Jaan tells the multitude:
"'Remember what [the stars] are, not numbers in a catalog, not balls of burning gas, but reality itself, even as you and I are real." (9, p. 151)
What does this mean? Catalog numbers are not stars because they merely refer to them but balls of burning gas are real.
Jaan claims that stars are closer than humanity to eternity, apparently just because they last longer:
"'The light of the farthest that we can see has crossed an eon to come to us.'" (ibid.)
However, human beings can experience the timeless present, which is a profounder meaning of eternity.
In the world of Narnia, stars are persons who can walk and talk on earth in human form and:
"In our world," said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas."
"Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.
-copied from here.
So what is the difference between what it is and what it is made of?
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I am inclined to share your dissatisfaction with this "mysticizing" of stars! Because what they are made of, hugely massive balls of flaming gas, IS what they are.
Ad astra! Sean
The difference between what something's made of and what it is is a matter of your ontology, of course.
As a materialist -- to be precise, a materialistic monist -- I would say that things are of only one nature.
Well, a wooden chair is a chair and is made of wood and could have been made of some other material. But I don't buy it when Lewis makes this distinction of stars.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Unlike John Wright, a lawyer, SF writer, and philosopher, and convert to Catholicism, I feel myself unqualified to debate the merits or demerits of monistic materialism. Except that I don't believe in materialism.
Ad astra! Sean
Both,
My understanding of materialism is that there is a single, dynamic reality which has become conscious of itself through animals and human beings. Thus, mystics validly intuit their oneness with reality but mistakenly attribute consciousness to reality as a whole rather than just to certain parts of it. It is conscious but only through us.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I can't believe in that kind of materialism, because I believe in a First Cause, God, who is the ultimate author and creator of all that exists.
Ad astra and Merry Christmas! Sean
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