(urth) just in case anyone was wondering

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes danldo at gmail.com
Fri Dec 3 08:30:26 PST 2004


In something of a hurry but to reply to one part of Chris's and James's 
discussion - yes, only the Increate can make a soul or ensoul a being,
but this does not mean that an artifical being is necessarily soulless -
if we were to create a device capable of serving as the embodiment of
a soul, there is no particular reason to suppose that the Increate would
_not_ ensoul it. This is a bit of a slipperyslope argument that begins with
normal births and identical twins, moves to clones, from there to 
genetically manipulated embryos, and so on; there seems to be no
single particular line you can draw and say with certainty, "God will
grant _this_ a soul, but not _that_," where "this" and "that" are two
consecutive stages on the slope. (Well, I suppose an argument could 
be made for "the point at which there is no neurobiological component
at all.")

Hurriedly,

--Dan'l

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 02:42:21 +0000, Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Crush said:
> >At the time I took that to mean that Wolfe considered memory and identity
> >tobe something of the same thing. And there is a sense in which Wolfe seems
> >to be a Christian Rationalist and has reason to doubt whether Wolfe thinks
> >he *himself* will go to Heaven or whether his memories and personality will
> >be *uploaded* there or perhaps that he thinks the idea of a body and soul
> >being separated is inconcievable. I don't think he believes the latter two
> >and I'll tell you why:
> 
> Well, before going further I tend to think that attempts to look for Wolfe's
> personal beliefs on these particular subjects through the books are doomed
> to failure. The questions Wolfe is raising are difficult - many would say
> impossible - to answer rationally. (There is always faith, but faith can't
> be communicated). Wolfe knows this, and I think he understands that any
> attempt to actually *answer* them in his books would fatally flaw the text.
> I think that Wolfe's goal is not to answer these questions but to put them
> in front of you in a vivid way and force you to confront the inherent
> paradoxes.
> 
> If this is the case then I would expect him to be especially careful in
> laying out the problem so that it's not skewed by his own bias. He doesn't
> want the reader to just follow him along for the ride, so if anything I'd
> expect a bias *against* his own point of view in the text... but, that said,
> I haven't seen such a bias.
> 
> >1) Rose-as-Marble says that "now I'm one of those gold doo-dads on those
> >cards, but I'm still a person because I always was". This tells me that
> >Wolfe considers a soul to be transcendent over matter. Rose is a person in
> >Marble because she was a person originally.
> 
> But, going beyond the surface of the words, you're still left with a problem
> here - are the words the product of a soul/person perceiving its own nature,
> or are they the product of a program, a "simulation" of sorts? On the one
> hand you can compare it to Searle's "Chinese Room" (in which case language
> comes into play, peripherally, again) - as an outside observer you can't
> tell if the words you're seeing "mean" what they think they do, or whether
> they "mean" anything at all as opposed to being the product of a mere
> mechanical process.
> 
> On a more personal level looking at it from the assumed perspective of Rose,
> the "gold doo-dads on those cards" believe themselves to be a person - can
> they believe otherwise? - but the only answer available as to why is
> "because I always was". When it comes down to it do we have any better
> reason ourselves? You could just as easily argue that Wolfe is implying that
> there are no souls, either for Rose-in-Marble or for ourselves. I won't make
> that argument, because I don't think he was actually arguing for either
> point of view.
> 
> I also find the situation complicated, because personally I was never sure
> that Rose was really in there any more than I could be sure that Thecla was
> "really" in Severian. The two are actually pretty close to the same case.
> 
> >2) The Short Sun Narrator tells that story of a man who leaves a house and
> >compares it to the soul leaving a body. He says, "the body doesn't die
> >because the soul leaves. The soul leaves because the body dies and is no
> >longer useful to it." (paraphrasing)
> >Once again, this shows an opinion that the soul is trancendent to the body.
> 
> But whose opinion? Silk and Horn have opinions that are distinct from Wolfe,
> and we often learn that Wolfe's narrators aren't always right - nor are they
> mouthpieces for Wolfe's own opinion.
> 
> 
> 
> > >And does he think the chems, Maytera Marble, Hammerstone, or Counselor
> > >Loris, Lemur, etc are people (Even if the bodies of counsel have died)?
> >
> >For purposes of the story, I think it is clear they are. For how this can
> >be
> >considering all I just said, I have an explanation. I've said it here
> >before
> >but here goes:
> >
> >The reason the Ayuntamiento could so easily rig chems to receive their
> >personalities was because chems were designed to do just that. Chems were
> >downloaded with the scans of real live people. A single person could ensoul
> >any number of chems in this way. I believe that possibly all the female
> >chems were ensouled by Kypris and all the male chems were ensouled by
> >Pas/Typhon. But it is possible that there are other people behind those
> >faceplates. Considering what Rose-in-Marble says, that is the only way I
> >can
> >justify the chems being persons.
> >Granted not everyone (or anyone) agrees with me on this.
> 
> I agree with you that part of the original design of the chems *must* have
> been to accept the imprint of personalities. Possibly to give Pas & co. a
> set of convenient (and strong) receptacles at need. I am not sure about your
> conclusion, though - what about chem reproduction? This could be a serious
> theological problem from Wolfe's perspective. (Bonus question: is natural
> reproduction really any less of a theological problem, and if so or if not,
> what does this say about the nature of the soul?)
> 
> An interesting side thread to that entire issue is the theme which recurs
> repeatedly about imitation. Someone asks Silk what would happen if a demon
> tried to impersonate a god. A parallel question would then be, what if an AI
> tries to impersonate a soul? Does Silk's answer to that question hold up for
> either case?
> 
> > > Do the inhumi have souls or are they in the process of gaining souls?
> >
> >They have souls. And look here! Here's another example of souls being split
> >off from a donor.
> 
> There is something peculiar about inhumi souls, however. They seem to have
> only half of what they need, and the half they have is
> passive/impressionable/reactive, what some might call the "animal soul". The
> souls of the inhumi, and the Neighbors, present one of the biggest puzzles
> of the BotSS I think.
> 
> Chris (Civet)
> 
> 
> 
> 
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