Jake Jackson's Blog, page 14

Dialogues | Why Do We Feel?

Hunter and Bain are sitting at their favourite cafe in Greenwich Village , New Manhattan, on the corner of Bleecker Street. Bain rests his coffee, and from afar notices a child trip on her own feet. He sees the mother, or at least what might be an A.I. Carer, pull the little girl upright, ignoring the urgent pleas for sympathy. Bain looks at Hunter whose brooding eyes are disinterested, shuttered from the world around them.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain: So, why do we feel? What’s the point?

Hunter leaves a long silence before grimacing: I’m the wrong person to ask.

Bain: Well, except that you seem not to feel, so you must have wondered what its function is for humanity?

Hunter: Why does it matter to you?

Bain: I don’t know, sometimes I just wonder why humans have any feelings, at all, they’re mostly painful. For me at least. Surely they doesn’t contribute to our survival.

Hunter: Do you mean at a species level?

Bain: I suppose so. I can see that having children, populating the planets and the colonies, contributes to the survival, the growth, of the species, but I don’t see feelings contribute to that.

Hunter: Perhaps the function of feeling is designed to be obscure.

Bain: Oh, that begs so many questions, who designed? why would they bother? And still, what does it contribute.

Hunter: Yes, you’re straying from your path.

Bain: You’re just teasing me. And you haven’t answered my question.

Hunter: It’s not my question to answer, I’m not human, I just have the outward appearance, and most of my interactions are with those who are decidedly not human.

Bain: That’s true, but you see it, and I know you get frustrated when I’m cross and fed-up.

Hunter: Yes, “fed-up”, that doesn’t compute at all, it just gets in the way. Same as the love thing you obsess about.

Bain, laughing: I don’t obsess about that at all.

Hunter: I’ve seen you staring at Shi Xiu.

Bain: That’s not true! I’m far too old, more like an Uncle!

Hunter: Look at you, you’re so easily distracted, “put-out” as you would say.

Bain: Well, that serves my question, why do we feel? Would it be better if we tried to gene splice that part of our genetic code. Surely we could achieve more.

Hunter: I don’t think you’d be human then.

Bain: So feeling is part of being human.

Hunter: Well, you wouldn’t ‘feel’ human, you’d be something else entirely.

Bain: Is that a good thing?

Hunter: It would be what would be, neither good nor bad. If after removing the ability to feel, the species survived and prospered, then perhaps that might be counted a good thing, but it’s impossible to tell.

Bain: You’ve encountered species without feelings.

Hunter: So have you; apparently your human attitude to animals is that they don’t have feelings.

Bain: Ah, but we like to think they do, in relation to ourselves at least.

Hunter: Yes, another question I think, do animals feel?

Bain: I thought we were talking about humans.

Hunter: Well, you mentioned animals. If they survive without feelings, then it’s not necessary for humans, so perhaps you don’t need feelings, in which case they are redundant.

Bain: No, no I don’t think they’re redundant. In any case we don’t know that animals can feel or not, they can’t speak to us.

Hunter: Depends what ‘speaking’ really is. They communicate well enough with each other, and humans, their needs mainly.

Bain: Yes, yes, but feelings are complicated, if they could feel I don’t see how they could communicate that.

Hunter: So are you saying that only humans are sophisticated enough to convey feelings? Perhaps all life has feelings, but only some species can communicate it. Perhaps feelings are the secret sauce of life, the magical motivation, the Will, the impetus to survive.

Bain: Steady now, I just wanted to understand what the point of feelings was. I don’t think it relates to survival, or progress, it just makes life more, er, ‘interesting’.

Hunter: Interesting?! Such ambition!

Bain: Ok, ok, we can’t all travel across time and space hunting demons.

Hunter: No, but that doesn’t invalidate what you’re saying. I am what I am, you are what you are. We are different. For me, feelings are learned, mainly from you, but also from observation.

Bain: Perhaps feelings are a civilising force then, a way of curbing the base instincts, make us more considered, allow us to put the extremes of our humanity to one side.

Hunter: Well it’s true, I’ve seen anger, and love in humans, become all-consuming. Often though it’s rational thought that overcomes this.

Bain: I don’t know about that, trying to influence someone in a rage with rational argument is like fighting a storm with a clever butterfly.

Hunter. Perhaps. Do you think rational thought is irrelevant in such cases?

Bain: Well, the rational approach uses arguments that appeal to the mediating sort of emotions such as compassion perhaps, or empathy. By understanding, even just intellectually how someone else feels, progress can be made.

Hunter: So you’re saying that a murderer can come to an understanding of their actions by considering the effects of their anger on their victims, and this, of itself, validates the presence of feelings?

Bain: Uh, in so much as such civilising effects of feelings allows rational thought to thrive, unencumbered by extremes of feeling.

Hunter: Maybe that’s true. In your human history the great changes have been made when the invention of new technologies has brought mastery of war: the Egyptian chariots, the organised strategies of the Romans, the defeat of the Mayans by the Spanish, the splitting of the atom.

Bain, morosely: We’ve moved into human war, that’s come a long way from feelings.

Hunter: But perhaps it’s not a simple question, and their not unrelated. It raises so many others. It seems to me that so much has been achieved by ignoring, or over-riding these ‘feelings’.

Bain: But feelings bring arousal, love, a sense of purpose in a rally, they bring motivation which makes changes, especially political. But is also brings satisfaction, pleasure.

Hunter: So does this bring you to your answer?

Bain: Perhaps it helps, we feel because we must, perhaps it makes survival as a species bearable, while the motivation for survival at the species level thunders on regardless.

Bain looked out at the receding lines of children and carers, some human, some android, some hybrid, wandering off to the local schools, and knew they would discuss this again.

Links

Another Dialogue: Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson

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Dialogues | Why Do We Need Names?

Hunter and Bain have returned to a cafe at the edge of New Manhattan, overlooking the Hudson Bay. Just beneath the deep waters, eyeless creatures neither seen nor imagined in the original New York lurk amongst the hordes of artificial life, suffering the curse of wordless empathy.

Bain nods at the single-eyed A.I. who brings the coffees to the table. It is a wonder to both of them that in the dying days of the human domination the best coffee in the galaxy is to be served by the perfectly calibrated, hands of a robot who can neither care nor appreciate its taste. Bain leans over to his companion whose eyes are closed, embracing the slowly disappearing warmth of the sun.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Hunter: Go on then, you’ve been quiet for a whole minute, I know you have a question.

Bain, mildly offended: So, I’ve been wondering, if survival of the species is the primary motivation for humankind, then why do we need names?

Hunter: Sometimes I think you think too much.

Bain: Perhaps, but what do you think.

Hunter: Thinking is the key.

Bain: Are you saying that thinking implies something beyond than survival?

Hunter: Not beyond, but it does lead you humans into strange and wondrous places.

Bain: Well, I’m only talking about names.

Hunter: Yes, how many other species do you know who give each other names?

Bain: That’s a leading question. We could both name hundreds.

Hunter: But take out those which are derived from humans, or intimately associated with humans.

Bain: Well, we went to the moon around Mars, er, Titan, and shook out the demon from the dwellers beneath the surface.

Hunter: Ah, but they only described each other’s functions. Their names meant  “digger”, and “carrier”.

Bain: Human names are based on the same concept though. In many human cultures the names come from exactly the same source.

Hunter: So the descriptions offer the solution to your question.

Bain: So, if names are derived from descriptions, there’s some sort of association with building, maintaining, or other functions that contribute to the survival.

Hunter: Something like that.

Bain: But that was the case in medieval times on Old Earth. That wasn’t necessary later on.

Hunter: But the point still stands, every name represents a role or status, at least a distinction between one person from another.

Bain: I suppose I can see it might define a person as part of a community with a defined role, so a new person, a new name, might indicate a threat to the balance, survival, and that person might be driven out just because of their name.

Hunter: Barbaric, but has its base in the first human communities where competition for food and shelter were at a premium before technology began to exercise its importance across all parts of a community, a country, or a world.

Bain: So it’s almost a negative definition. A survival of the fittest by association, implying a communal effort. But what about those with names which are random, as became more common on old earth’s Twentieth Century?

Hunter: The same still applies. The apparently random still brings a sense of belonging, if they are used enough. Names of celebrities and popular figures, a group of odd sounding names are collectively normalised.

Bain: So names don’t bring individuality.

Hunter: That’s a whole different question. Individuality within a community however large is a matter of indentification, i.e. Identity.

Bain: So why not have numbers?

Hunter: You would say that’s de-humanising.

Bain: Only if its deliberate. The robots and the hybrids, they function as numbers in a sequence. It doesn’t matter to them what they’re called.

Hunter: Don’t let them hear you say that!

Bain: But they don’t think as we do, the number or name has no relevance to their identity.

Hunter: I think you would say that tyrants always take that view.

Bain: Yes, you’re right, I would. A name is powerful as a self-identifier, not just as part of a community, but a strong sense of the individual. It helps us maintain our sanity, gives us something to cling to.

Hunter: Sanity seems important to you humans. Without it, perhaps you don’t don’t need names.

As they lapsed into silence Bain watched the receding form of the AI as it disappeared into the shadows at the back of the cafe. He wondered how it referred to itself, and if it had a self-identity.

Links

On the naming of things
Another Dialogue: Is this all a Dream?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson

The post appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Why do we need Names?

Hunter and Bain have returned to a cafe at the edge of New Manhattan, overlooking the Hudson Bay. Just beneath the deep waters, eyeless creatures neither seen nor imagined in the original New York lurk amongst the hordes of artificial life, suffering the curse of wordless empathy.

Bain nods at the single-eyed A.I. who brings the coffees to the table. It is a wonder to both of them that in the dying days of the human domination the best coffee in the galaxy is to be served by the perfectly calibrated, hands of a robot who can neither care nor appreciate its taste. Bain leans over to his companion whose eyes are closed, embracing the slowly disappearing warmth of the sun.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Hunter: Go on then, you’ve been quiet for a whole minute, I know you have a question.

Bain, mildly offended: So, I’ve been wondering, if survival of the species is the primary motivation for humankind, then why do we need names?

Hunter: Sometimes I think you think too much.

Bain: Perhaps, but what do you think.

Hunter: Thinking is the key.

Bain: Are you saying that thinking implies something beyond than survival?

Hunter: Not beyond, but it does lead you humans into strange and wondrous places.

Bain: Well, I’m only talking about names.

Hunter: Yes, how many other species do you know who give each other names.

Bain: That’s a leading question. We could both name hundreds.

Hunter: But take out those which are derived from humans, or intimately associated with humans.

Bain: Well, we went to the moon around Mars, er, Titan, and shook out the demon from the dwellers beneath the surface.

Hunter: Ah, but they only described each other’s functions. Their names meant  “digger”, and “carrier”.

Bain: Human names are based on the same concept though. In many human cultures the names come from exactly the same source.

Hunter: So the descriptions offer the solution to your question.

Bain: So, if names are derived from descriptions, there’s some sort of association with building, maintaining, or other functions that contribute to the survival.

Hunter: Something like that.

Bain: But that was the case in medieval times on Old Earth. That wasn’t necessary later on.

Hunter: But the point still stands, every name represents a role or status, at least a distinction between one person from another.

Bain: I suppose I can see it might define a person as part of a community with a defined role, so a new person, a new name, might indicate a threat to the balance, survival, and that person might be driven out just because of their name.

Hunter: Barbaric, but has its base in the first human communities where competition for food and shelter were at a premium before technology began to exercise its importance across all parts of a community, a country, or a world.

Bain: So it’s almost a negative definition. A survival of the fittest by association, implying a communal effort. But what about those with names which are random, as became more common on old earth’s Twentieth Century?

Hunter: The same still applies. The apparently random still brings a sense of belonging, if they are used enough. Names of celebrities and popular figures, a group of odd sounding names are collectively normalised.

Bain: So names don’t bring individuality.

Hunter: That’s a whole different question. Individuality within a community however large is a matter of indentification, i.e. Identity.

Bain: So why not have numbers?

Hunter: You would say that’s de-humanising.

Bain: Only if its deliberate. The robots and the hybrids, they function as numbers in a sequence. It doesn’t matter to them what they’re called.

Hunter: Don’t let them hear you say that!

Bain: But they don’t think as we do, the number or name has no relevance to their identity.

Hunter: I think you would say that tyrants always take that view.

Bain: Yes, you’re right, I would. A name is powerful as a self-identifier, not just as part of a community, but a strong sense of the individual. It helps us maintain our sanity, gives us something to cling to.

Hunter: Sanity seems important to you humans. Without it, perhaps you don’t don’t need names.

As they lapsed into silence Bain watched the receding form of the AI as it disappeared into the shadows at the back of the cafe. He wondered how it referred to itself, and if it had a self-identity.

Links

Another Dialogue: Is this all a Dream?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson

The post appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Is this all a Dream?

Hunter and Bain sit quietly outside a 24-hour café on All Saints Road, in Portobello, reflecting the events of the past few days. Hunter’s restless mind seeks through the meta-universe for dissonance, the tell-tale signs of disorder that drive his actions. Bain, a rueful specimen of humanity slumps opposite his fellow traveller, exhaustion sitting heavily behind his eyelids as he gazes out to the emerging dawn, thankful for the respite.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain: Sometimes I wonder if this is all a dream.

Hunter shifts in his seat, rearranging the discomfort of his great coat: What makes you say that?

Bain: Well, with all the adventures, the demons and the gods, when I close my eyes part of me wishes for a more mundane life.

Hunter: I have never forced you to come with me.

Bain: No, but you clearly need me.

Hunter laughs.

Bain: You’ve admitted as much.

Hunter: It’s true that we’ve completed some of the tasks more efficiently with your help. But what’s that to do with dreaming?

Bain: I suppose on a morning like this I can’t imagine anything terrible happening anywhere.

Hunter: Well, we know that’s not true.

Bain: Okay, we can be sure that must be so, but that’s not the same as saying this isn’t a dream, good or bad.

Hunter: I suppose so, but you’re being over-specific, nor is it an exercise in quantum uncertainty

Bain: I’m saying that in this moment, we could be in a dream. I have a memory of the things that have come before, and I know we have been to places that will come after, but here, now, this is a pleasant dream.

Hunter. I think you’re really talking about peace and quiet.

Bain: No, it’s more than that. It’s the air of unreality. What we know has happened, the demons and the gods you’ve returned to the Before, the times we’ve been close to death, seen so many people die, the hybrids here who are slowly taking over the daily functions of life, the AI hordes who wiped out their creators.

Hunter: Stop, stop, you’re making your head spin. Enjoy this moment of calm, whether it’s a dream or not.

Bain: But is it a dream?

Hunter, sighing: Are you asleep?

Bain, defiantly: I might be.

Hunter: So it’s a redundant question. Perhaps you should focus on what you do know: the coffee before you, the sun rising over the broken buildings over there. The lack of trees.

Bain: How can we focus on something that isn’t there?

Hunter: Aha. But we’ve been here before, and there used to be a run of lime trees along that road, I remember the light used to flicker through them onto the road.

Bain: Oh I must be dreaming, that’s almost poetic.

Hunter: Not intentional. Just an observation.

Bain: But do you see the trees now?

Hunter: Of course not, but part of me remembers them along there.

Bain: So you both remember what this place was like as well as how it is now?

Hunter: I suppose so, and all the other times we’ve been here. The Building to our left used to be brick red. Now it sports a shiny new aluminium cladding. The cars in the sky used to be occasionally, larger transporter planes…

Bain shrugs, a rueful smile pulling at his mouth: Yes, yes, I get it. You see all these things at once, laid over each other. It must be hard for you to see things as I do.

Hunter: We know we have different perspectives, that’s what’s helped us through the tasks.

Bain: So this could be a dream, but your prespective is so different you can’t acknowledge it as such.

Hunter: Hypothetically speaking yes, but it’s still a bit of a leap. It depends on your view of the status of memory and stories, truth and reported fact.

Bain exhaled loudly: Oh, that’s an old discussion between us. You always say that memory, stories and dreams are all the same.

Hunter, tapping at his mechanical eyepiece: Not quite, but they intermingle so much it’s hard to differentiate sometimes. I use this to allow me to see the world a little as you do.

Bain: So it could all be a dream.

Hunter: Perhaps. It’s just not the right question.

Bain: Which is?

Hunter: Perhaps you should ask whether in this moment you are in a dream, and I am also in a dream, whose dream are we both in?

Bain: Oh! So we could be a memory, and a story, and a dream of each other’s, or someone else’s?

Hunter allows himself a pause: Why not? Does it change how you feel about this place?

Bain looks out at the sun, its burnt umber hues skimming across the lower reaches of the sky: Not really. I just need to pretend I didn’t ask the question in the first place.

Hunter: I’ve forgotten it already.

Bain smiles, leans back into the chair and allows the sun to lick his face.

Links

More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds

More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson

The post Dialogues | Is this all a Dream? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Sources | The Great Deluge | Retold

The Ancient Sumerian and Babylonian Myth of Apocalypse, from the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Dream of Atrahasis and the Eridu Genesis.

Retold by Jake Jackson.

The Great Deluge: Beginnings

Enlil, Fategiver, Lord of Storms and warrior god ruled the realm of Earth, creating kings and great temples for the pure worship and honour of the gods who lived alongside Earth in the great realms of Heaven. Enlil populated the lands with small human creatures made from the clay of the Euphrates, and these people lived long, serving their masters well. In time though they increased vastly in number, and became a source of great noise as they spread across the Earth.

Greatly disturbed, unable to think or sleep Enlil yearned for the eternity of silence that had prevailed across the waters of the deep before the separation of the Heavens from Earth. Where once he had celebrated his noble task, revelling in the worship from his bridge across the worlds, the burgeoning city state of Nippur, and the great harvests of food that were distributed to the gods by these bustling, proliferating creatures, now Enlil suffered in the long nights from the constant noise of busy endeavour. As humans populated the earth, making pots, and striking stoves for fire, clattering their instruments at harvest, carousing and fighting they talked, and talked, and in talking yet more they fuelled a gathering rage in the heart of the Lord of Storms until he could bear it no longer: he declared to rid the world of the pestilence of humankind.

Part I

Enlil called a council of the gods in Surupuk a mighty city along the Euphrates. The gods and the people of the earth did dwell in the same places as each other, but the separation of the realms had caused humankind a blindness to the presence of the ancient deities, and so the council of gigantic deities would swirl around and above the people of the city without their notice. Fired into life on the banks of the Euphrates by the hot blood of the gods, the humans otherwise would be terrified by the sight of their creators, their ears would burn in the hearing of the pure and powerful voices, and driven mad their fragile forms would melt back to the muddy rivers of the world. Only the very wise, the prophets and the visionaries, could learn to hear the whispers of the great inhabitants of the heavens, the capricious spirit-giants who sometimes gave instruction, or made demands, sometimes out of wicked amusement, through the form of dreams. Those who received such reports were revered, and became leaders of people, in tribes and cities across the land.

One such, a sage and humble ruler, was Atrahasis, the Lord of Surupuk where he lived amongst his people in the mansions and reed dwellings along the banks of the river. His wisdom was so great that not only was he admired by the people of the city, but the gods themselves acknowledged his exquisite abilities, one whose wisdom might match their own, if not for the fragility of his earthly form. The god Enki, he of the rivers and waters of the world, a virile god who perched under the earth, in the great ocean Abzu, and brother to Enlil, would whisper for hours to the gifted ears of Atrahasis. Although Enlil was worshipped in Surupuk, Enki too was venerated by many, as blessings were requested for their own creations, the mosaics and pottery, the little crafts of wonder that gave splendour to the streets and alleys, the wellsprings and hearths of humankind.

And so, the Gods gathered, hailing from the many realms of the heavens, Bel, Mnip, Ami, Ninurta and Ennugi came together with Hades too leaving his own dark caverns to join his fellows, the gods of rivers, canals, mountains, air and forests. The Great Father Anu presided, and after long discussions, with much regret, it was clear they too shared Enlil’s frustrations with the busy noise of humankind. They complained much about the clatter of the creatures fashioned to serve the needs of the gods, that the benefits of humankind no longer outweighed the sins of disturbing their masters, the gods. So, with heavy hearts, they agreed that Enlil should release his storms and together they would overwhelm the Earth with a great deluge, thus sweeping humans from their homes and ending the enemies of silence, returning them to the muds of the rivers, to leave a peaceful land and the Heavens no longer to be troubled. Great Father Anu, as always on such grave matters, required the gods swear a solemn oath to honour their dreadful judgement.

Part II

The god Enki, who had grown to enjoy his connections with the wise and sagacious grew regretful. He remembered the achievements of Atrahasis, and his people, and knew he would miss the gentle visions and dreams, the idle directions cast across the waters for the ears of Atrahasis. He would miss the fascination of watching the people of the city and the banks of the Euphrates as they grew in knowledge, taking the words from his visions, and applying them to the land, to their own creations. He wrestled with the oath he had sworn, and decided it would not stop him whispering at the reed walls of Atrahasis’s house, in the night, to tell of the terrors to come, and give instruction, leaving him to find the words by the subtleties of his own mind, for no other human would be wise enough to hear, still less, to understand.

And so he thought greatly, of wood and tar, and methods unknown to the peoples of the land, then he sneaked across and spoke:

“Reed Wall, Reed Wall, hear my words,
And if you happen to listen, oh man of Surupak,
oh son of Ubar-Tutu you must attend, for we gods
have laid an oath so dread to destroy
all of man and woman born, to destroy
all who are deemed to have sinned
against the gods, and so by their very nature,
all of mankind born, is destined to be drowned.”

Atrahasis felt the rush of words in his dreams, and woke to visions all of destruction if he did not listen.

“You must leave now, forsaking all possessions,
and build, and when the time is right seek all living creatures.
You must make a vessel, in which such seed of life
must be caused to enter. And the boat, she be roofed
from fore to aft, for those you gather must shelter,
as the earth roofs the eternal ocean. And so you must
make a perfect shape, with 600 cubits along its length,
and 60 cubits the measure of its breadth and height.
And once gathered all to its heart, you must launch it forth
and I will shower it with a windfall of birds and a spate of fishes.”

Enki shook the reed wall with his urgent whispers, and reaching through he opened the water clock, filled it and showed Atrahasis that the deluge would last seven days and seven nights, and wash all humankind into the seas, and return them to mud.

Atrahasis was frightened, and said, “ But how shall I answer the city, the people and our elders? What shall I say to them as they see me build, as you command and gather? They will deride me, young and old alike.”

And Enki’s voice drifted through the vision, perceived by the wisdom of his servant Atrahasis,

“You will say to them, the gods Enki and Enlil are severed,
and as you are known to follow Enki, Enlil has rejected me,
Say, ‘I can reside no longer in this great city, nor in the lands of his creation.
I will go down to Apsu, to the caves below the seas and live with my Lord,
As a great deluge descends upon these lands.”

Atrahasis was thoughtful, and listened further as his lord Enki continued,

“Once the vessel is made you will it enter and open the door wide
so to bring in thy grain, thy furniture, and thy essential goods,
thy female servants, thy slaves, and the young men,
the beasts and the animals all as I will gather and send to thee,
and they shall all be enclosed within thy doors.”

Atrahasis sighed. His head did not feel that a single vessel could rescue him, for surely the Earth was fixed, and from where could all the waters come? But he stilled the doubts and decided to trust the word of the Lord who had yet to mislead or betray him.

Enki whispered on, ignoring the doubts of his servant,

“And while you make the vessel I have commanded of you,
I shall bring you a harvest of true wealth, in the morning
loaves of bread shall shower down, and in evening a rain of wheat.
You shall have your fill while building, and more besides to store.”

And so Atrahasis turned and brought about him his family and friends, explaining they must trust his word, for he in turn trusted the whispers of his vision, as they are spoken by his Lord Enki. Even as the vision seemed too fanciful, and beyond the imagination of all around they agreed to obey the instructions, and set about the foundation of the boat amidst a great field. The carpenter brought his hatchet, the reed worker brought his stone, children brought the bitumen to bind the wood, and the weak of limb and breath, they too brought whatever was needed else for all to complete the task.

By the fifth day the framework had been laid, as large as the field; 14 measures all round, 14 measures in height, with walls and frames fixed within its long roof. Six decks, each divided into seven levels were divided further into nine compartments, and so it was ready to be tested.

Atrahasis studied it from within on the sixth day, examined its exterior on the seventh, then once more the inside he checked on the eighth, placing plugs against leaks where they might spring, and where he saw all manner of rents he noted the mends required.

And so in the purpose of this vast task raw bitumen was poured into specially constructed kilns and melted. 3 measures of the blackest pitch were then poured over the outside of the vessel to seal the wood, and 3 more poured over the inside. 3 times 3600 porters carried baskets of vegetable oils where they laid down two thirds for storage and kept out the balance for the dedication of the great work. Huge boxes were constructed so that one third of the oxen could be slaughtered for the craftsmen, and a third of the sheep, ready for sacrifice to Enki. And the two thirds then was kept for storage upon the boat.

And so, Atrahasis caused to be gathered beer and wine as free-flowing as the river, and food so plentiful as the grains of dust across the earth. Two thirds were taken into the vast construction, and one third retained for a party of the exhausted, to honour the end of their labours, to celebrate as wild and the joyful as the New Year festival, at the end of all things.

Atrahasis watched the as reed oars too were brought aboard, and saw the final preparations as the sunset saw the boat was finally completed. He fell into deep contemplation about the mighty efforts of all, wondering at the chests of silver and gold hauled in, reflecting the strength and metal of his own purpose, as he had gathered the seed of life into the vessel, his kith and kin, the servants and the beasts, the sons and daughters, the craftsmen, all hailed in. And as night pulled across the skies the huge boat was rolled along long poles until two thirds rested in the waters, awaiting the truth of Atrahasis’s vision from his precious Lord.

And while he watched, Great Shamash, known as Utu by some, the God of Justice and Day, of the Sun and Truth Revealed, spoke quietly from behind the reed walls of night into the ears of Atrahasis,

“I will cause it to rain so heavily,
You must not linger at the perimeter of your ship.
But flee to its midst; seal all thy doors
And be ready for the crash of waters.”

As the day approached Atrahasis watched with such fear in his heart, and doubt. For his final act he gave his mansion, its goods and lands to Puzur Amurri, a boatman who had decided to stay, and so to seal the final door from the outside, with bitumen.

Part III

And so, at the appointed hour, the moment of Enlil’s rage arrived. The gods gathered to execute the purpose of their oath and cleanse the lands of noisy humankind; they rose, from the horizon of the Heavens extending and wide arranged themselves, revealed into the realm of Earth to cause utter devastation. Yul in the midst of it thundered, and Nebo and Saru bore ahead, the throne bearers heaved over mountains and plains, the destroyer Nergal burst forth, Ninip surged in front and cast down, the ancient spirits hauled destruction in their glory as they swept across the Earth. Erragal then pulled at the mooring ropes of the world and made the dykes of the Heavens flow, Adad hurled his torrential rain and all the gods set the land ablaze as the light of the emerging day turned to deepest, blackest night.

The bright earth was turned quickly to waste, the surface of the land obliterated by the thunderstorms and floods, with all people blinded by the onslaught draining from the skies, so none could see their fellows sliding from existence all around, or hear them above the roar of the hurricanes.

Everywhere, life was swept from the face of the Earth, overwhelming all people, all creatures, all lands, and so powerful was the cataclysm that it reached to the Heavens and threatened even the gods themselves. Now they too began to fear the tempest, anxious that its wild intensity might destroy them, so they sought refuge and ascended to the highest Heaven of Anu to protest. Like frightened dogs the gods, in droves, fell prostrate at the walls of Anu’s Heaven; Ishtar, the goddess of fertility and desire spoke out, distraught as a child, and appealed to the Father of the Gods:

“All to corruption is turned! I too, in the presence
of the gods at our Council, professed against evil,
As evil against us was vent, as sin against us caused
but now I profess thus: no sooner have I begotten
my people on the land like the young fishes
They are scattered as they fill the seas with death.”

And the ancient of spirits, the Anunnaki, the lofty redeemers of Fate, echoed Ishtar, and sat lamenting too, their lips covered with evil, slithering, they wretched with distress and regret.

Part IV

Six days and nights passed, the winds, the deluge, and storm had overwhelmed humankind and swept all away; the waters had closed across and made a single stretch of ocean, with no mountains, islands, and no place for land creatures to dwell, all was lost, but for the single vessel tossed high and higher by the devastating waves.

On the seventh day, with the terrible deed now consummated, the writhing agonies of the deluge began to subside: the whirlwinds abated, the storms retreated, and soon all turmoil fell away to silence.

Atrahasis perceiving the throw of the vessel to have steadied, so ventured to open a hatch, and found daylight breaking across his upturned face. He allowed himself a moment of joy, and relief, before opening his eyes, to observe the whole of mankind, once turned evil to the gods now reduced to clay, and like reeds, corpses floated long on the seas, into the horizon.

Atrahasis fell to his knees and wept, a deluge of his own, his face flowing with tears. Through exhausted eyes he looked out once more and blinked, seeing there a distant shore some twelve leagues away. Land perhaps, he thought, or a cruel illusion.

And so sailed Atrahasis’ vessel to the place where once the country of Urartu resided and where, as the seas withdrew slowly, the tips of mountains halted further progress. The first day, and the second, the mountain held the vessel. So too the third day, and the fourth, followed by the fifth, an sixth, the vessel could not move further.

So on the seventh day Atrahasis opened the hatch once more and sent forth a dove. It flew off, but did not find a resting-place, and so returned all to soon.

Next Atrahasis released a swallow into the sky. Joyfully it spun across the air, but did not find a place to rest, so too it returned.

Undeterred, finally Atrahasis sent a raven and watched it leap into the skies. It flew on, across waters that now more visibly slithered back, revealing slowly emerging lands. So, the raven stopped, filled its aching belly, and wandering happily away, did not to return to the one remaining vessel of life on the Earth. Now, Atrahasis saw the great god Utu rise in the sky at last spreading light and warmth once more across the face of the drowned world, revealing the rapid withdrawal of the seas. And Utu, seeing the vessel perched now on a patch dry land, reached out to break the seal on the doors of Atrahasis’s huge boat.

Part V

Oh, Atrahasis wept as he descended from the mighty vessel, pausing only to kiss the ground before the light of Utu. There he built an altar on the peak of the mountain of Urartu: by sevens herbs he cut, at the base of them he placed juniper, the flower of the mountain, with reeds, cedar, and myrtle, then gave sacrifice of oxen and sheep, crumbled barley cakes into the fire, and offered the fragrant libations to the four winds.

Shuddering still in their heavens, quelled by the rage of the deluge the gods received the tribute, and it revived them; they lifted themselves up, shuffling from their hideaways, and gathered like flies over the sacrifice, huge, unseen, consoled, swaying as trees amongst the flickering flames of the sacrifice, casting their shadows, in a ring across the mountain. Atrahasis gazed with wonder at the lights and shadows, the glory of the gods as he perceived them, reflected in the charm of lapis-lazuli around his neck. And so he felt comforted and in those moments he desired with all his being that forever he might not leave them, these strange and complicated gods, and so he spoke in their kind,

“May the gods come to my altar,
Though not dread Enlil for he did not consider
Our worth and made such a deluge,
So many of my people he consigned to the deep.”

Indeed the ancient god Enlil finally observed the vessel, and, filled with anger went to the gods and spirits assembled, casting his fury amongst them,

“Let not any one come out alive,
let not a man be saved from the deep.”

But, instead of agreeing as before the gods who had cowered from the storms, and saw the world cleansed of humankind, but for these few in the ship and the seeds of fruitful growth within, they resisted Enlil’s fury. Before the assembled deities Nintu, the goddess of birth, raised her head and spoke to the warrior Enlil, gesturing to the highest heaven of the Anu:

“Who then will ask our Father Anu,
for he knows the Truth of all things,
and the rightness of all deeds done.”

Anu, weary and wise, surveyed the devastation of the land, the people and the creatures of the Earth, then looked to his fellows Utu, Innana, Ishtar and the others, then spoke with great prophesy, and said to the fierce Lord Enlil :

“Thou prince of the gods, oh warrior,
when thou art angry a deluge thou makest ;
the doer of sin was felled by his own sin,
the doer of evil was felled by his own evil.
But the just survivor let him not be cut off,
The faithful let him not be destroyed.
Instead of thee making a deluge once more,
May lions increase and men be reduced ;
Instead of thee making a deluge once more,
May leopards increase and men be reduced ;
Instead of thee making a deluge once more,
May a famine happen and the country be destroyed ;
Instead of thee making a deluge once more,
May pestilence increase and men be destroyed.”

Enlil, nodded slowly understanding the words of his father. His own anger was pacified at least that the noise of humankind was abated, that as his father further decreed short lives would also constrict the plague of humankind, that a class of priestess too could remain now celibate, to honour the gods, and further keep down the spread of humanity. Enlil and Enki, with their father, looked across the lands deluged by storms, and saw the bodies clinging to the mud, slowly returning to its succour. Enlil, like the floods he had created, closed his fierce eyes, submitted to the judgement, and withdrew his objections, much to the quiet joy of the gods and spirits gathered there.

Atrahasis could not hear the great debate, but in time Enki sent a dream to him, and the verdict was heard. It made him wonder at his good fortune, and the kind instruction of Enki who had whispered through the reed walls that separates the Heavens of the gods and lands of humankind.

And so in a vision, mighty Enlil, Fategiver and Lord of Storms, made himself appear on the mountainside, huge, contrite and thoughtful as he reached into the midst of the boat. He took the hand of Atrahasis, and gestured him to rise, to bring his wife and all those within to flow out into the lands. With Atrahasis Enlil made a great and rare covenant, and gave this blessing, in the presence of the people and the creatures who had sailed and survived,

“So Atrahasis, and your wife, and kin,
to be like the gods will be carried away;
then shall dwell you in a remote place
At a bridge between worlds, at the mouth of the rivers.
And no more shall the gods move to end humankind,
For we have set in motion our means,
So we may have peace and you, life.”

Atrahasis indeed was brought to a remote place at the mouth of the rivers and given a seat amongst the gods, who now he could see and with whom he could converse and there to watch the activities of the people of the Earth, honoured as he was both by his sons and daughters, and by the gods themselves.

And so ends the tale of Atrahasis and The Great Deluge of humankind.

LinksThe introduction to this post.Eridu Genesis link. At earth-history.comLink to the original fragments of verse Epic of Atrahasis at Livius.orgEpic of Gilgamesh, translated by R. Campbell Thomson, here. At the Sacred Texts.

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Sources | The Great Deluge | Introduction

Stories of floods appear in most ancient mythologies, manifested as apocalyptic events caused by a God or gods. The Mesoamericans, Chinese, ancient Greeks and Scandinavians1 all suffered the wrathful storms of a vengeful deity. Human civilisation grew around river systems, with the Amazon, Indus, Nile-Kagera2, Yellow River and Yangtze, and the Kızılırmak bearing some of the earliest, as humankind wrestled with the life-giving properties of fierce local waters, and created canals, flood plains and dykes. Gathering around the plains of their mighty twin rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, the ancient Sumerians of the 4th Century BC were probably the earliest civilisation of the Fertile Crucible5 in the Middle East and their tale of a great deluge is a prime example of poetic myth-making based on natural elements. It is also the earliest known story of apocalyptic literature, and embedded in our consciousness it’s a primary source for modern gothic, sf and dark fantastic fiction.

Sumeria and Babylonia

The earliest Sumerian legend is a written record (on tablets of clay) of much earlier oral traditions. It is described in the Eridu Genesis (c. 2300 BC)6, and is the source of the later Dream of Atrahasis (c. 1600 BC)7 from the Hammurabi’s Babylonians8, the inheritors of Sumerian knowledge. The subsequent flood story relayed by Utnapishtim9 in the Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 1200 BC) as the eponymous hero attempts to gain immortality, gives a more detailed account. Modern archeological evidence does point to a huge flood across the rivers10 of Ancient Near East from c. 3500 BC–2600 BC creating an event that certainly would have appeared world-ending to the emerging civilisations of the time. The King Lists from Ancient Sumeria11 show rulers with apparently long lives preceding the flood, entering the mythology and religion of a region ruled variously by the vying city states of Ur, Babylon, Akkad Uruk and others. Interestingly, the father of Atrahasis, Ubaratu, the last named King in the list before the flood, is listed as living 18,600 years, and is named in the Dream of Atrahasis when the god Enlil whispers to Atrahasis. Such rulers are referred to as Antediluvian12, adding to their legendary status, and they come from an era when history was recorded according to the life-length of individual rulers, rather than an objective standard of year lengths. Apocalyptic tales of floods derive from such times of myth-making, as humankind moved from Iron to Bronze ages13, battling with the natural world around them, casting tools and weapons, developing the means to record, describe and write, and slowly gathering control over their landscape.

Retelling the Myth

The retelling of this story has its challenges because the source material bears so many gaps. The three versions come to us on fragments of clay tablets and cylinders (especially from the great Library of Ashurbanipal, the names are different, the gods and their relationships with each other vary and we experience the narrative through the emerging discovery of translations and the painstaking skill of scholars beach-combing and cross-referring, refining their understanding in much the same way that scientists find new answers to the questions of the beginnings of the universe by finding more evidence and asking yet more questions. Recent work about the dates of the Sumerian King List for instance, point to a possible misunderstanding about the calendar dating system used by Sumerians, with the pictograms of early language originally developed to describe measurements and quantities on a base 60 system15, rather than the rationalised systems introduced by the contemporaneous Akkadian Empire16, and modern Western decimal system, raising questions about the description of calendar year cycles used in Sumerian texts.

In Other Traditions

This Deluge story retells an event perhaps some 1000 years before any written record, and clearly informs the biblical tale of Noah and the Ark. But the Ancient Near East is not alone, for many early civilisations treat the apocalyptic events of local flooding in such terms, from India to China, the Phillippines to Mesoamerica, ancient Greece, and the Abrahamic tale of Noah and the Ark. It’s also worth noting that the Babylonian civilisation that brought us The Dream of Atrahasis thrived at roughly the same time as the Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt (c. 2030-1650 BC), the Shāng (商) Dynasty around the Yellow River in China (c. 1920-1200 BC), and the Olmec cultures of c. 1500 BC in Mesoamerica. Across the world peoples with little or no contact were developing their language and religions, wrestling with the same challenges brought by proximity to their own life-giving rivers. 

The Tale Retold

The three main sources on which this new version is based were conveyed in a form of verse. It’s not the sort of poetry we’re used to: there are no rhymes and if there is alliteration or accented rhythm that’s lost in the translation. Each line does contain a whole idea though, and much repetition throughout adds to the sense of an epic retelling, highlighting the rhetorical nature of the original oral sources that informed the written texts. The tales are written in the first person, told to the listener as a story within a story, in the context of a longer myth.

This new version is written as prose, and in the third person. Some liberties have been taken with the original translated text in order to recreate a tale that’s satisfying to the modern ear, but an attempt has been made to retain the epic nature of the myth, and the key event-moments of a tale more well-known through reputation than actual reading. This is not intended as a scholarly exercise, but broadly represents the combination of sources and offers an internal consistency to the names of the gods and humans.

It’s also worth mentioning that the myth is firmly placed in a man’s world where the exercise of physical strength was dominant, a powerful relic of the hunter-gather epoch, and so it makes uncomfortable reading to a 21st century sensibilities, for here the women are only wives, mothers or slaves, and generally nameless, even the goddesses when named, are restricted to authority over fertility, birth, and the hearth.

Connections

For my own writing, the world building of the Sumerians, the codifications of the Babylonians and the fragmentary access to their beliefs and their determination in the face of powerful natural forces, create a vivid space for exploring our place in the universe, arguably more so than the well-trodden paths of the Romans and the Greeks. I’m fascinated by all points of origin, from scientific explorations of dark matter and the Big Bang, to the mythic evocations of pre-eternity and creation. Such themes are expressed in terms of chaos and darkness, light and shadow, the arrival or creation of creatures who come to dominate or threaten this world or the universe itself. With the Earth of humans and the Heavens of the Sumerian gods co-existing in time and space the apocalyptic effect of events across all realms affect the existence of all things and offers so much opportunity for exploration. My fiction, in the forthcoming series These Fantastic Worlds, with characters who cross the divides of time, returning demons and creatures to their proper places, explores these mythic connections to the dark fantastic, the other-worldly, the horrors and fears of dark, ancient spaces.

The full text of the new prose version of The Great Deluge (Retold) will appear in the next post.

LinksEridu Genesis link. At earth-history.comLink to the original fragments of verse Epic of Atrahasis at Livius.orgEpic of Gilgamesh, translated by R. Campbell Thomson, here. At the Sacred Texts.More about Gilgamesh: https://www.ancient.eu/gilgamesh/Information about Tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh, at the British Museum.More about the wonders of the Ancient Library of Ashurbanipal.Map of the Fertile Crucible (from the Linking to Thinking blog)Archeological evidence for the flood.A version of the Sumerian King List on show at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.Here’s a clear explanation of the mathematical basis of base 60 and its origins in Sumerian cuneiform.

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Sources | Babylonian Flood Tale

Over the next few weeks I’ve taken on a task to retell the story of the Babylonian Flood. There are three fragmentary stories, the most famous of which is embedded within the myths of Gilgamesh, but their significance is great because they hold voices from the ancient past, further back than the Greeks of Homer, the Tanakh of the Hebrews, the Shang Dynasty of the Chinese and the Old Kingdom of Egypt.

Three sources of the Flood Story

Archeological evidence of the rock and land formations suggest that the roots of the tale refer to a great deluge across the Tigris and Euphrates close to 2700 BC. Traditions, myths, instructions and stories in that era were passed down orally, with the written word barely invented beyond the pictogramic representations of field sizes and quantities. By the early 2000s though, writing on clay tablets in the regions of Mesopotamia reveals local customs, prophecies and history, and the first relating to a flood story now called the Eridu Genesis, of which only a third survives.  A later version, known by its protagonist’s name Atrahasis was probably written in the 1640s BC, at the height of Babylon’s surging ascendency across the region of Middle East. The third version, and the most complete is within the canon of the Gilgamesh Myth, probably from 1100 BCE, but discovered in the thousands of clay tablets from the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, from c.680 BC.

Sources and Inspirations

The Sumerians and Babylonians are a much neglected corner of ancient mythology, demonised by subsequent monotheistic religions, and out-glamoured by the majesty of the Ancient Egyptians. For my own writing I am fascinated by their origin stories, and have traced some useful connections with the later Celts and their own mythological invasions of Ireland. Civilisations with multiple deities seem able to contemplate parallel, multiple universe, with gods, demons and humans occupying different planes on the same physical space, and this is precisely where my own short stories and novels intersect.

Links

Concepts of Time
Myths and Legends
Dark Fantasy
British Museum Library of Ashurbanipal Link

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Inspirations | NASA Images

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Concepts | Event Horizon

In the sf and fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson’s These Fantastic Worlds the event horizon is used in two distinct but inter-related ways. Firstly as a metaphor for imprisonment, and the impossibility of escape, secondly as an event in the physical universe where the action of its super-gravity on a photon pair can cause a momentary break in the conservation laws of a system.

An Event Horizon is the point or series of points beyond which escape from a heavy gravitational force is impossible. The gravity of the super-dense mass of a Black Hole in space creates an event horizon around it so that even light emitted cannot escape, and so, to the external observer, creating the impression of the absence of light (i.e. photons).

The conservation laws of physics, which hold that there is always a balance of energy within a system (in this case, the universe) allows that if the one of the photons in a photon pair created momentarily within the area of a black hole, near the edge of the event horizon, falls back and is absorbed, while the other is not, then the mass of the black hole is reduced by the mass of the single photon, because the other photon has not been cancelled out. So the energy of the surviving photon can be considered to have escaped.

Being not Being

In the various novels and short stories of These Fantastic Worlds, the event horizon represents a balance in the universe, a manifestation of the concept of Being not Being, Within and Without, Bound and Unbound. The undermining of this balance, by those who seek to ignore it, or master it, creates a narrative tension because the prime motivating force, the Will to survive and thrive, contrives with the laws of conservation to restore the balance.

Silence, stillness and motion are manifestations of this tension as Hunter and Bain track across Space and Time returning creatures of pre-eternity to their rightful place, a pre-Dawn realm held back by the super-gravitational force of a singularity, surrounded by an event horizon which, apparently, cannot be breached.

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Concepts | Schopenhaur’s Will

Schopenhauer was a German philosopher who built on Kant’s ground-breaking work on human consciousness. He explored the nature of spirit, motivation and existence within our perception of space and time. His philosophy offers some intriguing perspectives on the beginnings of our universe, with its implications on belief, matter and the ongoing state of the expanding universe.

Will as a Force

Schopenhaur’s primary work, “The World as Will, and Presentation” (or Idea, or Representation depending on which translation you encounter) constructs a theory around the motivation of behaviour and forward momentum in all beings, and all matter, one that requires no emotion, sensation, or prime entity, but simply ‘is’. It offers a solution to such questions ‘what happened before the Big Bang? Who or what caused it? And why can’t we see or prove what it was? Essentially, these questions do not require an answer because they are redundant to the ‘Is-ness’ of the universe, its motion and progress, its origins and destination, all of which can be encompassed in the simple, colossal state of existence in and of itself.

For Schopenhauer phenomenon in and of the universe (the thing as it appears to an observer), and noumenon (Kant’s ‘thing itself’) are simultaneous manifestations, rather than one occurring as a consequence of the other. They are, and encompass one another, so do not require an initial, or prime state. The force as described by him as ‘Will’ is unknowable, it is an ineluctable, ‘blind’ force which resides in all phenomenon, motivating the nominal world (‘the thing itself’) and humankind’s desire (at a species level) to strive and survive. Will does not have an observable purpose, and can not be described in terms of conscious thought or form, because it simply ‘is’. A complex combination of materials and resources informs the growth of organic and inert matter throughout the universe, but the nature of Will provides the blind motivation, promoting perpetual cycles of needs and need satisfactions as tools for survival and growth.

Strictly in the context of its influence on the fiction of Jake Jackson’s These Fantastic Worlds Schopenhauer’s Will is important because it provides for an unstoppable force at the pinpoint origin of the Big Bang to the limits of the ever expanding universe.

Dark Matter and Other Influences

In modern cosmology the fundamental force identified now as dark matter is understood to occupy 75% of the universe. It appears it be responsible for the expansion across the space time region and as such, can be seen through the lens Schopenhauer’s Will. Einstein, a 100 years later, identified the need for dark matter, using what he called a cosmological constant to balance the energies in the system to make his Theory of Relativity work, but Schopenhauer’s observations also helps us to analyse the prevalence of the mathematical equation Phi, the driving calculation behind the Fibonacci Sequence, the Golden Ratio found in so many observable phenomena, from living organisms, plants and trees, shells, weather systems, and the movement of galaxies. The effect of Schopenhauer’s Will is long and slow, defying other fundamental forces such as gravity, winding all life and matter ever outwards.

Schopenhauer also explored the thinking of Eastern Philosophies such as Hinduism and Buddhism, where cycles of renewal and reincarnation are essential, balancing energy conservation across the great network of systems in and around the universe. And this brings us to Being not Being the duality which both balances and drives the universe.

Connections

The mix of religion, philosophy, mathematics myth and the subtle power of forward momentum in all things sits behind the action of the sf and fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson’s fothcoming SF and fantasy series, These Fantastic Worlds, particularly in Fibonacci Rising, Fireflies on a Distant Planet, and many of the short stories of Hunter and Bain.

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