(urth) Pike's ghost

[António Marques]

James Wynn wrote:
> On 11/28/2011 5:00 PM, António Marques wrote:
>> - You (as many others) often like to assert "there's no reason to
>> believe X" when in fact it's merely that "though the odds are for X,
>> it may well be otherwise".
>
> Unfortunately, there are no odds-makers in literary criticism. Perhaps
> you mean "though THERE ARE REASONS for X, it may well be otherwise".
> Everybody thinks his theory is the most likely.

This isn't about theories. This is about when something looks like a 
duck and quacks like a duck. If you want it *not* to be a duck, you'll 
have to say why you think it isn't a duck. It may perfectly well not be 
a duck. However, if you don't even care to say why you want it not to be 
a duck, please don't go around saying 'there's no reason to believe it 
is a duck'. Because, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, the 
odds are it is a duck. Presuming it to be a duck is agnostic. 'Agnostic' 
doesn't mean not taking a stance. It doesn't mean bumping into furniture 
because that thing that looks like a piece of furniture may or may not 
be a piece of furniture. Where is literary criticism different? If we're 
told enlightenment came to Patera Silk in the ball court, the odds are 
it was in the ball court. The odds are not that it was in Maytera Mint's 
chambers. Nor are we to say that there is no reason to think it was in 
the ball court.

>> - You (as probably others) seem to believe phenotypic plasticity can
>> lead to clones being very different from their originals. That is just
>> not the case in what regards higher animals, the more since the
>> environments aren't radically different, and specifically it won't
>> give you two persons with really different faces. Nor do I think that
>> could have been GW's intention.
>
> If Silk is a clone of Typhon, we are probably supposed to believe Silk
> looked a lot like Typhon when he was young. However, there it is nowhere
> asserted that either head of Pas looks just like Typhon...unless someone
> is going to argue that the original Echidna had snakes in her hair and
> Cilinia had squid arms.

Whether Pas looks like Typhon is a completely different question. Here I 
was addressing the issue of phenotypes/genotypes.