(urth) resurrecting a 2002 thread that posits an alternative lineage for Sev

[Marc Aramini]

"Marc used a math problem"??????????????????????????????

I feel like I am arguing with myself here, where everyone misattributes who
said what. At least this way I know I will surely win the argument, whether
I am Marc, Lee, or Rick.  Is something funky going on with the indent
levels?
-Marc (or am I?)

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 6:58 AM, Lee <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >Rick Norwood:
>
> >Christ was entirely God, all powerful, all knowing, able to perform
> miracles.
>
> >At the same time, he was all human, there was much he did not know, and
>
> >much he could not do.  He prayed to God, asked God to change His mind,
>
> >and asked God why He had forsaken Him.
>
>
>
> >This is one of the great Mysteries of Catholic dogma – and one of several
> reason
>
> >why I’m not a Christian
>
>
>
> I'd add to that the paradox of Free Will. How can an all-powerful,
> all-knowing
>
> Creator construct every molecule of a human being and claim to not know
> what
>
> that human being will do when faced with temptation?
>
>
>
> I am not at all religious myself. But I know Gene Wolfe is. So when I
> enter his worlds
>
> and try to understand them, unlike the real world, I have to become
> something of
>
> a Christian and take leaps of faith and accept essential contradictions
> and otherwise
>
> become a bit religious. I think that is necessary when you are trying to
> understand a
>
> fictionally created world. Intent and meaning become more important than
> logic and
>
> science.
>
>
>
> For the natural world, I think science works better.
>
>
>
> >Ah.  No.  These words can be used subjectively but all have perfectly good
>
> >objective meanings.  7 x 8 = 21 is a misprision, not better than 7 x 8 =
> 56, not logical,
>
> >lacking evidence, not right, and, most importantly, is wrong.
>
>
>  It only seems wrong because we are all human  beings with 10 fingers and
> primate-
>
> evolved brains. We all happen to agree on the meaning of "7" and "x".
> Aliens with 12
>
> fingers and silicon brains would likely not be in agreement with us.
>
>
> Marc used a math problem because math is supposedly the "universal"
> language upon
>
> which we all agree. But if we really had universal access to all
> intelligences we would
>
> surely find that not all agree with our human-invented math.
>
>
> Moreover,  a Wolfe novel is not math. They include contradictions such as
> the already-cited
>
> "Shadow Children are degenerate humans/Shadow Children are native
> shapeshifters".
>
>
> Another example is "Yesod is in Urth's future/Yesod is in Urth's
> past/Yesod is outside of
>
> time". All three descriptions can be found in the text. I think this is a
> case of "no correct
>
> answer". I think Wolfe is using contradiction and paradox to convey a
> sense of something
>
> that our human brains are incapable of grasping.
>
>
>
> >I think Lee addresses this very well.  Wolfe is not a postmodernist.
>
>
> I dunno. Judging by interviews, Wolfe may be a bit schizo on this point.
> Sometimes in
>
> interviews he seems to suggest there are right and wrong answers to his
> puzzles. Other
>
> times he seems to acknowledge that he puts puzzles in his work for which
> there are no
>
> correct solutions (e.g. Yesod's location in time).
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