(urth) interview questions

[Jerry Friedman]

From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>


>>Gerry Quinn: In _The Long and Short of It_ he spends ages trying to prove that 
>>Mme. 
>>
>>Etienne is an abo (she isn't, though Casilla may be).  Then he admits that it 
>>doesn't make 
>>
>>sense for Veil's Hypothesis to be true (for then VRT's handwriting would be like 
>>everyone else).  
>>
>>He asks, "then how are we to resolve the hypothesis?  Answer: we're not."  This 
>>is just another of 
>>
>>the multifarious ways to claim there is no valid solution.  when in fact all he 
>>has shown is that 
>>
>>the solution he's just been proposing is wrong, nothing more.
>
>I don't think you read Borski correctly. Think of him an a jewish-american 
>version of Gerrry Quinn
>and you will understand him better, I think. Some people simply refuse to 
>embrace ambiguity. Both
>of you ultimately assert that ambiguity is just an author's trick. Smart people 
>know the "correct"
>answer all along. Check Borski's posts here from the past if you don't believe 
>me. Then like now we
>have a guy who is always sure he is right.

Whereas it's okay to be sure you're right some of the time, as on Veil's 
Hypothesis?

>Regarding clones-
>
>>They are approaching a constant state, exactly as repeated iterations of an 
>>equation modelling the temperatures at every point inside a heated object 
>>approach a constant state.  It is irrelevant whether the state is desirable 
>>or not - the important point is that it is constant.
>
>I'm not an engineering expert but I think relaxation is a measurement tool and 
>not related to entropy and
>tendency for heat distribution to even out. Heat transfer is the example given 
>but it could as well be the 
>
>measurement of stress (tension, compression etc) on an irregular object. 
>
>If you can't achieve perfection in measurement for an irregular object as you 
>could for a
>mathematically regular object like a cube, you make an educated guess then 
>measure actual results then
>refine your guess and keep doing that until your estimation produces acceptably 
>accurate results.

The "relaxation" method Marsch describes is not about refinement by comparison 
with actual results.  The goal is to find a temperature distribution that will 
be steady, given specified temperatures in certain places (boundary 
conditions).  You start with a reasonable assumption for a temperature 
distribution and calculate how, with that assumption, the temperature would 
change in the next split second.  Then you make a small change in that direction 
and get a new assumption.  As you repeat this process, the calculated changes 
get smaller and smaller.  Eventually you get close enough to the desired 
temperature distribution, the one where the changes are 0 and the heat flow is 
steady.  (I learned this for electric-charge distributions, not temperature 
distributions, but the principle is the same.)

In a sequence of clones, each one makes changes from his father's life that he's 
impelled to by his circumstances (boundary conditions) and his character--which 
for the Gene Wolfe clones includes their ambition for a different life.  Marsch 
says it's observed that as in the relaxation method, these changes will get 
smaller and smaller as they approach the stable situation where the clone will 
pretty much repeat his father's life.

I'm just giving the details of what Gerry said more briefly.

>For abos it would be like, "first imitate the body and the gross behavior. Next 
>acquire finer motor 
>
>skills and more initimate personal knowledge. Next, add sexuality and social 
>skills and the other difficult 
>
>stuff. Keep refining until you approximate a human."

I'm not objecting to anyone's enjoyment of any thematic resemblance between this 
and what a Shadow child would have to do to replace a person, or what a reader 
has to do to understand a difficult book.  But I think the resemblance is less 
close than you're suggesting.

Jerry Friedman



      
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