<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff">
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:00ab01cbcb5a$61681f60$5acf4a0c@rclackey"
type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
No. They are not merely corporeal bodies. They are a lighter. They don't
need food. But the DO have blood! The Rajan bleeds. The inhumi attack
him for his blood. They die from physical harm.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
Yes, the spirit body dies -- it happened to Rigoglio and some mercenaries.
But back in the real world, on Blue, only their spirits had died. As I
cited, Silkhorn said during dream travel, "We are spirits here." The bodies
of spirit travelers are spiritual.
Severian could tell that Silkhorn wasn't afraid to be locked in a cell in
the Tower, and wondered why. Silkhorn responded: "Because I'm not really
here." (RTTW, 263)
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p class="para1">A. Yes, but his meaning is not as simple as that,
as is obvious in the fact that an astral body can bleed to death.
When the Rajan said he wasn't afraid because "I'm not really
here", the following conversation takes place:<br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="para1">[Severian]: "That judge is afraid.” </p>
<p class="para1">[Rajan]: “He doesn’t know, you see. [...] Or if
he does by this time, he may be afraid that my daughter and I
will leave him here. As we might.”<br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="para1">In the same paragraph that the Rajan says they
"aren't really here" he speaks of "leaving" Judge Hamer "here". <br>
</p>
<p class="para1">Pure spirit cannot die.<br>
</p>
<p class="para1">On the other hand, let me posit something that I
believe is close to accurate. Dream-travel involves the formation
of an astral body for the soul of the traveler. This body is
created along the same principles as the creations of the weapons
and astral-Hide. <br>
During astral travel, the link between the traveler's soul and his
corporeal body is the astral body. If the astral body dies, the
soul cannot return to the corporeal body. <br>
The link between the Rajan's astral body (or other Neighbor's
since I suppose it is his Neighbor part that gives the Rajan his
special abilities) and his corporeal body is an inhumi. <br>
The link between normal human dream-travelers and the inhumi is
the Rajan. <br>
</p>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:00ab01cbcb5a$61681f60$5acf4a0c@rclackey"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">You mean the sleeping body of the dreamer? That's a different situation from
what I said. I am saying that the astral body could not live for long
without being powered by something. The mercenaries Silkhorn took to Green
to exterminate the inhumi in the City of the Inhumi ate rations they had
carried with them, yet we are told that dream travelers have no digestive
tracts. Obviously eating those rations could not have provided any
sustenance. Maybe it constituted comfort food.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
B. But I don't see any evidence that the dream-travelers /need/
sustenance from _any_ apparent source. As you say they don't eat.
Perhaps they received sustenance from some other involuntary method.
Since the astral bodies can receive harm, even bleed to death, I
suppose they probably age as well. Do we have any evidence that they
can successfully heal? The only limitation on their time in dream
travel seems to be the ability of the *corporeal body* to survive
without care. This is a problem for humans.<br>
<br>
But what if the bodies of the Neighbors are not so limited. If Green
Man were in dream-travel, and you put him on an IV for fluids, would
there be any limit to how long he could remain there? What if Lemur
were in soul travel?<br>
<br>
In fact, I suspect that is the case for the Neighbors. I believe
that the corporeal bodies of the Neighbors are tree-like. Not that
every tree on Blue needs to be a Neighbor (although they might be in
some sense). So they can sleep and remain in dream-travel as long as
their astral bodies lived (assuming their astral life-span is
shorter than their corporeal life span). If a Neighbor's astral body
dies, his corporeal body can continue to live...even reproduce. But
he has lost his Sentience, because the link to his soul has been
lost.<br>
<br>
Seeing the Neighbors as a kind of Dryad further develops their
nominal connection to fairies.<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:00ab01cbcb5a$61681f60$5acf4a0c@rclackey"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">You must be thinking of Fava, since she is the only example in this
category. She seems to have gone on living in or on some sort of spiritual
plain, because she was able to maintain contact with Mora through Mora's
dreams and seemed to be able to possess and speak through Vadsig.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
C. It's encouraging that we agree on this point.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:00ab01cbcb5a$61681f60$5acf4a0c@rclackey"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
I don't know what that last sentence is supposed to mean, but solid bodies
cannot walk through the Curtain wall as Silkhorn and Hoof did. Ghosts and
spirits are reputed to be able to do that sort of thing.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
D. Yes, certain solid bodies most evidently can. The astral bodies
are solid. They have mass. They can be damaged by physical objects
and when they are, they bleed. So they have blood. Presumably they
have blood vessels. If you doubt they are solid, then I would really
like to know how you rectify these facts?<br>
<br>
Since any physical object is mostly empty space. It is not beyond
conception that solid entities _could_ do what astral entities can
under specific configurations.<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:00ab01cbcb5a$61681f60$5acf4a0c@rclackey"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">I guess so. Hoof wrote of Juganu, after they returned from a brief astral
warp to Urth: "He said it was what he was in his heart, that the blond man
on the deck of the big boat was the real Juganu, the man he was in dreams."
(RTTW, 349)
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
E. I'm not sure this is the same as saying "The stated reason that
the inhumi are just as real as humans during spirit travel is that
their spirit bodies are manifestations of how they perceive
themselves to be in their hearts or souls". This describes how
Tartaros _claims_ the images of the Whorl gods are formed. But the
quote you are offering does not describe this process. It _could_ be
compatible with it, I guess. But it is not, in itself, the same
thing.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:00ab01cbcb5a$61681f60$5acf4a0c@rclackey"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
I still maintain that natural laws cannot be ignored, at least not by
humans. Anyway, after Silkhorn and Fava warped to Green, then from Green to
the Duko's palace in Soldo and back to Green, Silkhorn wondered
parenthetically: "(Why did not the Duko accompany us? And was he shot, and
what was the result of that shot, a visionary slug fired by an unreal
trooper from an equally chimerical slug gun.)" (IGJ, 221) Mind the
adjectives.
When Captain Sfido remained loyal to the Duko during that warp to Green, his
needler was taken from him and used in the fight against the inhumi, yet
when the group finally returned to Blue the needler was back with him (IGJ,
230). What happened to the needler taken from him on Green? When the mercs
got back to Blue after fighting all those inhumi in the City on Green, were
they missing any of the slugs they had fired on Green? I don't think so.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
F. See my explanation at point (A). The bodies in astral travel are
not merely "visionary" in the sense you seem to be using it. Nor are
their slug guns, as evident by their ability to kill corporeal
people and by the astral traveler's ability to be killed by
corporeal weapons. The Rajan's speculation makes that clear.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:00ab01cbcb5a$61681f60$5acf4a0c@rclackey"
type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
I disagree. It is not possible that physical weapons would harm a pure
spirit. The spirits in astral travel assume NEW bodies during that
period that operate according alternate unexplained physical laws.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
Rigoglio's spirit was sure as hell harmed. The spirit body is linked to the
natural body; why else were Rigoglio's hands still tied when he got to Urth?
Some of the mercenaries from Soldo died and were buried on Green but were
alive and mindless on Blue.
When Jahlee's astral self got stranded on Green, Silkhorn was able to go
back and get her because her body still lived on Blue. After Fava's body
died on Blue, he was apparently unable to go back to Green to see her astral
self, but he was able to speak to her through Vadsig and Mora's dreams on
Blue.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
G. So what are you arguing here?<br>
<br>
u+16b9<br>
</body>
</html>