(Search & Sitemap)
(Search & Sitemap)
> Writings >
Socratic Dialogue >
Yonder
Skip Back
Previous
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Next
Skip Forward
Printer-Friendly Version
Archon paused for a moment. "What I was going to say is that that's just a literary device, but I realize there is something there. The organic recognizes that there's something in different organisms, especially moving ones, that's closer to mind-body unities than something that's not alive."
"Like a computer processor?"
"That's complex, and it would be even more complex if they really had minds on a computer. But for now I'll say that unless they see computers through a fantasy--which many of them do--they experience computers as logic without life. And at any rate, there is a literary device that treats other things as having minds. I used it myself when saying the grape organism employed a strategy; it isn't sentient. But their willingness to employ that literary mechanism seems to reflect both that a fox isn't a unity and that a fox isn't too far from being a unity. Other life is similar, but not equal."
"What kind of cable was the grape organism on? Which part of the net was it used for?"
"That story is a survival from before the transition from organic to technological. Advanced technology focuses on information--"
"Where else would technology focus?"
"--less sophisticated technology performs manual tasks. That story was from before cables were used to carry data."
"Then what was the cable for?"
"To support the grape organism."
"Do they have any other technology that isn't real?"
"Do you mean, 'Do they have any other technology that doesn't push the envelope and expand what can be done with technology?'"
"Yes."
"Then your question shuts off the answer. Their technology doesn't exist to expand what technology can do; it exists to support a community in its organic life."
"Where's the room for progress in that?"
"It's a different focus. You don't need another answer; you need another question. And, at any rate, that is how this world tells the lesson of cognitive dissonance, that we devalue what is denied to us."
Ployon paused. "Ok; I need time to process that story--may I say, 'digest'?"
"Certainly."
"But one last question. Why did you refer to the fox as 'he'? Its supposed mind was--"
"In that world, a unity is always male ('he') or female ('she'). A neutered unity is extraordinarily rare, and a neutered male, a 'eunuch', is still called 'he.'"
"I'm familiar enough with those details of biology, but why would such an insignificant detail--"
"Remember about being mind-body unities. And don't think of them as bodies that would ordinarily be neutered. That's how new unities come to be in that world, with almost no cloning and no uterine replicators--"
"They really are slime!"
"--and if you only understand the biology of it, you don't understand it."
"What don't I understand?"
"You're trying to understand a feature of language that magnifies something insignificant, and what would cause the language to do that. But you're looking for an explanation in the wrong place. Don't think that the bodies are the most sexual parts of them. They're the least sexual; the minds tied to those bodies are even more different than the bodies. The fact that the language shaped by unities for a long time distinguishes 'masculine' and 'feminine' enough to have the difference written into 'it', so that 'it' is 'he' or 'she' when speaking of mind-body unities."
"Hmm... Is this another dimension to their reality that is flattened out in ours? Are their minds always thinking about that act?"
"In some cases that's not too far from the truth. But you're looking for the big implication in the wrong place. This would have an influence if a unity never thought about that act, and it has influence before a unity has any concept of that act."
"Back up a bit. Different question. You said this was their way of explaining the theory of cognitive dissonance. But it isn't. It describes one event in which cognitive dissonance occurs. It doesn't articulate the theory; at most the theory can be extracted from it. And worse, if one treats it as explaining cognitive dissonance, it is highly ambiguous about where the boundaries of cognitive dissonance are. One single instance is very ambiguous about what is and is not another instance. This is an extraordinarily poor method of communication!"
"It is extraordinarily good, even classic, communication for minds that interpenetrate bodies. Most of them don't work with bare abstractions, at least not most of the time. They don't have simply discarnate minds that have been stuck into bodies. Their minds are astute in dealing with situations that mind-body unities will find themselves in. And think about it. If you're going to understand how they live, you're going to have to understand some very different, enfleshed ways of thought. No, more than that, if you still see the task of understanding ways of thought, you will not understand them."
"So these analyses do not help me in understanding your world."
"So far as you are learning through this kind of analysis, you will not understand... but this analysis is all you have for now."
"Are their any other stories that use an isomorphic element to this one?"
"I don't know. I've gotten deep enough into this world that I don't keep stories sorted by isomorphism class."
"Tell me another story the way that a storyteller there would tell it; there is something in it that eludes me."
Archon said, "Ok... The alarm clock chimed. It was a device such that few engineers alive fully understood its mechanisms, and no man could tell the full story of how it came to be, of the exotic places and activities needed to make all of its materials, or the logistics to assemble them, or the organization and infrastructure needed to bring together all the talent of those who designed, crafted, and maintained them, or any other of sundry details that would take a book to list. The man abruptly shifted from the vivid kaleidoscope of the dreaming world to being awake, and opened his eyes to a kaleidoscope of sunrise colors and a room with the song of birds and the song of crickets. Outside, the grass grew, the wind blew, a busy world was waking up, and the stars continued their ordered and graceful dance. He left the slumbering form of the love of his life, showered, and stepped out with his body fresh, clean, and beautifully adorned. He stopped to kiss the fruit of their love, a boy cooing in his crib, and drove past commuters, houses, pedestrians, and jaybirds with enough stories to tell that they could fill a library to overflowing.
Archon continued, "After the majestic and ordered dance on the freeway brought him to his destination safe, unharmed, on time, and focusing on his work, he spent a day negotiating the flow of the human treasure of language, talking, listening, joking, teasing, questioning, enjoying the community of his co-workers, and cooperating to make it possible for a certain number of families to now enter the homes of their dreams. In the middle of the day he stopped to eat, nourishing a body so intricate that the state of the art in engineering could not hold a candle to his smallest cell. This done, he continued to use a spirit immeasurably greater than his body to pursue his work. Needless to say, the universe, whose physics alone is beyond our current understanding, continued to work according to all of its ordered laws and the spiritual world continued to shine. The man's time at work passed quickly, with a pitter-patter of squirrels' feet on the roof of their office, and before long he entered the door and passed a collection with copies of most of the greatest music produced by Western civilization--available for him to listen to, any time he pleased. The man absently kissed his wife, and stepped away, breathing the breath of God.
"'Hi, Honey!' she said. 'How was your day?'
"'Somewhat dull. Maybe something exciting will happen tomorrow.'"
Ployon said, "There's someone I want to meet who is free now, so I'll leave in a second... I'm not going to ask about all the technical vocabulary, but I wanted to ask: Is this story a farce? It describes a unity who has all these ludicrous resources, and then it--"
"--he--"
"--he says the most ludicrous thing."
"What you've said is true. The story is not a farce."
"But the story tells of things that are momentous."
"I know, but people in that world do not appreciate many of these things."
"Why? They seem to have enough access to these momentous resources."
"Yes, they certainly do. But most of the unities are bathed in such things and do not think that they are anything worth thinking of."
"And I suppose you're going to tell me that is part of their greatness."
"To them these things are just as boring as jacking into a robotically controlled factory and using the machines to assemble something."
"I see. At least I think I see. And I really need to be going now... but one more question. What is 'God'?"
"Please, not that. Please, any word but that. Don't ask about that."
(Search & Sitemap)
(Search & Sitemap)
> Writings >
Socratic Dialogue >
Yonder
Skip Back
Previous
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Next
Skip Forward
Printer-Friendly Version