{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/948",
    "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": 948,
    "subject": "Cues (not again!) and yaups",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-07-09T23:56:41+00:00",
    "last": "1998-07-09T23:56:41+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0016-0035@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "William H. Ansley",
        "address": "wansley at warwick.net"
      },
      "date": "1998-07-09T23:56:41+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Cues (not again!) and yaups",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I don't agree much with Robert Borski's potty theory about \"Cues\", except\nin one or two minor respects. I do think it is partly a potshot Gene Wolfe\nis taking at people who (over)analyze his work and come up with results he\ndoesn't like.\n\nI also agree that, whoever or whatever the not-so-young (really) man\nrepresents, Wolfe has it in for him in a big way. (I will venture to\nsuggest a term here which may be of modest use to Wolfe scholars. The nsyr\nman is a *yaup* - Yet Another Unnamed Protagonist.)\n\nFor one thing, Wolfe suggests the nsyr man is stupid. He knowledge about\ninfinity is implied to be parroting without any real comprehension. And he\naccepts the bowling ball's (rather silly) paradox about sensory cues\nwithout question when it seems to me that it is very easily refuted.\n\nFirst of all (if we restrict ourselves to the five usual senses and leave\nout ESP), no sensory cues of any kind but visual can possibly reach us from\noutside the earth's atmosphere. And we don't have the visual acuity to see\nthe stars as anything but points of light. So we are basically limited to\nthe sun, moon and stars, which most of the time we ignore except as light\nsources as far as sensory cues beyond the earth's atmosphere go.\n\n[This \"cues paradox\" (CP) reminds me of another, less trivial, paradox I\nhave come across somewhere. The paradox is: If the universe is infinite,\nwhy isn't the night sky a blaze of light? It follows the same structure as\nthe CP. If the universe is infinite, there are an infinite number of stars.\nIf there are an infinite number of stars, then if any fraction of their\nlight falls on the earth, the earth must receive an infinite amount of\nstarlight. I am not sure what the correct refutation of this paradox is\n(its answer was left open when I read about it). I imagine that it has to\ndo with the fact that the farther away a star is, the less of its light\nreaches the earth. An infinite series of diminishing values need not have\nan infinite sum.]\n\nI think it is generally agreed, however, that just within our local field\nof sight (hearing, smell, taste, touch) we are usually presented with a\npotentially overwhelming mass of sensory cues. If we couldn't sift through\nthese to pick out the important ones (in any given context), we couldn't\nfunction. (IIRC, certain forms of schizophrenia and autism have been\ntheorized to be caused by just this sort of inability to select the proper\nsensory cues out of the vast number confronting us.)\n\nSo the whole \"infinite universe\" part of the CP explanation is unnecessary.\nI propose it is a joke on the part of the bowling ball.\n\nWhile I agree with people who said (long ago) that this story seems to have\nsome aspects of a deal with the devil tale and alga, who said the setting\ncould easily be a sf convention, I think that primarily the story is a joke\nby Wolfe aimed at people who fail to see when he is joking in his writing.\nI think Wolfe has a very peculiar sense of humor and is joking more often\nhe is generally given credit for. In the introduction to _Castle of Days_\nWolfe is describing the stories contained in that collection:\n\n------------\nSeveral are humorous, and I have been told often enough that I have a sense\nof humor that makes strong men faint and women reach for weapons; I should\nhave known better than to include those, but now it is too late.\n------------\n\nAs far as the deal-with-the-devil aspect of \"Cues\" goes, the bowling ball\nsays, \"... and from that time forward we guarantee that where others see\nduty or ugliness or pathos or even beauty, you will see only humor.\"\n\nI think we would all hesitate to make such a deal and it even seems likely\nthat the nsyr man's humor must fail at some level or perhaps completely,\nwith these limitations. But then again, some people think _Ace Ventura:\nPrivate Eye_ is the highest pinnacle humor can reach.\n\nI also wonder if it would be so bad to be the nsyr man after the deal goes\nfully into effect. It might be like living in a P. G. Wodehouse novel. Of\ncourse you would have to be Bertie Wooster, or one of the even dimmer\ncharacters.\n\nFinally, I think there is an alien invasion aspect to \"Cues\" at the end. (I\nforget is anyone else suggested this.) The last thing said in the story (by\na bowling ball) is \"I beg [I am sure bed is a typo] your pardon. We give no\nquarter.\" Does anyone else remember a Clifford D. Simak novel about\nshapeshifting aliens who invade earth that look like bowling balls in their\n\"normal\" shape? I think it was _They Walk Like Men_, but I haven't been\nable to verify this.\n\nCongratulations if you made it through this whole posting.\n\nWilliam Ansley"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}