(urth) Severian I, Severian II, Severian III, Severian Ad Nauseum

Wed Dec 3 11:49:42 PST 2008

I'll explicate and clarify this later.  What we're really talking about with
Aristotle requires us to contrast universality of a given idea with Plato's
ideas about universality.  I'm just at work and can't write it out at the
moment.

Lane

On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 1:12 PM, John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Yes, "form" and "anima" mean the same thing here (although not always,
> because "anima" will sometimes mean "breath" or "soul" when "form"
> will not.)
>
> Basic Aristotelian metaphysics:  entity = form + matter.
>
> This is easiest to understand via artifacts.  A blacksmith imagines
> the form of a sword, then takes matter, steel, and forges it into the
> sword.  The "form," existing in the mind of the blacksmith, becomes
> instantiated in the matter of the steel.  But the substance, the thing
> itself, is neither the steel nor the picture in the head of the
> blacksmith, but their union in the sword.
>
> For a living thing, the form is the anima, the life-principle--for
> humans, you might call it the mind or the soul.  The matter is the
> body.  Severian and Apu-Punchau are the same "form" instantiated, or
> "written," in different matters.  Nevertheless they are distinct
> entities.
>
> On 12/3/08, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote:
> >
> > >-----Original Message-----
> > >From: John Watkins [mailto:john.watkins04 at gmail.com]
> > >Sent: Wednesday, December 3, 2008 10:42 AM
> > >To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
> > >Subject: Re: (urth) Severian I, Severian II, Severian III,     Severian
> Ad Nauseum
> > >
> > >On 12/3/08, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote:
> > >> from the perspective of the 4 books proper, there is only really one
> Severian body, though that is confused by the tomb.  This is why there is
> the explosion when he meets Apu Punchau.  The Two bodies can't be in the
> same time because they are one, ala Inire's law of mirrors (so to speak).
> > >>
> > >> Book V, as a Sequel, convolutes the hell out of that simplicity.  By
> most readings, we now have to modify Apu Punchau to be this Aquastor
> Tzadkiel made.  Now, if Tzadkiel made him a new body and discarded the old
> (which I've argued is not necessarily in the text) he does not really run
> the risk of self cancellation when he meets Apu Punchau in the stone town.
> Right?  If it's a new body, it's NOT subject to that time paradox, I don't
> think.  They're not two instances of the same body, unless I'm right that
> Tzadkiel just fixed his body and resurrected him into the same one.
> > >> (that argument here:
> http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2008-December/010873.html)
> > >> So, the self cancellation scene becomes dodgy in light of the sequel,
> unless we realize that what Tzadkiel did is NOT necessarily a new body
> separate from the Author of BoTNS.
> > >>
> > >
> > >I don't think the bodies are the problem with Apu Punchau.  It's the
> forms.
> > >
> > >The Hieros explain that at the end of Urth, I think, with the bit
> > >about writing the same lines too close together.
> > >
> > >There's a lot of this Aristotelian/Scholastic philosophy dusted about
> > >in the Sun books--think also of Severian's definition of
> > >larvae--"masked spirits."  Hardly what a modern who's taken a semester
> > >of biology thinks, but absolutely accurate in Aristotelian
> > >metaphysics.
> >
> >
> > The form is what the Heirodules call the Anima, no?
> > the example is of a verse. The Verse would be the Anima, the multiple
> writings in the dust would be the instances that cancel each other out.  The
> way they explain it is different than the Law of Mirrors cancellation, I
> think.
> >
> > Here's the relevant passage, which does account for why his Aquastor
> would leave a corpse where Malrubius's wouldn't.
> >
> > man this shit is really confusing.
> >
> >
> >
> > "One further question, illustrious Hierodules, before you return me to my
> own period. When I spoke with Master Malrubius beside the sea, he dissolved
> into a glittering dust. And yet " I could not say it, but my eyes sought out
> the corpse.
> > Barbatus nodded. "That eidolon, as you call them, had been in existence
> only briefly. I don't know what energies Tzadkiel called upon to support you
> on the ship; it may even be that you yourself drew the support you needed
> from whatever source was at hand, just as you took power from the ship when
> you tried to raise your steward. But even if it was a source you left behind
> when you came here, you had lived a long time before that, on the ship, in
> Yesod, on the ship again, in the tender, in Typhon's time, and so on. During
> all that time you breathed, ate, and drank matter that was not unstable,
> converting it to your body's use. Thus it became a substantial body."
> > "But I'm dead not even here, dead back there on Tzadkiel's ship."
> > "Your twin lies dead there," Barbatus told me. "As another lies dead
> here. I might say in passing that if he weren't dead, we couldn't have done
> what we did, because every living being is more than mere matter." He paused
> and glanced toward Fainulimus for help, but received none. "What do you know
> of the anima?"
> > I thought then of Ava, and what she had said to me: "You're a
> materialist, like all ignorant people. But your materialism doesn't make
> materialism true." Little Ava had died with Foila and the rest. "Nothing," I
> muttered. "I know nothing of the anima."
> > "In a way, it's like a line of verse. Famulimus, what was the one you
> quoted to me?"
> > His wife sang, "Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night, Has flung the
> Stone that puts the Stars to Flight."
> > "Yes," I said. "I understand."
> > Barbatus pointed. "Suppose I were to write those lines upon that wall and
> then to write them again upon that other wall. Which would be the true
> lines?"
> > "Both," I said. "And neither. The true lines are not writing, nor speech
> either. I can't say what they are."
> > "That is the way of the anima, as I understand it. It was written there."
> He indicated the dead man. "Now it is written in you. When the light of the
> White Fountain touches Urth, it will be written there again. Yet the anima
> will not be erased in you by that writing. Unless "
> > I waited for him to continue.
> > Ossipago said, "Unless you come too close. If you write a name in the
> dust and retrace it with your finger, there are not two names, but one. If
> two currents flow through a conductor, there is one current."
> > While I stared in disbelief, Famulimus sang, "You came too near your
> double once, you know; that was here, in this poor town of stones. Then he
> was gone, and only you remained. Our eidolons are always of the dead. Have
> you not wondered why? Be warned!"
> > Barbatus nodded. "But as for our returning you to your own time, we can't
> help you. Your green man knew more than we, perhaps; or at least he had more
> energy at his disposal. We'll leave you food, water, and a light; but you'll
> have to wait for the White Fountain. It shouldn't be long, as Famulimus
> said."
> > She had begun to fade into the past already, so that her song seemed to
> come from far away. "Do not destroy the corpse, Severian. However tempted
> you may be be warned!"
> > Barbatus and Ossipago had faded while I watched Famulimus. When her voice
> was gone, there was no sound in the House of Apu-Punchau but his own faint
> breath. "
> >
> >
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