Spaceship Stories
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Interstellar Fiction
Here we go again. In Poul Anderson's Planet Of No Return, Chapter 5, the Hudson orbits Troas. The lost Da Gama is not in orbit. The planetary surface has chlorophyl and herds of animals but no habitations, ship's boats or abandoned camp so the Hudson crew has a mystery to solve like similar crews in Forbidden Planet and many other sf works. I cannot remember what happens next.
Thank you all for 310 page views so far today despite only one post before this one. We have been out all day and I have been thinking not about Poul Anderson but about Indian philosophy so a new post will shortly appear on the Religion And Philosophy blog. Later: see here and here.
Addendum: Total page views for the day - 367.
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I don't object to you having an interest in Indian/Hindu philosophy, but what about interests you so much? Also, I've seen comparatively little about such major Classical and Western schools of philosophy, such as Platonism, Stoicism, neo-Platonism, Aristotelianism (and its continuation, Scholasticism) from you. Is there anything about these schools that puts you off?
Sean
Sean,
I practice Zen. Buddhism is one of the three unorthodox systems in Indian philosophy. Indian philosophy is more directly related to spiritual practice.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I know Buddhism originated in India, but somehow I never think of it as being INDIAN.
Western philosophy is too logic oriented and rationalistic for your taste?
And "spiritual practice" without belief in some kind of God seems rather pointless.
Sean
Sean,
Oh no, I aspire to be logically consistent in general and, e.g., when discussing time travel and European logic is much more highly developed than Indian as far as I can see.
Buddhism has become culturally diverse but in origin it is one of the three unorthodox systems and I think a synthesis between elements of the other two.
Indian Jainism, Yoga and Vedanta are three other versions of the same meditative tradition as Buddhism. The Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation is mantra yoga based on the Yoga Sutras. The Krishna movement is mantra and bhakti yoga based on the Bhagavad Gita and I value the Gita for Krishna's teaching of karma yoga, nonattached action. So I can't help seeing Indian philosophy as a vast structure within which many people live and practice.
Serene reflection, "just sitting" meditation, is of immense value - I am only just beginning to appreciate it - with or without theistic belief.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Thanks for your explanation, even if I disagree with important parts of it. My chief disagreement being my view that your "spiritual practice" seems to be an end in itself, rather than the means used for attaining the true end, contemplation of, or communion with God.
I think Buddhism has changed so much since Buddha's time that it can't really be called "Indian" any longer. Even tho I know it still has some ideas in common with Hinduism.
Sean
Sean,
For dialogue between people of different views, we need to establish some common ground. This is impossible if one party continues to converse on the assumption that his view is correct.
Let me think of an example. I claim to know what the President thinks because he told me. You question whether I have met him. Ignoring your question, I continue to quote what I claim he told me... You will then find it impossible to continue the conversation.
I am about to turn in. There will now be an intermission caused by sleep at this end.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But, I'm willing to take your word if you seriously claim to have met either the UK PM or the US President! And you could back that up with publicly available sources or reliable witnesses.
I'm trying to understand what "spiritual practices" could mean as ends in themselves. A means of trying to understand in a "serene" way what is or what might be?
I finally finished my third and surprisingly difficult reading of Anderson's THE WINTER OF THE WORLD. I didn't have this kind of trouble with my prior readings of the book. Probably because I was able to enjoy it mostly as adventure oriented science fiction. But Anderson, being Anderson, adds so much to his works, in ideas and philosophical speculations, that even during the second reading I started having difficulties with the book.
These difficulties lay not in the quality of the writing or the skill in which the author handled background and description, of both characters and settings. Rather, the trouble was with my continued, and re-confirmed dislike of the Rogaviki. I continued to dislike Donya and disagree with Josserek's decisions. I argue that Anderson depicted Captain General Sidir and Yurussun Soth-Zora (and by extension the Rahidian Empire) that it was impossible for me to dislike them and approve of their ruinous defeat.
It was peculiarly distasteful to see how Donya so seductively befuddled Sidir's mind in Chapter 21 that he did not realize, until too late, the trap in which his army was lured in (the mining of the ice of the frozen Jugular on the east side of Nezh Island by Killimaraichians). Sidir was so "bemused" by Donya that, against his previous better judgment, he ordered the forces placed on the east bank of the Jugular to join the main force on the ice. Had those forces remained on land, the odds would have been good the Killimaraichians would not have been able to detonate their mines effectively.
I did find Josserek's exposition of what made the Rogaviki so different from the human race in his letter to Donya in Chapter 22 both interesting and plausible. The chief difficulty being how S.M. Stirling had suggested that 10,000 was not long enough for a new hominid species to have evolved and split off from the older race. I do continue to have my doubts that a race genetically hard wired to be psychologically nomadic hunters living off bison and other big game could last very long. THE WINTER OF THE WORLD seems to show several civilizations (Killimaraich, the Rahidian Empire) beginning to reinvent lost technologies. Such as telegraphy and wireless radios. So, how long can the Rogaviki fend off conquest by warlike new civilizations if they are UNABLE to cooperate meaningfully on any large scale?
Many other thoughts comes to mind, such as my dislike for the arrogance and callousness of the Rogaviki (such as the monstrous way they treat unwanted babies). I also found Anderson's speculations on how a sophisticated culture could be built up by a species of "naturally wild" hominids fascinating. But this is enough for now.
Sean
Was I taking THE WINTER OF THE WORLD too seriously? Should I have been less INTENSE about the book and simply enjoyed it as fiction? But the ideas and speculations Anderson gives us in so many of his works makes it difficult to simply do that. Most times, however, I manage to both enjoy an Anderson story and take it seriously. WINTER was somewhat different for me, this time around.
Sean
Sean,
Understanding and responding appropriately to what is - that is spiritual practice.
What is: change and mental attachments; the possibility of recognizing attachments and of being freed from them.
In Buddhism, a man becomes enlightened. In John's Gospel, the light becomes a man. Are these the same process described from opposite directions?
Of course, if I HAVE met the President, then I should be able to establish it but I was giving an example. Often,theists continue to speak as if God exists even when they are speaking to people who not believe that God exists. There is no common ground for the discussion.
Indian philosophy incorporates both theistic and non-theistic systems and interpretations. It covers the entire range of thought.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Thanks for your explanation of what "spiritual practice" means to you, even tho it still seems strange to me.
What you said about Buddhism and St. John's Gospel makes sense. Of course, Catholics and Trinitarian Protestants understand John to be referring to the divinity and Incarnation of Christ.
Understood, what you said about theists. But that also applies to ATHEISTS as well. They often talk as tho the non-existence of God is demonstrably true to people who disagree with them. And I have tried to point out to some atheists that there were philosophers who reasoned their way to belief in a First Cause or Unmoved Mover. Such as Plato or Aristotle. So it goes both ways.
Sean
Sean,
Yes but my problem is usually with theists! Lots of Taoists, Buddhists and non-theistic Hindus meditate and yet we are told that meditation ONLY makes sense in relation to God.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Because it SEEMS to make sense to think that "meditation" is best understood as a means to attaining an end: openness to God. But I do grant there are non-theistic contemplatives.
Sean
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