Is "Memory" Part of the Technic History?

In "Memory" by Poul Anderson, a regime called the Hegemony restores interstellar civilisation after the fall of a human interstellar Empire. In "The Sharing of Flesh" by Poul Anderson, the Allied Planets restore interstellar civilisation after the fall of the Terran Empire which Manuel Argos founded in "The Star Plunderer" and Dominic Flandry defended in several stories and novels. Are these the same Empire? The stories do not cross-refer because they are set either in different fictitious futures or in different spatial regions. If the Hegemony and the Alliance occupy opposite ends of the former imperial territory and expand in different directions, then they must lack common references and terminologies. For example, Hegemonists call the post-Imperial interregnum "the Dark Ages" whereas Flandry's direct successors call it "the Long Night." Also, the repressive Hegemony was too unstable to have survived long. When, at the end of "Memory," a "deviant unit," i. e., a free man, starts to build an alternative to the Hegemony, this could become the Commonalty which we know will succeed the Allied Planets.

"Memory" attributes to the fallen Empire a mental technology that did not exist in Flandry's period but that could have developed later especially when the declining Empire became more repressive. A Hegemonic unit says that altered stellar positions have invalidated Imperial charts. This kind of background inconsistency is often smoothed over when disparate stories are shoehorned into a single timeline. But, if we take this detail seriously, then it implies a much later date for the Hegemony. In that case, the Hegemony and its rivals could instead be one of the branches of humanity that, we are told, co-exist with the Commonalty in two or three spiral arms. Such far flung civilizations can be expected to endure for a correspondingly longer period and the short lived Hegemony could be an incident during such a period.

There is another possibility. By their actions, Hans Molitor, the usurper, and Dominic Flandry, Intelligence Officer and Imperial Adviser, prolong the Imperial period, thus giving some colonized planets more time to prepare for the war, piracy, economic collapse and isolation of the Long Night. This in turn later leads to the beneficial regimes of the Allied Planets and the Commonalty. The Hegemony might be what would have happened otherwise.

Thus, "Memory" is set in the Allied Planets period, the Commonalty period, a divergent timeline or, as Anderson himself believed, an unrelated timeline. I had thought of only the first and fourth possibilities when I started to write. If "Memory" were to be incorporated into The History of Technic Civilization, then a concluding collection for the series could contain just four stories, each set in a different milieu: Long Night, Allied Planets, Hegemony and Commonalty. The Night Face is one Allied Planets novel. The first two stories of the History cover the first two periods of interplanetary and interstellar exploration, the latter called "the Grand Survey." Between the two end points are the two major periods: the Polesotechnic League (main characters Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn although there are others) and the Terran Empire (main character Dominic Flandry although there are others). Between these two periods is the pivotal story about Manuel of his Dynasty the First. With or without "Memory," the Technic History remains a substantial series.

Memory

Memory is conscious or unconscious. Apparently, every experience is recorded unconsciously. A finite brain cannot accumulate unconscious memories indefinitely. Would memory overload drive an immortal brain mad or would the brain merely stop recording? In Poul Anderson's World Without Stars, the memories of immortals are artificially edited whereas, in Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years, the handful of immortals learn within themselves how to cope with memory overload. Should we have been shown at least one who did not cope?

If an immortal being were to remain identical with his earlier self, then surely he would have to consciously remember earlier experiences some of the time? However, he would be able to remember any particular experience less and less often as he grew older. Thus, he would effectively become a different person, as if one had died and another had been born, but that is how life works in any case.

Memory And Time

Greg Bear, Eon (London, 2002).

Pavel Mirsky writes:

"Soon, I firmly resolve, I will gather up my courage and join with the extended personalities in City Memory." (p. 494)

How are they "extended"? We gather that they are incorporeal but, if they are conscious and aware of each other, then they must appear to be embodied in a shared environment. What is their physical basis?

They are "'...personality patterns in the City Memory environment.'" (p. 311)

- but this is not described.

Those City Memory personalities who sympathize with an insurrection help it by overseeing interdicted communications nets. Whatever this means, it implies that they can affect the activities of the embodied. And I think that that is all that we are told about them.

"She vowed to use the physicist's concept of time from here on, with events strung along a line, and no particular breakdown into past, present or future." (p. 134)

We divide time either objectively into units like days and years or subjectively into past, present and future. The physicist's "...events strung along a line..." include, e.g., me typing at 12.00 on 22 August and me typing at 12.00 on 23 August. On 22 August, I regard 22 August as present and 23 August as future. On 23 August, I regard 23 August as present and 22 August as past. Without consciousness, there would be days and years but no division into past, present and future. With or without consciousness, nothing moves along the line of time.

Memory

"The Big Rain," IV.

"Insensibly and despite himself, Hollister began sliding into the intellectual lethargy of the camp. He had read the few books - and with his trained memory, he could only read a book once -..." (p. 182)

But, if he has memorized the book word for word, then he must be able to recite the text internally and then
to notice new nuances as we do when rereading? Every possible ramification of an entire book cannot be simultaneously present to his mind, can it? Are there people with that kind of memory who never need to reread a book? I imagine that they would "reread" by inwardly reviewing the text and then drawing new conclusions or seeing new connections with other texts or data?

The entire basis of this blog is systematic rereading of rich texts. I imagine that someone with a photographic memory rereads internally instead of externally.

More On Memory

When writing the previous post, I meant to mention memory in Poul Anderson's works but now find that there is much about memory on the blog. See here.

Immortals must edit their memories;

in "Memory," an amnesiac recovers his memories;

in the Time Patrol universe, a time traveler can remember events that did not happen, at least not in the current timeline;

Time Patrollers can be electrocrammed, e.g.,  with languages but do any of Poul Anderson's characters experience the inputting of another person's memories as happens in works by James Blish, Larry Niven and no doubt others? (If I lose my memories and gain yours, then I think that I am you.)

Looking Ahead

Poul Anderson, "Memory" IN Anderson, Beyond The Beyond (London, 1973), pp. 7-43.

This is not a reading of the story, more like a scouting expedition. (After a dash to the gym followed by a large Easter Sunday extended family lunch, I am taking it easy.) In this edition, the story is thirty six and a half pages in length. On p. 7, directly under the story title, there is a sub-heading "Torrek." Near the bottom of p. 21, there is a second sub-heading, "Korul Wanen." A scan of the text plus a memory of a previous reading indicate that these headings are names, further that they are alternative names of a single character with two sets of memories - or something along those lines.

Let us contrast three kinds of science fiction narrative.

(i) In Star Trek, a spaceship from Earth visits innumerable extrasolar terrestroid planets, each inhabited by humanoid beings indistinguishable from those on Earth, indeed indistinguishable from white North Americans, even though these beings have supposedly evolved independently on that other planet.

(ii) Some prose sf stories have essentially the same scenario except that now the extrasolar human beings are more plausibly descended from colonists from Earth.

(iii) Later novels by Poul Anderson assume that extrasolar planets, even if inhabited, are unlikely to be terrestroid.

"Memory" is a type (ii). Like several such sf stories, it could easily be adapted as a Star Trek episode. Some time soon, we will get to grips with the story itself.

Saving The World

Heroes save the world. What is that like as a job?

(i) Steve Matuchek: "'Saving the world sure does get in the way of enjoying it.'"
-Operation Luna, 22, p. 201.

(ii) Mr. Incredible (from memory): "Sometimes I wish the world would just stay saved!"

(iii) Flash Gordon (from memory): swings into the future on the Time Pendulum, sees a giant statue of himself and on the pedestal these words appear, "Hail, Flash Gordon! Glorious Savior of Mongo!" But, before he can read the dates under his name, he is pulled back into the past...

I am rereading Operation Luna and quoting it accurately whereas the Flash Gordon incident is embellished by memory - but that is how most hero stories live in our minds.

Steve and Virginia Matuchek are in good company.

Changelings

In SM Stirling's Emberverse, "Changelings" either were born since the Change or are too young to remember anything from before it. The term goes out of use as older people die.

I was born in 1949 and Queen Elizabeth II acceded in 1952 so I have no memory of her predecessor. My daughter, Aileen, was born in 1976 and Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979 so Aileen was one of "Thatcher's Children," with no memory of any previous Prime Minister. Thatcher resigned in 1990. People born in 1945 would have no memory of the War.

Thus, the dual definition of "Changeling," "...born since or too young to remember anything from before...," is applicable throughout history.

Current Reading Agenda

Current Reading Agenda
(i) To finish reading A Meeting At Corvallis by SM Stirling.
(ii) To reread "Memory" (originally "A World Called Maanerek") by Poul Anderson.

(i) I want to know what happens to several of the characters.

(ii) The theme of "Memory" might serve as an allegory for Zen meditation, discussed here. Although I discussed "Memory" here, I then asked only whether it was part of Anderson's Technic History. It is not. I did not discuss the contents of the story.

A man realizes that he is not who he thought he was. His real identity transcends his social conditioning. That sounds like meditation. But I must reread the story to recall the details. If anyone wants to get ahead of me, then comment here, that is ok.

"Memory"

A man was found with total amnesia. Initiated into the community, he now thinks that he is:

"'...Torrek, a Harpooner of Diupa, adopted to the Bua Clan and an oath-brother in full standing of Sea Bear Lodge, pledged to the King of Dumethdin.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Memory" IN Anderson, Beyond The Beyond (London, 1973), p. 18.

However, when these memories have been removed and his original memories restored, he knows that he is Korul Wannen, a lieutenant in the Astro service and an officer of the scout ship, "Seeker."

Before we gain any spiritual insight or understanding, each of us thinks that he is a separate self. However spiritual teaching and meditation uncover the realization that we are not separate but one. I find an analogy between this realization and Korul Wannen's rediscovery that he is not Torrek on the World Called Maanerek but an interstellar explorer. It is for this reason that I am rereading "Memory."

"Memory" II

Poul Anderson's "Memory" makes a basic point about humanity. The brain cannot be separated from muscles, veins, viscera, skin, blood, lungs and bones. The organism is whole. For five years, Wanen had lived the biologically sound life of an Islander. When those memories were removed and his original memories restored, his brain forgot that he had been an Islander but his body remembered what it had been like to be an Islander. That was enough to make him rebel against the inhumanity, indeed the antihumanity, of the Hegemony.

There is another point. The expert who monitored Wanen's mental states suspected this but did nothing about it. He also was deviant. As he himself quotes, "'Who shall watch the watchmen?'" (p. 42) (see here)

When I remembered the story, I made a comparison between Wanen's realization that he is not who he thinks he is but an interstellar explorer and the meditative realization that I am not a separate self but one with the universe. However, the point of the story is that it is the biological memory of Torrek's way of life that is more fundamental than Wanen's identity as a unit of the Hegemony.

Lewis, Heinlein And Anderson On The Hereafter

Introduction

This blog appreciates Poul Anderson and also recommends some other high quality sf writers including:

the early Wells

CS Lewis

the early Heinlein

James Blish

SM Stirling

Lewis

I have read Lewis' spiritual autobiography, popular theology and theologically informed fiction, both adult and juvenile. Some critics might regard Lewis' fantasy and sf as propaganda and I personally have problems in particular with his Perelandra for its anti-Darwinism. However, he did write imaginative and insightful novels and short stories which were admired by the agnostic James Blish and still are by many, including myself.

Lewis presents philosophical arguments (which I do not accept) for theism but merely assumes indefinite continuation of human consciousness after physical death. I regard such an assumption as a major weakness. Of course, we must heed any alleged arguments or evidence for survival. Lewis implies acceptance of the evidence of Spiritualism:

"'They prefer taking trips back to Earth. They go and play tricks on the poor daft women ye call mediums. They go and try to assert their ownership of some house that once belonged to them: and then ye get what's called a Haunting.'" 

-CS Lewis, The Great Divorce (London, 1982), p. 61.

Here, a resident in the hereafter plausibly describes some aspects of our experience.

Heinlein

Apparently, Heinlein believed in survival because he wanted to: the worst possible reason.

"'When you die, you don't die all over, no matter how intensely you may claim to expect to. It is an emotional impossibility for any man to believe in his own death.'"

-Robert Heinlein, "Elsewhen," quoted in Heinlein In Dimension.

(If I have "Elsewhen" upstairs, then I can check it for myself but blog readers might remember my reluctance to climb stairs late in the evening.)

It is perfectly possible to believe in our own deaths. I did not experience anything before I was born. Why should I experience anything after I am dead? I did experience my consciousness being irresistibly driven down into darkness by a general anaesthetic. I remember nothing between that extinguishment and my later reawakening. If I had died under the anaesthetic, then there would have been no further experiences or memories of this individual. Life and consciousness would have continued but mine would have ceased as they surely will. How can anything, especially something as complicated as memory and identity, continue forever?

Panshin doubted that it was emotionally impossible for any man to believe in his own death but suspected that this was true of Heinlein. Indeed.

Heinlein, through one of his characters, attempts an argument for immortality:

"I am immortal. I transcend this little time-axis; a seventy-year span on it is but a casual phase in my experience. Second only to the prime datum of my own existence is the emotionally convincing certainty of my own continuity. I may be a closed curve, but, closed or open, I neither have a beginning nor an end. Self-awareness is not relational; it is absolute, and cannot be reached to be destroyed, or created. Memory, however, being a relational aspect of consciousness, may be tampered with and possibly destroyed."

-Robert Heinlein, "They," IN Heinlein, The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (London, 1980), pp. 138-153 AT p. 146.

Slow down, man. Emotionally convincing? A closed curve would be immortal? Why can you not end? Go to sleep and do not wake up. Self-awareness not relational? Self is recognized as such only in relationship to other, like left-right, up-down, on-off etc. Awareness or consciousness is precisely the relationship between a subject and its objects. That relationship can certainly be created and destroyed. Memory possibly destroyed? It can certainly be destroyed and that is the end of the continuity of the self. 

Heinlein's "Goldfish Bowl" should be upstairs but is summarized on Wikipedia. See the link. One of the scientists who finds himself in a featureless environment considers the hypothesis that he has died and is in a hereafter. That is how pervasive this idea is in Heinlein's works.

Anderson...

...considered a scientific rationale for survival - a similar rationale is present in Starfarers although in less detail - but, in Anderson's works, this is only a speculative story idea. Anderson had neither the religious faith of Lewis nor the emotional conviction of Heinlein.

Memory And Identity

John C. Wright's Phaethon looks at boxes containing memories edited from his brain over three millennia for the dual purposes of saving space and preventing senility overload - exactly as happens in Poul Anderson's World Without Stars.

Is there any difference between memory and identity? If two people swapped memories, then they would think that they had swapped identities - although the legal criterion of personal identity remains (so far) spatiotemporal continuty of a body even if that body suffers total amnesia. Also, how much of someone's personality comes not from conscious memories but from the body, including unconscious cerebral connections?

Here, we considered a Poul Anderson story in which a man replaces one set of memories and apparent identity with another. I compared this to the meditative realization that I am not a separate self. The superhero-secret identity scenario is similar. Each of us perhaps has two sets of motivations, which, using Buddhist terminology, I call "enlightened" and "unenlightened." The latter motivations assume the reality of the illusory separate self: "I want..." Someone who suddenly acts instead from the enlightened motivations of wisdom and compassion is like a superhero shedding his secret identity - transcending the limitations represented by glasses and a business suit - and acting for the world.

Wright's characters with their minds augmented by AI seem to have not just two but several layers of memory and identity. Phaethon asks what is his real self. Philosophically, we must retort: is there a real self?

Memories And Machines

In The Boat Of A Million Years, World Without Stars and For Love And Glory, Poul Anderson addresses the question of the problem of accumulating memories in an indefinitely prolonged lifespan. This is how another future history addresses the issue:

"...before death had been indefinitely postponed, it had been thought that memory would turn longevity into a Greek gift, because not even the human brain could remember a practical infinity of accumulated facts. Nowadays, however, nobody bothered to remember many facts. That was what the City Fathers and like machines were for: they stored data. Living men memorized nothing but processes, throwing out obsolete ones for new ones as invention made it necessary. When they needed facts, they asked the machines.

"In some cases, even processes were wiped from human memory to make more room if there were simple, indestructible machines to replace them - the slide rule, for instance. Amalfi wondered suddenly if there was a single man in the city who could multiply, divide, take square roots, or figure pH in his head or on paper. The thought was so novel as to be alarming - as novel as if an ancient astrophysicist had seriously wondered how many of his colleagues could run an abacus.

"No, memory was no problem. But it was hard to be patient after a thousand years."

-James Blish, Earthman, Come Home IN Blish, Cities In Flight (London, 1981), CHAPTER FOUR, p. 319.

Make of that what you will. (What is a Greek gift?)

Axis City Politics

Greg Bear, Eon (London, 2002).

Axis City politics are fast and complicated with a confusing combination of constitutional and unconstitutional maneuvers. While leading a revolt, the incarnate Corprep Rosen Gardner creates four partials to coordinate activities in different locations and also sends an assigned ghost to watch the terrestrial who have entered the Thistledown.

During the revolt:

militant factioners hold strategic transport sites;
orthodox Naderites and Korzenowski factioners consolidate insurrectionary gains;
sympathizers in City Memory oversee interdicted communications nets;
a counterinsurrectionary vote is declared invalid both because it was called by a partial, not an incarnate, and because it lacked a quorum of incarnate senators and corpreps;
the returning President sends a partial to pict with Gardner.

I summarize this not because I expect it to be understood (I don't understand it all) but to convey something of the intriguing complexity. However, while reading about the Axis City conflict, we:

recognize political maneuvering;
realize that we do not understand how the technology works;
but deduce its effects from the terminology used to describe it.

Stoner technology manipulates consciousness, e.g.:

partials and ghosts are temporary minds able to speak for their incarnates;
brains can be programmed;
personalities can be merged;
personalities preserved in City Memory are incorporeal but somehow conscious;
a man who lost half his brain when shot in the head is resurrected but with some memory loss and also with some new psychological features.

(Fortunately, he retains enough early memories to maintain his sense of identity and continuity.)

This is modern sf, incorporating but transcending space exploration. I would prefer more about the experience of resurrection and less about Jarts. 

Immortality

The article below is copied from the James Blish Appreciation blog. I thought that the "rechannelling" of memories in the decadent society of Blish's "A Style In Treason" contrasted interestingly with the constructive use of memory editing in Anderson's World Without Stars.

To any fan of either author, I can only say, "Read both."

A Few Fictional Kinds of "Immortality"

Robert Heinlein's Methuselah's Children: breeding for longevity and one mutant immortal;
Poul Anderson's World Without Stars: the antithanatic;
Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years: mutants, then artificial longevity;
James Blish's Cities In Flight: anti-agathics;
Blish's "A Style In Treason": "...indefinitely prolonged physical vigor..." (Anywhen, New York, 1970, p. 14).

Anderson's mutant immortals avoid insanity from endless memory accumulation by marshalling their own inner resources whereas the beneficiaries of his "antithanatic" have their memories periodically edited by artificial means. They retain recent memories and the overall structure of their lives but not the many biographical details for which they can consult written records.

The indefinitely vigorous people of Blish's "A Style In Treason" have found different uses for memory control:

"After a while, it became difficult to remember who one was supposed to be - and to remember who one was was virtually impossible. Even the Baptized, who had had their minds dipped and then rechannelled with only a century's worth of memories, betrayed to the experienced eye a vague, tortured puzzlement, as though still searching in the stilled waters for some salmon of ego they had been left no reason to suspect had ever been there. Suicide was unconcealedly common among the Baptized..." (p. 14).

So sanity is not a priority. These Blish characters are  "...tired..." and decadent by contrast with the intergalactic expansion and dynamism of Anderson's antithanatic-users so would immortality be a curse or could it be put to constructive use? Science fiction writers show us both options.

Mental Powers

"Earthman, Beware!"

Joel to Peggy:

"'I have some powers over the mind,' he said slowly. 'With your co-operation, I could adjust your feelings about this.'" (p. 48)

She says, "'No -'" (ibid.) but is unable to resist his strong will and telepathic brain. Is he right to do it when she has said no? And, if we were offered it, should we consent to someone else adjusting our feelings? In zazen, we practice "sitting with" whatever thoughts or feelings come up.

Although he adjusts her feelings towards him, he does not erase her memory of his extraterrestrial origin. In fact, she suggests how he might contact his people. However, when the elders of his species arrive, they:

"...make certain changes. Your memory and that of others, your body, the work you are doing and have done -" (p. 60)

He wakes up thinking that he is a Terrestrial human being. But have they also changed his body, changed Peggy's memory, removed all trace of his many inventions and discoveries and erased everyone's memories of them? God-like powers, indeed.

Two Unaging Men

Rereading Poul Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years, I wanted to write something briefly about Anderson's two longest living characters (but see the first comment below): Hanno from Boat and Hugh Valland from World Without Stars. Each is, like Robert Heinlein's Lazarus Long and (maybe) James Blish's John Amalfi, the oldest man in his universe. (One difference of approach is that Blish shows us Amalfi dying with everyone else at the end of their universe whereas the others just keep going if not forever then for longer than we can see.)

Valland will live for at least three thousand years in our future whereas Hanno, already an adult in 310 BC (correction: I should have said "already about 670 years old in 310 BC"; see comments), will survive into an indefinite future and will then travel relativistically so is probably older than Valland. Both will experience the entire period of human interstellar travel although with the important difference of FTL for Valland and STL for Hanno. (I think it is legitimate to employ these acronyms for a fannish as opposed to a mundane audience?)

Near the end of Boat, Anderson makes us think that Hanno is about to die but he doesn't yet. Anderson pulled the same stunt with Dominic Flandry near the end of A Stone In Heaven as Heinlein did with Lazarus Long at the end of Time Enough For Love. However, I do not regard Time Enough For Love or any of its successors as valid continuations of the Future History so that for me the only Lazarus Long worthy of our attention is the one in Methusaleh's Children.

Wanting to write something about these two old men, Hanno and Valland, I checked back and found that I had already written all that I immediately wanted to say in "Immortality," reproduced below from my Science Fiction blog.

                                                                       Immortality

Fantasy

“Immortality” in science fiction (sf) can mean just that someone is immune to disease and old age but not also to accident or violence. He is not indestructible. By contrast, in Neil Gaiman’s fantasy series, The Sandman, the source of Hob Gadling’s immortality is supernatural, not chemical or genetic. The anthropomorphic personification of Death has agreed not to come for Hob. Consequently, he enjoys, or endures, more than just perpetual good health and middle age: he can be immersed, burnt and deprived of food but cannot be drowned, burnt or starved to death.

Hob’s immortality differs from that of Bernie Capax who is older – he remembers the smell of mammoths – but who meets Death when a wall collapses. Bernie then learns that his soul has a different kind of immortality. The fantasy Sandman presents the full panorama of Heaven, Hell and states between. Although Hob, like a few other deathless men, welcomes his physical immortality, The Sandman presents two other characters who, having become physically indestructible, long for extinction, the mythical Orpheus and the super-heroine Element Girl. (All mythologies and many comic book characters co-exist in this series of “graphic novels.”)

Fictional vampires have the same problem of living indefinitely and needing to conceal their longevity but we know how they can be killed.

SF

Although there are many other examples, I will mention briefly just twelve instances of sf immortality. Of the three Campbell future historians, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and James Blish, two addressed the idea. In Heinlein’s Future History, the Howard Families breed for longevity. After a few generations, they live well into their second century. The oldest member present chairs meetings. Like Hob and similar characters, they practise what they call the Masquerade: to conceal the fact of longevity, they periodically move elsewhere and change their identities. Later, public disclosure of the Howards’ longevity inspires a research project that finds a means of indefinitely extending anyone’s life span. Such artificial means of longevity exist in other works to be mentioned below but, first, there is another idea in the Future History.

An early Howard, Lazarus Long, lives indefinitely, for millennia, and becomes “the Senior”, the oldest member of the human race. Thus, he is a mutation who need not have been born to Howard Family parents. “Lazarus Long” is a Masquerade name. His birth name, Woodrow Wilson Smith, is a clue to his real age. In The Boat Of A Million Years by Poul Anderson, a small group of such mutations survives through recorded history and into an indefinite future. Crossing interstellar space, they split up but plan to meet again in another million years. 

Of course, Anderson could not possibly have written what these characters would be like after a million years. By that time, either they would all have died in accidents or those who yet survived would have become different characters. How much would they even remember? Each of them had already preserved his or her sanity by somehow marshaling inner resources in order to resist being overwhelmed by accumulating memories. By living that long, they perform functions that are usually performed by successive organisms without a memory accumulation problem. Death is the natural mechanism for memory deletion.

In Asimov’s future history, extra-solar colonists, inhabiting a germ-free environment, extend their life spans well into a second century and usually record their age in decades, not in years. A year becomes more like a month on that time scale. The only immortal being in this future history is a humaniform robot, not a human being. Thus, Robot Daneel Olivaw, having been introduced in the Robot novels, appears again millennia later in the Foundation novels which had originally been an unrelated series.

In James Blish’s Cities In Flight future history, antigravity and antiagathics make interstellar travel possible. Star-traveling characters live for centuries although we only realize later in the main volume that so much time has elapsed since the beginning of the book. Logically, some of the characters happen to live until the end of the universe although, for story purposes, that ending is brought much closer to the present than we would have expected. In fact, the date given, 4004 AD, contradicts suggestions in the previous volume that several millennia have elapsed during the interstellar period. Despite antiagathics, everyone dies but new universes begin.

In Larry Niven’s Known Space future history, “boosterspice” performs the same function as antiagathics and protector-stage humanoids are immortal, although at the expense of no longer being “breeders”. However, in his alternative future history, A World Out Of Time, Niven imagines an elegant alternative source of immortality. If teleportation is possible, then the chemicals associated with aging can be teleported out of the body. Thus, the instant elsewhere is a young forever. It is perhaps a more acceptable form of immortality than another in the same book which arrests physical development before puberty, producing immortal children who must preserve mortal adults for breeding.

In Anderson’s Psychotechnic History, modeled directly on Heinlein’s Future History, it is suggested that an organism can be made immortal only by shielding it from all radiation, thus by incarcerating it underground, consequently producing a human being with an extremely limited experience and mental range. Scientists care for an immortal hospital patient: a dead end. Appropriately, this story is called “What Shall It Profit?” In Anderson's Technic History, “antisenescence” explains why Dominic Flandry remains active and might yet have more children although he is nearly seventy. However, antisenescence delays aging but does not prevent death.

By contrast, in Anderson’s World Without Stars, every human being uses “the antithanatic.” A few immortals lead changeless lives on planetary surfaces or in orbiting space stations but many trade and explore endlessly between galaxies which are made accessible by a series of instantaneous jumps in a spaceship. Many memories are artificially deleted to prevent cerebral overloading but it is necessary to preserve the overall pattern of the past and the important details. Hugh Valland, three thousand years old, remembers Mary O’Meara who died young in 2037 just before she would have had access to antithanatic. He revisits her grave on Earth as if revisiting a living woman and recounts experiences on many planets but must also have deleted many intermediate memories. He has somehow made sense of his indefinite longevity by focusing on one set of memories.

At any given time, what exactly does Hugh Valland remember? First, he has normal memories of whatever he has experienced since his most recent memory deletion. Secondly, he preserves vivid memories of Mary O’Meara. Thirdly, he remembers the pattern of his life since leaving Mary. Fourthly, within this pattern, he has perhaps a natural life span’s worth of memories of experiences in space, on other planets and back on Earth. However, he must have had to delete far more details than he has been able to retain. He maintains his purpose and remains celibate by focusing on ever fresh memories of one person. Only at the end when we realize that that one person is long dead do we doubt Valland’s sanity.

It seems appropriate to begin a brief consideration of fictitious immortality with the fantasy character Hob Gadling and to end with the sf character Hugh Valland.

Addendum, 5/6/12:  

Hob is thought to be the Wandering Jew;
Hanno is asked if he is the Wandering Jew;
in one of four speculative Secret Origin stories, the DC Comics character, the Phantom Stranger, is the Wandering Jew;
so is Lazarus in A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr ("What the lord...raise up, it stay up.")

Posted by Paul Shackley at 21:21

What Happened Long Ago

"Inconstant Star," Chapter VII.

Dorcas Saxtorph thinks aloud:

"'In relativity physics, travel faster than light is equivalent to time travel.'" (p. 222)

Is it? Then why does a hyperdrive not function like a time machine or a T-machine, allowing arrival before departure? Is hyperspace outside relativity physics? Well, I suppose it is.

Dorcas continues:

"'We use quantum rules.'" (ibid.)

I don't see that, exactly. In Poul Anderson's Technic History, hyperspatial travelers do use quantum rules because a journey through (that version of) hyperspace is a series of instantaneous quantum jumps.

She concludes:

"'And yet what are we trying on this voyage but to probe the past and what happened long ago?'" (ibid.)

Is thirty years long ago? It can be, depending on perspective. I mentioned the evocativeness of the phrase, "long ago," here. When a young child and I remembered doing something once before, I thought, "We did this last year," but he said, "I remember us doing this a very long time ago!"

Myths live when retold. My memory of a Norse myth is that when, in a question-and-answer competition, the Wanderer asked a king, "What word did Odin whisper in Balder's ear on his funeral pyre long ago?" the king recognized the Wanderer and said, "No one can know what word you whispered in your son's ear on his funeral pyre long ago..."

An author can return us to "long ago" with a chapter change. The Saxtorphs and Tyra Nordbo wonder what happened to Tyra's father, Peter, thirty years ago. On the facing page, Chapter VIII begins with a kzin retrieving Peter Norbo from temporal stasis after an interstellar crossing. The technician growls, "'Up, monkey." (p. 223) Did Kzin have evolutionary equivalents of monkeys to which the feline kzinti contemptuously compare human beings? In an early Asimov story, a reptilian ET says (quoting from memory):

"What are they, after all? Nothing but mammals. Mammals that can think, certainly, but mammals all the same. Evolution must have laughed when she gave a brain to an ape!"

We can still hear the laughter.

Memory And Patience

Copied from James Blish Appreciation:

In Poul Anderson's World Without Stars, the antithantic has ended aging and death by old age for all mankind. Many people trade and explore between galaxies. A spaceship can make an instantaneous jump to any other galaxy when it has accelerated to equalise velocities. Memories are periodically edited to prevent insanity through memory overload and people have learned patience.

In James Blish's Cities In Flight, the anti-agathics have ended aging and death by old age for the small minority who fly cities between stars faster than light. Immortals do not overload with memories because they leave the remembering of facts to computers. However, they have learned to see solutions to problems almost instantly and are impatient with those who don't.

Similar premises; different conclusions.