{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5971", "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": 5971, "subject": "On dream travellers", "messages": 7, "voices": 4, "first": "2011-02-12T21:48:35+00:00", "last": "2011-02-14T22:03:14+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2011-02-12T21:48:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) On dream travellers", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n Afterward, Hide said he had no" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "knowledge of any such thing having happened to him (ibid). Was Hide really\nthere, or was he there only in spirit because his brother *willed* him to\nbe\nthere?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Maybe it was the dream-travel tech equivalent of an aquastor?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wondered that. I don't think it can be exactly the same, because\nSeverian spends much of his later life as an aquastor, and I'm fairly\nsure he digests. But Malrubius' remark that he is solid, despite being\njust a dance of particles, because every body is just a dance of\nparticles, is surely relevant to dream-travellers as well." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-02-13T02:18:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) On dream travellers", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Maybe it was the dream-travel tech equivalent of an aquastor?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Mason: I wondered that. I don't think it can be exactly the same, because\nSeverian spends much of his later life as an aquastor, and I'm fairly\nsure he digests. But Malrubius' remark that he is solid, despite being\njust a dance of particles, because every body is just a dance of\nparticles, is surely relevant to dream-travellers as well." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nYes, Barbatus explains that:\n \n\"What you call eidolons are not ghosts, but beings maintained in existence by\nsome external energy source. What you call matter is all, in actuality, merely\nbound energy. The only difference is that some is held in material form by its\nown energy.\n \nand\n \n\"...when you cam here, you had lived a long time...During all that time you breathed\nate, and drank matter that was not unstable, converting it to your body's use. Thus\nit became a substantial body\".\n \nSo, yes, eidolons can eat and digest. Severian digesting is actually essential to him \nbecoming \"real\".\n \nDream travellers may be able to produce deadly swords and viable sperm but they can't\neat and digest and become part of the world/time/universe they have travelled to. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-02-13T11:55:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) On dream travellers", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn: We know nothing about what \"powers\" an astral body. To do all it does and \nstill remain solid would require far more energy than a single physical body could\nprovide." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy C. Lackey: I don't know what that last sentence is supposed to mean, but solid bodies\ncannot walk through the Curtain wall as Silkhorn and Hoof did. Ghosts and\nspirits are reputed to be able to do that sort of thing." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn: I disagree. It is not possible that physical weapons would harm a pure\nspirit. The spirits in astral travel assume NEW bodies during that\nperiod that operate according alternate unexplained physical laws." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy C. Lackey: Rigoglio's spirit was sure as hell harmed. The spirit body is linked to the\nnatural body; why else were Rigoglio's hands still tied when he got to Urth?\nSome of the mercenaries from Soldo died and were buried on Green but were\nalive and mindless on Blue." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nThere seems to be a bit of talking past each other here. James seems to be saying that beings\nin dream travel take on a new form of existence, where some physical laws apply and others don't.\n \nRoy seems to be saying beings in dream travel are pure, unsubstantial ghosts or spirits because\nthey can walk through walls. But I don't see how he explains why such beings can be harmed by\nphysical weapons.\n \n(I still think the answer lies in folktales/mythology etc. How can a poltergeist throw things \naround if it has no physical existence? Same for other mythological-type beings- they must \nhave some physical presence in our world or we'd be unable to know anything about them. Yet\nthey don't follow the physical laws of our universe either. Perhaps a \"half in-half out\" \nsort of existence.) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2011-02-13T22:48:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) On dream travellers", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio Pedro Marquez wrote:\n\nI may be mistaken, but if not then Ares was more of a god of the fields, rather than war, before he got syncretised with Mars. (Or was it the reverse?)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think it was the reverse.\n\nInterestingly, Wolfe says in a interview somewhere that Ares was not\nreally a war god, but a soldier god. (In the same interview he says\nthat Aphrodite was not a love goddess but a sex goddess. This is\nstriking, because Kypris is a title of Aprhrodite, and the Whorl\ngoddess of that name definitely is a love goddess. One must suppose\nthat Typhon, not being too well up on mythology, said 'You can be a\nlove goddess', and she grew into the role.)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-02-14T18:02:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) On dream travellers", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn: A. Yes, but his meaning is not as simple as that, as is obvious in the \nfact that an astral body can bleed to death." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI am reminded of the BotNS story where one angel is bleeding to death and the other \nmuses that if he had known it possible he would have been more careful in the past." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "B. But I don't see any evidence that the dream-travelers /need/ \nsustenance from _any_ apparent source. As you say they don't eat." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nNot sure if you caught it earlier, but I think there is some relationship between this\nstuff and Barbatus' explanation that eidolons need to eat, breathe etc. to replace their \nunstable matter with stable, self-sustaining matter allowing it to become real." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In fact, I suspect that is the case for the Neighbors. I believe that \nthe corporeal bodies of the Neighbors are tree-like. Not that every tree \non Blue needs to be a Neighbor (although they might be in some sense). \nSo they can sleep and remain in dream-travel as long as their astral \nbodies lived (assuming their astral life-span is shorter than their \ncorporeal life span). If a Neighbor's astral body dies, his corporeal \nbody can continue to live...even reproduce. But he has lost his \nSentience, because the link to his soul has been lost.\nSeeing the Neighbors as a kind of Dryad further develops their nominal \nconnection to fairies." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI think you are on a roll here James. (though I wonder if Tolkein's Ents and their\nvaried stages of consciousness/tree-ness was an influence) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D599AE5.4000608@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-02-14T21:13:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) On dream travellers", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "B. But I don't see any evidence that the dream-travelers /need/\nsustenance from _any_ apparent source. As you say they don't eat." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee-\nNot sure if you caught it earlier, but I think there is some relationship between this\nstuff and Barbatus' explanation that eidolons need to eat, breathe etc. to replace their\nunstable matter with stable, self-sustaining matter allowing it to become real." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Another difference is that the eidolon becomes an independent branch of \nthe original. From that moment, there are two of the original. This is \nnot the case for the dream-traveler.\n\nIn IT terms, the astral body at first SEEMS to be a \"client\" of the \ncorporeal body (this is the relationship Roy seems to be driving at). \nWhen the soul \"returns\" to the corporeal, the astral body and any child \nprocesses it has created (weapons, people, etc) are destroyed. This is \nefficient since it would other cause a lot of useless corpses to be left \naround.\n\nIt is actually more complex than that, and somewhat to the contrary. The \nastral body is not supported by the corporeal form during dream-travel. \nIt is robust and self-sustaining (without the NEED to take food). During \ndream-travel it appears that actually the astral body temporarily \nbecomes the parent process and the corporeal form the child process (the \nunstable dependent process). I say this because:\n\n* If the corporeal body dies, the astral body can continue to run on its \nown without debility.\n\n* If the astral body dies, this is a catastrophic crash: You are left \nwith the astral corpse undestroyed (a \"zombie\" process) and the soul \ncannot \"reboot\" on the corporeal side. The soul on the astral side is \nclaimed by the Increate.\n\nWhen the soul moves to astral form, the \"system\" erases the version on \nthe corporeal. This prevents identity confusion when the soul is \nre-integrated. When the soul successful returns to corporeal, it is \nre-written to the corporeal form before destroying the astral. This is \nwhy killing the astral body is catastrophic but killing the corporeal \nbody is not.\n\nNot that Wolfe was likely thinking in these terms, but the model is, I \nthink, an accurate representation of the rules and limitations.\n\nAdditionally, I think the Rajan could afford to be non-chalant about \nbeing \"not really here\" during dream-travel because he could return at \nany time. This is not the case for anyone traveling with him. They could \nbe marooned at the will of the Rajan and they could not bug-out at the \nfirst hint of danger.\n\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "davidd at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2011-02-14T22:03:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) On dream travellers", "in_reply_to": "<4D599AE5.4000608@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, 14 Feb 2011, James Wynn wrote:\nIt is actually more complex than that, and somewhat to the contrary. The \nastral body is not supported by the corporeal form during dream-travel. It is \nrobust and self-sustaining (without the NEED to take food). During \ndream-travel it appears that actually the astral body temporarily becomes the \nparent process and the corporeal form the child process (the unstable \ndependent process). I say this because:\n\n* If the corporeal body dies, the astral body can continue to run on its own \nwithout debility.\n\n* If the astral body dies, this is a catastrophic crash: You are left with \nthe astral corpse undestroyed (a \"zombie\" process) and the soul cannot \n\"reboot\" on the corporeal side. The soul on the astral side is claimed by the \nIncreate.\n\nWhen the soul moves to astral form, the \"system\" erases the version on the \ncorporeal. This prevents identity confusion when the soul is re-integrated. \nWhen the soul successful returns to corporeal, it is re-written to the \ncorporeal form before destroying the astral. This is why killing the astral \nbody is catastrophic but killing the corporeal body is not." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think these sound similar to the properties of \"real\" astral travel, as \nper out of body experiences/Madame Blavatsky/Castenada eg\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astral_body\n\nThe soul travels away from the corporeal body in a subtle body, and can \nget stuck. The descriptions I have read also involve light weight \nthreading ;) [from subtle body to corporeal body]. Moving slightly off \ntopic, does anyone else like _The Star Rover_?\n\nCheers, David Duffy." } ] } ] }