if physically correct.\n\n--- On Tue, 8/10/10, Jeff Wilson wrote:\n\nFrom: Jeff Wilson \nSubject: Re: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 11:35 AM" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/10/2010 9:54 AM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Jeff Wilson->>? Severian- \"But on the ship I thought we had come to the end of Briah when we came here\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "? Apheta- \"So you did...\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "This can be the physical or spatial end, like the end of the street." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "My understanding is that the definition of a \"universe\" is that it has no physical, spatial boundaries or ends. This has been called into question recently but I think it was a very accepted fact back in the 70's and early 80's. Thus, for me, the end of a universe in this story must be temporal." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Since he sees a Big Bang or Gib Gnab, I think it is likely to be the\ntemporal end of the universe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "they would not be in one place ahead or behind the ship, but all \nencompassing as the fabric of space also collapses/expands." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nIEEE Student Chapter Blog at\n< http://ieeetamut.org >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T17:30:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<372244.87671.qm@web84104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oaks- ... perhaps Yesod is a higher\ncosmos precisely because the \"Christ event,\" which is only\nforeshadowed by the Conciliator, actually takes place in Yesod, making\nYesod our Universe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes! :- )\n \n \n(p.s. sorry about duplicate post above. Server problems) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C618CD8.3000500@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T17:31:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<266683.33370.qm@web84101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/10/2010 12:18 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\n\n\n--- On *Tue, 8/10/10, James Wynn //* wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Severian says that the power to travel the corridors of Time is the \nsame for escaping the universe.\n\n\"The hammer they wield is their ability to draw their servants back, \ndown the corridors of time,\nand to send them hurtling forward to the future. (This power is in \nessence the same as that\nwhich permitted them to evade the death of their universe--to enter \nthe corridors of time\nis to leave the universe.)\"\n\nIf one had to travel to the beginning or end of the universe to \naccess Yesod [assuming I\nam understanding the propose model], then you would have to have a \nseparate method\nof Time travel to reach the beginnings and endings of universes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's a good point. But then there is ship-travel, and then there is \nother time travel.\n\nOr so I assume, since the green man does not ride the ship. If I \nunderstand correctly,\nSeverian uses both methods at different times." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, the Severian says here that the technology is the same. Tzakiel (a \nHierogrammate) IS the ship, right?\nSo unless Tzakiel has a method of travel that is different from his \nbrethern...\n\nEssentially, as Sev paints it, in order to travel through time, you have \nto have the ability to exit your universe into the meta-universe. This \ndefeats the Laws of Relativity.\n\nThe truth is, I really like this model as I understand it: that \nHierogrammates escaped their universe to the next one in line...that \nthere is no \"other\", just a succession of universes through which \nTzadkiel travels as though along a chain. I'd like for Wolfe to have \nemployed it, but I don't see how it can be managed given what Severian \nsays in _Citadel_ both in the passage above and this one here:\n\n\"I was not told what became of the Humanity of that cycle. Perhaps it \nsurvived until the implosion of the universe, then perished with it. \nPerhaps it evolved beyond our recognition. But the beings Humanity had \nshaped into what men and women wished to be escaped, opening a passage \nto Yesod, the universe higher than our own, where they created worlds \nsuited to what they had become. *From that vantage point they look both \nforward and back*, and in so looking they\nhave discovered us.\"\n\nThe use of the term \"vantage point\" implies something apart...but it \ndoes not not require it, I admit. However, that they looked forward and \nback implies that they did not escape only one manvantara away. Why look \nfor Severian in Abbadon if they had just come from there? And if they \ncould leap-frog universes...well, the model begins to lose it's elegance.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T18:26:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C618CD8.3000500@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nMy view is that Briah precedes Yesod in the cosmic timeline" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "and David Stockhoff :" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(2) In Yesod, Briah has indeed vanished. All of human history is in the past." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In chapter XXII of UotNS, when Severian is in Yesod, he says: \"They\nwere people I'd known... Thecla, Agilus, Casdoe... Perhaps they're all\ndead now, all ghosts, though I didn't know it.\"\nApheta corrects him: \"They are unborn. Surely you know that time runs\nbackward when the ship sails swiftly. I told you myself. They are\nunborn, as you are.\"\n\nIf they have travelled back in time to get to Yesod, it can't be in\nBriah's future." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lane Haygood", "address": "lhaygood at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T18:37:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is the linearity of time a reputable concept that might conceivably be\nshared by Severian and Apheta? After all, some Hiero*s travel\nbackward in time relative to Severian. Is BFO's past Severian's\nfuture? Certainly the narrative of Severian would place it so.\n\nThen again, what little I know of physics seems rather consistent with\nApheta's statement.\n\nLH" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:26 PM, Tony Ellis wrote:\nLee Berman wrote:\nMy view is that Briah precedes Yesod in the cosmic timeline" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and David Stockhoff :" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "(2) In Yesod, Briah has indeed vanished. All of human history is in the past." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In chapter XXII of UotNS, when Severian is in Yesod, he says: \"They\nwere people I'd known... Thecla, Agilus, Casdoe... Perhaps they're all\ndead now, all ghosts, though I didn't know it.\"\nApheta corrects him: \"They are unborn. Surely you know that time runs\nbackward when the ship sails swiftly. I told you myself. They are\nunborn, as you are.\"\n\nIf they have travelled back in time to get to Yesod, it can't be in\nBriah's future.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T18:41:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 11:26 AM, Tony Ellis\n wrote:\nIn chapter XXII of UotNS, when Severian is in Yesod, he says: \"They\nwere people I'd known... Thecla, Agilus, Casdoe... Perhaps they're all\ndead now, all ghosts, though I didn't know it.\"\nApheta corrects him: \"They are unborn. Surely you know that time runs\nbackward when the ship sails swiftly. I told you myself. They are\nunborn, as you are.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmmm.\n\nThis seems to imply that Briah and Yesod share a common timeline, and\nthat Yesod is either before or simultaneous with Briah (so that one\nmoment in Yesod can be meaningfully prior to another in Briah). Which\npretty much kills Yesod as our Universe...\n\nSo we have two possibilities. (1) Yesod is entirely prior to Briah, or\n(b) Yesod is contemporary with Briah, and is in some way descended\nfrom a previous Briah-like Universe." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T19:19:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Tony Ellis: In chapter XXII of UotNS, when Severian is in Yesod, he says: \"They\nwere people I'd known... Thecla, Agilus, Casdoe... Perhaps they're all\ndead now, all ghosts, though I didn't know it.\"\nApheta corrects him: \"They are unborn. Surely you know that time runs\nbackward when the ship sails swiftly. I told you myself. They are\nunborn, as you are.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l: This seems to imply that Briah and Yesod share a common timeline, and\nthat Yesod is either before or simultaneous with Briah (so that one\nmoment in Yesod can be meaningfully prior to another in Briah). Which\npretty much kills Yesod as our Universe..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nNow, let's not be too hasty..I do think Tony's point is a good one to bring up. \n \nBut we still have Tzadkiel's words to Severian to consider; can't ignore them-" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"..I am as I am, your own race having made us so before the apocatasatis. Were you not told\nthat they had shaped us in their image?\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nHow could Severian's race have made Tzadkiel's race if they were all unborn? Who ya gonna\nbelieve in such a contradiction, Dad/Butterfly or child/larva?\n \nPerhaps Apheta's statement refers to the fact that none of the characters Severian saw were \nactually born. All of them, including Severian as we later learn, are eidolons.\n\nBut on an even more likely note, I agree with Lane Haygood that perhaps Einsteinian physics only \nworks within a universe and has little to do with multiple universe hopping Perhaps Apheta's \nstatement is only meant to imply that when Severian returns to Urth, again via the swift-sailing \nShip in Briah, time will have moved backwards from his relative POV and all these people will be \nunborn, (including, ironically, Severian himself, unborn both as an eidolon and walking around \n1000 years before his birth).\n \n \nIf Yesod were actually to be a universe which preceded Briah in sequence we'd be stuck with the \nunpleasant concept that each succeeding universe becomes worse. Not, I think, what Wolfe intended\nus to think. (maybe Peter Wright likes that idea though ;- ))\n \nThere is another part of BotNS which makes me think Yesod is our own universe but I'll have to \naddress that in a different thread.\n\n\n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C61A849.7070604@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T19:28:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/10/2010 2:19 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nBut we still have Tzadkiel's words to Severian to consider; can't ignore them-\n\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "\"..I am as I am, your own race having made us so before the apocatasatis. Were you not told\nthat they had shaped us in their image?\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "How could Severian's race have made Tzadkiel's race if they were all unborn?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This one is resolved easily enough. The Hieros were humans of a previous \nuniverse. They were of Severian's race.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<518931.33107.qm@web50703.mail.re2.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T19:28:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Lane Haygood \nIs the linearity of time a reputable concept that might conceivably be\nshared by Severian and Apheta?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's reputable among physicists and most other people. That doesn't mean \nSeverian and Apheta, or Wolfe, have to believe it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "After all, some Hiero*s travel\nbackward in time relative to Severian. Is BFO's past Severian's\nfuture? Certainly the narrative of Severian would place it so." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not arguing, but it's hard to see how they could converse with him and \nBaldanders. Maybe they live forwards during interactions with people and \nbackwards most of the time." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Then again, what little I know of physics seems rather consistent with\nApheta's statement." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Time runs backward when the ship sails swiftly\"? According to present-day \nspecial relativity, if some observers could see something going faster than \nlight from A to B, other observers would see it going faster than light from B \nto A. That makes the direction of time on the \"something\" problematic, as well \nas bringing up the possibility of a more complicated trip where you end where \nyou started but earlier in time. Most scientists see this as one good reason to \nbelieve that nothing can go faster than light. Science fiction, of course, is \ndifferent. Though few sf writers have appreciated, as Wolfe explicitly does, \nthat FTL and time travel imply each other.\n\nJerry Friedman\n\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T19:34:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:19 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nBut we still have Tzadkiel's words to Severian to consider; can't ignore them-" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"..I am as I am, your own race having made us so before the apocatasatis. Were you not told\nthat they had shaped us in their image?\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "How could Severian's race have made Tzadkiel's race if they were all unborn? Who ya gonna\nbelieve in such a contradiction, Dad/Butterfly or child/larva?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't see this as a contradiction. \"Your race\" can refer to the\nhuman race of Yesod's iteration." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If Yesod were actually to be a universe which preceded Briah in sequence we'd be stuck with the\nunpleasant concept that each succeeding universe becomes worse." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, I don't think so. All it means is that Yesod in its very late,\nfully developed state is \"better\" (for some measure of gooditude) than\nBriah in the relatively-early state during which Severian's adventures\ntake place. We have open to us the possibility that Briah may in time\nbecome as \"good\" or \"better\" than the Yesod we see.\n\nAnd, of course, in a later (our) iteration there is Christ, Who defeats decay." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There is another part of BotNS which makes me think Yesod is our own universe but I'll have to\naddress that in a different thread." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'd like to see this, because actually I _like_ the\n\"Yesod-is-our-Universe\" theory." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<006f01cb38c3$21fe8e60$fad04a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-08-10T19:34:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Lee Berman quoted and wrote:\nRoy C. Lackey- Yesod is a universe apart from Briah and the other\nmanvantaras, on a\ndifferent level. This is not my opinion; it is what Severian was told by\nMalrubius in CITADEL: \". . . Yesod, the universe higher than our own,\nwhere\nthey created worlds suited to what they [the Hierogrammates] had become.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No disrepect intended Roy, but that is your opinion." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It is right there in black and white. I can't help it if it doesn't fit in\nwith your theories." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I see the same words and find different meaning.\nAs I understand, there is a succession of universes and Briah is succeeded\nby Yesod. One step higher on\nthe staircase, so to speak. I truly don't understand where you get the\nconcept of Yesod being \"apart\"\nlike a single step or a ladder rung floating detached in a void." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yesod *is* apart from Briah, not simply the next universe in an endless\nsequence of universes, otherwise Tzadkiel's parting words after the trial\nare meaningless: \"My son will see that you are returned to Briah and Urth,\nwhich will be destroyed at your order.\" (153) The Brook Madregot runs\n*between* the universes Briah and Yesod (285), so of course they are apart.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C61AD2C.7010309@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T19:49:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/10/2010 1:26 PM, Tony Ellis wrote:\nIn chapter XXII of UotNS, when Severian is in Yesod, he says: \"They\nwere people I'd known... Thecla, Agilus, Casdoe... Perhaps they're all\ndead now, all ghosts, though I didn't know it.\"\nApheta corrects him: \"They are unborn. Surely you know that time runs\nbackward when the ship sails swiftly. I told you myself. They are\nunborn, as you are.\"\n\nIf they have travelled back in time to get to Yesod, it can't be in\nBriah's future." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, she is saying that in Yesod they _are_ traveling back in Time, no? \nI'm not sure how to clamp this to what Severian said about Yesod in \n_Citadel_. This seems to draw Yesod as existing *within* Briah. At first \nblush, it looks like when writing UotNS, Wolfe had completely forgotten \nabout the construct for his universes in tBotNS.\n\nIt does explain (a little) how Severian's actions with Apheta creates \nthe New Sun since it would then take millennia for the light from that \nstar to reach Urth.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<08B9A751-EB0C-4314-83CC-428947FEFAFC@liftingfaces.com>", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T19:54:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C61AD2C.7010309@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Aug 10, 2010, at 3:49 PM, James Wynn wrote:\nWell, she is saying that in Yesod they _are_ traveling back in Time, no? I'm not sure how to clamp this to what Severian said about Yesod in _Citadel_. This seems to draw Yesod as existing *within* Briah. At first blush, it looks like when writing UotNS, Wolfe had completely forgotten about the construct for his universes in tBotNS.\n\nIt does explain (a little) how Severian's actions with Apheta creates the New Sun since it would then take millennia for the light from that star to reach Urth." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What's good about all of this discourse, is that while it makes my head swim, Wolfe never intended for it to be part of Severian's journey, as it was all off-stage. So when I think of it that way, I wonder how important some of this information is to BotNS as a whole, and I'm relieved.\n\n:)\n\n...ryan" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T19:59:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<08B9A751-EB0C-4314-83CC-428947FEFAFC@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Aug 10, 2010, at 3:54 PM, Ryan Dunn wrote:\nOn Aug 10, 2010, at 3:49 PM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Well, she is saying that in Yesod they _are_ traveling back in Time, no? I'm not sure how to clamp this to what Severian said about Yesod in _Citadel_. This seems to draw Yesod as existing *within* Briah. At first blush, it looks like when writing UotNS, Wolfe had completely forgotten about the construct for his universes in tBotNS.\n\nIt does explain (a little) how Severian's actions with Apheta creates the New Sun since it would then take millennia for the light from that star to reach Urth." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What's good about all of this discourse, is that while it makes my head swim, Wolfe never intended for it to be part of Severian's journey, as it was all off-stage. So when I think of it that way, I wonder how important some of this information is to BotNS as a whole, and I'm relieved.\n\n:)\n\n...ryan" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sorry, not ALL off-stage of course. And your last observation, about going back in time to bring the New Sun, so that it may feel like just days later on Urth when they get their mighty flood and new shining orb. That's a very good observation.\n\n...ryan" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C61BD72.7090800@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T20:58:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/10/2010 11:59 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\nFor me Wolfe's words suggests that the universe we readers live in is in the cosmological future of Briah.\nThe text suggests to me that Yesod is in the cosmological future of Briah. So, not an impossible conclusion\nthat we live in Yesod. It explains why a denizen of Yesod, Tzadkiel, has an identical name to one of our\nangels. And it fits Wolfe's assertion that Briah is a universe in our past." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What explains all the dozens of identical saints' names in Briah then?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No disrepect intended Roy, but that is your opinion. I see the same words and find different meaning.\nAs I understand, there is a succession of universes and Briah is succeeded by Yesod. One step higher on\nthe staircase, so to speak. I truly don't understand where you get the concept of Yesod being \"apart\"\nlike a single step or a ladder rung floating detached in a void. \t\t \t \t\t" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because that's exactly what Severian describes? The Ship flies to the \nextremely distant reaches of Briah, where there's a discontinuity, a \nwormhole that leads directly to the machine planet in Yesod; he leaves \nYesod by the same means, through a hole in space and time that reaches \nfrom indoors on Yesod partway back into Briah." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nIEEE Student Chapter Blog at\n< http://ieeetamut.org >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<408217.11528.qm@web84108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-10T21:03:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ah, I didn't know that.\n\nSo Severian is born into the far future of \"our\" unreachable past?\n\nThat's crazy enough to be true.\n\n--- On Tue, 8/10/10, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\n\nFrom: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes \nSubject: Re: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 12:58 PM\n\nOn Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 9:42 AM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\n\n\nI am beginning to think that the Hieros are indeed our future and that their creators were the future Us, not a past race in a past universe. Thus, all Hieros and all white energy come from this future, moving backwards through time to reach us. Since this means no other universes or iterations are necessary, the whole rerunning of Briah theory (as opposed to merely intervening on Urth again and again) can be dispensed with. It's\n simpler.\n\nDoes this make sense?\n\n\nAlmost. \n\nIt fails (for me) because it doesn't take into account Wolfe's open statement that Briah is a previous iteration of _our_ Universe. This forces iterative Universes into the equation." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes\n\n\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T21:05:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C61BD72.7090800@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nWhat explains all the dozens of identical saints' names in Briah then?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Translation?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<3a80186a8935c1f000db3916934e6212.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T21:25:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "What explains all the dozens of identical saints' names in Briah then?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Translation?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If the saint names are an artifact of translation, so is Tzadkiel and\nLee's confirmation dissolves." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T22:26:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<3a80186a8935c1f000db3916934e6212.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l wrote:\nThis seems to imply that Briah and Yesod share a common timeline, and\nthat Yesod is either before or simultaneous with Briah (so that one\nmoment in Yesod can be meaningfully prior to another in Briah). Which\npretty much kills Yesod as our Universe..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As I understand it, there's an endless succession of our Briahtic\nuniverses, and Yesod is the hyper-space - and hyper-time - within\nwhich that succession takes place.\n\nSeverian's last glimpse of our universe is \"a circle no larger than an\nebon moon in the sky of Yesod.\" That's Yesod the planet, whose outer\natmosphere he has already entered." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C61D717.6090700@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-10T22:47:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "This seems to imply that Briah and Yesod share a common timeline, and\nthat Yesod is either before or simultaneous with Briah (so that one\nmoment in Yesod can be meaningfully prior to another in Briah). Which\npretty much kills Yesod as our Universe...\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As I understand it, there's an endless succession of our Briahtic\nuniverses, and Yesod is the hyper-space - and hyper-time - within\nwhich that succession takes place.\n\nSeverian's last glimpse of our universe is \"a circle no larger than an\nebon moon in the sky of Yesod.\" That's Yesod the planet, whose outer\natmosphere he has already entered.\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So how can Apheta say that Severian's friends are unborn? How can they \nbe explicitly dead or unborn? I would think that in Yesod both would be \ntrue since it beyond the entire history of Briah.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C61FEF3.9020802@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-11T01:37:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That clicks.\n\nI've been trying for 20 years to figure out how \"our\" Conciliator and \nNew Sun fit in. This is the first satisfying explanation I've heard." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nOn Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "For me Wolfe's words suggests that the universe we readers live in is in the cosmological future of Briah.\nThe text suggests to me that Yesod is in the cosmological future of Briah. So, not an impossible conclusion\nthat we live in Yesod.\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is an interesting possibility ... perhaps Yesod is a higher\ncosmos precisely because the \"Christ event,\" which is only\nforeshadowed by the Conciliator, actually takes place in Yesod, making\nYesod our Universe.\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C620350.50605@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-11T01:56:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Perhaps. Or, Rudesind's moon painting/photo is simply an iteration that \nresembles our own.\n\nHowever, the green moon and Frankenstein are harder to explain away." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "David Stockhoff- Therefore, the universes may be arranged so that the overall future is\nbeyond Yesod, but all coexist from an atemporal perspective (you can get to X from Y any time---\nit's never gone, even branches). \n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is my view of the story also. It allows for the echoes of the past and future to influence\neach other. My twist would be to suggest a spiral shape rather than branches. It jibes with the\npreference for that shape in Yesod. Also, it makes universal transfer most likely between adjacent \ncoils, i.e. more identical universes. This would be needed if something like the Frankenstein story \nor a painting of the moon landing were to pass to another universe and remain comprehensible. \n \t\t \t \t\t \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C620523.9000803@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-11T02:04:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In that case, the problem I proposed is reversed. It's easy to go back \nand difficult to go forward.\n\nIf Yesod is \"before\" Briah, then \"we\" are in another universe entirely, \nif we are to follow Briah." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Tony Ellis wrote:\nLee Berman wrote:\nMy view is that Briah precedes Yesod in the cosmic timeline\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and David Stockhoff :\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "(2) In Yesod, Briah has indeed vanished. All of human history is in the past.\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In chapter XXII of UotNS, when Severian is in Yesod, he says: \"They\nwere people I'd known... Thecla, Agilus, Casdoe... Perhaps they're all\ndead now, all ghosts, though I didn't know it.\"\nApheta corrects him: \"They are unborn. Surely you know that time runs\nbackward when the ship sails swiftly. I told you myself. They are\nunborn, as you are.\"\n\nIf they have travelled back in time to get to Yesod, it can't be in\nBriah's future.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C623870.6000705@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T05:43:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<353082.85313.qm@web84105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/10/2010 11:42 AM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\nA universe's limits are definitely temporal. At very least, as you\napproach any theoretical physical edge, I'd expect a sharp curve in\ntime, not space. I'm not sure how this would manifest itself. But..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In current and time-of-writing astronomical thought, there is no \naccessible edge of the universe, but that doesn't prevent Severian's \nuntechnical general education from leading him to speak of one \nliterally, or Apheta from answering him figuratively to avoid an \nunfruitful digression. The end of Ushas, the distant mountaintops beyond \nthe shores of Urth, and the circle of Dis are all figures of speech, \nmetaphorical, but asopted by the more sophisticated beings to \ncommunicate with the more primitive but no less necessary planetbound \nraces from which they draw their crews, minions, test subjects, etc." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "When we look deep into the universe, we see the deep past rushing at us\nat the speed of light. If we were to move into that past at\nnear-lightspeeds, we might experience an FTL rush into the future, like\ntwo cars speeding past one another at twice the speed of either one by\nitself. This might be what Severian sees ahead. I don't think it's the\nbirth of Briah, but the death, because by the time you get to the edge\nof the universe, the past (birth) is long gone and so is the edge." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is the reverse of universal expansion as discovered by Hubble, and \nstill essentially in effect through the time of writing until now. \nDistant galaxies move away in (rough as we know now) proportion to their \ncurrent distance.\n\nRushing head-on STL + STL to get FTL doesn't work due to relativity. \nWolfe is allowing some exceptions, like the prohibition on accelerating \nto FTL, but seems to be keeping the time-dilation, Lorentz contraction, \nand other aspects of special relativity that prevent high speeds form \nbeing a simple vector sum:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity-addition_formula" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "You would get into Briah from Yesod, and into Abaddon from Briah, by\nmoving into the past. This is unimaginable, but then there are people\nwho live backwards in time (even though they speak forwards), perhaps\nbecause they are from a universe that runs backwards. (Don't ask.) Or\nbecause they are outside time and can choose." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The FOB trio are on a life-long assigment to follow severian's timeline \nbackward, but they move in hops like the rest of the time travelers. \nThey personally experience time in the same moment-to-moment direction, \neven though they affect some reversed mannerisms, like B backing out \nthrough the doorway and saying hello as a means of saying goodbye. I \ncan't figure out exactly why they do that, perhaps it's an ingrained \npart of their cover personas like wearing the masks all the time, and it \nmay also be a comment on Vonnegut." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Therefore, the universes may be arranged so that the overall future is\nbeyond Yesod, but all coexist from an atemporal perspective (you can get\nto X from Y any time---it's never gone, even branches)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is belied in the story by the disappearance of Master Ash." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I am beginning to think that the Hieros are indeed our future and that\ntheir creators were the future Us, not a past race in a past universe.\nThus, all Hieros and all white energy come from this future, moving\nbackwards through time to reach us. Since this means no other universes\nor iterations are necessary, the whole rerunning of Briah theory (as\nopposed to merely intervening on Urth again and again) can be dispensed\nwith. It's simpler." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's also reversing the increase of entropy, violating the most firmly \nestablished physical laws we have." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Does this make sense?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lovely weather, isn't it?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nIEEE Student Chapter Blog at\n< http://ieeetamut.org >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C624F3E.8040905@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T07:20:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/10/2010 1:41 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nOn Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 11:26 AM, Tony Ellis\n wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "In chapter XXII of UotNS, when Severian is in Yesod, he says: \"They\nwere people I'd known... Thecla, Agilus, Casdoe... Perhaps they're all\ndead now, all ghosts, though I didn't know it.\"\nApheta corrects him: \"They are unborn. Surely you know that time runs\nbackward when the ship sails swiftly. I told you myself. They are\nunborn, as you are.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "H'mmmm.\n\nThis seems to imply that Briah and Yesod share a common timeline, and\nthat Yesod is either before or simultaneous with Briah (so that one\nmoment in Yesod can be meaningfully prior to another in Briah). Which\npretty much kills Yesod as our Universe...\n\nSo we have two possibilities. (1) Yesod is entirely prior to Briah, or\n(b) Yesod is contemporary with Briah, and is in some way descended\nfrom a previous Briah-like Universe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "They only have to be narratively parallel, not literally. Later on \nSeverian refers to leaving Yesod as leaving eternity, and I believe that \nhe means it in the strict sense of a condition that is not subject to \nthe passage of time. The unborn business can be explained by the Ship's \nbackward travel in time as a consequence of its FTL, so that the \nwormhole into Yesod connects to Briah at a very early time in Urth's \ncycle, almost certainly before Urth herself has formed." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nIEEE Student Chapter Blog at\n< http://ieeetamut.org >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C62506B.8020005@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T07:25:31+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/10/2010 5:26 PM, Tony Ellis wrote:\nDan'l wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "This seems to imply that Briah and Yesod share a common timeline, and\nthat Yesod is either before or simultaneous with Briah (so that one\nmoment in Yesod can be meaningfully prior to another in Briah). Which\npretty much kills Yesod as our Universe..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As I understand it, there's an endless succession of our Briahtic\nuniverses, and Yesod is the hyper-space - and hyper-time - within\nwhich that succession takes place.\n\nSeverian's last glimpse of our universe is \"a circle no larger than an\nebon moon in the sky of Yesod.\" That's Yesod the planet, whose outer\natmosphere he has already entered." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's a wormhole that the Yesodis use to come from and go to Briah. The \none he leaves through appears the same way, only as a bright moon \nagainst the starry firmament of Briah, with Apheta looking out through it." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nIEEE Student Chapter Blog at\n< http://ieeetamut.org >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T10:09:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C62506B.8020005@io.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\nSo how can Apheta say that Severian's friends are unborn? How can they\nbe explicitly dead or unborn? I would think that in Yesod both would be\ntrue since it beyond the entire history of Briah." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wouldn’t call Yesod beyond the history of Briah, but outside it.\n\nTo be in Yesod is to be in the upper circle of the theatre - “the\nGods”, appropriately enough - and Briah is the play that is taking\nplace down below. The play hasn’t got to the bit where Severian and\nhis friends are born yet." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T12:03:15+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nI’m not sure if I understand Roy and Tony and Jeff and others' view correctly- is\nYesod to be viewed as a lonely orphan universe sticking off to the side of Briah?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh no, it’s much more than that. The simplest way of seeing it is as a\nbig blob, with a horizontal chain of little blobs beneath it. Each\nlittle blob is one of the succession of Briahtic universes. They come\nand go, but Yesod endures.\n\nI would go further and say that the chain of little blobs is inside\nthe big blob, but don’t worry about that for now. :-)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think the text also allows for my view that Briah is destroyed, giving rise to Yesod." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The text says the ship goes back in time to get to Yesod." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C629A5C.2080601@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-11T12:41:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C623870.6000705@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I figured the \"STL + STL to get FTL \" thing was too simple to survive.\n\nI agree about FOB---they aren't really living backward. As Apheta says, \nall FTL time travel is backward---except, I guess, when it's forward.\n\nThe rest is disproven by Wolfe's comments.\n\nThe higher-vs-sequential controversy leads me away from thinking that \nuniverses coexist on the same plane. Coexistence only works on separate \nplanes.\n\nThe biggest problem with Yesod-as-higher (and higher not meaning future) \nis Apheta's remark about the unborn ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 8/10/2010 11:42 AM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "A universe's limits are definitely temporal. At very least, as you\napproach any theoretical physical edge, I'd expect a sharp curve in\ntime, not space. I'm not sure how this would manifest itself. But..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In current and time-of-writing astronomical thought, there is no \naccessible edge of the universe, but that doesn't prevent Severian's \nuntechnical general education from leading him to speak of one \nliterally, or Apheta from answering him figuratively to avoid an \nunfruitful digression. The end of Ushas, the distant mountaintops \nbeyond the shores of Urth, and the circle of Dis are all figures of \nspeech, metaphorical, but asopted by the more sophisticated beings to \ncommunicate with the more primitive but no less necessary planetbound \nraces from which they draw their crews, minions, test subjects, etc." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "When we look deep into the universe, we see the deep past rushing at us\nat the speed of light. If we were to move into that past at\nnear-lightspeeds, we might experience an FTL rush into the future, like\ntwo cars speeding past one another at twice the speed of either one by\nitself. This might be what Severian sees ahead. I don't think it's the\nbirth of Briah, but the death, because by the time you get to the edge\nof the universe, the past (birth) is long gone and so is the edge." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is the reverse of universal expansion as discovered by Hubble, \nand still essentially in effect through the time of writing until now. \nDistant galaxies move away in (rough as we know now) proportion to \ntheir current distance.\n\nRushing head-on STL + STL to get FTL doesn't work due to relativity. \nWolfe is allowing some exceptions, like the prohibition on \naccelerating to FTL, but seems to be keeping the time-dilation, \nLorentz contraction, and other aspects of special relativity that \nprevent high speeds form being a simple vector sum:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity-addition_formula" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "You would get into Briah from Yesod, and into Abaddon from Briah, by\nmoving into the past. This is unimaginable, but then there are people\nwho live backwards in time (even though they speak forwards), perhaps\nbecause they are from a universe that runs backwards. (Don't ask.) Or\nbecause they are outside time and can choose." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The FOB trio are on a life-long assigment to follow severian's \ntimeline backward, but they move in hops like the rest of the time \ntravelers. They personally experience time in the same \nmoment-to-moment direction, even though they affect some reversed \nmannerisms, like B backing out through the doorway and saying hello as \na means of saying goodbye. I can't figure out exactly why they do \nthat, perhaps it's an ingrained part of their cover personas like \nwearing the masks all the time, and it may also be a comment on Vonnegut." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Therefore, the universes may be arranged so that the overall future is\nbeyond Yesod, but all coexist from an atemporal perspective (you can get\nto X from Y any time---it's never gone, even branches)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is belied in the story by the disappearance of Master Ash." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I am beginning to think that the Hieros are indeed our future and that\ntheir creators were the future Us, not a past race in a past universe.\nThus, all Hieros and all white energy come from this future, moving\nbackwards through time to reach us. Since this means no other universes\nor iterations are necessary, the whole rerunning of Briah theory (as\nopposed to merely intervening on Urth again and again) can be dispensed\nwith. It's simpler." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's also reversing the increase of entropy, violating the most firmly \nestablished physical laws we have." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Does this make sense?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lovely weather, isn't it?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mr Thalassocrat", "address": "thalassocrat08 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T13:05:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 9:33 PM, Tony Ellis wrote:\nLee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I’m not sure if I understand Roy and Tony and Jeff and others' view\ncorrectly- is\nYesod to be viewed as a lonely orphan universe sticking off to the side of\nBriah?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Oh no, it’s much more than that. The simplest way of seeing it is as a\nbig blob, with a horizontal chain of little blobs beneath it. Each\nlittle blob is one of the succession of Briahtic universes. They come\nand go, but Yesod endures." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But if Yesod is this kind of meta-eternity, why is it important to the\nHiero-dudes to engineer outcomes in one particular Briah? All the\nBriahs would be accessible from Yesod, including the one which gave rise to\nthem. Why do they care about some other Briah?\n\nI'm probably missing something here, but my own reading is different. I\nthink Yesod sits above only the Briah we are shown, not above past and\nfuture creations. The islands of Yesod map to galaxies in Sev's Briah, not\nto other Briahs.\n\nThe Hiero-dudes escaped their Briah and somehow entered into this Briah's\nYesod, following the lead of their creators. These creators passed on into\nthe meta-eternity, leaving the Hiero-dudes behind. They now seek to\nre-create their creators, and when these ascend, this time they will not be\nleft behind.\n\nAnyway, that seems consistent to me. But in trying to work it out, I think\none shouldn't forget that Tzadkiel et al often lie. Nothing they say, and\nnothing their agents say, needs to be taken as gospel." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T13:57:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Tony Ellis: The simplest way of seeing it is as a big blob, with a horizontal \nchain of little blobs beneath it. Each little blob is one of the succession of \nBriahtic universes. They come and go, but Yesod endures. I would go further and \nsay that the chain of little blobs is inside the big blob, but don’t worry about \nthat for now. :-)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nSounds very Kabballic. Based on the Sephiroth? Given the names Wolfe used for his\nuniverses it is difficult to dismiss a strict Kabballic interpretation out of hand.\nStill, the Wolfe quote I posted suggests the possibility that he chose the names\nwithout intending to adhere strictly to their original meaning." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The text says the ship goes back in time to get to Yesod." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nThe text says a lot of things, some contradictory, some with multiple interpretations,\ndepending on the reader. I don't see the point of selectively choosing certain passages\nand ignoring all the other contradictory ones, especially when people have gone through\nthe trouble to find them and post them here. \n \nBut perhaps that is unfair. I guess a good question to ask is whether a poster's theory \nregarding BotNS is a walled castle which must be defended from attack or a living entity \nwith the capacity for evolution. Both approaches serve a purpose and we shouldn't expect\npeople to go against their own nature. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C62AD94.3000809@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T14:03:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C623870.6000705@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hi.\n\nA person can't go away for a while!\n\nTime is part of the Universe. St Augustine knew that, physicists understand \nthat, and GW surely takes it into account. One can't really compare \ndifferent universes according to some global timeline. If a universe gnabs \nand a new one bangs from it, one can't really say the new one temporally \nfollows the first. 'Later', 'earlier', make sense within the same universe, \nbut not across universes. And it's not enough to claim that they really are \nthe same universe, only contracting and expanding, because at the gnab point \ntime becomes so curved that there is no meaningful link between the margins. \nOnly after one has understood that can some meaningful discussion of this \nmultiple universes thing be had.\n\nThe way I see it, and I think it's the way suggested by the text, and I \nthink other interpretations require extraordinary evidence, you can picture \nall the 'Briah' like universes as dots on the surface of a sphere, while \nYesod is the inside of the sphere. I think the text makes the Briahs be \nstars in the Yesod sky, which is more or less the same. Bearing in mind what \nI just said about Time, I also don't think 'each iteration' is necessarily a \nbetterment of the 'preceding', I don't think they can be considered to form \na succession.\n\nAs for Yesod being our universe, I think it makes no sense. For a variety of \nreasons, but the obvious one is that it doesn't look like it. I see nothing \nin Yesod that looks familiar. And then again, if there is no 'succession' - \nand I've seen no evidence for that idea - then Yesod can't be part of one.\n\nI second the motion to have Josh back." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C62BDB7.9010608@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T15:11:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C62AD94.3000809@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I second the motion to have Josh back. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The decision to leave seems to be his own. I can't know this \nemphatically, but that was my conclusion based the thread and \nconversations with him afterward.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<922070.75966.qm@web37608.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Craig Brewer", "address": "cnbrewer at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T15:32:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<94C753843CC24501ACEFA3743D1C51E5@jill>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I want to believe that Mr. Wolfe himself would like to claim that the answer to \nevery single riddle ever posited on this mailing list since it began is \nanswerable, and >answerable in the text we're pondering." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Do you think he would agree? Do you agree?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Coming late to this discussion, but I have to say that I disagree to both. As \nmuch as his hard core fans (i.e., us) adore the puzzle side of his writings, I \nget the sense that Wolfe feels himself primarily to be a story teller rather \nthan a maker of difficult narrative puzzles. (That image of himself as a \nfireside yarn-spinner at the beginning of Endangered Species has always stuck in \nmy mind.) Even when there are puzzles, it seems that he wants them to serve the \npurpose of the larger narrative than to be there for their own sake. Too often, \nour own obsessions, mine included, seem to remove us from the story, making us \nfocus on speculations more than the stories as he's told them. Other times, the \nfocus on the hidden details makes us start to evaluate his stories as if the \ntheology or philosophy or world-building is more important than the story \nitself. I wonder if Wolfe ever feels disappointed by our focus on what's implied \nrather than what he's written explicitly.\n\nThere have been plenty of examples where the puzzles *are* the story, of course. \nFifth Head and Peace come to mind, obviously. But I don't necessarily think that \nthey are the definitive way of reading Wolfe.\n\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lane Haygood", "address": "lhaygood at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T15:57:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<922070.75966.qm@web37608.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Speaking as a writer of far less than Wolfe's caliber, I think we\nmight overestimate the strength of writers that create wonderful\npuzzles. Sometimes, it is deliberate, but more often than not the\npuzzle/allusion/reference/whatever presents itself organically out of\nour own subconscious organization of the material into a narrative.\nThe interpretation takes on a life of its own.\n\nI recall one short story that I am currently shopping out to various\npublications. During the reading/revision period, one of my\ncritiquers went on and on about the lovely allegory I was making. Too\nbad that it was entirely unintentional, but after considering her\ncomments next to the story, I had to agree that it appeared, for all\nintents and purposes, as if I had intended to put a little allegory\nthere.\n\nWhich is to say that, for a mind much more cunning and devious than my\nown, I am sure Wolfe's subconscious often slips things in that he is\nunaware of, as romantic of the notion of him as a master plotter\nsitting alone in a candle-lit room, banging away at an old typewriter\nand chuckling to himself about how he'll really get us with this next\none is.\n\nLH" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T15:57:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nThe text says the ship goes back in time to get to Yesod." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The text says a lot of things, some contradictory, some with multiple interpretations,\ndepending on the reader. I don't see the point of selectively choosing certain passages\nand ignoring all the other contradictory ones, especially when people have gone through\nthe trouble to find them and post them here." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well good, that makes two of us. But if you think I’m ignoring\npassages you've posted that contradict 'the ship goes back in time to\nget to Yesod', you’re going to have to tell me which ones." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C62D03A.5020207@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T16:30:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<922070.75966.qm@web37608.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Craig Brewer wrote (11-08-2010 16:32):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I want to believe that Mr. Wolfe himself would like to claim that the answer to\nevery single riddle ever posited on this mailing list since it began is\nanswerable, and>answerable in the text we're pondering." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Do you think he would agree? Do you agree?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Coming late to this discussion, but I have to say that I disagree to both. As\nmuch as his hard core fans (i.e., us) adore the puzzle side of his writings, I\nget the sense that Wolfe feels himself primarily to be a story teller rather\nthan a maker of difficult narrative puzzles. (That image of himself as a\nfireside yarn-spinner at the beginning of Endangered Species has always stuck in\nmy mind.) Even when there are puzzles, it seems that he wants them to serve the\npurpose of the larger narrative than to be there for their own sake. Too often,\nour own obsessions, mine included, seem to remove us from the story, making us\nfocus on speculations more than the stories as he's told them. Other times, the\nfocus on the hidden details makes us start to evaluate his stories as if the\ntheology or philosophy or world-building is more important than the story\nitself. I wonder if Wolfe ever feels disappointed by our focus on what's implied\nrather than what he's written explicitly.\n\nThere have been plenty of examples where the puzzles *are* the story, of course.\nFifth Head and Peace come to mind, obviously. But I don't necessarily think that\nthey are the definitive way of reading Wolfe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Bravo.\n\nDoubtlessly someone will now completely miss your point and say that you are \nfree to read the stories 'just as stories' but please don't try to handicuff \nThose Who See Higher.\n\nIstr that Wolfe said in an interview that Severian has a sister, alright, \nand she appears in the cast, but he (Wolfe) didn't know for certain who she \nis. I may be misremembering, but the gist was that.\n\nAgain, why not Merryn? My understanding is that she's a mysandriac and \nWitches (what could those really be?) are not supposed to have casual sex." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T16:35:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 6:05 AM, Mr Thalassocrat\n wrote:\nThe Hiero-dudes escaped their Briah and somehow entered into this Briah's\nYesod, following the lead of their creators. These creators passed on into\nthe meta-eternity, leaving the Hiero-dudes behind. They now seek to\nre-create their creators, and when these ascend, this time they will not be\nleft behind." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Let's take this one step further. The Hierofoos survived the death of\ntheir Briahtic Universe; Yesod is the vehicle by which thy continued\nto exist after their Universe ceased." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<023B0B04A65645FC895DF396456CC6C4@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-08-11T17:07:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C62BDB7.9010608@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: \"James Wynn\" \nI second the motion to have Josh back." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The decision to leave seems to be his own. I can't know this emphatically, \nbut that was my conclusion based the thread and conversations with him \nafterward." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That is my impression also. As I understand it he was given a temporary \nposting ban, but chose instead to leave permanently. That suggests he was \nunwilling to consider changing the content of his posts, which had included \nrather too much of personal attacks / challenges and incomprehensible or \nirrelevant observations, and rather too little of anything else.\n\nI am certain his intentions are good, and if he wants to make changes in the \nabove I'd welcome him back. Otherwise, I think it's best to leave well \nenough alone.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C62DB90.3010205@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T17:19:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Hiero-dudes escaped their Briah and somehow entered into this Briah's\nYesod, following the lead of their creators. These creators passed on into\nthe meta-eternity, leaving the Hiero-dudes behind. They now seek to\nre-create their creators, and when these ascend, this time they will not be\nleft behind.\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If this is true, then how does this jibe with what Severian says in Citadel:\n\n\"But the beings Humanity had shaped into what men and\nwomen wished to be escaped, opening a passage to Yesod,\nthe universe higher than our own, where they created worlds\nsuited to what they had become.\n*From that vantage point they look both forward and back*,\nand in so looking they have discovered us.\n\nWhy would the Hierogrammates look _forward_ in hopes of finding Severian \nif they know quite well that he is behind them and that that one behind \nthem is the only one they care about?\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T17:22:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Aug 11, 2010, at 11:57 AM, Lane Haygood wrote:\nI recall one short story that I am currently shopping out to various\npublications. During the reading/revision period, one of my\ncritiquers went on and on about the lovely allegory I was making. Too\nbad that it was entirely unintentional, but after considering her\ncomments next to the story, I had to agree that it appeared, for all\nintents and purposes, as if I had intended to put a little allegory\nthere.\n\nWhich is to say that, for a mind much more cunning and devious than my\nown, I am sure Wolfe's subconscious often slips things in that he is\nunaware of, as romantic of the notion of him as a master plotter\nsitting alone in a candle-lit room, banging away at an old typewriter\nand chuckling to himself about how he'll really get us with this next\none is." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This undermines the impossible complexity, and intricacy of BotNS. It also cheapens the literary impact of the text as a whole, to chalk up a series that has inspired over fifteen years of heated debate on a mailing list, don't you think?\n\nI think, sure, there will be times where the reader react to something that Wolfe didn't intend to be pondered. He's said that himself. Something like \"I'm surprised how much attention readers give to some things, and how little they give to others.\" (regarding the popularity of BotNS). But he also says he wanted BotNS to be, unlike his other novels, something that would be studied well after he was dead and gone.\n\nThat tells me that, coupled with his penchant for revision, and his thorough enjoyment of rewriting, that Gene took extra special care to connect all of \"his\" dots in the text. I revised my original opinion that he has an answer for everything in the book to state that every clue as he saw them is a closed loop, with no holes in the hull of his ship so to speak.\n\nI still believe that. You can sniff out when an author is just BS'ing his way through something that is designed to appear heady, and those who have a true mastery of their own subject matter to the point that they themselves are driven crazy by the text's own eidetic quality.\n\n...ryan" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T17:29:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Tony Ellis: But if you think I’m ignoring passages you've posted that contradict 'the ship goes\nback in time to get to Yesod', you’re going to have to tell me which ones." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nIn Yesod, Severian speaks to Tzadkiel who tells him, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"..I am as I am, your own race having made us so before the apocatasatis. Were you not told\nthat they had shaped us in their image?\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Later Severian wonders why Tzadkiel disguised himself so he could hang out with Severian on the\nship. Tzadkiel explains that if Severian had had a childhood hero, it would be only natural, if \ngiven the chance to want to: \n \n\"walk with him, ..Stand beside him when he was in danger..Care for him, perhaps, when he was ill.\"\n\nI find it difficult to see how Severian's race could have created Tzadkiel's race if the Ship took \nSeverian backward in time before humanity even existed. Much twisting and contortions needed.\n \nPerhaps Apheta was mistaken or misunderstood in her contradictory words. Perhaps that is true of \nTzadkiel's words. Perhaps we, as human beings are not even capable of understanding the thoughts of \nthese superior beings.\n \nEither way, I find it rather hasty to read one passage, ignore others and come to conclusions which\nexclude all other conclusions. I certainly don't exclude yours. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C62DE75.6000203@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T17:31:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/11/2010 8:05 AM, Mr Thalassocrat wrote:\nBut if Yesod is this kind of meta-eternity, why is it important to the\nHiero-dudes to engineer outcomes in one particular Briah? All the\nBriahs would be accessible from Yesod, including the one which gave rise\nto them. Why do they care about some other Briah?\nI'm probably missing something here, but my own reading is different. I\nthink Yesod sits above only the Briah we are shown, not above past and\nfuture creations. The islands of Yesod map to galaxies in Sev's Briah,\nnot to other Briahs." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tThat's the one machine-planet in Yesod that oversees the galaxies of \nBriah. There are supposed to be other stars and planets somewhere in Yesod." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Anyway, that seems consistent to me. But in trying to work it out, I\nthink one shouldn't forget that Tzadkiel et al often lie. Nothing they\nsay, and nothing their agents say, needs to be taken as gospel." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Have they been caught flat-out lying? Or just going along with imprecise \nmetaphors?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nIEEE Student Chapter Blog at\n< http://ieeetamut.org >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4F1E20DEA97841ECBAC4690958612BE3@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-08-11T17:52:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Ryan Dunn\" \nOn Aug 11, 2010, at 11:57 AM, Lane Haygood wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I recall one short story that I am currently shopping out to various\npublications. During the reading/revision period, one of my\ncritiquers went on and on about the lovely allegory I was making. Too\nbad that it was entirely unintentional, but after considering her\ncomments next to the story, I had to agree that it appeared, for all\nintents and purposes, as if I had intended to put a little allegory\nthere.\n\nWhich is to say that, for a mind much more cunning and devious than my\nown, I am sure Wolfe's subconscious often slips things in that he is\nunaware of, as romantic of the notion of him as a master plotter\nsitting alone in a candle-lit room, banging away at an old typewriter\nand chuckling to himself about how he'll really get us with this next\none is." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This undermines the impossible complexity, and intricacy of BotNS. It also \ncheapens the literary impact of the > text as a whole, to chalk up a \nseries that has inspired over fifteen years of heated debate on a mailing \nlist, > don't you think?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think so. I reckon there are things discussed on this list whose \norigin is exactly as Lane suggests. [I am not one for \"+1\" posts, but I \nthink Lane's post here, and Craig Brewer's one shortly beforehand, are very \ngood.]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think, sure, there will be times where the reader react to something \nthat Wolfe didn't intend to be pondered." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He's said that himself. Something like \"I'm surprised how much attention \nreaders give to some things, and how >little they give to others.\" \n(regarding the popularity of BotNS). But he also says he wanted BotNS to \nbe, >unlike his other novels, something that would be studied well after he \nwas dead and gone." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think he was being too modest there about his other novels - notably \n_Peace_ and _Fifth Head of Cerberus_, both of which preceded _BotNS_." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That tells me that, coupled with his penchant for revision, and his \nthorough enjoyment of rewriting, that Gene > took extra special care to \nconnect all of \"his\" dots in the text. I revised my original opinion that \nhe has an answer for everything in the book to state that every clue as he \nsaw them is a closed loop, with no holes in the hull of his ship so to \nspeak.\n\nI still believe that. You can sniff out when an author is just BS'ing his \nway through something that is designed to appear heady, and those who have \na true mastery of their own subject matter to the point that they \nthemselves are driven crazy by the text's own eidetic quality." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I seem to recall he himself indicated, about the idea of cyclic universes in \n_BotNS_, that he was playing with the idea, but had no fixed interpretation \none way or the other.\n\nAnd I think an author can do that - perhaps even have a dominant \ninterpreation of events, but still feel that an alternative interpretation \nis in some way valid.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T17:52:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4F1E20DEA97841ECBAC4690958612BE3@jill>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn: *From that vantage point they look both forward and back*, and in so looking \nthey have discovered us. Why would the Hierogrammates look _forward_ in hopes of finding \nSeverian if they know quite well that he is behind them and that that one behind \nthem is the only one they care about?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, in my view, certainly it is in the Hierogrammates' look back in which they discover\nhumanity. Like studying their history, they learn that in their Briatic origins the humans\nwho arose from Ushas evolved into the Hieros which led to them. History also tells them of a \nfolk hero named Severian who made Ushas possible.\n \nIn this history they learn that the hero, Severian, was advised by beings like Hiero-\ndules and judged by Hierogrammates and thus they know that they must send agents back to \nBriah, to interact with Severian and fulfill their history.\n \nSorta like Severian with the primitive people. He knows he has become Apu Punchau, he knows\nin teaching them architecture that he is fulfilling a pre-determined role, but he pretty much\njust has to play along and do it. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2010-08-11T19:14:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nI find it difficult to see how Severian's race could have created Tzadkiel's race if the Ship took\nSeverian backward in time before humanity even existed. Much twisting and contortions needed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lee, I've drunk a whole can of beer now, and I still don't understand\nwhat point you're making. What difference does it make where the Ship\ntook Severian?\n\nAt some point in time, in a Briahtic universe, humanity made the\nHierogrammates. How does this contradict the argument that the Ship\ntravelled back in time to get to Yesod?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Either way, I find it rather hasty to read one passage, ignore others and come to conclusions which\nexclude all other conclusions." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, me too." } ] }, { "message_id": "<396307.59233.qm@web84105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-11T20:04:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And that's why it's a \"machine planet.\"\n\n--- On Wed, 8/11/10, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\n\nFrom: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes \nSubject: Re: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Wednesday, August 11, 2010, 12:35 PM" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 6:05 AM, Mr Thalassocrat\n wrote:\nThe Hiero-dudes escaped their Briah and somehow entered into this Briah's\nYesod, following the lead of their creators. These creators passed on into\nthe meta-eternity, leaving the Hiero-dudes behind. They now seek to\nre-create their creators, and when these ascend, this time they will not be\nleft behind." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Let's take this one step further. The Hierofoos survived the death of\ntheir Briahtic Universe; Yesod is the vehicle by which thy continued\nto exist after their Universe ceased." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T03:44:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<396307.59233.qm@web84105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Tony Ellis- Lee, I've drunk a whole can of beer now, and I still don't understand\nwhat point you're making." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nTony I'll give it one more shot. I've been looking through the text and found evidence \nwhich supports both your and my views. \n \nI think most agree that Malrubius' story is our first real introduction to BotNS's \ncosmology. We are told that universes are born, flower and die, to be reborn as a new \nflower, an endless sequence. Malrubius discusses the origin of the Hierogrammates and \nthat a race cognate to Severian's created them. The Hierogrammates wished to be escaped \nfrom the destruction of their universe and opened a passage to Yesod, the \"universe higher \nthan our own\".\n \nSeverian goes on to muse about Hierogrammates: \n \n\"*perhaps it was we who shaped them*- or our sons - or our fathers, Malrubius said he \ndid not know, and I believe he told the truth\".\n \nI don't think it would be mentioned unless it was a strong possibility that it WAS\nSeverian's human race which created the Hierogrammates. \n \nGiven the flowering metaphor given just previously, I take Yesod being described as the \n\"universe higher than our own\" to mean the next \"flower\" in succession, as #48 is higher \nthan #47. And I think when Malrubius and others from Yesod discuss a \"past manvantara\" they \nare speaking of Briah.\n \nI am discovering that many have ignored the flowering metaphor in the text and choose instead \nto see Yesod and \"higher\" in Kabbalic architectural terms as a sort of second story, or balcony\nto Briah. Yesod is a Kabbalic term so I don't see how we can pin one view as correct and the \nother as wrong. Depends on if you favor texual context or naming as more important.\n \nMoving ahead. As Severian on the Ship leaves Briah he sees the \"birth of a new universe\". I\nalways assumed that was the birth of Yesod. Then he sees a big clump of stars forming a\ndisk, edges streaked and old. Sounds like a Grand Gnab which I always took to be the death of\nBriah. This woud make sense if the Ship is moving forward in time. But if, as you argue, the\nShip is moving backward in time, perhaps what Severian sees is the birth of Briah and the death\nof Yesod. I don't know.\n \nApheta says the Ship is moving back in time. But she also says the Ship has travelled to the end\nof Briah (not the beginning). Perhaps Wolfe is purposefully writing about things incomprehensible \nto the human mind in a way that is not quite comprehensible to our human minds. (we are after all,\nas Tzadkiel says, pawns who can only observe time in one direction at a time).\n \nBut it is Tzadkiel's words which come as close as possible to crystalizing my thoughts on the situation.\nHe says that Severian's race IS the one that shaped his, and I am willing to believe he is more\nknowledgeable than Malrubius. Tzadkiel speaks of Severian as a legendary folk hero to him, placing\nSeverian and his Briatic life in Tzadkiel's cosmologic past, thus placing Yesod in Briah's cosmologic\nfuture. \n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<351777.47942.qm@web50707.mail.re2.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T04:13:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C62AD94.3000809@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Ant?nio Pedro Marques \n\nHi.\n\nA person can't go away for a while!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Or even stay here." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Time is part of the Universe. St Augustine knew that, physicists understand \nthat, and GW surely takes it into\naccount. One can't really compare different universes according to some global \ntimeline. If a universe gnabs\nand a new one bangs from it, one can't really say the new one temporally \nfollows the first. 'Later', 'earlier',\nmake sense within the same universe, but not across universes. And it's not \nenough to claim that they really\nare the same universe, only contracting and expanding, because at the gnab \npoint time becomes so curved\nthat there is no meaningful link between the margins. Only after one has \nunderstood that can some meaningful\ndiscussion of this multiple universes thing be had." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "...\n\nAs I recall, physicists believed that in an oscillating-universe of cyclical \nmode, each oscillation would have to last longer than the previous one because \nof the Second Law of Thermodynamics (there it is again). Each universe inherits \nthe entropy of the previous one, which is higher than the entropy of the one \nbefore. So they did envision a causal \"earlier\" and \"later\".\n\nWikip tells me this point was made by Richard Tolman in 1934 in response to \nEinstein's original oscillating-universe theory in 1930.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model\n\nOn the other hand, it gives a somewhat different view of the history:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_bang\n\nJerry Friedman\n\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C638696.7020400@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T05:28:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/11/2010 10:44 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nBut it is Tzadkiel's words which come as close as possible to crystalizing my thoughts on the situation.\nHe says that Severian's race IS the one that shaped his, and I am willing to believe he is more\nknowledgeable than Malrubius." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If aquastor Malrubius' knowledge doesn't agree with Tzadkiel's, where \ndoes it come from?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nIEEE Student Chapter Blog at\n< http://ieeetamut.org >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T11:52:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C638696.7020400@io.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson: " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He says that Severian's race IS the one that shaped his, and I am willing to believe he is more\nknowledgeable than Malrubius." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If aquastor Malrubius' knowledge doesn't agree with Tzadkiel's, where \ndoes it come from?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Malrubius doesn't disagree with Tzadkiel. He thinks severian's humanity might be the race that created\nHierogrammates but he isn't sure.\n \nAfter Tzadkiel tells Severian specifically that his race (not a cognate race) created Hierogrammates he speaks \nfurther-\n \nSeverian has admitted that as a child he didn't fully believe in the Concilliator (implying he still doesn't).\nTzadkiel then speaks of acolytes who do or did believe in him. I take this to mean he is being polite.\nHe doesn't want to reveal the \"future\" (which is Severian's past). I think he doesn't want to tell Severian \nhe is the Concilliator and rub it in his face that he didn't and perhaps still doesn't believe in himself.\n \nTzadkiel goes on to say he was such an acolyte and though they didn't use those words, he reveres The \nConciliator and New Sun (is it Severian?) of a past manvantara (is it Briah?).\n \nWolfe could have made it crystal clear that it was Severian's race in Briah which created the Hierogrammates \nand it is Severian that he reveres, but at every turn he doesn't, using language which simultaneously provides \nus a conclusion and casts doubt upon it. It could be said that he does this in all his work. We are meant \nto be kept off balance.\n \nMy conclusion is that those who insist they are unequivocally right about Wolfe's work and are sure of their \nown correctness are, by lupine definition, wrong.\n \nI have noticed that some are willing to take the trouble to post a statement that they are right and/or\nanother is wrong. But not so willing to take the trouble to post a statement admitting that perhaps\nthey were not so perfectly right after all.\n \nYes, that is a challenge. To myself, included. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C63E2A8.9030801@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T12:01:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lee Berman wrote (12-08-2010 12:52):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "After Tzadkiel tells Severian specifically that his race (not a cognate\nrace) created Hierogrammates (...)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He says 'your own', then he says 'they'. To me that easily reads as 'your\ncognates'. If it were really 'you, not your cognates', I'd expect him to say\n'you' all along. But again I'm no anglo :)\n\nIt would be weird to say 'your cognate' where he says 'your own', even if he\nmeant 'your cognate'.\n\nAfter all, it *is* explicitly said that there was a race cognate to\nSeverian's. Where does it enter the picture, if not by creating the\nhierogrammates?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C63EA1C.4050706@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-12T12:33:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C63E2A8.9030801@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On the use of the word \"cognates\":\n\nI think this is a standard low-grade Wolfean riddle. If a Wolfe \ncharacter says to a narrator, \"I once met a man very like you, who had \nthe same look and carried himself the same way, and held his cigarette \njust like that, but he called himself by a different name then,\" how \nwould you interpret that?\n\n\"Once upon a time, there was a race of beings with two arms and two legs \nwho called themselves Men. They were very like you, with the same hopes \nand dreams, but they lived far away from here, both in space and in \ntime.\" How would you interpret that?\n\nI read both as strong hints of the obvious, with a dash of doubt." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\nLee Berman wrote (12-08-2010 12:52):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "After Tzadkiel tells Severian specifically that his race (not a cognate\nrace) created Hierogrammates (...)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He says 'your own', then he says 'they'. To me that easily reads as 'your\ncognates'. If it were really 'you, not your cognates', I'd expect him \nto say\n'you' all along. But again I'm no anglo :)\n\nIt would be weird to say 'your cognate' where he says 'your own', even \nif he\nmeant 'your cognate'.\n\nAfter all, it *is* explicitly said that there was a race cognate to\nSeverian's. Where does it enter the picture, if not by creating the\nhierogrammates?\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T13:25:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C63E2A8.9030801@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Funny. I almost thought you were talking about Rudesind and \"your blue Urth\" for a minute there.\n\n:)\n\n...ryan" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Aug 12, 2010, at 8:01 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\nLee Berman wrote (12-08-2010 12:52):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "After Tzadkiel tells Severian specifically that his race (not a cognate\nrace) created Hierogrammates (...)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He says 'your own', then he says 'they'. To me that easily reads as 'your\ncognates'. If it were really 'you, not your cognates', I'd expect him to say\n'you' all along. But again I'm no anglo :)\n\nIt would be weird to say 'your cognate' where he says 'your own', even if he\nmeant 'your cognate'." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C6402AB.6070502@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T14:18:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C63EA1C.4050706@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "David Stockhoff wrote (12-08-2010 13:33):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On the use of the word \"cognates\":\n\nI think this is a standard low-grade Wolfean riddle. If a Wolfe\ncharacter says to a narrator, \"I once met a man very like you, who had\nthe same look and carried himself the same way, and held his cigarette\njust like that, but he called himself by a different name then,\" how\nwould you interpret that?\n\n\"Once upon a time, there was a race of beings with two arms and two legs\nwho called themselves Men. They were very like you, with the same hopes\nand dreams, but they lived far away from here, both in space and in\ntime.\" How would you interpret that?\n\nI read both as strong hints of the obvious, with a dash of doubt." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Can obviously be, but the text doesn't convey that feeling to me. If it were \nto do so, I think it would be written differently. In fact I'd expect it to \nhave 'a race like your own' rather than 'your own race' (thus rendering the \npoint unfalsifiable, I know). When reading dialogue one must pay attention \nnot only to what is said but to how it is expected to be said. In some cases \nthis results in having two equally possible readings which are wildly \ndifferent (I don't feel it's the case here, but as I said I'm at a \nlinguistic disadvantage - what may be perfectly normal for you may have \nquite different connotations to a foreigner or just a speaker of a different \nvariety than your own*).\n\n(*) FI I find the expression 'I think you should go now' unthinkably rude, \nbut aiui it's more or less neutral, even if not not nice, for native speakers." } ] }, { "message_id": "<006c01cb3a2c$23d932c0$71d14a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-08-12T14:39:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\n[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "My conclusion is that those who insist they are unequivocally right about\nWolfe's work and are sure of their\nown correctness are, by lupine definition, wrong.\n\nI have noticed that some are willing to take the trouble to post a\nstatement that they are right and/or\nanother is wrong. But not so willing to take the trouble to post a\nstatement admitting that perhaps\nthey were not so perfectly right after all.\n\nYes, that is a challenge. To myself, included." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "22 minutes later, under a different subject line, he wrote:\n[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This mish mash of different geographic and time period species does\nreinforce the\nsense that The Botanic Garden is also a zoo. It suggests that the creator\nof the zoo\nconsiders human beings as a sort of animal, to be put on display.\n\nThis can't help but bring back to my mind the \"sexual penetrating\" meaning\nof the Latin\nword \"inire\" and the derived name of Inuus, epithet of Pan/Faunus, and his\nproclivity\nfor intercourse with animals. ;- )" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And these two statements can't help but bring to my mind the post I made in\nthe \"Boatman as Inire\" thread four days ago:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I have already given my summary of your Grand Unified Theory. Aside from\nthe\ndetails, what really gets my goat about it is that it is a logical dead\nend.\nJust suppose you are right, that alien Inire (for whatever reasons) was a\nfallen Hierogrammate who coupled with human women and this unholy union\nwas\na Bad Thing. Enter Severian, Epitome of Urth, Willing Savior or Grand\nDupe.\nHe goes to Yesod to win a new sun which is also the New Sun which is also\nHimself. He succeeds, wins a new sun and Ushas is born. Exactly how did he\ndo it? *He screwed an alien.* Hallelujah! Let's sing another verse." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I never got an explanation for the difference, so I'm asking again. What is\nthe difference between:\n\n Alien + human female = Bad\nand\n Human male + alien = Good?\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T15:37:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<006c01cb3a2c$23d932c0$71d14a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nBut it is Tzadkiel's words which come as close as possible to crystalizing my thoughts on the situation.\nHe says that Severian's race IS the one that shaped his, and I am willing to believe he is more\nknowledgeable than Malrubius. Tzadkiel speaks of Severian as a legendary folk hero to him, placing\nSeverian and his Briatic life in Tzadkiel's cosmologic past, thus placing Yesod in Briah's cosmologic\nfuture." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You think that when Hierogrammates say \"your own race made us\" they\nmean 'the human beings of your particular universe'. They don't. They\njust mean 'human beings'. The endless virtually identical iterations\nof Briah all contain Severian's 'own race'.\n\nIt has already been pointed out that there is a passage in chapter XIX\nwhere Apheta says that actually it was a race 'cognate' to Severian's\nthat made the Hierogrammates. A few paragraphs later, in the same\nscene, she says \"we must go masked - not with an actual mask, but\nwith the appearance of *your own race*, the race that our parents, the\nHierogrammates, first set forth to follow.\"\n\n'Your own race'. How can she say the Hieros were 'cognates' in one\nbreath and 'your own race' in another unless the terms are synonymous\nto her?\n\nAnd notice that the world does not stop turning when she says it.\nSeverian does not jump up and say \"what?! You mean that the people of\n*my* universe made the Hierogrammates?!\" He understands that she is\njust saying 'human beings'." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T15:40:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<006c01cb3a2c$23d932c0$71d14a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 7:39 AM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nI never got an explanation for the difference, so I'm asking again. What is\nthe difference between:\n\n? “Alien + human female = Bad\nand\n? ?Human male + alien = Good”" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Though this isn't my theory and I have no interest in defending it, my\nunderstanding is that this is another case of God taking what has been\ndone for evil and making it for good." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T17:19:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Tony Ellis- You think that when Hierogrammates say \"your own race made us\" they\nmean 'the human beings of your particular universe'. They don't. They\njust mean 'human beings'. The endless virtually identical iterations\nof Briah all contain Severian's 'own race'." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Tony, crystal clear understanding of the speech of Hierogrammates is surely a skill\nto be admired. I did promise in my last post that it was a last shot so I'll leave it\nat that. The issue of what is meant by \"cognate race\" had been nicely discussed in \nrecent posts by Antonio Marques, David Stockhoff and James Wynn. I'm certain they do a \nbetter job than I can.\n\n:- ) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<551373.7582.qm@web84107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-12T17:25:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C6402AB.6070502@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"When reading dialogue one must pay attention not only to what is said but to how it is expected to be said.\"\n\nExactly.\n\nIf the intent was \"They were very like you, but with one major difference,\" then I would expect to read \"They were very like you, but with one major difference....\"\n\nAlso, I should add that \"cognate\" is itself an invitation to suspect identity. The term denotes a word or thing of identical or shared origin. Recall that the narrator is part-Translator. And who knows what the Men of\nUrth actually call themselves?\n\nA race of women would by definition be cognate to a race of men; a race of Green Men would be the same as a race of Men: one must be derived from the other. A race cognate to Homo sapiens might be Homo habilis. But it can't be something too different.\n\nAnd yet it allows some doubt.\n\n\n\n--- On Thu, 8/12/10, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\n\nFrom: Ant?nio Pedro Marques \nSubject: Re: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 10:18 AM\n\nDavid Stockhoff wrote (12-08-2010 13:33):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On the use of the word \"cognates\":\n\nI think this is a standard low-grade Wolfean riddle. If a Wolfe\ncharacter says to a narrator, \"I once met a man very like you, who had\nthe same look and carried himself the same way, and held his cigarette\njust like that, but he called himself by a different name then,\" how\nwould you interpret that?\n\n\"Once upon a time, there was a race of beings with two arms and two legs\nwho called themselves Men. They were very like you, with the same hopes\nand dreams, but they lived far away from here, both in space and in\ntime.\" How would you interpret that?\n\nI read both as strong hints of the obvious, with a dash of doubt." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Can obviously be, but the text doesn't convey that feeling to me. If it were to do so, I think it would be written differently. In fact I'd expect it to have 'a race like your own' rather than 'your own race' (thus rendering the point unfalsifiable, I know). When reading dialogue one must pay attention not only to what is said but to how it is expected to be said. In some cases this results in having two equally possible readings which are wildly different (I don't feel it's the case here, but as I said I'm at a linguistic disadvantage - what may be perfectly normal for you may have quite different connotations to a foreigner or just a speaker of a different variety than your own*).\n\n(*) FI I find the expression 'I think you should go now' unthinkably rude, but aiui it's more or less neutral, even if not not nice, for native speakers." } ] }, { "message_id": "<435962.23127.qm@web84107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-12T17:45:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again: exactly. \n\nThis is the same as saying that some time in the far future, humans discover the secret of happiness---but that this future might not come to our descendants. If there are an infinity of iterations, there are equally an infinity of futures, and the distinction is meaningless.\n\n--- On Thu, 8/12/10, Tony Ellis wrote:\n\nFrom: Tony Ellis \nSubject: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\nTo: urth at lists.urth.net\nDate: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 11:37 AM" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nBut it is Tzadkiel's words which come as close as possible to crystalizing my thoughts on the situation.\nHe says that Severian's race IS the one that shaped his, and I am willing to believe he is more\nknowledgeable than Malrubius. Tzadkiel speaks of Severian as a legendary folk hero to him, placing\nSeverian and his Briatic life in Tzadkiel's cosmologic past, thus placing Yesod in Briah's cosmologic\nfuture." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You think that when Hierogrammates say \"your own race made us\" they\nmean 'the human beings of your particular universe'. They don't. They\njust mean 'human beings'. The endless virtually identical iterations\nof Briah all contain Severian's 'own race'.\n\nIt has already been pointed out that there is a passage in chapter XIX\nwhere Apheta says that actually it was a race 'cognate' to Severian's\nthat made the Hierogrammates. A few paragraphs later, in the same\nscene, she says \"we must go masked? - not with an actual mask, but\nwith the appearance of *your own race*, the race that our parents, the\nHierogrammates, first set forth to follow.\"\n\n'Your own race'. How can she say the Hieros were 'cognates' in one\nbreath and 'your own race' in another unless the terms are synonymous\nto her?\n\nAnd notice that the world does not stop turning when she says it.\nSeverian does not jump up and say \"what?! You mean that the people of\n*my* universe made the Hierogrammates?!\" He understands that she is\njust saying 'human beings'." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C6435F4.2070903@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T17:57:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<551373.7582.qm@web84107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote (12-08-2010 18:25):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"When reading dialogue one must pay attention not only to what is said\nbut to how it is expected to be said.\"\n\nExactly.\n\nIf the intent was \"They were very like you, but with one major\ndifference,\" then I would expect to read \"They were very like you, but\nwith one major difference....\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not at all. The dialog doesn't go that way. It doesn't focus on how they are \ndifferent, that's mostly a by-product.\n\nSometimes you want to know if it is late and you ask what time is it, \ninstead of whether it's late or not. Communication is built on context; your \ninner context, which leads you to ask only for the small subset of data you \nthink you need - it often leads to others having to ask you to say what it \nis that you really want to know, instead of the specific datum you demanded \n-, and the outer context, which leads you to provide only the small subset \nof information that you think can't be inferred - it often leads to people \nmisunderstanding what you say.\n\nI mentioned dialog because narrative is the opposite. It's meant as a full \ndescription for an unknowing audience." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also, I should add that \"cognate\" is itself an invitation to suspect\nidentity. The term denotes a word or thing of identical or shared\norigin. Recall that the narrator is part-Translator. And who knows what\nthe Men of Urth actually call themselves?\n\nA race of women would by definition be cognate to a race of men; a race\nof Green Men would be the same as a race of Men: one must be derived\nfrom the other. A race cognate to Homo sapiens might be Homo habilis.\nBut it can't be something too different.\n\nAnd yet it allows some doubt." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "By cognate I simply read 'filling the same niche'. Homologue, if you like.\nThough I also think that Briah's humans are not readily distinguishable from \nours." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T18:58:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C6435F4.2070903@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nTony, crystal clear understanding of the speech of Hierogrammates is surely a skill\nto be admired." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sanctimony, less so." } ] }, { "message_id": "<130103.79475.qm@web84106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-12T19:06:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C6435F4.2070903@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"I mentioned dialog because narrative is the opposite. \"\n\nAgreed.\n\n\"It's meant as a full description for an unknowing audience.\"\n\nUsually. Not here. \n\nA well-known author---I can't recall who, but it wasn't Wolfe---once commented that storytelling isn't about providing information, not even in a strategic sequence. (I forget how it was put, so I'm paraphrasing.) It's actually about withholding information. Or, if you will, releasing it only in a carefully controlled manner.\n\nOr, in any discussion of Wolfe, not releasing it at all. (Or as Lee says, releasing it and then denying it. See also \"leaking.\")\n\nI understand that you think the Hiero makers are our homologues, but there's no real reason to think that. It's just one possibility Wolfe doesn't really address. In fact, it's based on what I'd say is an excellent example of a naive reading.\n\n\n--- On Thu, 8/12/10, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\n\nFrom: Ant?nio Pedro Marques \nSubject: Re: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 1:57 PM\n\nDAVID STOCKHOFF wrote (12-08-2010 18:25):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"When reading dialogue one must pay attention not only to what is said\nbut to how it is expected to be said.\"\n\nExactly.\n\nIf the intent was \"They were very like you, but with one major\ndifference,\" then I would expect to read \"They were very like you, but\nwith one major difference....\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not at all. The dialog doesn't go that way. It doesn't focus on how they are different, that's mostly a by-product.\n\nSometimes you want to know if it is late and you ask what time is it, instead of whether it's late or not. Communication is built on context; your inner context, which leads you to ask only for the small subset of data you think you need - it often leads to others having to ask you to say what it is that you really want to know, instead of the specific datum you demanded -, and the outer context, which leads you to provide only the small subset of information that you think can't be inferred - it often leads to people misunderstanding what you say.\n\nI mentioned dialog because narrative is the opposite. It's meant as a full description for an unknowing audience." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also, I should add that \"cognate\" is itself an invitation to suspect\nidentity. The term denotes a word or thing of identical or shared\norigin. Recall that the narrator is part-Translator. And who knows what\nthe Men of Urth actually call themselves?\n\nA race of women would by definition be cognate to a race of men; a race\nof Green Men would be the same as a race of Men: one must be derived\nfrom the other. A race cognate to Homo sapiens might be Homo habilis.\nBut it can't be something too different.\n\nAnd yet it allows some doubt." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "By cognate I simply read 'filling the same niche'. Homologue, if you like.\nThough I also think that Briah's humans are not readily distinguishable from ours." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C644D80.1020506@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T19:37:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<130103.79475.qm@web84106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\n\"I mentioned dialog because narrative is the opposite. \"\n\nAgreed.\n\n\"It's meant as a full description for an unknowing audience.\"\n\nUsually. Not here." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I meant the 'usually'." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "A well-known author---I can't recall who, but it wasn't Wolfe---once\ncommented that storytelling isn't about providing information, not even\nin a strategic sequence. (I forget how it was put, so I'm paraphrasing.)\nIt's actually about withholding information. Or, if you will, releasing\nit only in a carefully controlled manner.\n\nOr, in any discussion of Wolfe, not releasing it at all. (Or as Lee\nsays, releasing it and then denying it. See also \"leaking.\")" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There is a reason why people qualify 'narrator' with 'unreliable'.\n\nThen of course all narrative in unreliable (I think \nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Exactitude_in_Science was mentioned here \nrecently)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I understand that you think the Hiero makers are our homologues, but\nthere's no real reason to think that." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Obviously there are. Whether they please you or not is a different matter." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's just one possibility Wolfe\ndoesn't really address. In fact, it's based on what I'd say is an\nexcellent example of a naive reading." } ] }, { "message_id": "<974214.19629.qm@web84104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-12T19:50:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C644D80.1020506@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Obviously there are. Whether they please you or not is a different matter.\"\n\nOK, but you haven't given any reasons, so I am neither pleased nor displeased by them.\n\n--- On Thu, 8/12/10, Ant?nio Marques wrote:\n\nFrom: Ant?nio Marques \nSubject: Re: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 3:37 PM" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\n\"I mentioned dialog because narrative is the opposite. \"\n\nAgreed.\n\n\"It's meant as a full description for an unknowing audience.\"\n\nUsually. Not here." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I meant the 'usually'." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "A well-known author---I can't recall who, but it wasn't Wolfe---once\ncommented that storytelling isn't about providing information, not even\nin a strategic sequence. (I forget how it was put, so I'm paraphrasing.)\nIt's actually about withholding information. Or, if you will, releasing\nit only in a carefully controlled manner.\n\nOr, in any discussion of Wolfe, not releasing it at all. (Or as Lee\nsays, releasing it and then denying it. See also \"leaking.\")" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There is a reason why people qualify 'narrator' with 'unreliable'.\n\nThen of course all narrative in unreliable (I think \nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Exactitude_in_Science was mentioned here \nrecently)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I understand that you think the Hiero makers are our homologues, but\nthere's no real reason to think that." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Obviously there are. Whether they please you or not is a different matter." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's just one possibility Wolfe\ndoesn't really address. In fact, it's based on what I'd say is an\nexcellent example of a naive reading." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C6451E4.70509@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T19:56:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<974214.19629.qm@web84104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\n\"Obviously there are. Whether they please you or not is a different\nmatter.\"\n\nOK, but you haven't given any reasons, so I am neither pleased nor\ndispleased by them." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "We've been discussing the matter. Where were you?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<39103.93841.qm@web84108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-12T20:14:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C6451E4.70509@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Right here, giving reasons ...\n\nI agree that the homologue interpretation is valid. I don't see any confirming reason for it outside an analysis of Tzadkiel's remarks. All there is, is pushing the explanation farther and farther away: well, there's ANOTHER universe with ANOTHER race, and THEY created YESOD, and ...\n\nI think that the homologue interpretation is unlikely and the identity interpretation correct for the reasons I have given, and is supported according to the reasons I have given.\n\nImagine a ghost story that ends, \"The ghost was ... MYSELF!\"\n\nNow imagine one that ends, \"The ghost was ... some guy I never met! Over there ... somewhere.\"\n\nWhich one does Wolfe pick, over and over?\n\n--- On Thu, 8/12/10, Ant?nio Marques wrote:\n\nFrom: Ant?nio Marques \nSubject: Re: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 3:56 PM" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\n\"Obviously there are. Whether they please you or not is a different\nmatter.\"\n\nOK, but you haven't given any reasons, so I am neither pleased nor\ndispleased by them." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "We've been discussing the matter. Where were you?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C645979.3030403@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T20:28:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<39103.93841.qm@web84108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\nRight here, giving reasons ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which are no more real than their contraries." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I agree that the homologue interpretation is valid. I don't see any\nconfirming reason for it outside an analysis of Tzadkiel's remarks. All\nthere is, is pushing the explanation farther and farther away: well,\nthere's ANOTHER universe with ANOTHER race, and THEY created YESOD, and ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which actually is said in the text. Of course, the text may mean otherwise.\n\nYou and Lee seem interested in not having more than two universes, Briah \nand Yesod. Others see little sense in that idea.\n\nNor do I see where does youse 'Yesod is our universe' fit, unless it's a \nparallel interpretation." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think that the homologue interpretation is unlikely and the identity\ninterpretation correct for the reasons I have given, and is supported\naccording to the reasons I have given.\n\nImagine a ghost story that ends, \"The ghost was ... MYSELF!\"\n\nNow imagine one that ends, \"The ghost was ... some guy I never met! Over\nthere ... somewhere.\"\n\nWhich one does Wolfe pick, over and over?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This seems to me to fit into the 'I like this architecture better than \nothers so it is more likely' category. Certainly you're free to think \nthat way, but you'll have to accept it doesn't necessarily constitute \nevidence for anyone else. I, for one, am simply trying to make sense of \nthe text, not of what I think the text should or aspires to be. The fact \nthat many people don't find your reading convincing doesn't preclude it, \nbut indicates that it is neither universal nor obvious." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T20:33:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C645979.3030403@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Tony, crystal clear understanding of the speech of Hierogrammates is surely a skill\nto be admired.\nTony Ellis: Sanctimony, less so." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nTony, my comment was not sanctimony but meant purely as sarcasm though prompted by the \nperception of sanctimony and condescension on your part. Perhaps I misread you and you \nwere not talking down to me but actually trying to learn something from our \ncommunication. My apologies either way. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<921279.6662.qm@web84108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-12T20:35:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C645979.3030403@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have neither said nor asserted any of those things.\n\nPlease don't confuse my posts with Lee's. I like his approach sometimes, but we often reach opposite conclusions.\n\nDo you have any thoughts at all about why the Hieromakers were homologues rather than human beings, outside your interpretation of Tzadkiel's speech? \n\n--- On Thu, 8/12/10, Ant?nio Marques wrote:\n\nFrom: Ant?nio Marques \nSubject: Re: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 4:28 PM" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\nRight here, giving reasons ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which are no more real than their contraries." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I agree that the homologue interpretation is valid. I don't see any\nconfirming reason for it outside an analysis of Tzadkiel's remarks. All\nthere is, is pushing the explanation farther and farther away: well,\nthere's ANOTHER universe with ANOTHER race, and THEY created YESOD, and ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which actually is said in the text. Of course, the text may mean otherwise.\n\nYou and Lee seem interested in not having more than two universes, Briah and Yesod. Others see little sense in that idea.\n\nNor do I see where does youse 'Yesod is our universe' fit, unless it's a parallel interpretation." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think that the homologue interpretation is unlikely and the identity\ninterpretation correct for the reasons I have given, and is supported\naccording to the reasons I have given.\n\nImagine a ghost story that ends, \"The ghost was ... MYSELF!\"\n\nNow imagine one that ends, \"The ghost was ... some guy I never met! Over\nthere ... somewhere.\"\n\nWhich one does Wolfe pick, over and over?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This seems to me to fit into the 'I like this architecture better than others so it is more likely' category. Certainly you're free to think that way, but you'll have to accept it doesn't necessarily constitute evidence for anyone else. I, for one, am simply trying to make sense of the text, not of what I think the text should or aspires to be. The fact that many people don't find your reading convincing doesn't preclude it, but indicates that it is neither universal nor obvious." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T21:00:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<921279.6662.qm@web84108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio Marques: You and Lee seem interested in not having more than two universes, Briah and Yesod. \nOthers see little sense in that idea." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nOoh! have I communicated my ideas so poorly? My view is that there is an endless succession of universes.\nBriah happens to be between a nicer one, Yesod, and a meaner one, Abaddon (roughly corresponding to heaven\nand hell, respectively). Universes higher than Yesod or lower than Abaddon probably exist but they are too\nincomprehensible, to beings such as us, to even mention in the book.\n \nI think David Stockhoff might lean toward the more Kabbalic view, that Yesod is sort of an upper or side \nuniverse to the main sequence of universes. I'm not sure. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T21:55:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "David Stockhoff-" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I understand that you think the Hiero makers are our homologues, but there's no real\nreason to think that. It's just one possibility Wolfe doesn't really address. In fact, \nit's based on what I'd say is an excellent example of a naive reading." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Imagine a ghost story that ends, \"The ghost was ... MYSELF!\"\nNow imagine one that ends, \"The ghost was ... some guy I never met! Over there ... somewhere.\"\nWhich one does Wolfe pick, over and over?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "David, for me this nicely sums up what might be the best way to read and interpret Wolfe. Maybe \nI would change one thing, which is to take the onus off the naive reader and put it onto the \nauthor. Perhaps, given the thousands of years of history of Western literature, readers have the \nright to expect they can trust their authors (at least mostly)?\n \nThat's the flipside of naivete- trust. And I suspect that you, David, like me, don't trust Gene\nWolfe further than we can throw him. This is an important difference which creates different \ninterpretations. I detect that Gene wolfe (interviews answers to the contrary aside) has a real\nstreak of disdain for his readers. I actually think there is a conflict set up between reader and\nwriter and, unlike some authors, Gene wolfe really doesn't want us ever to fully win.\n \nI say disdain because we are treated like dogs. That's what people do with dogs and a ball. They\nsay, \"here's the ball, doggie\" then misdirect the poor creature, \"over here, no here, no, here\" and \nthe poor dog's nose gets distracted in the feinted new direction over and over again. Perhaps\nWolfe is trying to tell his readers to not get distracted like a dog. The bastard.\n \nPerhaps that's what happens when a really intelligent, well-read thoughtful guy spends half his\nlife in the army and a potato chip factory with obnoxious, know-it-all officers, engineers and \nadministrators? ;- ). Of course, naturally I wouldn't be here if I didn't love his writing the\nway it is.\n \nIn seriousness, I think if you read Wolfe trusting that the answers will be laid out for you\nin the text you will get one sort of interpretation. If you read with mistrust and on the lookout \nfor relentless misdirection, you will get another. Perhaps he is so brilliant he can consciously\nwrite for both sorts of readers, simultaneously. I don't know.\n \nI think Wolfe slips up once. There is an interview where he seems to inadvertantly blurt out \nthat yes, in VRT, Dr Marsch was killed and replaced by a Ste. Anne abo. (BTW, is there any hint that \nthe abos eat their duplicated victims? I remember Shadow Children having sharp teeth... It would fit\nnicely with Inhumi and other similar themes).\n \nAnyway, we are given hints that Dr. Marsch is replaced then given a dozen reasons to doubt it. If wolfe's\ninterview slip-up was on purpose then I appreciate it. One tiny bone of fairness, thrown to his readers.\n \nWith it, I think we can use David's ghost story principle to figure out the mysteries of many of Wolfe's \nother stories. The secret is identifying repetition. Not only within stories but across his work. The \nmystery of Shadow Children helps us understand the mystery of Inhumi. The mystery of Latro's world helps \nus understand the mythological subplots of BotNS. Etc. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T21:59:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nmy comment was not sanctimony but meant purely as sarcasm though prompted by the\nperception of sanctimony and condescension on your part. Perhaps I misread you and you\nwere not talking down to me but actually trying to learn something from our\ncommunication. My apologies either way." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My sentiments exactly." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C647FF5.7020104@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T23:12:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Tony, crystal clear understanding of the speech of Hierogrammates\nis surely a skill to be admired.\nTony Ellis: Sanctimony, less so." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Tony, my comment was not sanctimony but meant purely as sarcasm\nthough prompted by the perception of sanctimony and condescension on\nyour part. Perhaps I misread you and you were not talking down to me\nbut actually trying to learn something from our communication. My\napologies either way." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You probably do not intend it, but your assertions on how your \nhyoptheses have support do not sit well with many. It's not the \nhypotheses themselves, it's both your insistence that they have textual \nsupport - where most view at bestest a tiny possibility that they aren't \noutright excluded, i.e., they may be possible readings, but not \ncertainly the 'supported' ones - and your occasional dropping of wild \ninterpretations as if they were obvious and universally accepted. Then \nyou don't really like it when you're called on that. That's what comes \nacross - at best - as sanctimonius." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C6481E0.7030401@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T23:21:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<921279.6662.qm@web84108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\nI have neither said nor asserted any of those things.\n\nPlease don't confuse my posts with Lee's. I like his approach sometimes,\nbut we often reach opposite conclusions." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think I'm confusing you, but I was under the impression you \nagreed here. If not, what's your view of\n\n1) Who created the Hieorgrammates?\n2) What's the 'multiverse structure'?\n3) Is Urth Earth?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Do you have any thoughts at all about why the Hieromakers were\nhomologues rather than human beings, outside your interpretation of\nTzadkiel's speech?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Homologues to Severian's race. My guess is that if *we* work hard \nenough, we'll be them. Not a matter of multiple futures; the fact that \nwe may eventually be them doesn't change that we'll have to have all the \nhard work.\n\nAs I said, I don't think strong conlusions can be had from the text or \ninterviews. I have only the other considerations and as I see it the \ntext kind of agrees with them. Urth just looks like an alternate rather \nthan the real Earth." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--- On *Thu, 8/12/10, Ant?nio Marques //* wrote:\n\n\n From: Ant?nio Marques \n Subject: Re: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\n To: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \n Date: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 4:28 PM\n\n DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\n > Right here, giving reasons ...\n\n Which are no more real than their contraries.\n\n > I agree that the homologue interpretation is valid. I don't see any\n > confirming reason for it outside an analysis of Tzadkiel's\n remarks. All\n > there is, is pushing the explanation farther and farther away: well,\n > there's ANOTHER universe with ANOTHER race, and THEY created\n YESOD, and ...\n\n Which actually is said in the text. Of course, the text may mean\n otherwise.\n\n You and Lee seem interested in not having more than two universes,\n Briah and Yesod. Others see little sense in that idea.\n\n Nor do I see where does youse 'Yesod is our universe' fit, unless\n it's a parallel interpretation.\n\n > I think that the homologue interpretation is unlikely and the\n identity\n > interpretation correct for the reasons I have given, and is supported\n > according to the reasons I have given.\n >\n > Imagine a ghost story that ends, \"The ghost was ... MYSELF!\"\n >\n > Now imagine one that ends, \"The ghost was ... some guy I never\n met! Over\n > there ... somewhere.\"\n >\n > Which one does Wolfe pick, over and over?\n\n This seems to me to fit into the 'I like this architecture better\n than others so it is more likely' category. Certainly you're free to\n think that way, but you'll have to accept it doesn't necessarily\n constitute evidence for anyone else. I, for one, am simply trying to\n make sense of the text, not of what I think the text should or\n aspires to be. The fact that many people don't find your reading\n convincing doesn't preclude it, but indicates that it is neither\n universal nor obvious.\n _______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C648376.30702@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T23:27:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nI detect that Gene wolfe (interviews answers to the contrary aside)\nhas a real streak of disdain for his readers." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is where we part (none the least in what it implies\ninterpretation-wise). I think Wolfe is much greater than that (in the\nartistic sense, though obviously the ethical one as well)." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T23:35:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C6481E0.7030401@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Aug 12, 2010, at 7:21 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:\n1) Who created the Hierogrammates?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "- Humans from a universe that imploded." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "2) What's the 'multiverse structure'?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "- A passage (wormhole?) was created between Yesod and the universe that imploded, the one they were made in, the one they escaped from.\n\nAlso, the hierogrammates can look \"forward and backward\" into other universes, including Severians universe (Briah?)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "3) Is Urth Earth?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "- Maybe.\n\nDid I pass? Can I have a prize? Consolation or otherwise.\n\n...ryan" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C64856D.5040303@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-12T23:36:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not sure either.\n\nWe do know that Briah is between Yesod and Abaddon. But what we know of \nYesod is very strange, and we know nothing of Abaddon." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Antonio Marques: You and Lee seem interested in not having more than two universes, Briah and Yesod. \nOthers see little sense in that idea.\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " \nOoh! have I communicated my ideas so poorly? My view is that there is an endless succession of universes.\nBriah happens to be between a nicer one, Yesod, and a meaner one, Abaddon (roughly corresponding to heaven\nand hell, respectively). Universes higher than Yesod or lower than Abaddon probably exist but they are too\nincomprehensible, to beings such as us, to even mention in the book.\n \nI think David Stockhoff might lean toward the more Kabbalic view, that Yesod is sort of an upper or side \nuniverse to the main sequence of universes. I'm not sure. \t\t \t \t\t \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<2E38434F-1030-484A-943F-325545C8918B@liftingfaces.com>", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T23:42:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Strong emphasis on FORWARD AND BACKWARD regarding Yesods vantage in the multiverse. The word SUCCESSION is used in that chapter regarding universes.\n\nI envision the cabalistic model, personally. But it could be omnidirectional wormhole passageways to other universes too. Why not?\n\n...ryan" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Aug 12, 2010, at 7:35 PM, Ryan Dunn wrote:\nOn Aug 12, 2010, at 7:21 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "1) Who created the Hierogrammates?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "- Humans from a universe that imploded." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "2) What's the 'multiverse structure'?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "- A passage (wormhole?) was created between Yesod and the universe that imploded, the one they were made in, the one they escaped from.\n\nAlso, the hierogrammates can look \"forward and backward\" into other universes, including Severians universe (Briah?)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "3) Is Urth Earth?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "- Maybe.\n\nDid I pass? Can I have a prize? Consolation or otherwise.\n\n...ryan\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<0fe1ecdd727de30e457e530c623fe6d8.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T00:17:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<39103.93841.qm@web84108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Right here, giving reasons ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Imagine a ghost story that ends, \"The ghost was ... MYSELF!\"\n\nNow imagine one that ends, \"The ghost was ... some guy I never met! Over\nthere ... somewhere.\"\n\nWhich one does Wolfe pick, over and over?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Doesn't he usually work both in? Severian is the Conciliator, and Apu\nPunchau. But there's another Apu Punchau, and there were other Severians\nwho weren't either one. Marsch is an abo, but there was a real Marsch we\nnever met, and there then there's the Homeric Greeks and a German who\ndon't actually appear but are still pretty important." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C649013.9050405@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-13T00:21:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lee\n\nInterestingly enough, I both agree and disagree with the below. I don't \nthink Wolfe has disdain for his readers at all. I think he has strong \nideas that coalesce and recur in his work, and he tries to tell stories \nabout these things as simply as he can, with as much narrative skill as \nhe can. He believes the world is a deceptive, dangerous, complicated, \nand morally ambiguous place filled with good people, and it shows.\n\nI think he sees that too much information can kill a story, so he leaks \nit or puts it in the background. Sometimes this means stuff just doesn't \nget fully worked out, or a world is assumed to operate by laws we should \nalready know (like how Greek gods work, or how Faerie is immune to \ntime). Often, his stories are narrated in first person, which means that \nthe principle \"don't tell, show\" becomes even more important. His \nnarrators are smart for a reason, but even his dullards can tell true, \ninsightful stories that are effective because the stories are sound. The \nbackgrounds only make the story possible.\n\nBut I don't trust him either, because he's left me hanging too many times.\n\nAnyway, I certainly look for themes and parallel treatments, and for \nsimilar ways of handling similar situations. One of the first things I \nnoticed is that he repeats the phrase \"I nodded to show I understood,\" \nwhere a lesser writer would have written unnecessary dialog. Severian is \nnot the only character who says this." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nDavid Stockhoff-\n\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I understand that you think the Hiero makers are our homologues, but there's no real\nreason to think that. It's just one possibility Wolfe doesn't really address. In fact, \nit's based on what I'd say is an excellent example of a naive reading.\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--\n \n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Imagine a ghost story that ends, \"The ghost was ... MYSELF!\"\nNow imagine one that ends, \"The ghost was ... some guy I never met! Over there ... somewhere.\"\nWhich one does Wolfe pick, over and over?\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David, for me this nicely sums up what might be the best way to read and interpret Wolfe. Maybe \nI would change one thing, which is to take the onus off the naive reader and put it onto the \nauthor. Perhaps, given the thousands of years of history of Western literature, readers have the \nright to expect they can trust their authors (at least mostly)?\n \nThat's the flipside of naivete- trust. And I suspect that you, David, like me, don't trust Gene\nWolfe further than we can throw him. This is an important difference which creates different \ninterpretations. I detect that Gene wolfe (interviews answers to the contrary aside) has a real\nstreak of disdain for his readers. I actually think there is a conflict set up between reader and\nwriter and, unlike some authors, Gene wolfe really doesn't want us ever to fully win.\n \nI say disdain because we are treated like dogs. That's what people do with dogs and a ball. They\nsay, \"here's the ball, doggie\" then misdirect the poor creature, \"over here, no here, no, here\" and \nthe poor dog's nose gets distracted in the feinted new direction over and over again. Perhaps\nWolfe is trying to tell his readers to not get distracted like a dog. The bastard.\n \nPerhaps that's what happens when a really intelligent, well-read thoughtful guy spends half his\nlife in the army and a potato chip factory with obnoxious, know-it-all officers, engineers and \nadministrators? ;- ). Of course, naturally I wouldn't be here if I didn't love his writing the\nway it is.\n \nIn seriousness, I think if you read Wolfe trusting that the answers will be laid out for you\nin the text you will get one sort of interpretation. If you read with mistrust and on the lookout \nfor relentless misdirection, you will get another. Perhaps he is so brilliant he can consciously\nwrite for both sorts of readers, simultaneously. I don't know.\n \nI think Wolfe slips up once. There is an interview where he seems to inadvertantly blurt out \nthat yes, in VRT, Dr Marsch was killed and replaced by a Ste. Anne abo. (BTW, is there any hint that \nthe abos eat their duplicated victims? I remember Shadow Children having sharp teeth... It would fit\nnicely with Inhumi and other similar themes).\n \nAnyway, we are given hints that Dr. Marsch is replaced then given a dozen reasons to doubt it. If wolfe's\ninterview slip-up was on purpose then I appreciate it. One tiny bone of fairness, thrown to his readers.\n \nWith it, I think we can use David's ghost story principle to figure out the mysteries of many of Wolfe's \nother stories. The secret is identifying repetition. Not only within stories but across his work. The \nmystery of Shadow Children helps us understand the mystery of Inhumi. The mystery of Latro's world helps \nus understand the mythological subplots of BotNS. Etc. \t\t \t \t\t \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C64977E.5060302@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T00:53:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ryan Dunn wrote:\nOn Aug 12, 2010, at 7:21 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "1) Who created the Hierogrammates?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "- Humans from a universe that imploded." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "2) What's the 'multiverse structure'?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "- A passage (wormhole?) was created between Yesod and the universe that imploded, the one they were made in, the one they escaped from.\n\nAlso, the hierogrammates can look \"forward and backward\" into other universes, including Severians universe (Briah?)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "3) Is Urth Earth?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "- Maybe.\n\nDid I pass? Can I have a prize? Consolation or otherwise." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I was trying to know where *David* stood..." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C64996C.3030005@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T01:01:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<2E38434F-1030-484A-943F-325545C8918B@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ryan Dunn wrote:\nOn Aug 12, 2010, at 7:35 PM, Ryan Dunn\nwrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Aug 12, 2010, at 7:21 PM, Ant?nio Marques\nwrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "2) What's the 'multiverse structure'?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(I should have worded it 'How is the multiverse structured?'.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "- A passage (wormhole?) was created between Yesod and the universe\nthat imploded, the one they were made in, the one they escaped\nfrom.\n\nAlso, the hierogrammates can look \"forward and backward\" into other\nuniverses, including Severians universe (Briah?)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Strong emphasis on FORWARD AND BACKWARD regarding Yesods vantage in\nthe multiverse. The word SUCCESSION is used in that chapter regarding\nuniverses.\n\nI envision the cabalistic model, personally. But it could be\nomnidirectional wormhole passageways to other universes too. Why\nnot?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I find it likely.\n\nIf, as Lee thinks - this time I think I'll present it correctly - \nuniverses twice removed from Briah begin to be incomprehensible, then \nthere is little room for universes similar to Briah." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C64A781.4040003@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-13T02:01:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C6481E0.7030401@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ant?nio Marques wrote:\n\nI don't think I'm confusing you, but I was under the impression you \nagreed here. If not, what's your view of\n\n1) Who created the Hieorgrammates?\n2) What's the 'multiverse structure'?\n3) Is Urth Earth?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Do you have any thoughts at all about why the Hieromakers were\nhomologues rather than human beings, outside your interpretation of\nTzadkiel's speech?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Homologues to Severian's race. My guess is that if *we* work hard \nenough, we'll be them. Not a matter of multiple futures; the fact that \nwe may eventually be them doesn't change that we'll have to have all \nthe hard work.\n\nAs I said, I don't think strong conlusions can be had from the text or \ninterviews. I have only the other considerations and as I see it the \ntext kind of agrees with them. Urth just looks like an alternate \nrather than the real Earth." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "--- On *Thu, 8/12/10, Ant?nio Marques //* wrote:\n\n\n From: Ant?nio Marques \n Subject: Re: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod\n To: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \n Date: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 4:28 PM\n\n DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\n > Right here, giving reasons ...\n\n Which are no more real than their contraries.\n\n > I agree that the homologue interpretation is valid. I don't \nsee any\n > confirming reason for it outside an analysis of Tzadkiel's\n remarks. All\n > there is, is pushing the explanation farther and farther away: \nwell,\n > there's ANOTHER universe with ANOTHER race, and THEY created\n YESOD, and ...\n\n Which actually is said in the text. Of course, the text may mean\n otherwise.\n\n You and Lee seem interested in not having more than two universes,\n Briah and Yesod. Others see little sense in that idea.\n\n Nor do I see where does youse 'Yesod is our universe' fit, unless\n it's a parallel interpretation.\n\n > I think that the homologue interpretation is unlikely and the\n identity\n > interpretation correct for the reasons I have given, and is \nsupported\n > according to the reasons I have given.\n >\n > Imagine a ghost story that ends, \"The ghost was ... MYSELF!\"\n >\n > Now imagine one that ends, \"The ghost was ... some guy I never\n met! Over\n > there ... somewhere.\"\n >\n > Which one does Wolfe pick, over and over?\n\n This seems to me to fit into the 'I like this architecture better\n than others so it is more likely' category. Certainly you're free to\n think that way, but you'll have to accept it doesn't necessarily\n constitute evidence for anyone else. I, for one, am simply trying to\n make sense of the text, not of what I think the text should or\n aspires to be. The fact that many people don't find your reading\n convincing doesn't preclude it, but indicates that it is neither\n universal nor obvious.\n _______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C64A8FA.1030301@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-13T02:07:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<0fe1ecdd727de30e457e530c623fe6d8.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You're bending my example a little, but that's a very good point.\n\nI'm specifically suggesting (a) a dramatic conclusion and (b) \"new\" \ninformation. Obviously \"Apu Punchau!\" would be a very bad punchline to a \nghost story that doesn't mention or reference him until then.\n\nYour version would be more like \"The ghost was ... the man in black who \nwas my grandfather's brother and my grandmother's lover and the father \nof his son, who sailed to China, as told in Chapters 2, 4, and 7!\"\n\nHe does indeed do that ALL the time.\n\nOr something." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Jeff Wilson wrote:\nRight here, giving reasons ...\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " > Imagine a ghost story that ends, \"The ghost was ... MYSELF!\"\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Now imagine one that ends, \"The ghost was ... some guy I never met! Over\nthere ... somewhere.\"\n\nWhich one does Wolfe pick, over and over?\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Doesn't he usually work both in? Severian is the Conciliator, and Apu\nPunchau. But there's another Apu Punchau, and there were other Severians\nwho weren't either one. Marsch is an abo, but there was a real Marsch we\nnever met, and there then there's the Homeric Greeks and a German who\ndon't actually appear but are still pretty important.\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C64A953.2070806@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-13T02:09:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C64977E.5060302@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's all I know as well. I suspect the Hieromakers were in some \nconcrete sense \"us.\" The multiverse has at least 3 planes. Urth as Earth \nis problematic." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ant?nio Marques wrote:\nRyan Dunn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Aug 12, 2010, at 7:21 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "1) Who created the Hierogrammates?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "- Humans from a universe that imploded." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "2) What's the 'multiverse structure'?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "- A passage (wormhole?) was created between Yesod and the universe \nthat imploded, the one they were made in, the one they escaped from.\n\nAlso, the hierogrammates can look \"forward and backward\" into other \nuniverses, including Severians universe (Briah?)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "3) Is Urth Earth?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "- Maybe.\n\nDid I pass? Can I have a prize? Consolation or otherwise." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, I was trying to know where *David* stood...\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "davidd at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2010-08-13T02:58:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C64A781.4040003@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "_Lexicon Urthus_ is certainly not scripture, but Mantis has a nice diagram \nof how he thought the three universes are related. It does not include \nmultiple iterations of Briah, unfortunately.\n\nCheers, David Duffy." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T04:04:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio Marques: You probably do not intend it, but your assertions on how your \nhyoptheses have support do not sit well with many. It's not the \nhypotheses themselves, it's both your insistence that they have textual \nsupport - where most view at bestest a tiny possibility that they aren't \noutright excluded, i.e., they may be possible readings, but not \ncertainly the 'supported' ones - and your occasional dropping of wild \ninterpretations as if they were obvious and universally accepted. Then \nyou don't really like it when you're called on that. That's what comes \nacross - at best - as sanctimonius." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nAntonio I'm not sure what you are suggesting or asking of me. Are you saying\n my purpose here is to please the \"many\"? It isn't. I believe in the sanctity of \nthe one on one author-reader relationship. I seek to improve my *own* understanding \nof Wolfe books and I am doing that through discussion with others. If my words help\nsomeone else, as their words help me that is icing on the cake.\n \nI do not believe anything is \"universally accepted\" or.....(have to go back and check \nRoy C. Lackey's phrase)...\"accepted Lupine gospel\". What does that mean? That one should \ngive up one's own interpretation of the books simply to conform to the codified holy \nwritings of...whom? What? ..I don't know WHAT the heck that means. Was there a vote I \nwas unware of? How am I supposed to improve my personal interpretations if I am being \nasked to join a conformist community or calcified religion?\n \nIf you read my posts you will find I usually qualify my statements with \"I think\"\nor \"in my view\". This is not sanctimony. That is how I feel. My ideas are mine\nand do not serve the purpose of coercing someone else's ideas to be like mine.\n \nMust I stop saying \"I think..\" and start saying, \"this most humble and unworthy\nWolfe acolyte, meekly submits to the super-majority a worthless minority \ninterpretation which has no texual support and is surely wrong\"? I don't know what \nyou are suggesting.\n \nWell, doesn't matter. I think I am being polite and considerate in my posts. I apologize\nto those who feel otherwise. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<006d01cb3a9f$82b37080$51cf4a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-08-13T04:25:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "When Severian was being returned to Urth from Yesod, the Ship somehow took a\nshortcut. Only a day or so after the trial, the Ship was just outside the\nOld Sun's system, somewhere \"outside the circle of Dis.\" (XXVI, 186) Gunnie\nsaid:\n\n------------------\n\"You know what I mean. When I came on board with\nyou, I thought we had a long voyage ahead of us. But why\nshould they--Apheta and Zak--have done that? The\nship's leaving eternity now, slowing down so the tender can\nfind her. Until she slows down, she isn't really a ship at all,\ndid you know? We're like a wave, or a shout going through\nthe universe.\" (ibid.)\n-------------------\n\nThe tender was waiting for them (187) and it took about another day for it\nto reach Urth. On the deck of the tender with Burdundofara, Sev complained\nto the tender captain about the rough ride to the surface:\n\n--------------------------\n I managed to say that our arrival on Yesod had not been\nso violent.\n He turned serious. \"You didn't have much potential to\nlose there, you see. You'd used it up reaching the higher\nplane. We've come in without a rag to brake us, like we\nwere falling into the star. Stay away from the railing for a\nbit. The wind there will broil the skin right off your arm.\" (XXVII, 193)\n--------------------------\n\nThere it is again, as I said earlier, Yesod on a higher *plane*. And\nentropy. Not that this will make a damn bit of difference, but there it is.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T05:29:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<006d01cb3a9f$82b37080$51cf4a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy C. Lackey- There it is again, as I said earlier, Yesod on a higher *plane*. \nAnd entropy. Not that this will make a damn bit of difference, but there it is." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nRoy I have seen many who seem to agree with your view of Yesod as a universe above\nand separate from Briah and its sucessions. I don't disagree with it. I see it as\na valid interpretation of the text. Where we disagre is that you see yours as the\nonly possible valid interpretation of the text.\n \nI have an alternate interpretation which feels just as valid and works a bit better\nfor me in the overall connection of everything in the story. Some others seem to find\nvalidity in my view also.\n \nI've decided to co-opt a graphic of an alpha helix which roughly corresponds to how I\nsee the arrangement of the universes in BotNS. It is quite imperfect for the job as it \nwas created for some other purpose but perhaps it will be helpful.\n \nhttp://www.imb-jena.de/image_library/GENERAL/alpha_r_helix_1.gif\n \nSo, let's say that Briah is the lowest end of this helix. The first bend, marked with an\nHA represents the end of Briah/beginning of Yesod. The next,ascending section represents Yesod. \nThe HA spot is normally a barrier to travel because nothing can withstand the compression of the \nGrand Gnab, not to mention the subsequent Big Bang. \n \nBut if you go faster than the speed of light you can smash right through the barrier. Or if\nyou have a hyperspace like Brook Madregot or a wormhole shortcut, you can bypass the HA mess\nof destruction and creation and slide right from Briah to Yesod or vice-versa.\n \nI am hoping that this model shows that Yesod can be seen as on a higher plane from Briah\nbut also on a sequential line with it. \n \nIf I could draw a blue line which traces the shape of the helix/universes but just outside it,\nI think it would show why the Brook Madregot would flow downhill from Yesod to Briah and also \nallow Severian to travel through time within Briah. \n \nThis model also could depict the wormhole/shortcut Roy mentions (line segment 0, B1). I think it\nillustrates why Severian's ship would be moving with so much energy by taking this shortcut with \nsteep slope/sharp descent between coils of the helix. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<797A7C87D8B6489681100C9C8E32E667@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-08-13T10:51:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C645979.3030403@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Ant?nio Marques\" \nDAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I agree that the homologue interpretation is valid. I don't see any\nconfirming reason for it outside an analysis of Tzadkiel's remarks. All\nthere is, is pushing the explanation farther and farther away: well,\nthere's ANOTHER universe with ANOTHER race, and THEY created YESOD, and \n..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Which actually is said in the text. Of course, the text may mean \notherwise.\n\nYou and Lee seem interested in not having more than two universes, Briah \nand Yesod. Others see little sense in that idea." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I can accept that Wolfe was playing with the idea of multiple cycles, but at \nthe same time I think of this a possibility rather than the only true \nreading of the text.\n\nAlso, I wonder whether talk of more than one Briah is really meaningful. We \nhave alternate timelines such as that of Ash and the Green Man, which could \nbe said to refer to two Briahs splitting from one root. We have other time \nshenannigans. Yet nobody uses this to argue for multiple Briahs, although \nthe Briah of Ash is quite different from the Briah of the Green Man, at \nleast as far as Urth is concerned.\n\nOkay, we can hypothesise that each Briah is a bundle of related timelines \nthat don't connect much to the set of timelines bundled together as a \ndifferent Briah, except at the start and finish of each Briah. Maybe that \nmakes sense. But I'm not sure such detailed hypothethical cosmologies are a \ngreat jumping off point for further analysis. Even physicists are running \nout of useful detectable signals that can distinguish between different \ncosmological hypotheses these days. We should recognise that this is likely \nfor analysts of BotNS also!\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<2502DF56FEAA4DDC9EDA495782A1E837@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-08-13T11:03:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Lee Berman\" \nThat's the flipside of naivete- trust. And I suspect that you, David, like \nme, don't trust Gene\nWolfe further than we can throw him. This is an important difference which \ncreates different\ninterpretations. I detect that Gene wolfe (interviews answers to the \ncontrary aside) has a real\nstreak of disdain for his readers. I actually think there is a conflict \nset up between reader and\nwriter and, unlike some authors, Gene wolfe really doesn't want us ever to \nfully win.\n\nI say disdain because we are treated like dogs. That's what people do with \ndogs and a ball. They\nsay, \"here's the ball, doggie\" then misdirect the poor creature, \"over \nhere, no here, no, here\" and\nthe poor dog's nose gets distracted in the feinted new direction over and \nover again. Perhaps\nWolfe is trying to tell his readers to not get distracted like a dog. The \nbastard." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But that's what dogs LIKE!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think Wolfe slips up once. There is an interview where he seems to \ninadvertantly blurt out\nthat yes, in VRT, Dr Marsch was killed and replaced by a Ste. Anne abo. \n(BTW, is there any hint that\nthe abos eat their duplicated victims? I remember Shadow Children having \nsharp teeth... It would fit\nnicely with Inhumi and other similar themes).\n\nAnyway, we are given hints that Dr. Marsch is replaced then given a dozen \nreasons to doubt it. If wolfe's\ninterview slip-up was on purpose then I appreciate it. One tiny bone of \nfairness, thrown to his readers." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Or one tiny error, spoiling the carefully constructed ambiguity?\n\n(Although without Wolfe's remark, I myself would fall down anyway on the \nside that he was replaced, although he may well have died in an accident.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "With it, I think we can use David's ghost story principle to figure out \nthe mysteries of many of Wolfe's\nother stories. The secret is identifying repetition. Not only within \nstories but across his work. The\nmystery of Shadow Children helps us understand the mystery of Inhumi. The \nmystery of Latro's world helps\nus understand the mythological subplots of BotNS. Etc." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think that is true as regards identifying themes, but one should be wary \nof turning such correspondences into specific hypotheses about the \nunderlying 'facts' of a given fiction.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C654D8C.8070906@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T13:50:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lee Berman wrote (13-08-2010 05:04):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Antonio Marques: You probably do not intend it, but your assertions on how your\nhyoptheses have support do not sit well with many. It's not the\nhypotheses themselves, it's both your insistence that they have textual\nsupport - where most view at bestest a tiny possibility that they aren't\noutright excluded, i.e., they may be possible readings, but not\ncertainly the 'supported' ones - and your occasional dropping of wild\ninterpretations as if they were obvious and universally accepted. Then\nyou don't really like it when you're called on that. That's what comes\nacross - at best - as sanctimonius." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio I'm not sure what you are suggesting or asking of me." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nothing at all. I'm trying to explain to you why some of your contributions \nhaven't been well received by some. I was under the impression you were \npuzzled by that. I may have been mistaken.\n\nI'll make another effort anyway.\n\n1. The text says red.\n2. Your scheme requires yellow.\n3. The text can be reconciled with yellow, sometimes within reasonability, \nsometimes only with great pains.\n4. You then proceed to say the text convincingly says yellow.\n5. The text says blue.\n6. Your scheme requires green.\n7. The text can be reconciled with green if one goes to great lengths.\n8. Green would fit in with yellow.\n9. You then proceed to say the text convincingly says green, also because it \nalso convincingly says yellow.\n\n\nIt's merely 4 and 9 that grate people. In 4 you not only don't qualify your \ninterpretation with the deserved doubt, you pass it off as obvious. In 9, \nnot only you do the same, you adduce 4 as supportive.\n\nPeople take exception with the first, but the second really turns things on \ntheir heads. The likelihood of 4 plus 9 is a combination of the individual \nlikelihoods, so if 4 is a stretch, that makes 4+9 more of a stretch, not \nless of a stretch - yet you imply the opposite. That's perhaps the most \ncommon logic fallacy, and I think it should be avoided here.\n\nGenerally speaking, people like to hear new theories, not the least so wild \nones, because those tend to be interesting. Generally speaking, people don't \nlike to see them implicitly passed off as canon, because then anything goes \nand it all becomes boring. You apparently think you haven't done that, but I \nand others have gotten that impression, and it isn't a disclaimer here and \nthere that will change it. It's up to you to decide whether you want to go \non being misconstrued by some of us onboxious illiterates or not." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C655063.6080704@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T14:02:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C647FF5.7020104@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee to Tony - You probably do not intend it, but your assertions on \nhow your hyoptheses have support do not sit well with many. It's not \nthe hypotheses themselves, it's both your insistence that they have \ntextual support - where most view at bestest a tiny possibility that \nthey aren't outright excluded, i.e., they may be possible readings, \nbut not certainly the 'supported' ones - and your occasional dropping \nof wild interpretations as if they were obvious and universally \naccepted. Then you don't really like it when you're called on that. \nThat's what comes across - at best - as sanctimonius." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lee,\n\nAs someone who has faced IMO not-always-fair-play from objectors to his \nexegeses, this is just the way it is. Those most likely to give your \nmodels and explanations the most careful consideration are also those \nmost likely to *hate* your models and explanations at a visceral as well \nas rational level. Which comes first, the visceral or the rational? I \nthink I know when _I_ face these objectors, so there's that.\n\nHere's bottom line: If you propose a new explanation regarding the \n*facts* in a Wolfe story, the SOP is that the first people you will hear \nfrom are those that want to vomit at the very thought of it and have a \nlist as long as your arm why. You just have to take it. It's okay to \nshow when someone is just sniping from the bushes or not playing fair in \ntheir arguments. But to impugn their motives for making the arguments is \nnot helpful.\n\nIt is really unlikely that you will hear much from anyone who finds your \nexplanation appealing. Either they thought the same themselves already \nand have nothing to add, or they don't really know enough details to \nhelp. I think it is pretty plain that Patera Incus is female. But I've \nonly had one person remark on that assertion approving. And that, \noff-list and years after I explained it. I don't expect your mileage to \nvary much.\n\nFor the record, I _do_ find your Yesod theory to be viscerally \nappealing. I think the concept of \"The Conservation of Justice\" would be \nmore coherent under your model. I think the New Sun sub-creation would \nbe less airy-fairy if it were true. However, at a rational level, I just \ndon't see how --taking the text as a whole-- I can get there.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C656347.1070102@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-13T15:22:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<006d01cb3a9f$82b37080$51cf4a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Can \"plane\" be captain-speak for \"hyperspace\"? Or is \"eternity\" closer \nto that meaning?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nWhen Severian was being returned to Urth from Yesod, the Ship somehow took a\nshortcut. Only a day or so after the trial, the Ship was just outside the\nOld Sun's system, somewhere \"outside the circle of Dis.\" (XXVI, 186) Gunnie\nsaid:\n\n------------------\n\"You know what I mean. When I came on board with\nyou, I thought we had a long voyage ahead of us. But why\nshould they--Apheta and Zak--have done that? The\nship's leaving eternity now, slowing down so the tender can\nfind her. Until she slows down, she isn't really a ship at all,\ndid you know? We're like a wave, or a shout going through\nthe universe.\" (ibid.)\n-------------------\n\nThe tender was waiting for them (187) and it took about another day for it\nto reach Urth. On the deck of the tender with Burdundofara, Sev complained\nto the tender captain about the rough ride to the surface:\n\n--------------------------\n I managed to say that our arrival on Yesod had not been\nso violent.\n He turned serious. \"You didn't have much potential to\nlose there, you see. You'd used it up reaching the higher\nplane. We've come in without a rag to brake us, like we\nwere falling into the star. Stay away from the railing for a\nbit. The wind there will broil the skin right off your arm.\" (XXVII, 193)\n--------------------------\n\nThere it is again, as I said earlier, Yesod on a higher *plane*. And\nentropy. Not that this will make a damn bit of difference, but there it is.\n\n-Roy\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C656553.6060300@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-13T15:31:31+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<797A7C87D8B6489681100C9C8E32E667@jill>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's exactly what I have proposed: branching Briahs. From the back \nend, these will look like multiple Briahs, although branches do die." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\nFrom: \"Ant?nio Marques\" \nDAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I agree that the homologue interpretation is valid. I don't see any\nconfirming reason for it outside an analysis of Tzadkiel's remarks. All\nthere is, is pushing the explanation farther and farther away: well,\nthere's ANOTHER universe with ANOTHER race, and THEY created YESOD, \nand ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Which actually is said in the text. Of course, the text may mean \notherwise.\n\nYou and Lee seem interested in not having more than two universes, \nBriah and Yesod. Others see little sense in that idea." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I can accept that Wolfe was playing with the idea of multiple cycles, \nbut at the same time I think of this a possibility rather than the \nonly true reading of the text.\n\nAlso, I wonder whether talk of more than one Briah is really \nmeaningful. We have alternate timelines such as that of Ash and the \nGreen Man, which could be said to refer to two Briahs splitting from \none root. We have other time shenannigans. Yet nobody uses this to \nargue for multiple Briahs, although the Briah of Ash is quite \ndifferent from the Briah of the Green Man, at least as far as Urth is \nconcerned.\n\nOkay, we can hypothesise that each Briah is a bundle of related \ntimelines that don't connect much to the set of timelines bundled \ntogether as a different Briah, except at the start and finish of each \nBriah. Maybe that makes sense. But I'm not sure such detailed \nhypothethical cosmologies are a great jumping off point for further \nanalysis. Even physicists are running out of useful detectable \nsignals that can distinguish between different cosmological hypotheses \nthese days. We should recognise that this is likely for analysts of \nBotNS also!\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1BA23467-4415-468A-AD5C-6DAFBC6AC5B1@liftingfaces.com>", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T15:39:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C656553.6060300@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Aug 13, 2010, at 11:31 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nThat's exactly what I have proposed: branching Briahs. From the back end, these will look like multiple Briahs, although branches do die.\n\nGerry Quinn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: \"Ant?nio Marques\" \nDAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "I agree that the homologue interpretation is valid. I don't see any\nconfirming reason for it outside an analysis of Tzadkiel's remarks. All\nthere is, is pushing the explanation farther and farther away: well,\nthere's ANOTHER universe with ANOTHER race, and THEY created YESOD, and ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Which actually is said in the text. Of course, the text may mean otherwise.\n\nYou and Lee seem interested in not having more than two universes, Briah and Yesod. Others see little sense in that idea." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I can accept that Wolfe was playing with the idea of multiple cycles, but at the same time I think of this a possibility rather than the only true reading of the text.\n\nAlso, I wonder whether talk of more than one Briah is really meaningful. We have alternate timelines such as that of Ash and the Green Man, which could be said to refer to two Briahs splitting from one root. We have other time shenannigans. Yet nobody uses this to argue for multiple Briahs, although the Briah of Ash is quite different from the Briah of the Green Man, at least as far as Urth is concerned.\n\nOkay, we can hypothesise that each Briah is a bundle of related timelines that don't connect much to the set of timelines bundled together as a different Briah, except at the start and finish of each Briah. Maybe that makes sense. But I'm not sure such detailed hypothethical cosmologies are a great jumping off point for further analysis. Even physicists are running out of useful detectable signals that can distinguish between different cosmological hypotheses these days. We should recognise that this is likely for analysts of BotNS also!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, but there's such linearity between Pre-Briah imploding (Yesod looking forward and back, the flower cycle of divine years, the word \"succession\" being used, past tense for post-Briahan dealings, etc.) and a new universe, Briah, the one housing Urth. The Pre-Briah also had an \"Urthlike\" planet that was also emprical and the center of the universe for a time (empirically not cosmographically). I suspect that was Earth. It was the planet whose humans created the Hierogrammates, killing uncountable billions in the process, and it took the rest of that universe's life. I suppose there was an action which triggered the universe's collapse, and the completion of the Hierogrammates sounds as good as any. Did they destroy that universe and escape to Yesod?\n\nAnother question is, when Severian activates the White Fountain, is he imploding Briah, and birthing Post-Briah?\n\nIf so, I guess Urth becomes Rth or Yrth or something.\n\n:)\n\n...ryan" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T15:50:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<1BA23467-4415-468A-AD5C-6DAFBC6AC5B1@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee, As someone who has faced IMO not-always-fair-play from objectors to his \nexegeses, this is just the way it is. Those most likely to give your \nmodels and explanations the most careful consideration are also those \nmost likely to *hate* your models and explanations at a visceral as well \nas rational level." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nJames, I appreciate the expression of kindness and understanding it is truly\nappreciated. You know BotNS is surely my favorite work of mysterious art, but\nthere are other mysterious art pieces in a similar vein. And there are message \nboards devoted to them. I participate in a couple. I have found this sort of \nvenue to be very productive in achieving satisfying interpretations which a\nsingle mind, working alone, could not produce.\n \nNaturally there is niceness and meanness on all these message boards. I have\nfound that the nice approach with open-mindedness, respectful communication\nand fairness to new ideas is the most productive approach. Apologies if it \nsounds too hippie or New Age-ish but that's what has worked best for me.\n \nHowever, I've found that the mean approach can be manipulated to produce results\nalso. As you say, the first, and most vigorous to speak up on a mean board will \nhave the purpose of tearing down and rejecting new ideas and perhaps even making\npeople feel bad. But ignoring the intent and treating the attacks as inquiries of \ninterest in a new idea does get a dialog going.\n \nIn the end there is rarely an acknowledged winner and loser. How could such a\nthink be judged anyway? It doesn't matter. It is like the sham wars and conflicts\nthat I think Severian goes through. What matters is not victory or defeat but the\neffect of the conflict on the participants *and* observers. All can benefit and \ngrow from the experience if the desire is there to do so.\n \n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C6570CA.2040607@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T16:20:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<1BA23467-4415-468A-AD5C-6DAFBC6AC5B1@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ryan Dunn wrote (13-08-2010 16:39):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Another question is, when Severian activates the White Fountain, is he\nimploding Briah, and birthing Post-Briah?\n\nIf so, I guess Urth becomes Rth or Yrth or something." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "At certain points it isn't clear to me why Briah should be equated with \nUrth. We're told there's hoomins out there in other planets." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T16:26:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<1BA23467-4415-468A-AD5C-6DAFBC6AC5B1@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 8:39 AM, Ryan Dunn wrote:\nAnother question is, when Severian activates the White Fountain, is he\nimploding Briah, and birthing Post-Briah?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, he's just increasing the luminosity of an insignificant sun in an\nunfashionable arm of the Mylky Whey galaxy." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<28E1F648-78DF-47DC-8929-7D565C015AB1@liftingfaces.com>", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T16:32:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<4C6570CA.2040607@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Aug 13, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\nAnother question is, when Severian activates the White Fountain, is he\nimploding Briah, and birthing Post-Briah?\n\nIf so, I guess Urth becomes Rth or Yrth or something." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At certain points it isn't clear to me why Briah should be equated with Urth. We're told there's hoomins out there in other planets." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well Briah and Urth are connected, in the text. If what you mean is, Urth isn't the only place to hold hoomins in Briah, then okay, but the text implies Urth was the center, mecca, capital, empire of the Universe, in the Universe before Briah, the one that imploded, the one that the Hierogrammates were created in and escaped from.\n\nAnd coupling that with a twinning description of a divine year, when a Universe died and is reborn slightly more advanced, then I think you have to connote the hoomins who made the Hierogrammates with the hoomins who occupy Urth.\n\nIMO anyway.\n\n...ryan" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-08-14T11:09:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<1BA23467-4415-468A-AD5C-6DAFBC6AC5B1@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Ryan Dunn " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I suppose there was an action which triggered the universe's collapse, and the completion of the Hierogrammates sounds as good as any. Did they destroy that universe and escape to Yesod?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Another question is, when Severian activates the White Fountain, is he imploding Briah, and birthing Post-Briah?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I would understand the birth growth and collapse of a single universe as a natural cycle, not needing a trigger. It is just a standard FRW description of the uiniverse with density greater than critical, and no cosmological constant. Multiple sequential Briahs can be treated the same.\n\nThey got away before the collapse, but there's no reason they should have caused it.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C673B6D.1060505@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-15T00:57:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod", "in_reply_to": "<28E1F648-78DF-47DC-8929-7D565C015AB1@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ryan Dunn wrote:\n\nOn Aug 13, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Another question is, when Severian activates the White Fountain, is\nhe imploding Briah, and birthing Post-Briah?\n\nIf so, I guess Urth becomes Rth or Yrth or something." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "At certain points it isn't clear to me why Briah should be equated with\nUrth. We're told there's hoomins out there in other planets." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well Briah and Urth are connected, in the text. If what you mean is, Urth\nisn't the only place to hold hoomins in Briah, then okay, but the text\nimplies Urth was the center, mecca, capital, empire of the Universe, in\nthe Universe before Briah, the one that imploded, the one that the\nHierogrammates were created in and escaped from.\n\nAnd coupling that with a twinning description of a divine year, when a\nUniverse died and is reborn slightly more advanced, then I think you have\nto connote the hoomins who made the Hierogrammates with the hoomins who\noccupy Urth.\n\nIMO anyway." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think so too, but I don't know that I could defend it." } ] } ] }