Marble on NPR

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 20 Nov 2002, 22:52 · from urth-v0211.mbox · original

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From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Subject: RE: (urth) Marble on NPR
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 15:52:05 -0700
Message-ID: <urth-v0211-2209 at digest.urth.net>
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Crush wrote...

> The easiest and most coherent explanation of what happens=3D20
> with Marble and Rose is exactly as you describe, that some
> of the attributes/personality of Rose came over with her
> parts when Marble scavenged them.=3D20

Agreement: I understand/understood this* as based on the
holographic model of memory. In this model, we postulate=3D20
memories as stored not in a specific "location" but=3D20
distributed, like the information which constitutes a=3D20
hologram, throughout the host's neural net/nervous system.

-----
* I mean understanding in the scientific/scientifictional
  sense of "finding a rational/rationalizing explanation=3D20
  for"; with the Books of the Foo Sun, we also have to allow=3D20
  for at least the possibility of a "mystical" and/or=3D20
  "spiritual" explanation, too.
-----

Thus, with a bit of hokey-pokey and handwaving, we say=3D20
that Rose's "parts," connected for so long to her nervous
system, participate in the holographic storage of her memory.
When removed from her body and attached to Marble's, they=3D20
carry that holographic store of memory with them, like the
pieces of a cut-up hologram that still show the "whole"=3D20
picture (albeit with blurred detail: see also Samuel R.
Delany's stories "High Weir" and "Time Considered as a=3D20
Semi-Precious Stone").=3D20

I expect that, yes, Rorble/Mase does undergo a great deal of
confusion, leading to the comments you cite. Later, she makes
comments about how she had not fully "integrated" Rose's=3D20
memories.

The Morsle/Rabe case also sets up (though I do not think=3D20
it "foreshadows" in the sense that Wolfe probably did not
have the plot of SS in mind when he created this particular
situation) the confusing state of the Narrator of SS.

I can't help wondering, though, whether Wolfe intended a
sly tribute to William Gibson in this. After all, I think
it reasonable to refer to the memories that Marble receives
from her beneficiary as "Fragments of a Hologram Rose."

Scurrying _very_ quickly under the sink,

--Blattid

--=20

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