(urth) AI souls

[Roy C. Lackey]

Dan'l wrote:
>It seems clear to me that Wolfe is suggesting that something
>like a soul happens at a certain level of complexity and
>especially of _communication_. The word he uses is "speech,"
>but I suspect that the word he is avoiding - and why should
>Wolfe not avoid key words and facts every bit as much as his
>own characters? - is "word," or rather "Word," _logos_.
>
>God speaks World into existence, and all the creatures in
>it; God then ensouls Man by "breathing" into his nostrils
>- but the Hebrew word translated as "breath" can as easily
>be translated "spirit" or "wind." And we speak with our
>breath.
>
>Speech is breath is spirit.

Just so. And Wolfe goes out of his way to make Apheta and her kind have no
tongues. In Chapter XIX, aptly named "Silence", Apheta says:
--------------------------------------------
"You have listened to my voice for a long
while now, Autarch. Listen to this world of Yesod instead
and tell me what you hear, other than my words, when I
speak to you. Listen! What do you hear?"
      I did not understand. I said, "Nothing. But you are a
human woman."
      "You hear nothing because we speak with silence, even
as you with sound. Whatever noises we find we shape,
canceling those which are unneeded, voicing our thoughts
in the remainder. That is why I led you here, where the
waves murmur always; and why we have so many fountains,
and trees to stir their leaves in the wind from our sea."
--------------------------------------------

Then she shows Sev that she has no tongue. What is Wolfe trying to say? Sev
then beds her, and from that bizarre union the New Sun is born, which is
himself. I'm so theologically confused!

-Roy