(urth) Faterh Inire Theory

[Gerry Quinn]

From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>> Do you believe in God?
>
>>Gerry Quinn- A difficult question, because I'm not sure.  I have sometimes 
>>wondered
>>whether the concept of God - that is to say the concept of God as active
>>agency, not the concept of God as concept - is compatible with what we 
>>know
>>of the physical nature of the universe.   My current thinking is that it 
>>may
>>be, but I am far from certain of the truth.
>
> Thank you for that honest and incisive answer :- ). I think tying God to 
> being compatible
> with the physical nature of the universe does suggest you are an 
> unredeemable
> materialist. Which is cool! Heck it seems to be working very well for 
> Stephen Hawking who,
> I think, recently denied the existence of God or found Him unnecessary or 
> something. Science
> is an incredible tool for understanding almost all of what we see in the 
> universe around us.
> I guess I am pretty much a materialist myself.

Two logically incompatible things cannot both be true.  That is a rational 
position, rather than a materialist one.

If God exists, and the physical universe exists, it must be that they are 
logically compatible.  If they are not logically compatible, at least one of 
them does not exist - or, at minimum, we are operating off an incorrect 
model/description of one or both, and we might find that better models are 
compatible after all.

> But, if I may be honest, materialism seems to be a worldview to which you 
> are deeply
> wedded.  You aren't showing signs of being able to step outside it when 
> trying to understand
> the things that materialism can't explain, like God and religious thinking 
> and religious
> thinkers as Gene Wolfe, at some levels, is. Can you recognize materialism 
> as a handicap in this
> small, restricted venue? How does one talk to a blind man who finds the 
> existence of colors to be
> "highly unlikely".?

I don't think materialism is the issue here, but rationality!  I have never 
rejected any of your concepts as intrinsically unacceptable by its very 
nature - I have merely noted some occasions when they seem contradictory of 
other elements in the text, or when the support for them seems thin.  I am 
somewhat inclined to dismiss interpretations of the text to which both 
conditions simultaneously apply.

Now it is of course perfectly possible for a *text* to be contradictory 
and/or irrational.  Fundamentally, this occurs because we can only 
understand texts by way of interpretations - a  text considered purely as a 
physical object cannot be self-contradictory.  If I write "The sentence on 
the other side of this paper is false" on one side of a piece of paper, and 
"The sentence on the other side of this paper is true" on the other, no 
unusual physical consequences occur - the molecules of ink bind to the paper 
in the normal way; the paper does not wriggle and twist in my grasp as I 
attempt to write.  So where does the apparent contradiction arise?  It 
arises from our supposition that the sentences can both be taken as carrying 
some useful information; this hope is dashed when we consider both together.

Now it may be that this piece of paper with its contradictory text may be 
very marvellous and enlightening to somebody who has led a sheltered life 
when it comes to logical paradoxes.  But do you not agree that in some 
respects, it is rather deficient? If the paradox is not the point of it, 
then we must admit that the two sentences tell us less than we hoped they 
might, rather than more.

By the same token, a novel may contain contradictions; it may be that if we 
looked closely enough, all novels do.  But such contradictions must surely 
be considered defects, in general.  It is my opinion - you may disagree - 
that Gene Wolfe would also consider them defects, and would not purposely 
embody major themes in such a fashion.  I therefore conclude that 
interpretations that contradict things we are told clearly are likely to be 
spurious.

You seem to be developing a thesis to the effect that Wolfe deliberately 
makes his novels self-contradictory, as some sort of metaphysical gesture. 
I cannot disprove it, but I very much doubt it.  I would find it easier to 
believe if the speculations you use to justify it, and use it to justify, 
appeared to have better grounding in the text.

I hold that interpretations based on different 'levels' as you put it, 
should be compatible to a considerable degree, and if they are incompatible, 
I believe they require a high evidentiary standard.

The blind man can be convinced of your ability to detect colours if you can 
detect things he can not, and demonstrate their existence.  You may not be 
able to convey to him the beauty of a subset, but if you can detect colours 
it is certainly the case that experiments can be done that will prove it to 
all and sundry - for example distinguishing ripe from unripe fruit in a 
glass box.  Of course if the universe were completely random, it might not 
be possible to make such demonstrations - but the universe is not, and I 
have faith that Gene Wolfe's books are not either.

- Gerry Quinn