"...strike out for the nearest Patrol station? Hundreds of miles, and he'd likeliest leave his bones along them, the scraps of knowledge he had gained blown away on a desert wind." (p. 64)
"Bosun Ridley lay nearby. Birds were eating his thoughts and memories."
-Alan Moore, Watchmen (London, 1987), Chapter III, p. 2, panel 2.
Fiction writers sometimes highlight a philosophical issue: the mind-body problem. Brains generate thoughts and memories. A bird that eats a bosun's brain does not literally eat his thoughts and memories. They ended when the bosun died. But what was the relationship between his brain and his mental processes?
Everard will not leave his bones behind. He will cease to function when they do. His knowledge will not be blown away on the wind. It will cease when he does. But, by writing as they do, such authors emphasize that mind is based in matter and make us wonder how.
(A weekend of events, some Jubilee-related.)
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But of course you knew these authors were simply using metaphors and figures of speech.
I have watched some Platinum Jubilee events celebrating how Elizabeth II has reigned for over seventy years. She certainly has been a model constitutional monarch. And despite some frailty due to advanced age, the Queen is still plainly clear and sharp witted!
I have thought, more than once, if the US has to have an elderly head of state, Elizabeth II would have been vastly better than that "Josip" in the White House! The President is clearly not ALL there, mentally.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Metaphors yes but fascinating in their implications.
Paul.
Sean,
I like Josip's emphasis on gun control, though.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
NOT if what "Josip" has been programmed to say is illegal, unconstitutional, futile, or merely repeats what may already be in the statute books.
Ad astra! Sean
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