Soul & Body
The Whorl list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 27 Feb 2001
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1242

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James Jordan — 27 Feb 2001, 14:54

> At 12:09 PM 2/27/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>  I think the most interesting question one can ask is whether or not Wolfe
> seriously considers the doctrine that at the true resurrection the body and
> the spirit are reunited in perfection.  In this orthodox understanding of the
> resurection, the body cannot be seen as an evil and flawed temporal 
> construct,
> but as a necessary component of perfection.  How should we consider
> disembodied "souls" like Horn or even (at times) Mucor?  Are they the total
> being? Is the soul enough? For a fascinating discussion of the relation
> between the "real" identity of a man and the parts of his body, Ultan's
> lecture to Severian at the beginning of Shadow is an ideal place to start.
> (can the smallest finger of a man contains his whole essence, etc).  At the
> end of The Urth of the New Sun, it is very clear that Severian's soul has 
> been
> hoisted from one body to another.  Is he the same Severian in essence without
> that body, or are they inextricably linked?  I think the same kinds of ideas
> are being thrown around when we consider "Horn" in Silk.
> Marc Aramini

         Good ramble. Definitely some of what Wolfe's playing with. As 
always, Ultan gives us a Borgesian perspective.
         I don't know that there is any real good way to "do" this kind of 
thing. Our doctrine says that the soul (person) is separated from the 
physical body at death, but rejoined to a new body (new atoms) in the 
resurrection. So, there is some reality to the soul as the seat of 
personhood. But, despite the many ways in which all branches of the Church 
keep lapsing into gnosticism, Biblical religion is very physical, sexual, 
culinary, festive, and bodily -- thus sacramental in the best sense. I.e., 
the sacraments are not a means of withdrawal from engagement with "social 
issues," but should push believers back into the world, transformed.
         Now, "What happens if one soul gets into another body?" Well, I 
don't think that ever happens, or even can, so there really is not going to 
be a way to describe the results that is very satisfactory. To put it 
another way, on Hindu presuppositions there is no problem; on Christian 
presuppositions there is a vast problem. Souls don't "merge," and the body 
is really an extension of the soul. Each soul has its own proper body, and 
none other.
         Thus, one could use as a literary artifice the "ghost in a 
machine" view, and just put Horn into Silk's body, with Silk himself gone. 
Initially I thought that was all that was going on.
         Or, you can roll a bunch of memories together and give them to a 
particular person, as happens to Casher O'Neill in Cordwainer Smith, and to 
Severian in his Memoirs. That can be done, as in Smith, as a way of saying 
that when a person receives Christ, he also receives all of the Church, all 
of "true humanity" also -- thus all the wisdom of Jesus and all the wisdom 
of humanity with Him.
         Or, you can dump memories into another person, and have those 
memories "come to life again" as a person, like Thecla and everybody else 
that comes into Severian (so that he becomes a kind of positive "Legion"). 
I guess something like that has happened to Horn in Silk. But, who are the 
"new Thecla" and the "new Horn"? Have the original Thelca and Horn gone on 
to their reward with the Outsider, so that we have new persons, with new 
destinies, now travelling inside of Severian and Silk? Or is it that old 
Horn and Thecla are not really yet dead and are continuing their lives 
inside Silk and Severian?
         Again, what is the "soul status" of a download, like Mainframe 
Pas, Kypris, or Silk? Are these separate persons? Are they real persons, 
who can change, who are images of God in some sense, and who will go to the 
Outsider in the end? Or are they just mechanical programmes? How does Wolfe 
treat them? Or does Wolfe keep them backstage precisely because there 
really is no answer to such questions within his own Christian framework? 
(Smith's answer seems to be that if robots and animals are raised to the 
point of being able to use language, they can interact with the Word of 
God, and thus are true persons. Is that how Wolfe views the "gods of 
mainframe"?)
         I guess my point is that to press into these questions may be 
pointless. Such combinations of persons work at a symbolic level, and can 
be dramatized in a SF narrative as a literary device. But this is 
literature, not philosophy.
         There is a good deal of such stuff in Cordwainer Smith, given 
Linebarger's interest in psychoanalysis, such as the question of what 
happens to a "person" if his entire memory is wiped (i.e., at the end of 
"The Dead Lady of Clown Town"). The Christian answer has to be that God 
preserves the person, in His own way, though we cannot see it. Somehow it 
is the same person, and a person is more than memory. But given that nobody 
really understands even this stuff in real life, I don't see how Wolfe can 
be very satisfactory if called upon to delineate the particulars of the 
kinds of things he's doing. It works best, I suggest, to leave it at the 
literary and symbolic level.

FWIW

Ptero-nutria (not a cradle Roman Catholic, but did go to RC grammar school 
in the '50s)


*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

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Dan'l Danehy-Oakes — 27 Feb 2001, 15:13
  follows, by subject match James Jordan

Whooee! The fur is flying. (Possibly the fur on Quetzal's 
stole?) And if anyone out there is about to protest this
turning into a Christian discussion group -- Start something
else equally interesting.

> The Rat in the Vat wrote:
> Our doctrine says that the soul (person) is separated
> from the physical body at death, but rejoined to a 
> new body (new atoms) in the resurrection. 

Stripped of the Platonic-Aristotelean terminology, that's
what Augustine was talking about too. (I *think* it was
Augustine!)

> But, despite the many ways in which all branches of
> the Church keep lapsing into gnosticism, Biblical
> religion is very physical, sexual, culinary, festive,
> and bodily -- thus sacramental in the best sense. 

Man, you and I have to have an offline talk about this
sometime. This has always seemed to me a very Catholic 
idea -- we call it "incarnationalism" -- and I'm really 
amazed to see it coming from a Reformed fellah.

> Now, "What happens if one soul gets into another body?" 

Before we can answer that we have to answer the question
"what is a soul, and is it different from spirit and from
memory and from personality, and if so, how?" At least in
Mr Wolfe's work 8*)

Questions, I think, much more interesting than any answers
I've ever seen for them...

> on Christian presuppositions there is a vast problem. Souls
> don't "merge," and the body is really an extension of the
> soul. Each soul has its own proper body, and none other.

H'mmm. I take it you don't believe in "demon possession," or
any other kind, then. Stated as fact, not praise or 
condemnation.

On the "merging" question, though, I don't know of any 
Christian doctrine, however splinter, that would fit that.

Okay: granted (as I hope we do) that Wolfe is writing 
from a Christian viewpoint, I think it's safe to say that 
whatever passes between people (and machines) in the various
mind-or-body-swapping games, it isn't the soul, except,
possibly, in Mucor's case. Yet manifestly the _personality_
transfers. So, what's up, Doc?

Good on ya bringing up Cordwainer Smith. I have to 
reread the Casher O'Neill stories, it's been years.

> ... who are the "new Thecla" and the "new Horn"? Have
> the original Thelca and Horn gone on to their reward
> with the Outsider, so that we have new persons, with
> new destinies, now travelling inside of Severian and
> Silk? Or is it that old Horn and Thecla are not really
> yet dead and are continuing their lives inside Silk
> and Severian?

Can't be the latter if souls don't merge, because Thecla/
Sev and Silkhorn do indeed seem to merge in some important
way. So the "Horn" in Silkhorn, the "Thecla" and "Autarchs"
in Severian-Plus, I think, can't be the people themselves
(again, with the maybe? exception of Thecla resurrected by
the Claw?). 

Or not? It's pretty durned confusing.

> Again, what is the "soul status" of a download, like
> Mainframe Pas, Kypris, or Silk? Are these separate
> persons? Are they real persons, who can change, who
> are images of God in some sense, and who will go to
> the Outsider in the end? Or are they just mechanical
> programmes? 

If the inhumi and the chems have "soulhood," then so, I
suppose, do the Mainframe residents.

There's a weirder issue about Mainframe, though -- remember
that the Vironese who ride the airship to Mainframe meet
their dead there. Is it possible that Wolfe is positing a
machine that can actually capture souls before they depart
the Whorl? If so, that's a hideous concept indeed.

(And I'm reminded also of the Babylon-5 concept of the
"Soul Hunters." Not the first time, nor I suppose shall it
be the last, that something in Mr Straczynski's reminded 
me of something in Mr Wolfe's and/or vice versa... 

On an almost totally offtopic note, I'm fascinated that
the muzzy mystic Roddenberry thought of religion as 
something humanity would "outgrow," while the coldly
atheistic Straczynski not only keeps religion important
to humans in his future, he posits objectively measurable
souls. There will be more about JMS later this post.)

> How does Wolfe treat them? Or does Wolfe keep them
> backstage precisely because there really is no answer
> to such questions within his own Christian framework? 

Again, the chems come in handy as a talking-point here. 
I feel reasonably certain that Mr Wolfe intends us to
view Marble and Hammerstone (the only chems we get to
know very well) as ensouled beings. Yet Hammerstone proves
to be highly reprogrammable.

We have to consider the chems, also, as the reductio ad
absurdum of the old claim that if we had a soul, we'd be
able to find it when we vivisected a living human, but
we don't, so we don't. The chems literally build their
offspring extrasomatically, and if there were a physical
location for a soul they'd know it...

(I think the answer, from the Christian viewpoint, is,
"if humans build something capable of hosting a soul,
God is capable of putting a soul into it, though it's
in His free choice whether to do so or not.")

> I guess my point is that to press into these questions may
> be pointless. Such combinations of persons work at a symbolic
> level, and can be dramatized in a SF narrative as a literary
> device. But this is literature, not philosophy.

Right, mostly: there's something kind of pathetic about the
litcrit mentality that whenever it sees a symbolic structure
has to find The Interpretation. Wolfe's writing, like any 
writing complex enough to be worth discussing, is polysemous
and doesn't have a Correct Symbolic Interpretation -- rather,
it's a rich stew of symbolic and metaphoric _stuff_, which can
be eaten many ways (but, I fear, tasted for the first time only
once -- in a state of expectant confusion). 

> There is a good deal of such stuff in Cordwainer Smith, given 
> Linebarger's interest in psychoanalysis, such as the question
> of what happens to a "person" if his entire memory is wiped 
> (i.e., at the end of "The Dead Lady of Clown Town"). 

... which is where Straczynski has to come back into the game
here. One can and I think should draw a close comparison between
"Dead Lady," Latro, and Brother Wossis in "A Walk Through
Gethsemane." (Patrat, if you haven't watched B5, you ***MUST***
watch at least that episode; your life will be better for it.)

> The Christian answer has to be that God preserves the
> person, in His own way, though we cannot see it. 

I don't like these "has to"s. The Christian answer can just
as easily be "God knows what it is that makes a person a 
person, and we don't." Does the total-amnesiac become a new
soul, is the old one "crossed over the river"? I don't know
and profoundly distrust anyone else's claim that they do, or
that they know how many souls an MPD patient has. What I do
know is that both of them have at least one and must be treated
with the full dignity due to a person -- as also must anything
else that _might_ have a soul. Meet an alien, meet a machine
that acts like it has a personality (I don't mean the simple
misreading of Turing's test, I mean really _acts_ like it), 
and you're in territory where the only justifiable course is
to treat it as a person. Otherwise you're in the same position
as the Reconstruction-era writer who claimed that persons of
African descent (he used the N word) didn't have souls...

--Dan'l


*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

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