(urth) The argument for Intractability

[Son of Witz]

Likewise, there could be some dogma in play like the Well 
>of Souls that implies some part of Severian's persona exists 
>independently of his fleshy chromosomal crapshoot.

This is what I'm saying.
Severian's bodies come and go, but Severian is constant.
Severian is a consciousness in a body (as we all are) but he goes through a bunch of bodies.
Re-Read everything after The Trial in Urth.  From Leaving Yesod, to the flooding of Urth, he realizes that his consciousness is in the star, and his body is a puppet.  But what kind of stars have consciousness?  That's not a question that science can answer.  I can think of one way that resolves it while being true to the plot and to the symbology.  His Consciousness is wearing a star like it wears a fleshy body.  We're then left with his spirit/consciousness, which gets back to the sort of idea I've been saying all along, that he is a Deity that incarnates in various times as a Sun God.

I think Deity is the only level of Being mentioned in the New Sun Series that could fit this bill.  I'm told that God is posited as a literal fact in Long Sun, so I think, at this level, people have to sort of let go of the idea that this story is "merely" Hiero manipulation.  It seems pretty clear that God(s) exist in the framework of the story.

~witz