-copied from here.
This post applies to all fiction but, in particular, to the works of Poul Anderson.
After, for my part today, a two-hour river walk followed by a canal-side church Flower Festival on the theme of "Stories from the Bible," let us imagine that a deity creates, then contemplates, several distinct universes. Although, as a conscious being, he cannot be atemporal, or timeless, he can, in relation to each of his creations, be transtemporal. Thus, the temporal dimension of each universe corresponds to one of his spatial dimensions. Thus also, he is able to contemplate discrete moments as often as he wants to and in whatever order he chooses. He or, to improve the analogy even further, a pantheon of creators resembles the authors and readers of every work of fiction. When we are familiar with a novel, we can reread it from cover to cover but can also dip in and out of favorite chapters. We can skip past a Prologue that delays the beginning of the main narrative. In Anderson's The Day Of Their Return, I like to reread the few chapters that are narrated from the point of view of Chunderban Desai.
From Anderson's inter-cosmic inn, the Old Phoenix, it is possible to enter any universe in any period of its history. Thus, the inn shares this transtemporal perspective. For me, currently reading or rereading several novels:
Poul Anderson's Conrad Lauring approaches San Francisco in the Valborg;
SM Stirling's and David Drake's Raj Whitehall prepares for battle;
Stieg Larsson's Mikael Blomkvist arrives on Hedeby Island;
Dornford Yates' Pleydells and Mansel reminisce in the late 1950s, just a few years before I started to read about them.
But, at any time in our temporal dimension, other Anderson fans will instead be focusing on:
Manse Everard in New York;
Nicholas van Rijn on the Winged Cross;
David Falkayn on Ivanhoe;
Dominic Flandry on Starkad;
Gratillonius seeing the towers of Ys for the first time...
The characters live when they are read and they are read more than once.
The Pleydells, lamenting changing times, live during the Chaos that - precedes Technic civilization? Leads to an irreversible catastrophe? (We are currently on track for the latter.)
20 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I sometimes think of God, to give a quick and rough definition, as the infinitely transcendent Other. Moreover, I don't believe God is bound by time, but His creations are bound by time. If I'm remembering correctly what Frank Tipler wrote in THE PHYSICS OF CHRISTIANITY, God contemplates all the universes and possible universes, all that happens and all that might happen (including what writers say in their stories).
I've never thought before of rereading THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN as you sometimes do, focusing only on the Chunderban Desai chapters. I have browsed in that book, and many others of Anderson's works. And the characters in well written stories, like the ones you listed, do seem real and alive to me when I read them.
As you know, I date our time of Chaos from that accursed assassination in Sarajevo in 1914! And I see no real prospect of the Chaos ending soon. The best we can hope for is to finally get off this rock in a real way. Which is why I am hoping so much that Elon Musk succeeds in founding his Mars colony. I recommend as well Robert Zubrin's THE CASE FOR SPACE.
Sean
Sean,
Self is recognized as such only by contrast with other. Other is recognized as objective, thus as not just part of the self, only if it is perceived as having existed independently of the self over time. Each individual subject sees something at any earlier time, see it again at a later time and thinks, "I saw that before," thus applying the concepts of a temporally enduring self/subject, "I," and of an independently existing and temporally enduring object, "that." Without objectivity and time, the self is like a square without sides. To affirm the existence of a self or square yet to deny the conditions of its existence is contradictory.
Anything that is merely Other is unknowable.
Paul.
A square that is not bounded by sides is not a square.
A subject that does not know any objects external to itself and that exists for zero time is not a subject.
A series of propositions that is not bounded by logic, i.e., by a requirement for mutual consistency, does not succeed in imparting information. Thus, if anyone says, "Socrates was executed in 399 B.C.," then "Socrates was executed in 299 B.C.," then "It does not matter that I have contradicted myself because I transcend logic and am not bound by it," then he does not tell us when Socrates was executed.
Anticipating counterarguments:
God does know objects other than Himself, i.e., "all things"? Yes, but before the creation He existed without another. "Before" is a temporal term? Yes, but we are told that He could have existed without creating anything.
The Trinity explains self and other within the unity? I think that the Trinity doctrine arose because the 4th Gospel deified the Son and personified the Spirit yet remained monotheist. Thus, three persons, one God, the Trinity. The doctrine was not meant to explain divine self-consciousness. Also, how can three persons be distinct without spatial relationships? This again sounds like a square without sides: affirm the existence of an entity yet deny the conditions for its existence.
Kaor, Paul!
Not being trained in the specialized field of philosophy, I don't pretend to any ability to respond to your satisfaction.
I agree that your arguments about the "self" makes sense, when applied to limited, fallible persons like us. But I really don't think they can apply to a Being Who has existed from all eternity and is omniscient, omnipotent, infinitely happy and self sufficient. And I believe your arguments about a "self" knowing itself to exist by others existing can apply to the Trinity as well, which I don't believe was "created' merely by John's Gospel.
I found Tipler's ingenious arguments about how quantum mechanics can explain the Incarnation and the Trinity in THE PHYSICS OF CHRISTIANITY interesting and worth pondering over.
Sean
Sean,
But the existence of such a Being is in question. The fallibility or otherwise of selves is not an issue. All words are limited because they are applicable in some contexts but not in others.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree with your third sentence. I would simply argue that when it comes to such ultimate questions as God merely human words and language will not always be satisfactory.
Sean
Sean,
And therefore we should question the applicability of such language: on the one hand, "Other," but, on the other hand describable by a whole list of adjectives: "omniscient, omnipotent" etc?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Indeed, I question the satisfactoriness of such language, when applied to God. He is more than simply the infinitely transcendent Other, more than omniscient and omnipotent, etc. All these terms are true, as far as they go, but they can never completely describe God.
Sean
Sean,
But I am questioning the applicability of any of these terms. A square or a circle extended to infinity ceases to have a distinctive shape and therefore ceases to be either a square or a circle or indeed anything. If you add "infinite" to an adjective, then you negate its conditions and context. To be is to be one thing and not another.
Paul.
Kaor,Paul!
But God is not a square or circle. And I believe it makes sense to say He is infinite, else He would not be God at all!
Sean
Sean,
In mathematics and physics, an equation becomes meaningless when it contains infinities. Godel apparently presented a proof that omniscience is impossible and I have formulated my own version of such an argument.
If power is great but finite, then it can be resisted whereas infinite power would be irresistible. An infinite power that had created everything would be the source of everything, even of the thought of resistance to it. Therefore, such a thought would not even exist.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But I believe God is not only infinite but also respects the choices of finite creatures, good or bad. Including those who chose to resist Him.
Sean
Sean,
I know but I have argued that it is impossible to have free will in relation to an omnipotent creator.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I know you don't agree, but Catholic Christianity defends both free will for humans (and non humans, the angels and intelligent beings on other worlds?) and the omnipotence of God.
Sean
Sean,
A person acts freely when his actions are unconstrained. However, those actions result from inclinations, dispositions, motivations, perceptions etc that are within him. An omnipotent creator would be entirely responsible for the existence of everything other than Himself. Therefore, He would be responsible for the human motivations that produce every action. Even if the actions are free/unconstrained, they happen because the creator has made those people the way they are.
Paul.
We confidently predict that a strong-willed teetotaler will not accept a drink whereas an alcoholic left alone with crates of beer will get drunk but we do not call either man unfree. They might surprise us because we do not know all the factors affecting their choices. God not only knows all those factors. He creates them.
Kaor, Paul!
I think some of the harder, sterner, TULIP Calvinists with agree with what you said about God!
But I still don't believe the omnipotence of God necessarily compels my actions. God's knowledge of all things and factors is not the same as forcing people to DO those things. A weak analogy might help: I could become aware of a plot to rob a bank by a gang of criminals. But, for one reason or another, I was unable to inform the police of this scheme. My "foreknowledge" of the planned bank robbery does not mean I compelled them to perpetrate the crime.
I am not sure the analogy of the alcoholic left alone with crates of beer truly holds up. I do believe some people can be so HABITUATED, addicted to doing certain things, that is extremely difficult for addicts not to do the acts they are addicted to: such as alcohol, smoking, illegal drugs, gambling, etc.
Sean
Sean,
But we are covering old ground. I do not believe that foreknowledge negates freedom. Obviously, my knowing in advance that someone is going to commit a crime does not make him commit the crime. But he will commit the crime only if (i) he is the sort of person who would be tempted to commit such a crime and (ii) he decides to do it. I am not the sort of person who would even be tempted to torture an enemy prisoner. I find the idea repugnant. God (accepting the theistic premise) has made me the sort of person who is not even tempted to torture a prisoner and he has in no way negated my freedom by doing so. I am perfectly free to torture anyone who is within my power. I am just never going to do it. Someone who is 100% heterosexual is never even going to be tempted to commit the crime of sexual abuse against a member of his own sex. An omnipotent creator is completely responsible for what kind of people we are and what sort of sins or crimes we are tempted to commit. He is responsible for everything:
whether I want to perform action X;
whether I believe that X is wrong;
whether my will-power is strong enough to resist the temptation to perform X;
whether indeed I am even tempted in the first place;
etc.
Thinking through the implications of omnipotent creation shows that finite creatures can have free will in relation to each other (I might or might not prevent a child form performing a reprehensible action) but not in relation to an omnipotent creator who could have created the child without any inclination to perform a reprehensible action in the first place.
Paul.
Erratum: "form" within the brackets in the above post should, of course, read "from."
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