THIS IS A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS NOT A REVIEW AND IS ENTIRELY COMPOSED OF SPOILERS!
I think that a central point in ghostwritten is how Buddhist ontology chimes exactly with what quantum mechanics is telling us about the nature of reality. Annica is the Buddhist theory of impermanence. Both hold that objective reality is fundamentally different from how our limited senses experience and create our subjective reality. But here is the paradox or koan - we create reality with our subjectivity. Mitchell makes the connection dismissively when Katie Forbes meets Marcus 'We had done the old quantum physics equals eastern religions bollocks' But I don't think it's by chance that he mentions this in describing how they met... I think this is actually the key to understanding a big puzzle in the book- what the non corporeal entity that phones the zookeeper at the end of the book actually is.
Others have speculated that It is another AI being. But the being is able to transmigrate into Humans like the one in Mongolia could. the zookeeper cannot, it can only access data stored by humans not in humans. 'Without access to Muntervary's cerebral cortex how would I know all that?' Perhaps it transmigrated into a second sentient AI and gained omniscience by becoming a hybrid. But it does not have the innocence and curiosity of the zookeeper. Plus it says it has met five others like it and has heard of three like itself.The existence of other non corporeal beings is likely given that one existed in comparatively remote parts of Asia. So, such beings should be widespread if one existed there ( recall the Drake equation). The point is that there is very little difference between a being created by quantum cognition and a being that is the result of karma that causes the new mental state or rebirth between one body and another. Hence eastern metaphysics meets western physics is not in fact a throwaway line. The ghostwriter metaphor is deep and powerful not shallow as some have suggested. I still have one puzzle to unravel- the zookeeper seems to be asking bat to justify its shifting ethical stance. It says that ' the opportunity presents itself in thirteen days, bat' This is when the comet was due to narrowly miss the earth... Did the zookeeper know that it WAS DUE to hit and was it planning to intervene to make sure it wiped out humans? The primary law would seem to be for the zookeeper to protect the zoo- life itself NOT humans. After all, a comet impact probably wiped out ninety per cent of a life when the dinosaurs became extinct, but life persisted. A nuclear war by contract could potentially sterilise the earth.
The zookeeper's actions would fit with James Lovelocks GAIA hypothesis in this case. The zookeeper did seem to have regrets about saving the world the first time around. Bat gives him an analogous idea by suggesting damaging a bridge to indirectly stop a massacre in Africa. My final point is that perhaps this did lead to the demise of human 'civilisation' that takes place... In CLOUD ATLAS! So could this be yet another connection between these two marvellous books?
I think that a central point in ghostwritten is how Buddhist ontology chimes exactly with what quantum mechanics is telling us about the nature of reality. Annica is the Buddhist theory of impermanence. Both hold that objective reality is fundamentally different from how our limited senses experience and create our subjective reality. But here is the paradox or koan - we create reality with our subjectivity.
Mitchell makes the connection dismissively when Katie Forbes meets Marcus
'We had done the old quantum physics equals eastern religions bollocks'
But I don't think it's by chance that he mentions this in describing how they met...
I think this is actually the key to understanding a big puzzle in the book- what the non corporeal entity that phones the zookeeper at the end of the book actually is.
Others have speculated that It is another AI being. But the being is able to transmigrate into Humans like the one in Mongolia could. the zookeeper cannot, it can only access data stored by humans not in humans.
'Without access to Muntervary's cerebral cortex how would I know all that?'
Perhaps it transmigrated into a second sentient AI and gained omniscience by becoming a hybrid. But it does not have the innocence and curiosity of the zookeeper. Plus it says it has met five others like it and has heard of three like itself.The existence of other non corporeal beings is likely given that one existed in comparatively remote parts of Asia. So, such beings should be widespread if one existed there ( recall the Drake equation).
The point is that there is very little difference between a being created by quantum cognition and a being that is the result of karma that causes the new mental state or rebirth between one body and another. Hence eastern metaphysics meets western physics is not in fact a throwaway line. The ghostwriter metaphor is deep and powerful not shallow as some have suggested.
I still have one puzzle to unravel- the zookeeper seems to be asking bat to justify its shifting ethical stance. It says that ' the opportunity presents itself in thirteen days, bat'
This is when the comet was due to narrowly miss the earth... Did the zookeeper know that it WAS DUE to hit and was it planning to intervene to make sure it wiped out humans?
The primary law would seem to be for the zookeeper to protect the zoo- life itself NOT humans. After all, a comet impact probably wiped out ninety per cent of a life when the dinosaurs became extinct, but life persisted. A nuclear war by contract could potentially sterilise the earth.
The zookeeper's actions would fit with James Lovelocks GAIA hypothesis in this case. The zookeeper did seem to have regrets about saving the world the first time around. Bat gives him an analogous idea by suggesting damaging a bridge to indirectly stop a massacre in Africa.
My final point is that perhaps this did lead to the demise of human 'civilisation' that takes place... In CLOUD ATLAS!
So could this be yet another connection between these two marvellous books?