{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/123",
    "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": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 123,
    "subject": "Mind stuff",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-02-24T15:30:36+00:00",
    "last": "1997-02-24T15:30:36+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0003-0175@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "CoxRathvon",
        "address": "coxrathvon at aol.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-02-24T15:30:36+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Mind stuff",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I continue to reflect on the various kinds of intelligence Wolfe has created\nin the Whorl.  Many of them are too elusive for firm definitions.  (How\ndefinable is our own intelligence?)  But here are some attempts at\ncategories:\n\n1. Human.  Example: Horn.  We can assume, I think, that the \"bio\"  Horn\nexperiences his world much as we do ours.  He's a schoolboy who idolizes his\nteacher, has adventures, falls in love, writes a book, toots his own horn a\nlittle, and cares for his family.\n\n2. Embryonically enhanced humans.  Examples: Mucor, Silk.  There's no reason\nto think that Silk's extra gifts are less remarkable than Mucor's.  Of course\nwe don't know he has these gifts until the story has progressed a bit.  My\nfirst inkling came when he dueled expertly with Xiphias without any prior\ntraining; but of course his tale-starting \"enlightenment\" might have been a\nmental gift burgeoning. I assume there are very few of these enhanced people\nin the Whorl, as the trove of frozen embryos seems to have been breached only\nin Tussah's time.\n\n3. God-enhanced humans.  Examples: Auk, Jerboa, Mint.  Who knows what effect\nit has on people when these computerized blasts from the \"gods\" get into\nthem?  The recipients are rewarded with gifts, but there may be weird\ndownsides to the experience.\n\n4. Animals.  Example: Oreb.  Although the Whorl seems to contain many of our\nfamiliar \"dumb beasts,\" it also contains a few oddly intelligent ones.  Oreb\nis much smarter than even Silk supposes.  He not only uses language but\ninvents it; lacking the vocabulary word for \"tent,\" he says to Silk something\nlike: \"Quick house.  House now!\"  And of course, he alone in the story sees\nQuetzal not in terms of the Prolocutor's words or deeds, but in terms of his\nessential self--a \"bad thing.\"  Which brings us to:\n\n5. Inhumi.  Example: Quetzal.  Their true nature?  Unknown.\n\n6. Chems.  Example: Hammerstone.  They seem to have an almost fully human set\nof thoughts and feelings, though they are variable and adjustable.  Do they\nlove and laugh as humans do?  What about less complex machines?   How\nsentient is a talus?  All of this is gray area to me.\n\n7. Electronic entities.  Examples: Kyrpis, the screen monitors.  These are\ntotally beyond my ken.  What are they?  \n\n   What else could we mention, folks?  Sleepers?  I think they are\nessentially normal humans who have had instructions (for technology,\nmanagement, etc.) programmed into their skulls.  I suppose I should have\nmentioned that if the gods can affect humans, then humans affect the gods\nwhen \"bits\" of their \"selves\" (this is slippery stuff) are exchanged.  But I\ndon't know what to make of such hybrids.\n\n   As you could say that \"The Fifth Head of Cerberus\" is in part a variation\nplayed on the theme of Self, then the Long Sun story is likewise a variation\nplayed on the theme of Mind.  Pardon the capitals.  I know I'm groping, but\none of the essential mysteries of the story is whether the Outsider is as\nreal as Silk believes, and whether, therefore, there is a divine purpose to\nall the human chaos and suffering.  If the Outsider is real, then the cosmos\nhas a divine Mind, an infinite intelligence we cannot fathom.  Silk and Horn\nconfront this  mystery of faith and existence just as we do.  In the end, I\nappreciate Wolfe's careful decision not to preach or even allegorize.  He\nleaves alternate explanations--plenty of them!  They baffle us, but that's...\nlife.  \n\n--Henry Rathvon\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}