Subject: (urth) The Key to the Universe

From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:37:47 +0000

>Jeff Wilson- 

>I think Yesod *can be* cyclic. If it is a morally neutral and normally 
>empty hyperspace that is given a spiritual character by the Hierarchy 
>that dwells there now, when they move on the pocket of Briah-formed 
>space around the machine-planet will dissipate or collapse, leaving a 
>void for the next Gnab-fleeing refugees to discover and create their own 
>Briah-formed pocket continuum to settle in.
>This would explain why there are said to be multiple created worlds 
>there, but we only see the one machine-planet with its envelope of air 
>and simulated sun - the old, streaky stars may be little pinprick 
>wormholes to other pocket continuums in Yesod, perhaps containing the 
>remains of judgment planets for Briah
 
Jeff, in a previous post I wondered if hyperspace could have suns and
planets. My understanding was that matter and energy don't really exist
there (hence the meadow and brook of Madregot are not real, just metaphors
to allow Severian to understand what he sees).
 
My conclusion was that Yesod cannot be hyperspace because it contains 
planets and suns and gravity, etc. You asked me for text citation of the 
Yesod planets and suns and I meant to get to that. But now it appears 
you have done this yourself. Happy I can scratch that off my to-do list!
:- )
 
I still like to view Yesod as being the next universe in succession to 
Briah and as our own universe. What actually is the difference between a
"simulated" sun and constructed planets and the "real" ones?
 
Using my model it means our Earth (and Jesus' Earth) was constructed by 
the hard-working holy angelic servants of The Increate that we see, not 
just by mindless physical forces. I feel this is in accord with Gene Wolfe's 
combined religious and scientific thinking and philosophy.

---

From: Ryan Dunn <ryan at liftingfaces.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 18:03:27 +0000

> you have done this yourself. Happy I can scratch that off my to-do list!

Was I the only one who, when first reading UotNS, thought that Yesod was simply a planet? He took off his necklace because he could breathe the air, etc.

...ryan

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:31:16 +0000

> you have done this yourself. Happy I can scratch that off my to-do list!

The problem is that my idea is that any planets or stars in Yesod are 
fakes, only constructs that simulate the appearance and useful features 
of the authentic ones in Briah, for the convenience of the Yesodis.

> "simulated" sun and constructed planets and the "real" ones?

For one thing, Apheta remarks that they have no tides on the 
machine-planet. She attributes this to their lack of a moon, but it 
implies that their sun also fails to make tides, preventing it from 
being a massive star.  It may even be that it's a luminous satellite 
circling the machine-planet, which is probably too large to rotate 
conventionally.

> combined religious and scientific thinking and philosophy.

In that case, why bother with mindless forces at all?

I don't have a problem with the universe ultimately being of intelligent 
design, but I feel that people saying the intelligence *had* to 
intervene over time instead of making the universe self-building is 
presumptious. I also find it more in character for a divinity who is 
supposed to have a personal relationship with every intelligent being to 
devote Their interventions to the people rather than the pile of rocks 
they live on.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >

---

From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:53:24 +0000

>Jeff Wilson: I don't have a problem with the universe ultimately being of 
>intelligent design, but I feel that people saying the intelligence *had* to 
 
That is a nice and very humanistic philosophy, I think. I have no disagrement.
But keep in mind I am not arguing for intelligent design, I am arguing that Gene 
Wolfe with his machine planet and (as you say) synthetic sun might be arguing
for intelligent design of the universe, including the rocks.

This "synthetic" sun idea might even enhance the idea. Makes me think of a
construction site where they use temporary lighting during building in 
imitation of the permanent lighting that will one day illuminate the structure.

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 21:49:18 +0000

> I don't have a problem with the universe ultimately being of 
> intelligent design, but I feel that people saying the intelligence 
> *had* to intervene over time instead of making the universe 
> self-building is presumptious. I also find it more in character for a 
> divinity who is supposed to have a personal relationship with every 
> intelligent being to devote Their interventions to the people rather 
> than the pile of rocks they live on.

As I understand the theory of Intelligent Design, it posits that some 
natural and biological phenomena/processes  are best understood and 
predicted if they are addressed with sciences such as engineering rather 
than natural selection. If I have understood it right, your perplexity 
is that you are applying metaphysical import to merely practical systems.

I mean, who knows what sort of things would interest an Intelligent 
Designer if such a person were located, and why would it matter? Even 
Richard Dawkins has accepted the concept of a personal Intelligent 
Designer as a non-problem so long as the designer were understood to be 
an alien race that developed according natural processes.

u+16b9
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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 22:40:03 +0000

> an alien race that developed according natural processes.

That's begging the question, in the original sense. Somehow intelligence 
had arise for the first time in the universe, unless you have a steady 
state universe where intelligence has always existed. There is very 
strong support for the Big Bang, so the steady state model is not 
convincing locally.

There are some nested -inflationary schemes like Andrei Linde's (and 
also the Qabbala) where both can be true, as tiny bits of universe 
undergo local expansion into their own universe-scaled envelope, joined 
by a tiny bottleneck to the original, but the inflated scale and the 
bottleneck prevent meaningful access after the moment of sub-creation.

This still allows Wolfe to use a similar model in the BOTNS, since he 
has license to fudge the bottleneck into a black hole/white hole-sized 
opening, just like he fudges FTL and antigravity, giants and giant robots.

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 23:26:41 +0000

> On 8/13/2010 4:49 PM,  wrote:
>> James Wynn - I mean, who knows what sort of things would interest an 
>> Intelligent Designer if such a person were located, and why would it 
>> matter? Even Richard Dawkins has accepted the concept of a personal 
>> Intelligent
> Jeff Wilson - That's begging the question, in the original sense. 
> Somehow intelligence had arise for the first time in the universe, 
> unless you have a steady state universe where intelligence has always 
> existed. There is very strong support for the Big Bang, so the steady 
> state model is not convincing locally.

True. But, assuming one lived in an environment where all life was 
intelligently designed, questions about how an undefined intelligent 
life might have arisen naturally in an some unknown environment would be 
an entirely speculative question--beyond the realm of hard science. The 
principles of engineering would be the best path for understanding 
biology. Paleontology would be Architectural History.

u+16b9

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 00:57:21 +0000

On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 3:40 PM, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> wrote:

> That's begging the question, in the original sense. Somehow intelligence had
> arise for the first time in the universe, unless you have a steady state
> universe where intelligence has always existed. There is very strong support
> for the Big Bang, so the steady state model is not convincing locally.

Of course, theism begs the question in an isomoprhic way; it ignores
the question, "And where did God come from?"

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 02:23:35 +0000

On 8/13/2010 6:26 PM, James Wynn wrote:
> On 8/13/2010 5:40 PM,  wrote:

I don't think this is necessarily the case, unless you include the 
possibility of radically variant physical laws that would prevent any 
kind of emergent, self-organizing behavior; a universe without spiral 
galaxies or snowflakes.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 02:54:29 +0000

On 8/13/2010 7:57 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 3:40 PM, Jeff Wilson<jwilson at io.com>  wrote:
>

That's about the only thing I can objectively answer about God, for the 
Judeo-Christian value of "God"; He must come from outside the 
observable, knowable domain of existence. I mean that not as an 
abstraction, but in the sense of the literally unknowable, unguessable 
condiiton of being apart from the potentially comprehensible states of 
being, that are limited by their own nature not just our nature as 
mortal creatures.

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 17:00:56 +0000

>> James Wynn--assuming one lived in an environment where all life was
> Jeff Wilson--I don't think this is necessarily the case, unless you 
> include the possibility of radically variant physical laws that would 
> prevent any kind of emergent, self-organizing behavior; a universe 
> without spiral galaxies or snowflakes. 

Well, lets assume that life on a planet was intelligently 
designed...that it was an artifice. And lets assume that after that 
moment and for 3 billion years following, although the life changed 
superficially over time, no new life developed there on its own--that 
all the life found there was a descendant of the originally ID life 
(this part is actually applicable to our planet). It would be reasonable 
to presume that studying the ID life would tell us nothing about life 
(intelligent or otherwise) that occurred by purely natural means. In 
fact, the planet would tell us nothing about the environment necessary 
for life to occur naturally.

u+16b9

---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 21:01:14 +0000

> of the authentic ones in Briah, for the convenience of the Yesodis.

Fakes or not, they're matter an energy in a 'place' that should have neither 
unless they're 'travelling in hyperspace'. Though I guess you can say 
they're ships or animations on a ship's screen.

---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 21:16:20 +0000

> the question, "And where did God come from?"

It doesn't, because it posits something extraneous to the universe(s) and 
hence not accountable to observed processes such as space, time and 
causality. Or as it's usually put, 'not contigent'. Whereas 'scientism' 
makes a leap of methodological faith and says contigent things may 
ultimately need no justification. That's why the idea of infinite universes 
appeared: rather than overcome contingency by justification, one tries to 
overcome it by infinite supply.

---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 21:20:00 +0000

> being, that are limited by their own nature not just our nature as

I'd even venture that it isn't heretical to suggest that there may be other 
things beyond God. It's just that, from our vantage point, there's only God. 
God is our singularity. If one day we get closer to God, we may find out 
that God is only part of something bigger, but in *our* context, there is 
nothing but God.

---

From: Ryan Dunn <ryan at liftingfaces.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 21:54:40 +0000

On Aug 14, 2010, at 5:16 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:

> It doesn't, because it posits something extraneous to the universe(s) and hence not accountable to observed processes such as space, time and causality. Or as it's usually put, 'not contigent'. Whereas 'scientism' makes a leap of methodological faith and says contigent things may ultimately need no justification. That's why the idea of infinite universes appeared: rather than overcome contingency by justification, one tries to overcome it by infinite supply.

If you are Pantheist, then you believe the Universe is equivalent to God. If you are Panenthiest, you believe the Universe is connected to God, and that God is above the substantive Universe.

I find these trains of thought more appealing in terms of "religions" myself.

...ryan

---

From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 22:17:23 +0000

> they're ships or animations on a ship's screen.

As a point of interest, Apheta says the stars of Yesod aren't so much
fakes as haven't been built yet, and they can only be seen because
"time runs as we ask here, and we like their light." Chapter XX.

That throwaway line is another of the reasons I don't think that Yesod
can be an 'ordinary' Briahtic universe. For Apheta, Severian and
everyone to experience time flowing in one direction, while elsewhere
it's flowing in another... suggests there has to be something hyper
about this place.

---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:31:09 +0000

Jeff Wilson wrote:
>> Jeff Wilson wrote:
>>> The problem is that my idea is that any planets or stars in Yesod
>>> are fakes, only constructs that simulate the appearance and useful
>>> features of the authentic ones in Briah, for the convenience of the
>>> Yesodis.
>>
>> Fakes or not, they're matter an energy in a 'place' that should have
>> neither unless they're 'travelling in hyperspace'. Though I guess you
>> can say they're ships or animations on a ship's screen.
>
> There has to be energy in Yesod for energy to flow from there to Briah,
> as it is said (...)

Sure thing, I's not saying Yesod shouldn't have energy, I's saying 
'hyperspace' shouldn't. (And that *because* Yesod has it, Yesod doesn't look 
like hyperspace.) But I'm ready to stand corrected on anything regarding 
hyperspace.

I don't know, if anything sounds like hyperspace in the BNS to me, it's 
Madregot, not Yesod. Yesod to me sounds like something of a different order. 
A universe, but not a Briah-like one.

---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:35:57 +0000

Ryan Dunn wrote:
>>>> That's begging the question, in the original sense. Somehow
>>>> intelligence had arise for the first time in the universe, unless
>>>> you have a steady state universe where intelligence has always
>>>> existed. There is very strong support for the Big Bang, so the
>>>> steady state model is not convincing locally.
>>>
>> It doesn't, because it posits something extraneous to the universe(s)
>> and hence not accountable to observed processes such as space, time and
>> ultimately need no justification. That's why the idea of infinite
>> universes appeared: rather than overcome contingency by justification,
>> one tries to overcome it by infinite supply.
>
> If you are Pantheist, then you believe the Universe is equivalent to God.
> If you are Panenthiest, you believe the Universe is connected to God, and
> that God is above the substantive Universe.

And those are other ways out for scientism, albeit uncomfy ones.

> I find these trains of thought more appealing in terms of "religions"

I certainly agree they may be appealing, but personally I find them 
unfulfilling.

---

From: Ryan Dunn <ryan at liftingfaces.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:42:27 +0000

On Aug 14, 2010, at 8:35 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:

> I certainly agree they may be appealing, but personally I find them unfulfilling.

True, however, I was raised Catholic, and Pantheism has become my belief of choice. It handles the science as well as the "why do we dream" aspect of our life (as well as "what is life?") rather well for me.

...ryan

---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:49:00 +0000

Ryan Dunn wrote:
> True, however, I was raised Catholic, and Pantheism has become my belief
> of choice. It handles the science as well as the "why do we dream" aspect
> of our life (as well as "what is life?") rather well for me.

I can only feel happy for you that you're in good terms with that angle of 
life :)

(I gather it's 'on'. 'In' soudns better to me.)

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 03:45:22 +0000

>>>> intelligence had

Yes, a singularity is the kind of flaw in knowable existence I had in mind.

It's also worth mentioning that GW cops to lesser, pagan powers who may 
also be accommodated in this fashion.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 02:33:35 +0000

On 8/14/2010 7:31 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
> 'hyperspace' shouldn't. (And that *because* Yesod has it, Yesod doesn't
> look like hyperspace.) But I'm ready to stand corrected on anything
> regarding hyperspace.
>
> Madregot, not Yesod. Yesod to me sounds like something of a different
> order. A universe, but not a Briah-like one.

What's your source of authority on the character of hyperspace?

---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:51:43 +0000

> What's your source of authority on the character of hyperspace?

None, as I've said.

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:51:28 +0000

Is Apheta then speaking from within a singularity---before a 
star-building Big Bang? Does this explain the "yet unborn" remark?

This would require structure where I would have assumed there can be none.

Tony Ellis wrote:
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From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:11:50 +0000

David Stockhoff wrote:
> star-building Big Bang?

Apheta says that the Hierogrammates will "build" more worlds, and
stars for them if required. Note the order.  So I don't see any Big
Bang in Yesod's future.

Or indeed in its past, given the lack of stars. I think Yesod is very
much what it appears to be: a big, empty space.