"...we shall make after all a fair conclusion to this brief music that is man."
-Olaf Stapledon, Last And First Men IN Stapledon, Last And First Men/Last Men In London (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1972), pp. 5-327 AT p. 327.
Man as music?
When Gaia undertakes to conduct Wayfarer through the database of her observations of Earth through many millions of years, she hopes that:
"The events themselves would deepen and enlighten the galactic brain, as a great drama or symphony once did for humans."
-Poul Anderson, Genesis (New York, 2001), Part Two, VI, p. 156.
Natural history as drama or music?
Anderson's vision is supra-Stapledonian, not yet dated as Stapledon's now is. What emerges is that Gaia's interactions with Earth raise not only aesthetic but also moral issues.
The Christian Brannock upload is now diversified into "Christian," exploring emulated Earths, and "Brannock," a robot exploring the physical Earth. Gaia expresses the wish that the latter will feel sublimity. Brannock thinks that the approach of the end of life on Earth is a tragedy and adds:
"But tragedy was art, maybe the highest art that humankind ever achieved." (ibid., p. 162)
He wonders whether Gaia, having incorporated more human minds than any other node, might retain:
"...a need for catharsis, for pity and terror." (ibid.)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
There's also "The Music of the Ainur," in Tolkien's THE SILMARILLION. Eru Iluvatar, after creating the Ainur, the Holy Ones, proposed a theme of cosmic "music" to them, inviting the Ainur to also have a role in creating the cosmos and Arda, our Earth.
And what Brannock said about tragedy being an art, makes me think Aycharaych could have said it as well!
Sean
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