What symbols mean for Wolfe

Gerry Quinn · 26 Nov 2012, 17:43 · from 2012-November.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2012 17:43:43 -0000
Subject: (urth) What symbols mean for Wolfe
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From: Daniel Petersen

> Some passages struck me as flirting with some sort of determinism
> (even if compatibilist), but I can't recall where offhand.  Does anyone
> see any evidence of *libertarian* freewill in BotNS?  I think I agree with
> Bill's analysis of Severian's choices being central to shaping the 
> turnings
> of his story, which does look more like libertarian freewill than anything
> else to me.  If the more determinist notions do exist in the text as I
> recall, then I assume what we have is a wrestling between the two
> philosophies in the series rather than a clear espousal or embodiment
> of one over the other.

We have a universe containing time travel with a single 'preferred' history 
that becomes somehow 'realer' than alternate and still substantially evolved 
histories such as that of Master Ash, who faded away after saying that he 
suspected his universe had a lower probability.  [It is a similar model to 
that seen on Star Trek and many other series.]  Of course we cannot be 
certain that Ash was right; Severian still thought he could feel his 
presence after he faded.

Insofar as there is a preferred history as distinct from a pure multiverse 
with numerous equally valid histories, time travel necessarily involves some 
degree of determinism.  But one can argue that Wolfe avoids dwelling on 
this, and of course Christian theology has wrangled over the issue for two 
millennia without coming to agreement.

A universe with a preferred history has the advantage of being 
scientifically compatible with some kind of Judeo-Christian deity who can be 
seen as selecting the best of all possible histories at the end of time, 
along the lines of Teilhard's Omega Point.  I don't know whether Wolfe was 
thinking along those lines.  Dan Simmons explored similar concepts a decade 
later in the Hyperion series, though in the meantime Frank J. Tipler had 
written on the subject.

- Gerry Quinn

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