"Flight to Forever"
Tau Zero
The Avatar
(Anderson also wrote a novel called Genesis in which a post-organic planetary intelligence recreates extinct humanity.)
At the end of James Blish's Cities In Flight, nine characters, ironically called "the Survivors," each create a new universe from his or her own body and spacesuit:
"Creation began."
-James Blish, The Triumph Of Time IN Blish, Cities In Flight (London, 1981), pp. 466-596 AT p. 596.
These universes will initially be small, fifty light years across, but will be added to by "'...continuous creation...'" (p. 594)
In Tau Zero, when Captain Telander of the relativistic spaceship, the Leonora Christine, sees:
"'The germ of the monobloc...The new beginning.'"
-Poul Anderson, Tau Zero (London, 1973), Chapter 21, p. 181 -
- he kneels in tears and says:
"'Father, I thank Thee...'" (ibid.)
- although what he sees is a cyclical new beginning, arguably not needing a creator.
(The Bible also is cyclical: from the separation of the waters to the Flood is one universe; from the re-emergence of dry land to the Apocalypse is a second universe; at the end of Apocalypse is a new heaven and earth, a third universe.)
We sometimes speak mythologically, knowing that we are doing so. Thus, if I say that the only original thinker was Adam and that everyone else has modified received ideas, I do not mean that I am a Biblical fundamentalist. I think that Blish uses language in this way when he describes the metagalactic center as:
"...that place where the Will had given birth to the Idea, and there had been light."
-Blish, op. cit., p. 577.
(This mixes Hebrew and Platonic ideas.)
Anderson matches Blish's "Creation began...":
"The universe was dead!"
-Poul Anderson, "Flight to Forever" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 207-288 AT p. 284.
"The universe was reforming."
-ibid, p. 285.
"The monobloc had exploded. Creation had begun."
-Tau Zero, p. 183.
Two ultimate sf writers.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Except I don't believe a cyclical cosmos or universe existed from all eternity and had no beginning. I don't believe MATTER, however it takes shape, was eternal and had no beginning. I would still argue that there was a FIRST Big Bang, created by a Creator we might as well call God, from which all other Big Bangs would spring. So I would agree with Captain Telander's gratitude to God.
Sean
Sean,
As ever, I think that if one substance, God, can always have existed, then another substance, "matter," can always have existed. Philosophically, "matter" means not "mechanically interacting particles with only the quantifiable properties of mass and volume," but external reality, whatever empirical science discovers it to be. It is dynamic energy, not inert mass.
However, my main point in this post is to celebrate the imaginative writings of Blish and Anderson.
Paul.
Sean,
There is no "might as well call God" about it. I argue that a self/subject cannot exist without others/objects any more than a square can exist without sides or an up without a down.
Paul.
Sean,
Some theists think that God, from eternity, would be able to create (cause to exist) a universe beginningless and endless in time. There would be no difference between His "creation" and His "preservation" of it. Of course, "cause" refers to constant conjunctions in time so it is not an appropriate word here.
Paul.
"And AC said, 'LET THERE BE LIGHT!'
"And there was light — "
"The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov
Kaor, Paul!
This is one of those issues we have discussed before, without being able to come to an agreement! I have argued that the Judaeo/Christian view of God is that He is eternally happy, self sufficient, lacking in nothing that makes Him God, and in need of nothing. Nothing else could have existed without God first creating it. Which means neither "matter" nor other beings needed to have existed for Him to be God.
I have also suggested that Dante gave us a good reason for why other beings exist in PARADISE XXIX, 13-18.
Of course this blog primarily exists for celebrating and pondering the works of Blish and Anderson. But these two writers (and others as well, such as Stirling) touched on the ultimate questions and issues in their works.
Sean
David,
Relevant and I linked to "The Last Question" somewhere on the blog.
Sean,
If we list the properties of "matter" and include among them "cannot have always existed," then it follows from this that matter cannot always have existed. We need to look at being (what is) and see what its properties are, not start with this abstraction called "matter" that lacks most of the properties that we see around us. Being includes energy, fields, quantum events, particles beginning and mutually annihilating, different levels of consciousness in many organisms and understanding in human beings.
"Nothing else could have existed without God first creating it" is not an empirical statement but a mere assertion. Of course, IF God is as described, then various conclusions follow from that. (I agree with that IF statement.)
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
At least we agree about that "IF"!
Sean
Sean,
But this is not really an agreement. There is an infinite number of ifs. We can both agree that, if it rained beer, then this would very surprising and so on. We would not have agreed with a man who predicted that it was going to rain beer.
Paul.
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