Guthrie's Mortal Life

(A llama in the Andes.)

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars.

3 Database is about the second download Guthrie in the narrative present.

6 Database is a flashback to the second download on Demeter with memories of download on Luna and mortal life on Earth.

In 8, Guthrie's old colleague, Aulard, converses with the second download in the present but the encounter is described from Aulard's pov so it is not a Database. Aulard sits in "...a flexchair." (p. 109)

In 9, download Guthrie and Kyra watch the second download perform on television.

10 Database is a flashback to mortal Guthrie in the Andes. Two sentences give three senses:

"The sun vanished and darkness flowed fast. Wind whittered low and chill." (p. 123)

165 posts this month! 1790 in 10 months so far this year! Cry halt, at least on this blog, till next month, the day after tomorrow! In the evenings, I am enjoying rereading Garth Ennis' The Boys (see also here, here, here, here and here), to which I have already referred quite a lot as the unexpectedly numerous links show. The Boys will soon be on TV. See here.

This is the time of the month when maybe a few posts go on other blogs like here, here and here. Also, here.

Future Historical Echoes

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 9.

Kyra, a space pilot, has had a relationship with an asteroid engineer. She contrasts their life-styles. His is:

"Work among the flying mountains..." (p. 116)

- and thus recalls Anderson's short future history, Tales Of The Flying Mountains, whereas hers is "the Long Road" encompassing:

Earth aglow above the Copernicus ringwall;
radiation around Jupiter;
a comet that has never been visited before;
tales, songs and fellowship at rendezvous.

The "songs" might recall Heinlein's Jetman Rhysling, the Blind Singer of the Spaceways, and his "The Green Hills of Earth." The Long Road definitely recalls Nicholas van Rijn's closing speech:

"'You take the Long Trail with me!...A universe where all roads lead to roaming. Life never fails us. We fail it, unless we reach out.'"
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 1-291 AT p. 287.

Who can read that and think that van Rijn is not still out there, still roaming?

Precursors Of Xuan

(My Berkeleyan lecturer called Glaucon Socrates' stupidest disciple.)

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 9, p, 115.

Xuan's supposed precursors:

Plato
Machiavelli
Spengler
Toynbee
Pavlov
Moravec
Tipler

Guthrie growls that:

these brilliant, honest men gave the world treasures;
even Xuan had some good ideas;
their work was perverted, like Jesus' and Jefferson's.

The early Jesus preached the kingdom whereas the later Jesus thought that he was the Suffering Servant so I think that the problem started then. Olaf Stapledon's Neptunian narrator says that Socrates' ideal was dispassionate intelligence whereas Jesus' was passionate worship.

Future history meets philosophy.

Whereabouts Unknown

"[Download Guthrie] had since withdrawn, and not yet been heard from. His whereabouts were unknown."
-Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars,  8, p. 107.

This passage reminded me of a poem quoted by Alan Watts:

“I asked the boy beneath the pines.
He said: the Master’s gone alone
herb picking somewhere on the mount,
cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.”
― Chia Tao
-copied from here.

However, Guthrie would not have been contemplative.

Exploring Demeter

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 6, Database.

The round trip to Alpha Centauri is STL. The explorers are robots. One contains a downloaded human personality. On Demeter, there is rain and wind and there are two suns in the sky.

A fifteen-centimeter insect-like biologist robot probing a green-brown vegetable mat with its tendrils transmits to a balloon-borne receiver which amplifies the signal and re-transmits it to the mainframe computer at the station.

Through his robot body's treads, download Guthrie feels fine grit and damp soil. Through its eye stalks, he sees a beach strewn with weed, shells and dead animals like worms or jellyfish and the surfacing of a mother vessel for robots studying the sea. Production facilities make investigators which are then flown around the planet. Guthrie also has a legged body. He makes discoveries and devises procedures transcending the abilities of computer programs.

Early Space Exploration In The Future Histories

There is interplanetary travel in the Wellsian canon but not in Wells' future history, The Shape Of Things To Come, although a manned space projectile is launched in the film, Things To Come. Cavor and Bedford land on the Moon in what could be the past of several Wellsian futures.

There is interplanetary travel in Olaf Stapledon's future history, Last And First Men, and interstellar and intergalactic travel in his cosmic history, Star Maker.

There are voyages to Mars and Venus in CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy which is Lewis' reply to Wells' and Stapledon's future histories. Lewis' first man on the Moon story, "Forms of Things Unknown," (here) is derived from a single sentence in his Venus novel.

Although the opening installment of Robert Heinlein's Future History is set in 1952, the first Moon landing, in 1978, occurs off-stage during the fifth installment.

James Blish's Haertel Scholium begins with the teenage Adolph Haertel discovering anti-gravity and flying his tree hut to Mars in advance of a first Moon landing.

Larry Niven's Known Space future history begins, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, with the exploration of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Pluto.

Poul Anderson's Technic History begins with the exploration of the Saturnian moon, Iapetus, then of the extra-solar planets, Ythri and Gray/Avalon.

Neil Armstrong lands on the Moon in Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium future history and in Poul Anderson's Harvest of Stars future history. In the latter, extra-solar exploration begins on the planet Demeter in the Alpha Centaurian system.

Future Organizations

I keep ransacking The Shape Of Things To Come for a passage that I remember reading but now cannot find. See here. I think that this experience is common and worth recording. The search has enabled me to contrast Wells' Modern State Society with Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic Insitute, Polesotechnic League and Fireball.

The Modern State Society is:

"...an aggressive order of religiously devoted men and women who will try out and establish and impose a new pattern of living upon our race."
-HG Wells, The Shape Of Things To Come (London, 1974), p. 493. (The very end of the novel.)

Not "impose." Also, not manipulate, as the Psychotechnic Institute tries to do.

The Polesotechnic League:

"...in the course of milking the Milky Way, did more to spread a truly universal civilization and enforce a solid Pax than all the diplomats in known history.
"Nevertheless, it had its troubles."
-Poul Anderson, "Margin of Profit" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 135-173 AT p. 146.

Fireball, a private company spanning the Solar System, remains independent of governments and establishes a transnational "troth" with many of its employees.

Of these, I would prefer the Psychotechnic Institute but only if it were to operate openly and honestly.

Low World

In Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars, the characters are on the run from the Security Police and we are shown aspects of the future society through which they run but I wish that they did not have to run for such a large percentage of the novel.

Low World:

total decay;
patched broken windows;
sooty walls;
gaping doorways;
angry, obscene, semi-literate graffiti;
a ragged beggar;
squabbling women;
shrieking children;
a mumbling older man;
hooting younger men;
a man who might attack until he sees that Kyra can defend herself;
Kyra's reflection that state-run economies produce poverty but that free enterprise does not guarantee wealth;
shouts, horns, drums and machinery;
an impoverished flea market in "Quark Fair";
a rusted, twisted broken skyscraper;
lurid signs;
a Palace of Horrors;
a place where people risk their lives for excitement.

With high technology, such poverty should not exist and, later in this future history, it does not.

Chronological Order

Harvest Of Stars begins with Anson Guthrie as a download but includes flashbacks to when he was a man;

the "Mother of the Moon" chapters of The Stars Are Also Fire begin with Guthrie as a man but proceed to his download;

the narrative present of The Stars Are Also Fire is set centuries later in the Solar System while download Guthrie is at Alpha Centauri, as is the sequel Harvest The Fire;

in The Fleet Of Stars, a copy of download Guthrie travels to the Solar System;

the opening section of The Stars Are Also Fire is set "Long afterward..." (p. 1)

I have tried to present this future history in chronological order here. Instead of short stories originally published separately, it is four novels with chapters set in different periods.

Guthrie On Demeter And The Milky Way

Poul Anderson Harvest Of Stars, 6, Database.

"Constellations and the wan silver of the Milky Way were familiar. His twenty-year voyage had brought him no distance that especially mattered, through the immensity of these galactic outskirts." (p. 98)

Sol is in Cassiopeia.

At the end of 5, Kyra reflects that download Guthrie had walked on the Centaurian planet, Demeter. In 6, about the download on Demeter, he remembers being a download on the Moon and also being a man walking on a beach on Earth with his wife. He reflects on Demetrian evolution:

"Strange that here life in the oceans had long been rich, when thus far it barely existed on land. Or maybe not strange. Tides might well be what opened the way for evolution ashore, and moonless Demeter had only its sun to drive them." (p. 94)

Another reflection on the significance of Large Moons.

Years Of Birth

See the previous post here.

Years of birth, where known:

1923 Lazarus Long
1939 Lucas Garner
1970 Anson Guthrie
1982 Susan Calvin

In Heinlein's Methuselah's Children, eleven years after 2125, Long claims to be aged 213. Guthrie is older than Calvin, despite starring in a much later future history.

I remember Wells observing that, if The Shape Of Things To Come is a true future history, then its principal protagonists are already young men starting their careers - the future is that close - but I cannot find that passage in the book.

Wells describes The Shape Of Things To Come as:

"...this long record of the battle of reason with ignoble folly..."
-HG Wells, The Shape Of Things To Come (London, 1974), Introduction, p. 26 -

- a description that equally fits Anderson's Psychotechnic History.

All future histories are one!

Database

In Poul Anderson's The Stars Are Also Fire, chapters entitled "The Mother of the Moon" are flashbacks to the long life of Dagny Beynac followed by the short career of her download. In Anderson's Harvest Of Stars, chapters entitled "Database" are about the second download Guthrie, the one that went to Alpha Centauri and returned. The first of these "Database" chapters is set in the narrative present of the novel whereas the second is a flashback to his time on the Centaurian planet, Demeter, and includes a memory from the time before he left the Solar System.

Guthrie was born in 1970. He must have founded Fireball, been downloaded and died in the twenty first century. Dagny must have lived into the twenty second century. Harvest Of Stars is set two centuries after the founding of Fireball and The Stars Are Also Fire another two centuries after that (I think). So far, 1970 is the only definite date mentioned.

Wells' Philip Raven, Heinlein's Lazarus Long, Asimov's Susan Calvin, Blish's Adolph Haertel and Niven's Lucas Garner were born in the twentieth century. The future always starts now.

Heinleinian Echoes

See Echoes Of Heinlein II.

Robert Heinlein's Second American Revolutionaries overthrow the Prophet and establish the Covenant;

Poul Anderson's Grand Jihad is later followed by an international Covenant;

in both histories, good follows bad.

"'Are you from space?'
"'You sound North American but you bear yourself...proudly.'"
-Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 5, p. 78.

Spacefarers walk with pride also in Anderson's Technic History and in Heinlein's Double Star. See:

Commuters
Opening Pages

These works read like parallel histories.

Pure Intelligence III

See Pure Intelligence II.

I strive for comprehensiveness but must always add more. A question I forgot:

Might a future artifact combine the functions of a computer and of an artificial brain?

If the later is possible, then why not? But:

this entity would be conscious because of its brain functions, not because of its computer functions;

the brain functions would not be mere extensions or complications of the computer functions but would differ qualitatively from them.

Obviously, our brains include a computational function. My mental arithmetic is dire but Fred Hoyle argued that how our brains perform mathematical operations is a matter of luck. An Indian woman who had never been to school performed any calculation instantly and correctly to six places of decimals. She did not know how she did it. Somewhere in her brain was a powerful organic computer but she was conscious only of the answer as she gave it.

Pure Intelligence II

See Pure Intelligence.

I contrasted conscious memories in living brains with unconscious information in books or computers whereas, of course, the issue at hand is whether there can be conscious memories in non-living systems.

We can differentiate four questions:

Is a devise that merely manipulates symbols conscious? By definition, no.

Is a device that simulates consciousness and intelligence conscious and intelligent? By definition, no. Such a device might be called "intelligent" because of the versatility of its responses but it would not be conscious and the use of the word "intelligent" could be misleading.

If a different kind of device were able to duplicate the functions of a human brain, would that device be conscious and intelligent? By definition, yes.

Is it possible to duplicate brain functions in an artificial system? That is an empirical question and therefore cannot be answered by definition. At this point, philosophers hand over the discussion to technologists.

Pure Intelligence

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 3.

Anson Guthrie enters into conflict with a political regime which, absurdly, claims that it serves the cause of:

"...the whole cosmos evolving from blind matter to pure intelligence -" (p. 47)

Centuries later, Guthrie's successors are in conflict with a global artificial intelligence that is working toward precisely that goal. See Pure Mind. So the cause of pure intelligence or mind is winning? Maybe but Guthrie was right to oppose totalitarians who claimed to serve that purpose. The AI does not coerce although it does attempt to deceive.

In "Pure Mind," I wondered whether "pure mind" meant either "pure spirit" or emotionless intelligence. In the combox, SM Stirling pointed out that it means "a transferable and replicable body of patterned interacting information" - an entirely laudable goal. It would be good if intelligences could be free from particular bodies - which Guthrie himself achieves.

And here the mind-body question returns. Information exists in basically two forms:

unconscious marks on paper or patterns in a computer;
conscious memories in a living brain.

Complicating the issue, a brain has unconscious processes that may or may not become conscious whereas neither a book nor this lap top has any conscious aspect. SM Stirling's phrase quoted above could apply to a body of information that was transferable, replicable, patterned and interactive but not conscious whereas we are in fact talking about conscious intelligences. I mention this point merely to emphasize again the basic mind-body question, including what I think is the indefinability of consciousness. 

Fireball

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 5.

Fireball, founded two centuries previously, runs:

a spaceship line;
extraterrestrial mines and factories;
freight services;
scientific foundations;
trade in luxury goods.

Employees live in Fireball communities, send their children to company schools and often have a formalized loyalty to the company transcending nationality. The company deals with governments but avoids becoming one. We remember similar arrangements in other future histories.

The Worst Enemy

I am a fan of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, not of the films. However, for the purposes of this post, the films are relevant. Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner TV series (see also here) borrowed from the Bond films the idea of a powerful evil organization with numbered members led by the mysterious Number One.

Who is our worst enemy? Are we misled by the Devil or are we alone responsible?

When Bond comes face to face with Number One, he learns that that ultimate enemy is Ernst Stavro Blofeld whereas, when the Prisoner comes face to face with Number One, he learns that that ultimate enemy is himself but this is allegory because no one can literally meet himself except in science fiction where there can be both time travel and personality duplication. Poul Anderson's download Guthrie identifies:

"'The worst enemy I could have...Myself...My duplicate.'"
-Harvest Of Stars, 2, p. 35.

The plot thickens.

A View

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 3.

From the roof of a Security Police building, Enrique Sayre admires the view while feeling and hearing a wind that smells of salt water, chemicals and ozone. Thus, four of his senses are engaged.

He sees:

streets;
bridges;
monorails;
dymaxions;
lesser buildings;
towers;
grass, weeds and saplings encroaching on negligently maintained biospaces;
argent Elliott Bay with less shipping and sailboats than before;
structures across the Bay;
Cascade snowpeaks;
blue sky.

A longer list than I had expected, from streets to sky. There are many such moments in Poul Anderson's works, usually instantly forgotten. The unfamiliar term, "dymaxion," brought me back to this one.

Things That Matter

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 4.

I have again reread this novel to the point where download Guthrie:

describes terms like "insensitive reactionary," "racist" and "sexist" as mere swear words;

states that such terms were applied to writers like Kipling and Heinlein because these writers "'...dealt with things that mattered.'" (p. 59)

I don't think so. I commented on this passage over six years ago here.

I am now rereading the same text but posting more often while focusing on finer details.

Olympus Mons And The Milky Way

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 4, p. 56.

From half way up Olympus Mons, Kyra sees:

rocky vastness;
subtle desert hues;
rose-petal sky;
a dust storm;
a crater.

From an asteroid:

a multitude of stars;
blue Vega;
amber Arcturus;
smoldering Betelgeuse (important in the Technic History);
"The Milky Way torrented in frost and silence."

From the surface of the Saturnian moon, Enceladus:

glittering ice;
a few stars;
huge Saturn with cyclopean storms and rings seen edge on;
two other moons.

Intuiting Or Futuring

(Does the spaceship boosting toward a star symbolize mankind traveling toward a future?)

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 4.

How does an intuitionist intuit? (Does a futurist "future"?)

Lee:

specializes in, and therefore also lives in, a geographical area;

works at home in his head and on a computer;

goes out to meet and cultivate diverse people;

senses their thoughts and feelings, both spoken and unspoken;

is likeable and observant.

Guthrie says that intuitionists make a big difference despite often offering wrong or incomplete findings.

Futures

My motto for the blog is "There is always more." I sometimes exhaust what I currently have to say about a work by Poul Anderson but never exhaust what there is to be said about that work.

This morning, I posted in haste before attending the retreat mentioned here. Only when I had closed the lap top did I realize that the "intuitionism" initiated by Guthrie was identical with the "Futures" practiced by Dr. Richard Slaughter. (Scroll down.)

From any present time, it is always possible, at least as a conceptual exercise, to project at least three kinds of future timelines:

utopian;
dystopian;
"business as usual."

All three involve profound change, especially since the current global economy is dynamic and technologically innovative and may even be self-destructive, in which case "business as usual" becomes dystopian.

Intuitionists

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 4.

The Chinese Robert E. Lee (see Jihad Times) is an intuitionist, a profession created by Anson Guthrie, chief of Fireball, then copied by other companies and also by governments. As such, he must be a sensitive intellectual with a grasp of:

modern science and technology;
history;
diagrammed structures;
analyzed dynamics;
individual human beings;
the High World;
the less developed cultures and subcultures.

On this basis, he develops models, writes programs, generates ideas, makes proposals, anticipates human results of changes and forestalls or mitigates undesirable results.

Guthrie points out that it should have been predicted that cars would replace horses in a single generation, leading to a major industry with subsidiary industries like oil and roads, that oil would become strategically important, that traffic would strangle and pollute cities, that properly utilized steam would have been preferable to internal combustion engines and that a company anticipating all this could have done good and made money. There is an alternative history.

A Brilliant Quotation

Individuals And Their Beliefs

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 2.

Anson Guthrie says of Sheikh Tahir:

"'I've considered Islam to be one of the human race's bigger mistakes, but he might change my mind for me.'" (p. 28)

Individuals inherit but also transcend their world views. The lay minister in our Zen group said that the Dalai Lama and the Pope were very good friends - although that was a couple of Popes ago.

This statement by Guthrie reminded me of something and, with the wonders of the Internet, I have found it although I have not been able to cut and paste the passage. See here. Basically, the dialogue went -

Dewey: If all Communists were like you, I would be a Communist.
Trotsky: If all liberals were like you. I would be a liberal.

And every kind of issue comes up when reading Poul Anderson. Interrupted by other activities, I have got as far as p. 53 of 531 in Harvest Of Stars. Tomorrow, I will be at a Zen retreat in Lancaster Friends' Meeting House, 10.00 AM-4.00 PM, so probably no blogging till after that. What a privilege to reread and post about Poul Anderson's works in the City of Lancaster in 2018 and also to live in one of the timelines where our world has not destroyed itself yet.

1970

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 3, p. 49.

Anson Guthrie was born in 1970. The novel was published in 1993. He mentions successive political generations:

Stalin;
Mao and Castro;
the Renewal;
the Avantists.

I was at University in 1970. The handful of monomaniacal Maoists unwittingly performed a useful task for the establishment. Most people agreed that the Maoists were mad, then stopped thinking about economics or politics. I focused on spiritual and philosophical questions, arguing that it was necessary to change self, not society. Why could I not have seen then that it was possible to address both issues simultaneously?

A Meal In Hiding

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 4, p. 53.

Seasoned lamb;
pilaf;
eggplant;
pita;
cucumber salad with yogurt;
sweet side dishes;
soured milk;
fruit sherbet;
coffee -

- some from nanotanks, strangely prepared but supremely tasteful.

See The Food Thread.

Changing Consciousness

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 3.

A copy of download Guthrie reprogrammed by the current ideologues says:

"'...you've given me new information!...I was wrong. I didn't understand the situation, nor what Xuan was getting at, not really. I'll have to think more about that, but- ...Well, Sayre, my mind is changed. We're allies. Thanks. I guess.'" (p. 52)

This is an abomination. I would value Guthrie disagreeing with me, not reprogrammed. But the incident raises deeper questions about the morality of changing other people's consciousnesses. If, by merely pressing a button, we were able to bring about the kind of "Change" described in HG Wells' In The Days Of The Comet or in Poul Anderson's Brain Wave, would it be right to do it? In Anderson, intelligence increases, then reason gains control of emotion. In Wells, reason gains control over emotion. See Changing Motivations.

Responses to the Question
It is impossible to bring about such a Change by pressing a button so the question is pointless.
Even if it were possible, is it not also probable that such a large alteration would have unpredictable and undesirable side-effects?
However, since we are merely performing a thought experiment, we are free to imagine a scenario in which it is known in advance and for certain that there will be no such side-effects.

I am finding it difficult to think of a reason not to make the Change. It would not negate anyone's freedom but enhance it. They would thank us for it afterwards. Of course they would also thank us if we addicted them to a new drug, then supplied them with the drug, but surely that is not comparable? A way to avoid the moral dilemma would be to offer the Change only to those who want it if this were possible, which it is not in either the Wells or the Anderson novel. Moral questions depend on what is possible. If we were able to assassinate a tyrant at a distance, then we would have the moral question of whether to do it but not the moral question of whether to bomb his capital city. (In the case of SM Stirling's Draka, I think that some of their "serfs" (slaves) would want us to nuke the capital city even if they themselves were in it at the time.)

Downloading

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 3, p. 45.

Poul Anderson describes how a personality might be downloaded:

the subject lies semi-conscious under "electrophasing";

special artificial molecules invade and pervade his bloodstream and cerebrospinal fluid;

they examine him cell by cell;

resonances with external fields recover the data;

hypercomputers interpret and order the findings;

the subject is treated to rid him of the artificial molecules and to return him to normal;

designing, testing, redesigning and retesting produce a program or download of the subject's memories, inclinations, beliefs, prejudices, hopes, outlook, thinking style and awareness;

the download is mapped into the software of a neural network which in turn maps the subject's unique brain.

Although some computer language is used, it is clear that the neural network is an artificial brain, not a digital computer, and that the download is a duplicated personality, not a computer program.

Jihad Times

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 2.

Remember the Grand Jihad in the "The Mother of the Moon" period of The Stars are Also Fire? Well, in Harvest Of Stars, Chinese refugees from Southeast Asia had entered North America "'...in Jihad times...'" (p. 9) Thus, the future history series hangs together. Our informant is Robert E. Lee. This is not a revolutionary code name. "Lee" is a Chinese surname. In this text, an "informant" is a personal information and communication device worn on the wrist. (p. 19)

Xuan is supposed to have "...quantified the forces of history to the point where it could be managed..." (ibid.) If he can do this, then he, or his followers, should share his knowledge, not run a totalitarian state. Kyra and download Guthrie, already fugitives, seek help in an Arabic enclave. We will sample facets of future society while our central characters are on the run. More tomorrow.

Inside The Blue Theta

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, I.

We continue to learn:

Kyra is engaged in business that obliges her to avoid "secret agents" (p.7);

one man seated in a lounger is a robed, hairless, gold-skinned "metamorph" (p. 6), recalling the hairless alabaster future human beings of the Time Patrol series (see Futures);

"Avantists" (p. 6) ideologically control North America;

a multiceiver shows a woman exhorting youths to report deviationists;

parents have been charged with abuse for telling their child not to accept school teachings about Xuan's insights.

Of course we have not heard of Xuan before but we get the point. I practice Zen mediation but would not want to live in a society where parents were arrested for telling their children to disregard the Buddha's teachings. In fact, I would regard not only them but also myself as oppressed by such a regime. Any regime has to be told that we attend a place of worship or meditation because we choose to, not because it tells us to. Imagine having to boycott the meditation group just to make that point!

The Blue Theta

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars (London, 1994), 1.

Kyra Davis is in Erie-Ontario Integrate, a form of urbanization common to Anderson's Technic History:

scores of tricycles, including hers, weave between hundreds of pedestrians beneath a monorail and overhead flitters;

she wears a hapi coat;

pedestrians include a manual worker brotherhood member and green-clad Renewal believers;

she approaches the Blue Theta building which has azure and white walls, piers, arches, roofs, towers and a central spire crowned by the Greek letter;

within, there are mosaic pavements, fountains, genetically engineered gardens, a holo of a low-weight ballet, ten stories of arcades and a transparent roof showing sun, clouds and the Moon where, Kyra knows, Lunarians live;

outside is low-tech Low World whereas inside is high-tech High World.

As always in the opening pages of a futuristic sf novel, we are being introduced to a society which the author has had to conceptualize in detail before typing the first word of the text.

Kyra Davis And The Blue Theta

(The Greek letter, Theta.)

Harvest Of Stars begins with its Epilogue;
The Stars Are Also Fire begins "Long Afterward...";
the narrative present of The Stars Are Also Fire is a sequel to Harvest whereas the alternating "The Mother of the Moon" chapters are a prequel;
there are two further volumes.

We do not necessarily read past history in chronological order and this also applies to future history.

In a future history series, the viewpoint character of an earlier installment may be a historical figure in a later installment. Rereading the Harvest of Stars future history out of order, we notice that:

in Volume II, Ian Kenmuir flies Kyra Davis' ritually maintained historical spaceship;

Kyra Davis is the viewpoint character of Volume I, chapter 1;

by rereading Volume I, we will refamiliarize ourselves with Kyra's historical achievements.

Kyra's opening gambit is to approach and enter a building called the Blue Theta while engaged in some kind of cloak and dagger activity connected with Anson Guthrie. Let us hope for more of the futurology and less of the cloak and dagger.

Surprises And Inconclusiveness

The big surprise at the end of Poul Anderson's The Stars Are Also Fire is that, although the presiding Artificial Intelligence of Earth uses the forces of the state to track down two people who are acting against its own longer term goals, when it does apprehend one of them, it attempts only persuasion, not coercion. There has been a fundamental moral change in Terrestrial affairs. Maybe Asimov's First Law is relevant, although I think that the AI is breaking First Law by suppressing information.

Also, the longer term issue remains unresolved. Venator, serving the AI/cybercosm, says merely that the spread of chaotic Lunarians into the outer Solar System is a new factor that has to be taken into account. Kenmuir, opposing Venator, wonders whether organic and post-organic might not turn out to have been "...two faces of the same." (46, p. 554) How could this not be the case? Anderson manufactures what I think looks like a contrived conflict.

Some works by James Blish end with major interstellar conflicts only just beginning. See The Haertel History and "This Earth Of Hours." In all that space and time, ultimate conclusions will be hard to find.

Concluding?

Poul Anderson, The Stars Are also Fire, 46.

And see:

Augustus And Argos
The Discovery Of The Past II

Completely unexpectedly, Venator repeats Poul Anderson's parable of three projected directions and one unexpected direction for the Roman Empire and then ends the parable with wild folk howling in ruined cities. For previous examples of this, see here. (I don't know about you but, if I have to squat among the ruins of Lancaster or London, then I will not howl.)

Will the cybercosm need to monopolize the resources of the entire universe for cosmic ages in order to implement its program of surviving the universe? How can it be sure of any of that at this early stage? I would welcome the unpredictable and try to find means of survival within that.

Venator says that violence would be an unacceptable means, destroying even the victor. But surely the deceit that is eventually resorted to is equally unacceptable, and for the same reason, in an entity that claims to seek knowledge? Being forced to keep a secret drove Arthur C. Clarke's HAL mad.

The novel ends with an excellent sea-space contrast as Kenmuir accompanies the Lunarians to Proserpina whereas Aleka remains with her mixed human-amphibian community on a Terrestrial island.

Maybe we have finished rereading The Stars Are Also Fire, combined prequel and sequel to Harvest Of Stars?
Maybe we will begin to reread Harvest Of Stars tomorrow?
Maybe we will come off the computer now?
Who can possibly say?

The Cybercosmic Vision II

Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire.

On the Centaurian colony planet, Demeter, an Artificial Intelligence incorporating human downloads and their motivations permeates and maintains the artificially induced and otherwise unviable ecology.

The Teramind judges that:

this AI, called "Demeter Mother," remains part of biological life, thus of material chaos and mortality;

Demeter Mother regards post-organic intelligence as a means to material survival, not as an end in itself;

her intellect will never be pure or free;

unless she willingly enters into the Teramind, she will shape reality into something unforeseeable but also incompatible with the Teramind's ultimate purpose;

the "Faustian" spirit almost destroyed Earth and is also incompatible with the Teramind's purpose.

However, the Teramind tries to reason with Kenmuir and accepts his refusal to cooperate.

The Cybercosmic Vision

Poul Anderson, The Stars are Also Fire, 45.

"Within the finite time to singularity, an infinite number of events can take place, an infinity of thoughts can be thought and dreams can be dreamed." (p. 546)

Is this true? Can it be?

"...[intelligence's] heed will have departed from the matter-energy chrysalis." (ibid.)

Intelligence will have become immaterial? Or it will merely have directed its attention, "heed," beyond matter?

"By its nature, the cybercosm must seek for absolute knowledge; but this required absolute control, no wild contingencies, nothing unforeseeable except the flowerings of its intellect. The cybercosm was totalitarian." (46, p. 553)

Absolute knowledge? What is that? Inquirers, including scientists, seek whatever knowledge is possible. If some aspects of reality are wild, contingent, uncontrollable and unforeseesable, then that is what can be known about them. If we know that part of reality is as it is only because we have controlled it to be that way, then we have not learned but decreed.

Latin, Poetry And The Milky Way

Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire.

Venator quotes more Latin:

"'Ave atque vale.'" (42, p. 518)

Download Dagny quotes Hamlet:

"'"He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf;
At his heels a stone."'" (43, p. 527)

We read more verse from Verdea:

"With your Pacific eye, observe my scars
Of ancient wars.
Your bones remember dinosaurs." (28, p. 373)

"Stonefall, fireflash,
Cenotaph of a seeker.
But the stone has lost the stars
And the stars have lost the stone." (46, p. 555)

We see the Milky Way and Earth from the Moon:

"Stars stood above in their thousands, the galactic frost-bridge, nebulae and sister galaxies aglimmer, but Earth was no more than a blue arc along a wan disc, low above that horizon." (46, pp. 554-555)

And we appreciate Poul Anderson's universes.

The Camel's Nose

"'If the unions get that kind of voice in management, it won't be the camel's nose in our tent. No, by damn, it will be the camel's bad breath and sandy footprints, and soon comes in the rest of him and you guess what he will do.'"
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 1-291 AT Prologue, Y minus 9, p. 15.

I prefer not to.

"'Guthrie used to quote a proverb about not letting the camel's nose into your tent. I think more than its nose is in. Bloody near the whole camel is. Or soon will be, if we sit meek.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire (New York, 1995), 41, p. 506.

Matthias quotes Anson Guthrie. I need not tell Poul Anderson fans who the first quotation is from.

The End Of The Mother Of The Moon

Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire.

Disappointment, sort of:

odd numbered chapters 1-41, unentitled, are set in the narrative present of the novel;

even numbered chapters 2-40, each entitled "The Mother of the Moon," are flashbacks to the much earlier time of Dagny Beynac and immediately after - Dagny dies in 38 and her download ends its conscious existence, so it thinks, in 40;

chapters 42-46 are just in the present - the flashbacks have ended, although download Dagny will speak one last time. 

History addresses later generations although usually not literally in the voice of the dead.

Fog And Quiet

Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire, 41.

We are overdue for some Pathetic Fallacy so here it is. Having just read about the final resting place of the two Dagnys, we return to Kenmuir and Aleka who have gone to consult the Rydberg, Matthias, at Guthrie House. Because of the gravity of the matter, he has invited them to stay overnight and now meets them for breakfast.

First, we read a recognizably Andersonian account of the weather conditions outside the building:

"Fog rolled in during the night. By sunrise it had cloaked Guthrie House in gray-white where the closest trees, two or three meters from the window, were shadows and everything else was formless. Air lay cold and damp and very quiet. You could just hear the hush of waves along the shore and perhaps a dripping from the eaves." (p. 504)

Fog, shadows, formlessness, cold, damp, quiet, hush of waves and dripping from eaves. The characters, enshrouded in mystery, do not really know what is happening or what to do. Thus, the external weather conditions exactly match their existential condition. And the quiet also matches Matthias' obvious preference for silence over breakfast. Then he takes them to a quiet room with a ticking grandfather clock, the room where mortal Anson Guthrie had died. The lodgemaster is about to disclose a portentous secret.

Tomb

Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire, 40.

Luna is independent. Lars Rydberg, Dagny Beynac's oldest son, is nearly a hundred. The hardware and supposedly blanked software of download Dagny will lie in the same massive tomb on the Moon as the ashes of the original Dagny. The site might become a halidom like Thermopylae or Bodhgaya. In fact, it will become a place where download Dagny can speak once more.

The Monster Hatching Anew

Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire, 40.

Now download Dagny is a member of the Provisional Trust charged with emergency negotiations by the Lunar government. Trust members:

Selenarchs;
representatives of the cities and of major industries and professions;
Terrans who want to stay on the Moon -

- all want full independence and urgently request download Dagny to join them as a delegate at large. She speaks on their behalf to the Federation President.

On Earth, some defend Lunarian self-determination while others reply that:

"...nationalism wrought multimillions of deaths, over and over, with devastation from which the world has never quite recovered. Here we see the monster hatching anew. We must crush its head while we still can." (p. 500)

Nationalism is part of the protean enemy in Poul Anderson's first future history, the Psychotechnic History. In that series, there is no ambiguity. The UN is right to use any means to crush nationalism - but the Psychotechnic Institute definitely goes too far in trying to control society.

Mind

See Pure Mind.

Googling Wiki articles, we find that:

consciousness is awareness;
awareness is consciousness.

Other synonyms, like knowledge and experience, are used. I think that any attempted definition of consciousness fails either because it uses synonyms or because it describes a process, such as a kind of behavior or a cerebral interaction, that could, without self-contradiction, be described as unconscious.

Can you fill in the blank of "X is -" in such a way that:

you avoid synonyms of consciousness;

a hearer or reader of the completed proposition says, "That is what we mean by 'consciousness' or 'X is consciousness.'"

Although we cannot describe whiteness to a permanently blind man, we need not describe consciousness to a permanently unconscious man.

Pure Mind

Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire, 37.

Kenmuir refers to the destiny of the cybercosm and, when asked what that is, replies:

"'You've heard. It's been prophesied for centuries, since before artificial intelligence existed. Mind, pure mind, taking over the universe.'" (p. 484)

He refers to our contemporary speculations, including Anderson's speculations in this book! Anderson's Acknowledgements are to:

Karen Anderson
Gregory Benford
CJ Cherryh
Larry J. Friesen
Robert Gleason
Alan Jeffery
Mike Resnick
SM Stirling
Freeman Dyson
Hans Moravec
Roger Penrose
Gunther S. Stent
Frank J. Tipler

Some, though not all, of these guys will have speculated about pure mind taking over the universe. I leave it to the keen Poul Anderson fan to google all the names and to find out who has said what.

What is "pure mind"? I can think of two possible meanings:

(i) "pure spirit," discarnate/unembobied consciousness, in the theological sense;
(ii) unemotional intellect in the Star Trek Vulcanian sense.

(i) The "mind" discussed by Kenmuir is post-organic but remains materially based so it is not "pure spirit." I think that discarnate consciousness is logically possible (because I cannot see that it is self-contradictory) but no more than that. How would it exist/come into existence/be caused to exist etc? It would surely be undetectable? James Blish's characters speculate here that spirit is stable negative entropy but this idea remains speculative.

(ii) Intellect contemplating logic and mathematics would also appreciate the aesthetics, e.g., of the proof that there is no highest prime number. It would also be able to contemplate, e.g., visual and musical aesthetics. There would be nothing to prevent it from transcending itself by intuiting its oneness with the universe.

I fail to see that (ii) is a threat to humanity as Kenmuir seems to think.

Glade And Death

Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire.

Kenmuir and Aleka are on Vancouver Island where the sun:

"...threw a glade across the bay..." (37, p. 482) (scroll down)

Centuries earlier, Dagny Beynac is found dead on the Moon. (38, p. 486)

"Luna mourned. On Earth, every Fireball flag went to half-mast." (p. 487)

I had thought that we might read a conversation between living Dagny and download Dagny. Probably such a conversation does happen between chapters.

Like DD Harriman, "The Man Who Sold The Moon," Dagny Beynac, "The Mother of the Moon," dies of heart failure while appreciating the view on the Lunar surface. Her legacy continues. Next we read a letter that she had left for her eldest son.

Political Negotiators

Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire, 36.

Great political negotiators in Poul Anderson's works are:

Gratillonius, King of Ys;
Nicholas van Rijn, Master Merchant Polesotechnic League;
Dagny Beynac, "The Mother of the Moon."

(Van Rijn is not a politician but has to deal with them.)

Dagny displays van Rijn's ability to find common ground between groups with opposed interests:

it will be less costly for the Selenarchs and Fireball to settle Terran Moondwellers elsewhere in the Solar System than to fight them;

the Selenarchs might exchange some of their asteroidal holdings for the Lunar helium-3 extraction works instead of merely expropriating the works which would force the beleaguered Federation government to wage war, insane though that would be in the circumstances;

download Dagny explains Federation governmental psychology to living Dagny's ninety year old son, the Selenarch Brandir.

We first encountered living Dagny as a teenager pregnant with her first son, not Brandir. History has happened during the novel and there are still ten chapters to reread but not tonight, folks.

Death And The Download

Dagny's personality is downloaded not at the moment of her death but while she is still alive. Therefore, living Dagny and download Dagny coexist for a period of time during which they accumulate different memories and become increasingly divergent personalities. When living Dagny dies, the by now divergent download continues but Dagny's personality at the moment of death ends. That personality is not recorded, resurrected or reincarnated anywhere. The existing download is not continuous with it.

If living Dagny had a soul, then that soul has entered the hereafter. If the download has a soul (Why should it? Why shouldn't it?), then that soul will enter the hereafter when the download is deleted, erased, destroyed etc. Although we naturally assume a continuity between living Guthrie and download Guthrie, there is no such continuity - the original living Guthrie is dead - as becomes more evident when there is more than one download.

Lunar Conflicts

Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire, 36.

Doenload Dagny tries to keep the peace between three factions:

Selenarchs;
the Human Defense Union;
the National League.

Selenarchs are Lunarians who want their own unrestricted freedom;

the Human Defense Union are Terran Moondwellers who might soon arm themselves and establish a militia to defend the status quo - Federation law protecting them with subsidies, quotas and exemptions resented by Lunarians;

the National League are Terrans who want reform within a democratic republic with Federation membership.

Huizinga, representing the Union, says that "human" means everyone and "'...is not a matter of racial prejudice.'" (p. 474)

Oh, yeah? Why call yourselves that, then? There are some "Defence Leagues" in Britain at present.

Dagny recalls Guthrie:

"'Xenophobia isn't pathological in itself. A degree of it is built into our DNA, and is healthy. Not all men are brothers. The trick is keeping it under control, and setting it aside when it isn't needed.'" (p. 475)

My responses to Guthrie:

Not all men act as brothers but we can work towards a culture where that is the accepted norm. The Ode to Joy says that "All men will be brothers."

It isn't needed, period. I don't want to feel a degree of hostility towards foreigners but keep it under control, then set it aside. I want to accept each new acquaintance, local or foreign, as an individual.

A foreign student at Lancaster University observed that some foreigners are obsequiously polite to everyone whereas he isn't. An initial response to the obsequious ones might be "Obsequious bastard!" An initial response to the one who isn't might be "Arrogant bastard!" But those are just initial responses. If we can't get past our initial response in the first few minutes of speaking to someone, then the problem is with us, not with them.