Anathem

by Neal Stephenson

From there he had moved on to his greatest upsight of all, which was that these two observations—the one concerning the clouds, the other concerning the mountain—were themselves both shadows cast into his mind by the same greater, unifying idea. Returning to the Periklyne he had proclaimed his doctrine that all the things we thought we knew were shadows of more perfect things in a higher world.

boredom is a mask that frustration wears).

“Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.”

Orolo came in, fetched himself a light lunch, and sat down alone in what had become his favorite spot: the table from which he could look out the window and down the mountains when the weather was clear. Today, it wasn’t; but it felt as though the clouds might later be rinsed away by a cold clear river of wind.

Ringing Vale: (1) A mountain valley renowned for the many small streams that spill down its rocky walls from glaciers poised above, producing a musical sound likened to the ringing of chimes.

That quieted her down a little bit. But after a while, she said: “Do you need transportation? Tools? Stuff?” “Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs,” I said. “We have a protractor.”

I kept being surprised by moments of beauty in these songs. Most of them were forgettable but one in ten sheltered some turn or inflection that proved that the person who had made it had achieved some kind of upsight—had, for a moment, got it. I wondered if this was a representative sampling, or if Cord was just unusually good at finding songs with beauty in them and loading only those onto her jeejah.

“You know how multicellular life evolved?” “Er, single-celled organisms clumping together for mutual advantage?” “Yes. And, in some cases, encapsulating one another.” “I’ve heard of the concept.” “That is what our brains are.” “What!?” “Our brains are flies, bats, and worms that clumped together for mutual advantage. These parts of our brains are talking to each other all the time. Translating what they perceive, moment to moment, into the shared language of geometry. That’s what a brain is. That’s what it is to be conscious.”

“Conservation of momentum,” he announced, “it’s not just a good idea—it’s the law!”