{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1416", "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": 1416, "subject": "Cosmoautic Ruminators", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2001-05-03T09:06:04+00:00", "last": "2001-05-03T09:06:04+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2001-05-03T09:06:04+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Cosmoautic Ruminators", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Sepia (excellent choice!) wrote:\nIt seems that I was being overly simplistic in my attempt\nto portray Blattid as nit-picking over semantics. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nah. I'll nit-pick over semantics at the drop of a hat." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm glad that I provoked him to present a valuable\nhermeneutic analysis. I might add another category: scenes\nwhich the editors present based upon their private\nconversations with the narrator (roughly half of _Return_). " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Fair enough -- though on the \"trustworth scale\" I was setting \nup, I think it would be more-or-less equivalent to #4, scenes\nin the Narr's ms which no member of the editorial staff would\nhave witnessed or have other \"access\" to the truth of. One can\nprobably fudge and say that (a) he might be more (or less) \nlikely to lie conceal when speakin to them than in writing a \nms. [most of] which he didn't expect to actually reach Nettle, \nand (b) their memory of his spoken words is less trustworthy \nthan his written words, but it's still not quite to the level\nof #5 (where the editors actually contradict the Narr).\n\nWe might also establish a category for places where the Narr\nactually contradicts himself, though I can't think offhand\nof an example." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I should preface my comments below by stressing that I don't\nreally disagree with Dan'l's conclusions." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Bless you, my son 8*)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Regarding Occam's razor and bilocation: (quoting Blattid)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "... the question is not \"why is he\nable to do this only under these circumstances,\" but \"why is he\nable to do it at all,\" and the circumstances under which he can\ndo it should then be regarded as clues rather thanr restrictions." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I agree with this method; it seems more parsimonious to argue\nthat the narrator has the same ability to bilocate as the Neighbors,\nand that the inhumi are prerequisite for both. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not clear on why one need assume the necessity of the inhumi for\nthe Neighbors -- as native lifeforms of this system, they may well\nhave common abilities and/or characteristics lacking in [even a \nNeighbor-transmigrated] human. That is: Bluvian and Greenish life\nprobably have much more in common with each other than does either\nwith Urthian life. (Though Wolfe does seem to make -- here and\nin most of his work [at least that part that includes alien life\nforms] -- the good ol'fashion' 1930's SF assumption that life \nwherever it appears throughout the Universe will be chemically \nso similar that aliens can dine on human flesh and/or blood and \nfind the meal tasty and nutritious.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Otherwise we have to find a new reason to explain why the\nNeighbors took inhumi along with them. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not at all clear no this. Do you mean \n1) why the Neighbors took inhumi along when they investigated \n the _Whorl_, or\n2) why the Neighbors took inhumi along when they \"left\"?\n\nIf the latter, I don't think they did (which implies that \nthey _don't_ need inhumi for their travelling, which in any \ncase they can apparently do while awake, and in far more control\nof where they're going than the Narr has achieved by the end of\nSHORT).\n\nIf the former, I recall the Neighbors dropping some cryptically \nLupine hints as to why they brought inhumi to the _Whorl_, but \nI couldn't repeat them offhand. (Perhaps I should withdraw from\nthis discussion until my copies of SHORT come back so I can cite\nthings...)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Of course, the Neighbors were able to transmit Horn's\nconsciousness into Silk's body with the aid of their ring, " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Implication: At least _some_ of the Neighbors' abilities are\nbased on _some_ kind of \"technology\" rather than \"harnessing\nthe power of the inhumi\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "... but the narrator's ability to bilocate afterwards only\nstrengthens my conviction that the inhumi act as 'amplifiers'\nfor abilities possessed and bestowed by the Neighbors.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I agree with \"bestowed,\" but see no textual cause or basis for \n\"possessed.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "... we're too \"young\" in exploring these books to be\nable to say that we've exhausted the simple explanations." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think it would be difficult to find any simple explanation\nthat fits the available evidence. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Simple\" is of course a relative term; in this case, I meant \nnot \"without complication\" but \"without complicating,\" i.e., \nwithout adding anything not directly spoken to by the text.\nPresuming that Mr Wolfe is in control of his material (which \nis necessary, or we can just bid hermeneutic farewell along \nwith oncaymeon), we know that \n\no he likes to set puzzles\no he doesn't repeat clues (he finds it insulting when other\n writers do)\no he likes to hide things in plain sight\n\n(the first and last from years of experience with Lupine texts;\nthe middle from interviews)\n\nSo _if_ there is a solution, and _if_ Wolfe intends for us to\nfind it, _then_ it will be deducible from statements present in \nthe text, though not easily. The classic example of Lupine \nhermeneutics is the argument for Number 5's real name in the \nfirst part of \"Fifth Head\"; if you don't know this one, check \nout John Clute's book STROKES (I think that's where it is)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Believing that the inhumi can only breed on Green " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "... which I should back off from. Rather, the inhumi _say_ they\ncan only breed there: and I suspect that they are at least as\nunreliable as the Narr. More likely they can breed only under\ncertain climatic conditions not present on Blue (higher temp?),\nbut which might in fact be present aboard the Whorl." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "implies that the Neigbors have to return to replenish their\n\"stock,\" or that they have found some other workaround. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "... or that they don't _need_ \"stock.\" I regard this as highly\nquestionable and await support from the text." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Maybe they didn't want to take inhumi along but ended up\ndoing so anyway; " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, when they \"left\" or to the _Whorl_? The latter, they say\nthey did deliberately.\n\n[...]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(next I quote blattid then myself; skirting both Heideggerian \ndiscussions of the difference between \"seems to be 'must'\" and \n\"might\" and Hegelian debate about \"appearance\" and the value of \nspeculation)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'll have you know that I've never read Hegel and only one thin\nvolume by Heidegger (though both have their place on my shelves\nawaiting time and sufficient willpower -- likely to happen sometime\nafter I manage Proust...).\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }