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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=dstockhoff@verizon.net
href="mailto:dstockhoff@verizon.net">David Stockhoff</A> </DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV><BR>> I highly doubt that there is a correlation between "losing
technology" and true</DIV>
<DIV>> spiritual advancement in Wolfe, or entities like Jonas and the
chems would </DIV>
<DIV>> not be portrayed so humanistically. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Abaia, Erebus et al don’t obviously use technology either. </DIV>
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<DIV>Of course it’s entirely possible and to my mind likely that Abaia, the
Green Man and the Neighbours have extremely advanced technology, so advanced
that it looks like magic. I speculated before that if a kiss from Juturna
can make Severian capable of breathing underwater, it may well be that her
saliva contains nanomachines that will remodel his organs of respiration.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>As for spiritual advancement, the three groups we meet in the second part
of 5HoC are not really all that spiritually advanced IMO.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>> Wolfe is not by profession your typical </DIV>
<DIV>> anti-tech kind of guy - this is a man educated as an engineer who
helped </DIV>
<DIV>> develop the machine that made pringles.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The ghastly plastic orange in _Peace_ is IMO an allusion to those
abominations. Probably it is the main reason for Weer’s punishment.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>- Gerry Quinn</DIV>
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