James Blish And The Megamultiverse II

I previously thought that the single immutable timelines of The Corridors Of Time and There Will Be Time, the single mutable timeline of the Time Patrol series and the parallel multiple timelines of the Old Phoenix Sequence were mutually incompatible cosmologies but now think that all of these scenarios can be accommodated within the multidimensional framework mentioned in the opening Time Patrol story although the immutable timelines would have to occupy a remote and usually inaccessible region of the megamultiverse.

Prima facie, James Blish's Haertel Scholium presents a mini-multiverse, its four divergent branches dealing respectively with telepathy, energy beings, the Dirac transmitter and the planet Lithia. (The single Lithian novel is also Volume III of After Such Knowledge.) However, the Dirac transmitter "branch" denies that there are "branches of time." Its protagonists work to ensure that they continue to inhabit a single consistent timeline. So maybe the alternative future histories of the Haertel Scholium do present mutually incompatible fictional narratives?

Virtual Particles And Isa Upanishad

Blogs flow together. The previous post was equally relevant to James Blish Appreciation. This post is equally relevant to Religion and Philosophy. As usual, Poul Anderson is the link.

"'Space is not a passive framework for events to happen in. It is a sea of virtual particles. They constantly go in and out of existence according to the uncertainty principle. The energy density implied is tremendous.'"
-Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999), p. 8.
-copied from here.

Thus:

space is not mere nothingness but full of potential;
there is continual creation and annihilation and immense energy;
from this "sea" or matrix, our universe emerged.

"The Spirit filled all with his radiance. He is incorporeal and invulnerable, pure and untouched by evil. He is the supreme seer and thinker, immanent and transcendent. He placed all things in the path of Eternity."
-Isa Upanishad IN The Upanishads, trans. Juan Mascaro (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1984), pp. 49-50 AT p. 49.

This translation of Isa Upanishad uses the English terms:

God
the Eternal
Spirit
immanent
transcendent
Eternity
immortality
god of light
Lord of creation
fire divine

- but not the untranslated Sanskrit "Brahman" or "Atman" which are common in the Upanishads as a whole. "Brahman" began as the power of ritual, came to be identified with the power of creation and was then hypostatized as transcendent reality. Atman is within. The Upanishadic rishis inherited these terms but also used them to express their yogic/meditative experience. In particular, they identified Atman with Brahman.

I suggest that energy in space:

is incorporeal, although embodied in every organism;
is indestructible because it survives every change of form;
sees and thinks through organisms, although not independently of them.

Therefore, I identify energy with Upanishadic Spirit.

James Blish And The Megamultiverse

This posts combines two previous themes:

comparison of Poul Anderson with James Blish;

the idea of the incorporation of many fictional universes into a single megamultiverse.

Blish, like Anderson, wrote hard sf, fantasy and historical fiction but with a much smaller output. Blish's main bodies of work are:

Cities In Flight;
The Seedling Stars;
the Haertel Scholium;
After Such Knowledge.

These comprise:

two linear future histories;
one sequence of branching future histories;
one trilogy set in the past, present and future.

It will be seen that the future predominates. In fact, Blish's single volume of historical fiction and single volume of fantasy are Volumes I and II of After Such Knowledge. The branching future histories might provide material for a multiverse? Adolph Haertel, who supersedes Einstein, is referred to in more than one future - but so is Einstein. The planet Lithia exists in more than one future - but so do Earth and Mars.

When "Beep" was lengthened/novelized, it was incorporated into the Haertel Scholium. In the original "Beep," one character explicitly states:

"'I was going to do all those things. There were no alternatives, no fanciful "branches of time," no decision-points that might be altered to make the future change. My future, like yours, Dr. Wald's, and everyone else's, was fixed.'"
-James Blish, "Beep" IN Blish, Galactic Cluster (London, 1963), pp. 93-128 AT p. 116.

Although this piece of dialogue remains unchanged in the lengthened The Quincunx Of Time (New York, 1983), p. 75, the characters think their way around it. Maybe some of the Dirac beep messages come from different futures? Maybe, forewarned and forearmed, they themselves can choose between futures? - although they wisely decide against such an act of hubris.

Three characters discussing the implications of the Dirac transmitter are Blish's nearest approach to Anderson's Old Phoenix clientele and the Service that they found parallels Anderson's Time Patrol.

Virgins With Sacks Of Gold

King Isketerol swears:

"'By Arucuttag of the Sea, by the Lady of Tartessos, by the Sun Lord whose likeness I wear, by the Grain Goddess by whose bounty we live, I swear this.'"
-SM Stirling, On The Oceans Of Eternity (New York, 2000), Chapter Eighteen, p. 375.

These "Four of Tartessos" sound like the Three of Ys - with an extra Goddess.

What does Isketerol swear?

"'That a naked virgin with a sack of gold in each hand shall be able to walk from the sea to the mountains unmolested, by the time my kingship descends to my son.'" (ibid.)

We have met this virgin before. See here. The difference is that Poul Anderson's texts refer to a past Golden Age whereas Isketerol promises a golden future. He is just to his own people but on the wrong side in a war. And I do mean the wrong side, not just the other side. An alliance with Walker and an attack on Nantucket are simply wrong.

Bread And Venison

Spying, Spring Indigo sees bread being baked, realizes that the smell is "...intoxicating..." (p. 354) and understands why Peter dreams of eating it.

Later, at the main campfire, she tends a hide trough full of water where venison, onions, roots and greens cook, kept hot "...by dropping in hot rocks..." (p. 357). Leather is lighter than metal and less breakable than pottery. Peter's stomach rumbles.

Our food thread continues to grow.

The Discussion So Far

So far, discussion of Poul Anderson's works has involved discussion of:

cosmology
cosmogony (and here) 
theology
demonology
eschatology
mythology
xenobiology
theories of history
historical turning points
politics
economics
philosophy
the origins of science
stellar and cosmic evolution
black holes
neutron stars
relativity
quantum mechanics
the logic and physics of time travel
scientific and sociological extrapolations
automation
Artificial Intelligence
human evolution
sciences of society
immortality
telepathy (and here)
war
nuclear war
alternative histories
future histories
multiple universes
Sherlock Holmes
detective fiction
science fiction
historical fiction (also here and here)
fantasy
magic
humor in fiction
multi-sensory descriptions of Terrestrial scenery and of extraterrestrial environments
other authors
intelligence work
food 

I have added a few links but please search the blog anyway - if you want to.

Spying II

To spy, it is necessary to blend in:

Rudyard Kipling shows us life, including covert Intelligence operations, in British India. Ian Fleming shows us life, including Intelligence activity, in exotic locations like Jamaica and Japan during the Cold War. Poul Anderson shows us life in the even more exotic location of the planet Avalon as his Terran characters discuss the difficulty of spying within an alien society. Their agents can penetrate the human population of Avalon but cannot learn anything that is not already public knowledge. Human Avalonians no longer think, talk or even walk like Imperials and imitating them is unfeasible. Back on Earth, James Bond must be disguised as a deaf and dumb Japanese miner.
-copied from here.

The same problem arises when the Nantucket Trans-Continental Expedition must spy on an enemy encampment. Only one of their number is sufficiently like the locals to pass as a visiting trader:

"To her, the differences between her people and these dwellers in the sunset lands were obvious, easy to see at a glance - her people were taller, with a different cast of face. But the enemy would see what they expected and no more."
-SM Stirling, On The Oceans Of Eternity (New York, 2000), Chapter Seventeen, p. 350.

Spring Indigo uses a mental technique to estimate numbers in the encampment and tries to be like a still pool or mirror to reflect - and remember. And we remember Roy Tully in Rolfeston, New Virginia... a long time ago in another universe.

A Farm

SM Stirling, On The Oceans Of Eternity (New York, 2000), Chapter Sixteen, pp. 335-337.

Stirling presents a lengthy description of a farm. These are some of the highlights:

"...the long tree-lined graveled drive to the farmhouse." (p. 335)

"Woodsmoke wafted from the two stone chimneys, and the mouth-watering smell of bread baking." (p. 336)

"Quick-growing Babylonica willows drooped their branches into a pond where ducks and geese floated." (p. 336)

The owner claims two hundred and fifty acres cleared, "...with quiet satisfaction..." (p. 336)

Human labor and the fruits thereof.

Darwinism

Poul Anderson accepts a Darwinian account of human origins and shows human beings defending civilization. Does natural selection contradict civilized values? I think not.

I suggest that:

naturally selected limbs and organs perform biological functions without having been designed to do so;

we are naturally selected to help others either because they bear the same genes or because they might help us in return;

we experience the latter motivation as moral obligation, not as calculating self-interest, which is what it sounds like when expressed in merely biological terms;

we were unable to understand the biological basis of our psychology and morality until Darwin had identified natural selection as the mechanism of evolution;

also, human beings are essentially social, not solitary;

a species of solitary individuals would have been unable to develop language and thus would not have become human;

thus, our ancestors were social before they were human;

to be social is to have collective interests like, for human beings, speaking a common language and driving on the same side of the road;

such interests transcend a simplistic selfishness-altruism dichotomy;

human beings have survived and thrived by cooperating, not by going it alone;

cooperation is so fundamental to human activity that even the Nazis had to cooperate with each other in order to exterminate other groups;

thus, cooperation is more basic to humanity than conflict;

a society based on conflict without cooperation would not be a society - reductio ad absurdum.

Pharaonic Fictions

Our texts for "Pharaonic Fictions" are:

"Ozymandias" by Percy Shelley;

"Son of the Sword" by Poul Anderson;

On The Oceans Of Eternity, Chapter Fifteen, by SM Stirling.

"Ozymandias" was a Greek name for Ramesses II, who appears in Chapter Fifteen of On The Oceans..., whereas "Son of the Sword" is set during the reign of another famous Pharaoh. See here. Anderson also discusses Akhnaton in a non-fiction work,"The Discovery Of The Past." (For discussion of that work, although not its reference to Akhnaton, see here.)

"Ozymandias" became the code-name for one of Alan Moore's Watchmen.

In On The Oceans..., it is good to see McAndrews breaking away from Walker. He does this by trying to build the black Egypt of his dreams!