lupine intention

Jerry Friedman · 06 Jan 2011, 21:47 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman)
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2011 13:47:36 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) lupine intention
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W5442B80140C59258514C22CF090 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W5442B80140C59258514C22CF090 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <827770.57804.qm at web114705.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>

>>Jerry Friedman:Of course, this led me to the wrong conclusion (that there were 
>>never any abos
>>or Shadow Children), and when I learned I was wrong....

>Jerry, I've noted there was a significant cadre in your camp before the Wolfe 
>interview came
>to light. I assume it is WOlfe's words that made you decide you were "wrong". A 
>couple
>conjectures:

Quite right.

>What if Wolfe had never said that in the interview. Then your theory of no 
>abos/shadow children
>would be just as valid as the others floating around (one, some or all humans on 
>the planets have
>been replaced).
...

In first-person stories, a theory like that is hard to refute.  Any evidence 
against it might have been planted by V. R. T.  (Some will see this 
unfalsifiability as an argument against such theories.)  So yes, maybe I'd still 
believe it.

> But Wolfe did say those words. So, whether by accidental blurting or by 
>carefully plotted manipulation
> we have learned something: Wolfe does have a "right" answer in mind for at 
>least some of his puzzles.
> (actually he has said as much in other interviews though he also says many 
>answers are meant to be
> indeterminate).

> If it was by carefully plotting, I think he meant to tell us that on the 
>mysteries with an intended
> solution, the right conclusion is usually going to be the one which is the 
>creepiest, the most outrageous
> and fantastical. Sort of ("sort of.." I say) like an anti-Occam principle.
...

As I said before, even if we adopt your principle, I think that's a matter of 
taste.  What's creepier--that there are aliens on a planet who successfully 
imitate humans, or that there are only humans on a planet but some of them 
believe that the other people there are aliens, and we readers have been tricked 
into accepting insanity as reality?  Or that all the sentient beings on the 
planet are aliens fooling each other, or that there are humans there accepting 
aliens as humans?

Jerry Friedman

>Some attempt reductio ad absurdum on wild theories by implying that if such a 
>theory is considered possible
>then ANY theory must be considered possible because all theories are then 
>rendered equally crappy swill or
>whatever.

For my part, if someone suggested a theory that was so wild it seemed to have no 
validity at all, I'd either 

ask a few questions or decline to comment. This rarely happens. I see 
intelligence, lupine familiarity and 

thoughtfulness in virtually all theories which have been proposed in recent 
times. I wish everyone could see 

that.                           
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