{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1242", "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": 1242, "subject": "Soul & Body", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2001-02-27T14:54:00+00:00", "last": "2001-02-27T15:13:17+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at home.com" }, "date": "2001-02-27T14:54:00+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Soul & Body", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 12:09 PM 2/27/2001 -0700, you wrote:\n I think the most interesting question one can ask is whether or not Wolfe\nseriously considers the doctrine that at the true resurrection the body and\nthe spirit are reunited in perfection. In this orthodox understanding of the\nresurection, the body cannot be seen as an evil and flawed temporal \nconstruct,\nbut as a necessary component of perfection. How should we consider\ndisembodied \"souls\" like Horn or even (at times) Mucor? Are they the total\nbeing? Is the soul enough? For a fascinating discussion of the relation\nbetween the \"real\" identity of a man and the parts of his body, Ultan's\nlecture to Severian at the beginning of Shadow is an ideal place to start.\n(can the smallest finger of a man contains his whole essence, etc). At the\nend of The Urth of the New Sun, it is very clear that Severian's soul has \nbeen\nhoisted from one body to another. Is he the same Severian in essence without\nthat body, or are they inextricably linked? I think the same kinds of ideas\nare being thrown around when we consider \"Horn\" in Silk.\nMarc Aramini" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Good ramble. Definitely some of what Wolfe's playing with. As \nalways, Ultan gives us a Borgesian perspective.\n I don't know that there is any real good way to \"do\" this kind of \nthing. Our doctrine says that the soul (person) is separated from the \nphysical body at death, but rejoined to a new body (new atoms) in the \nresurrection. So, there is some reality to the soul as the seat of \npersonhood. But, despite the many ways in which all branches of the Church \nkeep lapsing into gnosticism, Biblical religion is very physical, sexual, \nculinary, festive, and bodily -- thus sacramental in the best sense. I.e., \nthe sacraments are not a means of withdrawal from engagement with \"social \nissues,\" but should push believers back into the world, transformed.\n Now, \"What happens if one soul gets into another body?\" Well, I \ndon't think that ever happens, or even can, so there really is not going to \nbe a way to describe the results that is very satisfactory. To put it \nanother way, on Hindu presuppositions there is no problem; on Christian \npresuppositions there is a vast problem. Souls don't \"merge,\" and the body \nis really an extension of the soul. Each soul has its own proper body, and \nnone other.\n Thus, one could use as a literary artifice the \"ghost in a \nmachine\" view, and just put Horn into Silk's body, with Silk himself gone. \nInitially I thought that was all that was going on.\n Or, you can roll a bunch of memories together and give them to a \nparticular person, as happens to Casher O'Neill in Cordwainer Smith, and to \nSeverian in his Memoirs. That can be done, as in Smith, as a way of saying \nthat when a person receives Christ, he also receives all of the Church, all \nof \"true humanity\" also -- thus all the wisdom of Jesus and all the wisdom \nof humanity with Him.\n Or, you can dump memories into another person, and have those \nmemories \"come to life again\" as a person, like Thecla and everybody else \nthat comes into Severian (so that he becomes a kind of positive \"Legion\"). \nI guess something like that has happened to Horn in Silk. But, who are the \n\"new Thecla\" and the \"new Horn\"? Have the original Thelca and Horn gone on \nto their reward with the Outsider, so that we have new persons, with new \ndestinies, now travelling inside of Severian and Silk? Or is it that old \nHorn and Thecla are not really yet dead and are continuing their lives \ninside Silk and Severian?\n Again, what is the \"soul status\" of a download, like Mainframe \nPas, Kypris, or Silk? Are these separate persons? Are they real persons, \nwho can change, who are images of God in some sense, and who will go to the \nOutsider in the end? Or are they just mechanical programmes? How does Wolfe \ntreat them? Or does Wolfe keep them backstage precisely because there \nreally is no answer to such questions within his own Christian framework? \n(Smith's answer seems to be that if robots and animals are raised to the \npoint of being able to use language, they can interact with the Word of \nGod, and thus are true persons. Is that how Wolfe views the \"gods of \nmainframe\"?)\n I guess my point is that to press into these questions may be \npointless. Such combinations of persons work at a symbolic level, and can \nbe dramatized in a SF narrative as a literary device. But this is \nliterature, not philosophy.\n There is a good deal of such stuff in Cordwainer Smith, given \nLinebarger's interest in psychoanalysis, such as the question of what \nhappens to a \"person\" if his entire memory is wiped (i.e., at the end of \n\"The Dead Lady of Clown Town\"). The Christian answer has to be that God \npreserves the person, in His own way, though we cannot see it. Somehow it \nis the same person, and a person is more than memory. But given that nobody \nreally understands even this stuff in real life, I don't see how Wolfe can \nbe very satisfactory if called upon to delineate the particulars of the \nkinds of things he's doing. It works best, I suggest, to leave it at the \nliterary and symbolic level.\n\nFWIW\n\nPtero-nutria (not a cradle Roman Catholic, but did go to RC grammar school \nin the '50s)\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2001-02-27T15:13:17+00:00", "subject": "RE: (whorl) Soul & Body", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Whooee! The fur is flying. (Possibly the fur on Quetzal's \nstole?) And if anyone out there is about to protest this\nturning into a Christian discussion group -- Start something\nelse equally interesting." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Rat in the Vat wrote:\nOur doctrine says that the soul (person) is separated\nfrom the physical body at death, but rejoined to a \nnew body (new atoms) in the resurrection. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Stripped of the Platonic-Aristotelean terminology, that's\nwhat Augustine was talking about too. (I *think* it was\nAugustine!)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But, despite the many ways in which all branches of\nthe Church keep lapsing into gnosticism, Biblical\nreligion is very physical, sexual, culinary, festive,\nand bodily -- thus sacramental in the best sense. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Man, you and I have to have an offline talk about this\nsometime. This has always seemed to me a very Catholic \nidea -- we call it \"incarnationalism\" -- and I'm really \namazed to see it coming from a Reformed fellah." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Now, \"What happens if one soul gets into another body?\" " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Before we can answer that we have to answer the question\n\"what is a soul, and is it different from spirit and from\nmemory and from personality, and if so, how?\" At least in\nMr Wolfe's work 8*)\n\nQuestions, I think, much more interesting than any answers\nI've ever seen for them..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on Christian presuppositions there is a vast problem. Souls\ndon't \"merge,\" and the body is really an extension of the\nsoul. Each soul has its own proper body, and none other." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmm. I take it you don't believe in \"demon possession,\" or\nany other kind, then. Stated as fact, not praise or \ncondemnation.\n\nOn the \"merging\" question, though, I don't know of any \nChristian doctrine, however splinter, that would fit that.\n\nOkay: granted (as I hope we do) that Wolfe is writing \nfrom a Christian viewpoint, I think it's safe to say that \nwhatever passes between people (and machines) in the various\nmind-or-body-swapping games, it isn't the soul, except,\npossibly, in Mucor's case. Yet manifestly the _personality_\ntransfers. So, what's up, Doc?\n\nGood on ya bringing up Cordwainer Smith. I have to \nreread the Casher O'Neill stories, it's been years." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "... who are the \"new Thecla\" and the \"new Horn\"? Have\nthe original Thelca and Horn gone on to their reward\nwith the Outsider, so that we have new persons, with\nnew destinies, now travelling inside of Severian and\nSilk? Or is it that old Horn and Thecla are not really\nyet dead and are continuing their lives inside Silk\nand Severian?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Can't be the latter if souls don't merge, because Thecla/\nSev and Silkhorn do indeed seem to merge in some important\nway. So the \"Horn\" in Silkhorn, the \"Thecla\" and \"Autarchs\"\nin Severian-Plus, I think, can't be the people themselves\n(again, with the maybe? exception of Thecla resurrected by\nthe Claw?). \n\nOr not? It's pretty durned confusing." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Again, what is the \"soul status\" of a download, like\nMainframe Pas, Kypris, or Silk? Are these separate\npersons? Are they real persons, who can change, who\nare images of God in some sense, and who will go to\nthe Outsider in the end? Or are they just mechanical\nprogrammes? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If the inhumi and the chems have \"soulhood,\" then so, I\nsuppose, do the Mainframe residents.\n\nThere's a weirder issue about Mainframe, though -- remember\nthat the Vironese who ride the airship to Mainframe meet\ntheir dead there. Is it possible that Wolfe is positing a\nmachine that can actually capture souls before they depart\nthe Whorl? If so, that's a hideous concept indeed.\n\n(And I'm reminded also of the Babylon-5 concept of the\n\"Soul Hunters.\" Not the first time, nor I suppose shall it\nbe the last, that something in Mr Straczynski's reminded \nme of something in Mr Wolfe's and/or vice versa... \n\nOn an almost totally offtopic note, I'm fascinated that\nthe muzzy mystic Roddenberry thought of religion as \nsomething humanity would \"outgrow,\" while the coldly\natheistic Straczynski not only keeps religion important\nto humans in his future, he posits objectively measurable\nsouls. There will be more about JMS later this post.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "How does Wolfe treat them? Or does Wolfe keep them\nbackstage precisely because there really is no answer\nto such questions within his own Christian framework? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, the chems come in handy as a talking-point here. \nI feel reasonably certain that Mr Wolfe intends us to\nview Marble and Hammerstone (the only chems we get to\nknow very well) as ensouled beings. Yet Hammerstone proves\nto be highly reprogrammable.\n\nWe have to consider the chems, also, as the reductio ad\nabsurdum of the old claim that if we had a soul, we'd be\nable to find it when we vivisected a living human, but\nwe don't, so we don't. The chems literally build their\noffspring extrasomatically, and if there were a physical\nlocation for a soul they'd know it...\n\n(I think the answer, from the Christian viewpoint, is,\n\"if humans build something capable of hosting a soul,\nGod is capable of putting a soul into it, though it's\nin His free choice whether to do so or not.\")" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I guess my point is that to press into these questions may\nbe pointless. Such combinations of persons work at a symbolic\nlevel, and can be dramatized in a SF narrative as a literary\ndevice. But this is literature, not philosophy." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Right, mostly: there's something kind of pathetic about the\nlitcrit mentality that whenever it sees a symbolic structure\nhas to find The Interpretation. Wolfe's writing, like any \nwriting complex enough to be worth discussing, is polysemous\nand doesn't have a Correct Symbolic Interpretation -- rather,\nit's a rich stew of symbolic and metaphoric _stuff_, which can\nbe eaten many ways (but, I fear, tasted for the first time only\nonce -- in a state of expectant confusion). " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There is a good deal of such stuff in Cordwainer Smith, given \nLinebarger's interest in psychoanalysis, such as the question\nof what happens to a \"person\" if his entire memory is wiped \n(i.e., at the end of \"The Dead Lady of Clown Town\"). " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "... which is where Straczynski has to come back into the game\nhere. One can and I think should draw a close comparison between\n\"Dead Lady,\" Latro, and Brother Wossis in \"A Walk Through\nGethsemane.\" (Patrat, if you haven't watched B5, you ***MUST***\nwatch at least that episode; your life will be better for it.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Christian answer has to be that God preserves the\nperson, in His own way, though we cannot see it. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't like these \"has to\"s. The Christian answer can just\nas easily be \"God knows what it is that makes a person a \nperson, and we don't.\" Does the total-amnesiac become a new\nsoul, is the old one \"crossed over the river\"? I don't know\nand profoundly distrust anyone else's claim that they do, or\nthat they know how many souls an MPD patient has. What I do\nknow is that both of them have at least one and must be treated\nwith the full dignity due to a person -- as also must anything\nelse that _might_ have a soul. Meet an alien, meet a machine\nthat acts like it has a personality (I don't mean the simple\nmisreading of Turing's test, I mean really _acts_ like it), \nand you're in territory where the only justifiable course is\nto treat it as a person. Otherwise you're in the same position\nas the Reconstruction-era writer who claimed that persons of\nAfrican descent (he used the N word) didn't have souls...\n\n--Dan'l\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }