(urth) [BGSpam]Re: Typhon's nature

[David Stockhoff]

On 10/11/2011 11:10 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> *From:* David Stockhoff <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>
>
> >
> This is certainly a debatable point. But I return to the narrator's
> >
> purpose: why drop such strong and "classical" hints that Typhon can send
> >
> his mind forth to commune with aliens under the sea, and that he can
> >
> seize other's minds, in a universe where
> >
> telepathic/projection/possession powers are demonstrated to exist,
> >
> without accounting for the fact that the alert reader will proceed to
> >
> interpret this as "super-telepathic powers"? This needs explanation, but
> >
> there is none.
> I consider myself a reasonably alert reader,
Impossible! You are well known to be both alert and UNreasonable. ;)
> and I drew no such conclusion. Indeed, I assumed that Typhon’s 
> awareness of the undersea monsters (did he say that he actually 
> communicated with them, or did he just describe them, in which case he 
> might just have accessed an archive of old news reports?) was 
> technologically mediated.
See my quote of it in my last post. It's pretty straightforward. I agree 
that it was indeed technologically mediated but not in the sense you mean.

Yes, it's possible that Typhon mentally called up his old AOL account at 
the servers on Lune (a "far place") and got a quick update, but there is 
simply no support for this except that WE have some of this technology 
and can easily imagine the rest. Its familiarity to us is no 
argument---it exists but is it Typhon's method? Why should it be?

We know he has machines on the mountain and in Nessus but neither of 
these is a "far place," let alone more than one far place. We know of no 
other places where he may have machines; he probably does, but how would 
these machines know any of the information he states? This is what I 
mean by "complicated."

I agree that there is no hard reason as far as that chapter to prefer 
innate/genetic telepathy over (let's call it) electromechanically 
enhanced telepathy. However, I give you Mucor.
>
> As for magic and the comparison between Typhon and Decuman, I had 
> meant to mention the coin given to Severian by Vodalus at the start of 
> the story. Recall Severian’s observation that the power to instill 
> loyalty must be present in the coin, because – as he points out very 
> scientifically – things act of themselves or not at all.
> My conclusion is that there is room for interpreting these events in 
> ways other than Severian would interpret them...
> - Gerry Quinn
That is an ever-present danger.


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