The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned by Rudesind

brunians at brunians.org · 07 Jul 2010, 22:57 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: brunians at brunians.org (brunians at brunians.org)
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 18:57:21 -0400
Subject: (urth) The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned by
 Rudesind
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Or was that Master Bates?

I thought you got it.

Now I think you didn't get it.

The reader is the first author.

The writer is the second.

Does that make more sense?

Hardly anyone understands the proper use of capitalization unless they
know a bisseldeutsch.

.


> On 7/7/2010 5:02 PM, John Watkins wrote:
>>
>>     Same with Inire. His physical absence in conjunction with his
>>     omnipresence means "LOOK FOR SIGNS" to me, because that is in
>>     keeping with the literary style of Grandma Dorcas. In fact, it's
>>     PRECISELY the type of thing Wolfe is asking of us.
>>
>> I'm not sure that anyone has said that there's nothing to be found in
>> all the various clues about Inire.  The question is whether it makes
>> any sense to assume that every candidate for being Inire-in-disguise
>> is in fact Inire-in-disguise, and the dialogue has gone much like this:
>
> This is not really the course of the argument as I saw it. I can come up
> with an equally tendentious synopsis of the course of this argument from
> the other side. To a large extent (not in every case) the course of the
> argument has been people showing how smart they are by coming up with
> counter-evidence that is totally beside the point.
>
>> "X might be Inire.  They both look like monkeys!"
>> "Well, X doesn't act much like Inire."
>
> Well, that's not really surprising for someone in disguise.
>
>> "Why the monkey thing, then?"
>> "Well, X's backstory is inconsistent with X being Inire."
>> "The backstory's a lie."
>
> I'm not sure this was the general response. I think it was that Inire is
> a Time-traveller, like Severian. You might as well say that Severian's
> "backstory" was inconsistent with him being the Concilliator. This was
> true until Urth of the New Sun was published.
>
>> "Well, X's physical description is incompatible with Inire's."
>> "Inire is a shapeshifter and master of disguise."
>
> Actually, the only implied disguise that a merely human Inire could not
> pull off was the monkey. And I think Ryan was only half-serious (at
> best) about that.
>
>> "Well, that would require Inire to be in two places at once."
>
> Okay. I guess we're talking about Rudesind is Fechin? Here's where
> things get techy. It might be right. But it is cumbersome. Too many
> balls in the air at once. Which would make me despair of ever coming
> conclusively to a definitive answer. But there are a couple puzzles I've
> thought that at first and then *click*.
>
> But there are still those monkey arms. Just because one part of a theory
> goes awry, doesn't mean the whole thing collapses or it is not based on
> a firm foundation. Saying that it does mean that is just opportunism on
> the "con" side of the debate.
>
>> "Tzadkiel can do that, why not Inire?"
>> "Well, what does it add to the story to assume X is Inire?"
>> "Irrelevant."
>
> The problem is not that the assertion is irrelevant. It's the at the
> con-side has decided to stop arguing evidence and begun to argue
> metaphysics.
>
>> At some point in that conversation, the burden of proof was shifted to
>> the skeptic and the argument that X is Inire became non-falsifiable.
>
> There is very little that is falsifiable tBotNS. When I listen to a
> theory, I think: "Is this evidence real evidence? Or are the bits of
> text being offered supposed to mean something else?"  Almost always when
> someone is following a false lead (I've been there), it is because he
> thinks the subtext means something but Wolfe has intended something else
> entirely. But determining that requires looking at the text fresh. And
> that is something people who have read the books 3 or 4 times are
> usually not inclined to do.
>
>> If Inire is an immortal shapeshifting, time-travelling bilocating
>> liar, it's impossible to demonstrate to anyone's satisfaction that any
>> given character is not Inire.
>
> I think the theory limits it to people with hairy red arms and monkey
> fingers.
>
> u+16b9
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