Pike's ghost

António Marques · 29 Nov 2011, 00:20 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: entonio at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?QW50w7NuaW8gTWFycXVlcw==?=)
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:20:00 +0000
Subject: (urth) Pike's ghost
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David Stockhoff wrote:
> On 11/28/2011 6:56 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:
>> James Wynn wrote:
>>> On 11/28/2011 5:00 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:
>>>> - You (as many others) often like to assert "there's no reason to
>>>> believe X" when in fact it's merely that "though the odds are for X,
>>>> it may well be otherwise".
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, there are no odds-makers in literary criticism. Perhaps
>>> you mean "though THERE ARE REASONS for X, it may well be otherwise".
>>> Everybody thinks his theory is the most likely.
>>
>> This isn't about theories. This is about when something looks like a
>> duck and quacks like a duck. If you want it *not* to be a duck, you'll
>> have to say why you think it isn't a duck. It may perfectly well not
>> be a duck. However, if you don't even care to say why you want it not
>> to be a duck, please don't go around saying 'there's no reason to
>> believe it is a duck'. Because, if it looks like a duck and quacks
>> like a duck, the odds are it is a duck. Presuming it to be a duck is
>> agnostic. 'Agnostic' doesn't mean not taking a stance. It doesn't mean
>> bumping into furniture because that thing that looks like a piece of
>> furniture may or may not be a piece of furniture. Where is literary
>> criticism different? If we're told enlightenment came to Patera Silk
>> in the ball court, the odds are it was in the ball court. The odds are
>> not that it was in Maytera Mint's chambers. Nor are we to say that
>> there is no reason to think it was in the ball court.
>
> This is a simple case, of course. Others are not so simple. I agree, for
> example, that if we read "X is a clone of Y" then we can have a working
> hypothesis that maybe Y robbed the bank, not X who has been falsely
> accused. We have to consider that cloning may be read as identity.
>
> When we see signs that cloning might not produce identical twins---when
> characters have no trouble telling X and Y apart---we need to examine
> our assumptions. That's not the same as asserting that "there is no
> reason to believe" cloning = identity but I can see how they could be
> mistaken.

Correct.

>>>> - You (as probably others) seem to believe phenotypic plasticity can
>>>> lead to clones being very different from their originals. That is just
>>>> not the case in what regards higher animals, the more since the
>>>> environments aren't radically different, and specifically it won't
>>>> give you two persons with really different faces. Nor do I think that
>>>> could have been GW's intention.
>>>
>>> If Silk is a clone of Typhon, we are probably supposed to believe Silk
>>> looked a lot like Typhon when he was young. However, there it is nowhere
>>> asserted that either head of Pas looks just like Typhon...unless someone
>>> is going to argue that the original Echidna had snakes in her hair and
>>> Cilinia had squid arms.
>>
>> Whether Pas looks like Typhon is a completely different question. Here
>> I was addressing the issue of phenotypes/genotypes.
>
> Do you mean Pas's resemblance to Typhon is purely a matter of artistic,
> i.e., painterly, or for that matter political, license? If so, I agree,
> though the two questions are hardly unrelated.

I think so, yes, and yes, they're not unrelated.

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