John C. Wright's Blog, page 91
October 1, 2013
The Elf-Thirst for Waters Beyond the World
In time past, I have attempted to define of science fiction, sometimes in earnest (I call science fiction the mythology of a scientific age) and sometimes not.
Specifically, I was wondering what in the world made the Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake a fantasy book? This led me to wonder how any genre was defined.
To answer, let us (as befits this genre) quest upon a journey, tarrying often. In the silver ship of memory, let us sail the Nonestic Ocean of fantasy, starting in the mists of the past. I lived through the latter stage of the Tolkien revolution in SFF, what scholars will someday call the “Lin Carter” period. During this period, circa 1976-1977, the feast of fantasy was thin, and everyone who had read anything in the field had likely read everything in the field.
1. The three or four great island-chains of fantasy seen on the maps of those days consisted of the Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, the Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander, the Earthsea trilogy by Ursula K. LeGuin. The Dark is Rising sequence of Susan Cooper deserves honorable mention, as does A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L’Engle.
All of these are far famed enough to have been honored (or abused) by big or small screen adaptations. With no condescension meant, let us call these Children’s Fantasies, for in those days, the fantasy reader haunted the children’s section of the library, since that was where the fantasy was.
2. Lin Carter at Ballantine books changed that by introducing the pre-Tolkien authors of this strange and perilous genre. Far from the island chain of Middle-Earth, Narnia, and Earthsea, loom oddly shaped mountain-isles, mist-hidden, no two alike. Let me list a few choice names, to stir your fond memories, O Reader:
• THE WORM OUROBOROS, E.R. Eddison
• GORMENGHAST, Mervyn Peake.
• A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS, David Lindsay.
• THE LAST UNICORN, Peter S. Beagle.
• THE KING OF ELFLAND’S DAUGHTER, Lord Dunsany
• THE WOOD BEYOND THE WORLD, William Morris
• LUD-IN-THE-MIST, Hope Mirrlees
• VATHEK, William Beckford
• LILITH, George Macdonald
• THE BROKEN SWORD, Poul Anderson.
• THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY, G.K. Chesterton
• THE THREE IMPOSTORS, Arthur Machen
• THE NIGHT LAND William Hope Hodgson
• THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST, H. Rider Haggard
• THE CHILDREN OF LLYR, Evangeline Walton
• KAI LUNG’S GOLDEN HOURS, Ernest Bramah
• THE DREAM-QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH, H.P. Lovecraft
• XICCARPH, Clark Ashton Smith
(ADD LATER: because my term pre-Tolkien led to misunderstanding, let me explain I do not mean this authors lived or published before Tolkien chronologically. They are ‘pre-Tolkien’ thematically, their works uninfluenced by the great magnetic attractor of the Lord of the Rings. They draw from an earlier strata of inspiration. None of these use the trope of the pseudo-medieval fantasy quest: in none of the books listed above is there a Dark Lord.)
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
THE OTHER SIDE OF TIME, Or, On These Fancies my Dreams Love to Dwell
Keith Laumer is one of the unfairly forgotten luminaries of the Silver Age of Science Fiction. THE OTHER SIDE OF TIME is a solid, well-written and fairly straightforward work of sideways-in-time style adventure.
The Silver Age is the generation of science fiction after the John W Campbell Jr stable of authors gave way to a new breed of authors: Jack Vance, Poul Anderson, Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven, Roger Zelazny, James Gunn, Alfred Bester, Philip K Dick, Gordon R. Dickson and Frank Herbert ranged beyond the boundary of magazine sales, and won fame in paperback and even hardback markets.
The science fiction audience in the Silver Age had over two decades of familiarity with the odd assumptions of this unique form, and so could be safely assumed to be familiar with the tropes of science fiction. A very rough consensus of future history had emerged, which assumed spaceflight and interplanetary colonization were ahead of us, and the years to some were peopled with young interstellar federations and old galactic empires powered by atomics and crossed by hyperdrive, infested with spies or special agents armed with ESP.
An earlier generation of readers would have asked for some clear explanation of these marvels to aid their suspension of disbelief; the postwar generation who had seen the V2 rockets over London needed not to hear them again. This gave the writers of that age the ability within a shorter space to cut some nuts-and-bolts and add more other matter: and Keith Laumer added fast, lean, mean and masculine action like a science fiction version of Dashielle Hammet or Raymond Chandler.
Laumer is best remembered for his wry James Bondian satires of Retief, Diplomat Extraordinaire, who continually undoes the boneheaded folly or petty evil of his superiors in the diplomatic service, ever eager for preemptive surrender, and to aid and abet the enemies of Terra. But I myself prefer his more serious work, which range from somewhat lighthearted action story to the somewhat grim action story.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
September 25, 2013
Quote of the Day
I often feel as if I am the only man who ever read ER Eddison’s brilliant, lucid, lavish, daring and overdecorated and work of post-Homeric pre-Tolkein epic wonder, THE WORM OUROBOROS.
I was fortunate enough to come across this quote from the esteemed Mr Pierce Oka:
At least we are in the august company of such men as JRR Tolkien and ER Eddison’s Editor (say that five times fast). We few, we happy few, we band of readers; For he to-day that reads this book with me shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, this book will gentle his condition; And gentlegeeks in England now-a-bed shall think themselves accurs’d they did not read, and hold their nerdhoods cheap, whiles any speaks, that read with us THE WORM OUROBOROS!
I have lauded the work before. Allow me to quote my praise from the Amazon.com page:
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
September 24, 2013
Lost in the Garden of Forking Paths
Despite the imposition on the patience of my loyal readers. I would be DELIGHTED for the opportunity to discuss this particular paradox of philosophy other than Dr Andreassen. I will say only that he has no interest in this kind of conversation, and that his persistence puzzles me. I intend no further answers to him.
A reader with the explosive name of Plutonium writes in with a cogent and coherent argument in favor of materialism.
Let examine the propositions:
1. All non-agent physical systems are physically decomposable into particles.
If by non-agent physical systems you mean dead bodies in motion, things like stars and atoms and clocks; and if by ‘decomposable’ you mean the one thing can be described and defined entirely in terms of the other thing with nothing left over and nothing unexplained, then yes. I agree with this without reservation.
2. All non-agent particles(particles not in an agent system) interact with other particles in specific, deterministic(Only one outcome) fashions.
If by this, you mean that dead bodies in motion, things like stars and atoms and clocks, given the same initial positions and moved by the same external forces will end up in the same end position in two different trials, then yes. I agree without reservation.
“1 and 2 are just the normal ‘physics’ assumptions. Tell me if you think these are bad.”
No, I am happy to speak with someone who seems to know what the normal assumptions of physics are. If you start telling me that Newton can predict Newton’s thoughts with mechaNewton, and that normal physics can measure beauty and checkmate and the width of the imaginary line dividing the sea from the sky at the horizon, I will strangle myself with that imaginary line.
3. The physical component of an agent system is physically decomposable into the same particles as the non-agent case.
If we restrict our case to the physical components only, then yes, albeit obviously the deterministic element falls out of this equation at this point.
4. These particles obey the same rules in the non-agent case as in the agent case.
Concerning external forces acting on the living body if it happens to be case where the deliberate and the non-deliberate body would react the same way, then yes. Various chemical reactions, molecular actions, gross physical motions such as the speed with which a man falls off the Leaning Tower of Pisa versus a wax mannikin, yes, all these are the same.
This seems to imply materialism (or effective materialism) to me.
I do not see why. There is some unspoken assumption you are making that I am not, or visa versa. Let us see if we can discover what it is.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
One more time, Sysiphus
Trapped in the Purgatory of an Endlessly Repeated ongoing conversation:
Dear Dr Andreassen, Out of a spirit of charity, despite the fact that you will not hear me this time any more than you heard me the last countless number of times, I will explain again.
I never disagreed with the idea that atomic motions can be predicted. That idea is absurd.
You say I did disagree. I assume this is because you classify the deliberate motions of Shakespeare’s body to be an atomic motion. In your words “ To wit, you disagreed that the motion of Shakespeare’s atoms can be predicted using only physical information. Which is not the same as saying they can’t be predicted, period…”
Your article of faith (it is not a position you have ever defended, only asserted) is that in the same way a carbon-14 atom in the stomach of Shakespeare has a rate of decay that can be predicted, or has four covalent bonds to form predictable chemical compounds, in just such a way as that, the motions of his pen hand and hence whether the play is a tragedy or comedy can be predicted.
Your thought is not only in error, it is unrelated to reality. No one in physics has ever put forward a theory of animate motions of playwrights. Physicists, including Newton, have put forward theories of celestial and atomic motions. Indeed, it was Newton’s great contribution to science that he combined the theory of ballistics, collisions and planetary motion in to one theory of gravity.
So, you are arguing only that the motions of the hand are predictable in principle.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
September 21, 2013
Postscript to THE GLORY GAME — Is it SF?
The story of THE GLORY GAME contained no science fictional speculations at all. It was in that sense a very conservative book, dwelling on what was the same in human nature in all ages past and present. It could have been set in any setting with the same impact.
But if we define science fiction to include only those tales that have scientific speculation as the center of their plot, we are defining science fiction to exclude my genre, space opera, which is defined as an adventure story in a vaguely science fiction flavor setting.
The rule of thumb is a thought experiment: imagine the same story set in the present, on Earth, or in the historical past. Eliminate the scientific speculation present. If the story can still be told, it is not SF. In SF the speculation is the heart of the story. If you can tell the same tale on the sailing ship Enterprise or from the viewpoint of plucky rebels fighting the Roman Empire or the Spanish Empire rather than the Galactic Empire, then the tale is not SF properly so called.
On the other hand, this is a crisp and clear definition, very serviceable to fans of Analog, and other ‘Nuts and Bolts’ types, so I dare utter no protest against it.
The definition clearly works for Hard SF. Let us take three examples from Heinlein, Asimov, and Clark, by common consensus, the hardest of Hard SF writers, or at least the most famous.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
September 18, 2013
THE GLORY GAME, or, the Bitterness of Broken Ideals
Is it better to be good or look good?
I have been rereading some of the novels of Keith Laumer, a sadly under recognized master of the SF genre. As before, this is not a book review as much as a meditation prompted by revisiting a youthful pleasure. My bookshelf has all the same paperbacks I read when I was in school, in pristine condition, and placed in the same order. This bookshelf was first filled long ago enough that those authors were alive. None now are: Frederick Pohl, the last of the giants, passed away this month. Readers who wish to read reviews of modern books must patronize the journal of some man more prone to read modern novels.
In this case, the short novel involved is called THE GLORY GAME by Keith Laumer, published in 1973. The novel is well crafted, concise, without a wasted scene or word, and therefore has the clearest and most trenchant point of any tale I have ever read that is actually a tale and not a tract. The novel is so concise that the twist ending would not exist were it not for the last line, nay, the last four words.
I regret that I must reveal the those four words at the end to discuss them, so I would ask any reader to go out, buy and read the novel, and only then return here.
SPOILERS BELOW! YOU ARE WARNED!
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
September 13, 2013
On the Impossibility of Empirical Metaphysics
More of the same. This time, with no pictures of the Catwoman.
But then, on the hypothesis that parallel Newtonian universes are possible, how do I avoid drawing the implication that such universes that start out physically identical will continue to play out physically identically so long as the matter in them obeys Newton’s laws?
By examining the unspoken assumption being made. In real physics, as opposed to the make believe physics of materialism, the physicist assumes the past physical events define or determine present physical events as a metaphysical assumption, that is, as a the starting unquestioned axiom of his discipline. He discipline does not apply to people or animals and never has and never will and does not even pretend to do so.
Materialism, on the other hand, is a philosophical rather than a scientific theory, and starts from the axiom of ontological monism, or, in layman’s terms, the laws which apply to matter also must apply to the mind since there can only be one substance in the universe since the universe is one coherent whole. To posit two substances destroys the axiom of coherence.
So you ask about a Newtonian universe. We live in a Newtonian universe. Newton’s laws are a correct approximation for how matter behaves at speeds not near the speed of light. It is less accurate than Einstein’s theory or Quantum Mechanics, and they in turn are less accurate than a unified field theory, if such is ever developed.
Am I being clear? All physical theories BY DESIGN are partial theories. They explain the physical aspects of the universe and nothing else.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
The Parable of the Corn Ear Picture
Part of an ongoing conversation, or, rather, part of my penance for past sins.
The local village materialist says, as he has said so often before:
I am trying to take things step by step. Let us ignore Mechaspeare for a moment and concentrate on Shakespeare.
1. Collect his atomic information, making a list of numbers. Call it list A.
2. Perform classical-mechanics calculations upon list A. This creates a new list, list B.
3. Collect his atomic information again, making list C.
4. Compare lists B and C.
Do you disagree that list B is unique, that there is only one possible set of numbers we can get from classical mechanics and a starting position?
Do you agree that list B must either agree or disagree with list C?
Do you agree that if it disagrees, then Shakespeare’s atoms are not described by classical mechanics? (Please observe, I say nothing about the case when the two lists agree, that is a separate question.)
Please do not jump ahead into interpretations about what it all means. Just answer the questions.
Jump ahead? I am aghast at your chutzpah, sir. You want me to answer the questions without interpreting the questions. You should ask me whether or not I have stopped beating my wife. Or at least ask unambiguous questions.
We have discussed this many, many, many times. Your most recent question is more clever at hiding the hidden assumption which makes it a circular argument, but, no, list B is not unique, for the simple reason that the assumption at step 1 deliberately disregards the crucial information needed to perform the calculation at step 2.
Perhaps an analogy would help.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
September 11, 2013
Thinking of Catwoman
Part of a horrifically never-ending conversation. I am astonished that anyone is still interested in this topic. But, as it so happens, three people asked me the same question in the same day. I will answer all at once, if my powers allow.
I have followed this conversation with great interest for years, and I must admit that I sympathize with those who are confused by your position on brain atoms.
The atoms in your brain do different things if you choose to think about Justice rather than Catwoman. Right? And they’re doing different things because of your choice about which topic to ponder. If those two things are true, it sure seems reasonable to say that your immaterial choice resulted in physical motion of brain atoms, and since Newton’s laws don’t include a factor for immaterial choice, therefore Newton’s laws have been broken. Somewhere in the system, a particle went in a different direction than predicted by F=ma, because of your choice.
Incidentally, that is exactly what I believe. I think that rational thought is a literal supernatural miracle. I think that I’m on the same page as CS Lewis, as he described his argument from reason in Miracles (if I remember correctly).
Now, I think (please forgive me if I’m putting words in your mouth) that your point is that Newton’s laws are not violated in the case of rational thought, for the reason that the laws are not intended to apply to that case. In other words, it seems to me that you are agreeing that Newton’s laws do not describe the physical system of the brain, but you say that’s not a violation of Newton’s laws because they are not meant to apply to that system.
But I have virtually zero confidence that I have correctly taken your meaning.
Good question, indeed, an excellent question. I will try to explain as best I can.
The atoms in your brain do different things if you choose to think about Justice rather than Catwoman. Right?
Let us assume so for the sake of argument, right.
And they’re doing different things because of your choice about which topic to ponder.
No.
The word ‘because’ here is ambiguous. It is used in two different senses.
It is upon this distinction that my argument rests, and upon this distinction that the opposition flounders in confusion. I will try my best.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
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