The argument for Intractability

David Stockhoff · 29 Dec 2008, 23:34 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:34:33 -0500
Subject: (urth) The argument for Intractability
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There is that point in the story where Severian heals (I forget whom he heals, perhaps Declan) and he tells us very precisely what it is like to cram one's consciousness into a human mind when one is a god. I think it's in New Sun ...

I like the idea of a star as a body. At any rate, the body of Severian is indeed hardly divine, nor is his mind. That's the point. The god who inhabits him (Severian, not Severian's body) IS divine.

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Message: 10
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 11:55:03 -0600
From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) The argument for Intractability
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <49527777.5030309 at io.com>
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Son of Witz wrote:

> > flooding of Urth, he realizes that his consciousness is in the star, and
> > his body is a puppet. But what kind of stars have consciousness? That's
> > not a question that science can answer. I can think of one way that
> > resolves it while being true to the plot and to the symbology. His
> > Consciousness is wearing a star like it wears a fleshy body. We're then
> > left with his spirit/consciousness, which gets back to the sort of idea
> > I've been saying all along, that he is a Deity that incarnates in
> > various times as a Sun God.
>   

There's a problem in that deities by definition transcend the physical 
world, but Sev's first-person narrative remains largely linear and 
divided from that of "other Severians" from which he is separated in 
space and time, both Urthly and Yesodi time. A certain amount of this 
separation has to be in order for his mortal incarnations to be valid, 
but there's no enduring union of mortal and divine identities, just a 
few short flashes of insight of the former into the nature of the 
latter.  This doesn't make Severian a deity any more than a really good 
reception at Karaoke makes me Elvis, just someone who for a moment can 
experience a tiny piece of Elvishood.

-- Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com < http://www.io.com/~jwilson > 
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