{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5704", "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": 5704, "subject": "Limited Good Choices", "messages": 15, "voices": 8, "first": "2010-08-12T20:00:10+00:00", "last": "2010-08-14T00:28:08+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<918645.38649.qm@web37901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Nicholas", "address": "nickjost at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T20:00:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thats some remarkably bad theology. The common Christian view is that good is infinite and sin merely a coruption. In such a view as you accended more choice would be available. While I view Mr Wolfe as having strong gnostic and manichean tendancies I don't think he's wandered so far down the road that he views evil as liberating.\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T20:11:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "<918645.38649.qm@web37901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Thats some remarkably bad theology. The common Christian view is that good\nis infinite and sin merely a coruption. In such a view as you accended\nmore choice would be available. While I view Mr Wolfe as having strong\ngnostic and manichean tendancies I don't think he's wandered so far down\nthe road that he views evil as liberating." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Welcome to the Urth list!\n\nCould we have some context with your post?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T20:14:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "<918645.38649.qm@web37901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 1:00 PM, Nicholas wrote:\nThats some remarkably bad theology. The common Christian view is that good is infinite and sin merely a coruption. ?In such a view as you accended more choice would be available. While I view Mr Wolfe as having strong gnostic and manichean tendancies I don't think he's wandered so far down the road that he views evil as liberating." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Y'ummmmm, uhhhh, _what_ is remarkably bad theology? To whom or what\nwere you replying?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Paul B", "address": "pb.stuff at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T20:24:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This new-thread business is getting tiresome. I'm pretty sure the below was\nmeant to be a reply to Lee's post regarding his ideas about good and evil in\nBotNS.\n\nPaul" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 4:14 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nOn Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 1:00 PM, Nicholas wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Thats some remarkably bad theology. The common Christian view is that\ngood is infinite and sin merely a coruption. In such a view as you accended\nmore choice would be available. While I view Mr Wolfe as having strong\ngnostic and manichean tendancies I don't think he's wandered so far down the\nroad that he views evil as liberating." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Y'ummmmm, uhhhh, _what_ is remarkably bad theology? To whom or what\nwere you replying?\n\n--\nDan'l Danehy-Oakes\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<604169.78569.qm@web37907.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Nicholas Jost", "address": "nickjost at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T02:37:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One of my beefs with the list is not trimming sources. If you look in the \narchive there was the assumption in a post that as people moved \"up\" towards \nYesod that choices would be limited. Nothing in the text or Catholic theology \nsupports such silliness.\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T02:59:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "<604169.78569.qm@web37907.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Aug 12, 2010, at 10:37 PM, Nicholas Jost wrote:\nOne of my beefs with the list is not trimming sources. If you look in the archive there was the assumption in a post that as people moved \"up\" towards Yesod that choices would be limited. Nothing in the text or Catholic theology supports such silliness." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nicholas, would \"heaven\" count a place Catholics \"ascend\" to? If heaven is a metaphor here, after all Severian uses \"divine year\" as a universe rebirth, then how interesting that in BotNS, humans created the Gods in their own image, and those Gods (hierogrammates) ended up shaping a subsequent iteration of humans, in a reborn universe.\n\n...ryan" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T04:41:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nicholas Jost: If you look in the archive there was the assumption in a post that \nas people moved \"up\" towards Yesod that choices would be limited. Nothing in the \ntext or Catholic theology supports such silliness." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am guessing this was my post you are referring to. It is based on the idea that\nwe humans feel we have choices because of the limits to our perception of the future.\nWe can only guess what will happen if we do something, so we feel we have choices.\n \nIf we could see into the future we would be limited in our choices. We wouldn't \nwonder what we should do because we'd know what we are about to do. An omniscient\nbeing would have no choices whatsovever. He/She would know how everything in the \nuniverse(s) fits precisely with everything else at all time points and in all \nframes of refrence. Total knowledge=no choice. Can't use a branched universe\ndodge because God knows exactly where every branch leads to to its end-most twig.\n \nI apologize for going off topic a bit. It is my own general philosophical musings.\nAnd you are correct that my own general philosophies are not particularly guided\nby Wolfe text or the Catholic church.\n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C64CEE9.1090201@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T04:49:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "<604169.78569.qm@web37907.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/12/2010 9:37 PM, Nicholas Jost wrote:\n\nOne of my beefs with the list is not trimming sources." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Quote trimming good, quote elimination bad." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If you look in\nthe archive there was the assumption in a post that as people moved \"up\"\ntowards Yesod that choices would be limited. Nothing in the text or\nCatholic theology supports such silliness." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, there are many years of archives. Can you at least grant us a \ndate, if not an actual URL?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nIEEE Student Chapter Blog at\n< http://ieeetamut.org >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C64D135.4090507@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T04:59:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/12/2010 11:41 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Nicholas Jost: If you look in the archive there was the assumption in a post that\nas people moved \"up\" towards Yesod that choices would be limited. Nothing in the\ntext or Catholic theology supports such silliness." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I am guessing this was my post you are referring to. It is based on the idea that\nwe humans feel we have choices because of the limits to our perception of the future.\nWe can only guess what will happen if we do something, so we feel we have choices.\n\nIf we could see into the future we would be limited in our choices. We wouldn't\nwonder what we should do because we'd know what we are about to do. An omniscient\nbeing would have no choices whatsovever." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think this assertion has weak empirical and logical support. Humans \nmake poor choices even when they have reasonable knowledge of the \nconsequences, and there's no treatment of the idea that G-d may choose \nnot to foresee everything." }, { "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": "2010-08-13T06:17:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "<4C64D135.4090507@io.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson: I think this assertion has weak empirical and logical support. Humans \nmake poor choices even when they have reasonable knowledge of the \nconsequences, and there's no treatment of the idea that G-d may choose \nnot to foresee everything" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nJeff, I am not religious and I suspect we are thus too different in our thinking\nto even discuss this topic but I'll give it a shot.\n \nYou mention \"poor choices\" but the issue of morality or postive/negative consequences\nis far, far from the point I am trying to make. I am discussing the very capacity to\nmake a choice.\n \nLet's look at Original Sin. From Adam and Eve's point of view they had a choice on\nwhether to eat the forbidden fruit. They didn't know the future and they felt like doing\nit so they made a choice and they ate." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From God's point of view it is a different story. God made Adam and Eve. He gave them a\nsense of curiosity and a susceptibility to temptation. He put them in a garden with some\nvery interesting fruit and a serpent to tempt them. From God's perspective there was no\nchoice for Adam and Eve. God knew he'd given them enough curiosity and enough susceptiblity\nto temptation that they would have no choice but to eat." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nIn hindsight we can recognize God's Plan. I think we can be pretty sure that God did not intend\nus to spend eternity running around primitive and naked in Eden. God could not have erred so \nbadly in making us. He surely intended Adam and Eve to succumb and be kicked out of Eden and \nbecome fruitful and multiply become civiized and build a Babel tower and speak various languages\nand become thoughtful and scholarly and everything else we are today.\n \n(if you think I am being presumptuous and sacriligeous in deigning to try understanding the world\nfrom God's perspective, perhaps you are right. But I think BotNS does something of the same sort)\n \nI know this has strayed too far off topic and this will be the last I'll discuss it. But I do\nthink the general philosophy relates to BotNS and sort of explains why so many bad things have to\nhappen to Severian and Urth to allow the future to fulfill itself.\n \n \n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C6564F3.7040709@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-13T15:29:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "<4C64D135.4090507@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually, omniscience is an ancient philosophical problem. God doesn't \nhave the choice not to foresee everything. See Severinus Boethius' The \nConsolation of Philosophy." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 8/12/2010 11:41 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Nicholas Jost: If you look in the archive there was the assumption \nin a post that\nas people moved \"up\" towards Yesod that choices would be limited. \nNothing in the\ntext or Catholic theology supports such silliness." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I am guessing this was my post you are referring to. It is based on \nthe idea that\nwe humans feel we have choices because of the limits to our \nperception of the future.\nWe can only guess what will happen if we do something, so we feel we \nhave choices.\n\nIf we could see into the future we would be limited in our choices. \nWe wouldn't\nwonder what we should do because we'd know what we are about to do. \nAn omniscient\nbeing would have no choices whatsovever." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think this assertion has weak empirical and logical support. Humans \nmake poor choices even when they have reasonable knowledge of the \nconsequences, and there's no treatment of the idea that G-d may choose \nnot to foresee everything." } ] }, { "message_id": "<744075.51219.qm@web37904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Nicholas", "address": "nickjost at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T22:02:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "<4C6564F3.7040709@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You presume that perfect temporal choices are limited. There is no evidence for that (that is eating an apple or a pear can both be seen as Good at a given time). You also lose sight of the fact that a Christian God exists outside of time and that he can allow free choice since it happens \"instantaneously\" from his perspective..\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C65D3B5.9060301@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T23:22:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "<744075.51219.qm@web37904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/13/2010 5:02 PM, Nicholas wrote:\nYou presume that perfect temporal choices are limited." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Who presumes?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nIEEE Student Chapter Blog at\n< http://ieeetamut.org >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C65D537.8020907@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-13T23:28:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "<744075.51219.qm@web37904.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nicholas wrote - You presume that perfect temporal choices are limited. There is no evidence for that (that is eating an apple or a pear can both be seen as Good at a given time). You also lose sight of the fact that a Christian God exists outside of time and that he can allow free choice since it happens \"instantaneously\" from his perspective.." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nicholas,\n\nFriendly (albeit unrequested) advice. The best way to get people to \nrespond to you is to quote what they said and put your response after.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-14T00:28:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Limited Good Choices", "in_reply_to": "<4C65D537.8020907@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn- Friendly (albeit unrequested) advice. The best way to get people to \nrespond to you is to quote what they said and put your response after." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James please consider that perhaps Nick doesn't want to appear as though he is\nan experienced member of this board. If you catch my drift. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] } ] }