(urth) Merger

[Gerry Quinn]

From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>

> I feel like mentioning that, with full admiration for Gene Wolfe, he was 
> as we all are, a product
> of his times. It has been discussed previously how BotNS was probably 
> influenced by popular movies
> and TV shows of the time, as well as the prevailing pop science obsessions 
> of the 70's which included
> cloning, black holes/quasars, aliens as ancient gods, pyramid power and 
> ESP.
>
> Another pop science phenomenon of the time was the chemical basis of 
> memory. McConnell's now discredited
> research got many researchers (including, unfortunately, some high 
> schoolers' science projects) in which
> everything from flatworms to mice were taught to solve mazes, killed, 
> minced and fed to other worms or
> mice in hopes they would solve the maze faster. (We see a similar use of 
> this concept with Mr. Million).

 Certainly Wolfe like everyone must be restricted for the most part to the 
science, pop science, and non-science of his own and previous times.  But I 
don't think one can assume that in his discussion of the alzabo, he was 
attempting to be scientifically reasonable or plausible.  He was indeed 
suggesting that the basis of memory was chemical, but because it was a cool 
idea that he had a use for, not because he believed it.  Even the most 
ardent believer in RNA memory would not have expected that detailed 
historical memories would be dispersed throughout the flesh rather than 
pretty much concentrated in the brain.

Mr. Million, if I recall correctly, had his brain destructively scanned for 
reproduction in an electronic simulator.  This suggests something like the 
current model, in which connections between neurons are the basis of memory.

Wolfe has not to my knowledge used pyramid power, but he would use it 
without a qualm today if it suited the story.


> I think current research considers that RNA may play a role in memory 
> retention, but the basic storage is
> in standing neural circuitry rather than a chemical code which is 
> transferrable organism to organism.

Yes.  But (without trying to dig out the history of the science) I think in 
modern times this has always been the mainstream view.

- Gerry Quinn