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

Wed Dec 3 14:28:50 PST 2008

> Yes, my basic rundown was meant as that.

> Heck, I even conflated Aristotle with Aquinas very badly at the end.

So did Aquinas, though not necessrily more at the end than the beginning
or middle....

.

> On 12/3/08, Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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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