Queen Bodilis:
"'Whatever comets are - Aristoteles thought them mere vapours in the upper air - the chronicles tell us they've come and gone with less serious consequences than so many thunderstorms.'" (p. 274)
"Adam had no superstitious horror of comets; unlike the mob, he knew what they were, and their place in the scheme of things. They were simply bodies of earthly fire which, because of an affinity for one of the fixed stars, had been sublimated and drawn into the sublunar heavens, there to share the motion of the star that had called them up. But it followed from this that on the earth there would be an infirmity or corruption in the men, plants and animals over which that star principally ruled.
"And the stars in the tail of the Dragon ruled those who ordered their lives by princes."
-James Blish, Doctor Mirabilis IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 1-381 AT VI, p. 137.
Well, that would follow, wouldn't it? Adam Marsh "knew" what comets were because Doctor Mirabilis, Chapter VI, is narrated from his point of view. Queen Bodilis is more appropriately agnostic on the topic.
13 comments:
You can't escape the beliefs of your upbringing, not wholly -- it's not a matter of IQ.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
True, but I also believe some beliefs are literally true while others are false.
Ad astra! Sean
Everyone believes that his own beliefs are true. Otherwise, they would not be his beliefs.
And since I believe all judgments of value are purely subjective, I believe they're all equally right or wrong, in a larger sense.
Doesn't mean I don't have my own opinions... I just don't fool myself that they're anything -but- opinions. 'tis opinions -all the way down-.
I'm perfectly willing to -impose- my opinions if I can, but that's another matter.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I have to disagree. E.g., it can be my opinion that 2 + 2 = 5, but it would still be a false opinion. It's impossible for 2 + 2 to be anything but 4. And so on and on.
Ad astra! Sean
Maths is not judgements of value.
Kaor, Paul!
Then I will expand on what I left implicit in that "And so on and on." It could be my opinion, my judgement of value, that Lenin was a wise, noble, benign, just, forbearing ruler. But that would be a false opinion, because in actuality he was a monster of cruelty, fanaticism, cynicism, and tyranny.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Judgements about a man's character are still judgements of fact although you are using value terms to recount those facts.
Judgements of value are like: "It is always wrong to steal, lie, kill" etc.
Paul.
Or even "It is sometimes wrong..." etc.
Value words are "right," "wrong," "good," "bad," "should," "ought" etc.
Fact words are like "is" etc.
We can agree on a factual statement, e.g.: "Cain killed Abel," and disagree in our value judgements about it.
To say: "Cain murdered Abel," is a value judgement because "murder" means "wrongful killing."
Usually, "murder" implies disapproval. However, we might say that someone was murdered in the legal senses but that we morally approve of the killing. Or we might not. This is where disagreements in value judgements come in.
Paul: pretty much, yeah.
As Nietzsche said, there are no moral phenomenon; only moral -interpretations- of a phenomenon.
Kaor, Paul!
I hope we can agree that, by using the rules of logic, it will be possible to determine the moral value of an act.
E.g., I would define murder as the deliberate, knowing, and unjust killing of a human being. That is why, no matter how many bad "laws" says otherwise, a deliberate abortion is always going to be the unjust murder of a human being.
Occasionally, abortion/infanticide was mentioned in some of Anderson's stories, in contexts where it was plain he regarded it with revulsion and disgust.
Ad astra! Sean
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