Anathem

[Iskaral Pust]

I think DP has a good point about the patronizing parody of modern culture, and the geek-fantasy for Randy in Crypto and for everyone in Snow Crash. It does not bother me as much (e.g. I mostly tuned out Randy's story in Crypto, the real story is the WW2 thread), but I don't think you can just dismiss it in Anathem as an unbiased character trait solely due to cloistering. NS clearly disdains a lot of mainstream culture/society. I don't find that it pollutes my enjoyment of his books, but I'm not pretending that it does not exist. I think NS believes to some extent that geeks are a separate race rather than a master race. We see this gulf in outlook and interests in his early books, and then crytallized by cloistering in Anathem.

I did not interpret Arbre's proximity to the HTW as an endorsement of their system. The Arban intellectuals have a stronger understanding of HTW with some impressive results for the millenarian abilities (and perhaps they can understand it better because they are closer to it, rather than the other way around), but their world is not necessarily superior in general. The cloistering would hugely inhibit research and learning, and that cloistering was necessary because that world did not manage appropriate use and broad understanding/acceptance of new discoveries. Arbans had a huge technological lead on us, but could not hold onto it and ultimately regressed very steeply. There is a warning in there about the dangers of isolationism, disdain and ivory towers for scientists.

By the way, the description of the first experience extramuros, focusing on strip malls, casinos, etc actually feels pretty real to anyone visiting the US for the first time. I remember my impression of strip malls when I first saw them, and BTW Seattle has a lot of small dingy casinos littered throughout the strip malls, which is why they would figure prominently in NS' description.

[Shryke]

I think DP has a good point about the patronizing parody of modern culture, and the geek-fantasy for Randy in Crypto and for everyone in Snow Crash. It does not bother me as much (e.g. I mostly tuned out Randy's story in Crypto, the real story is the WW2 thread), but I don't think you can just dismiss it in Anathem as an unbiased character trait solely due to cloistering. NS clearly disdains a lot of mainstream culture/society. I don't find that it pollutes my enjoyment of his books, but I'm not pretending that it does not exist. I think NS believes to some extent that geeks are a separate race rather than a master race. We see this gulf in outlook and interests in his early books, and then crytallized by cloistering in Anathem.

I did not interpret Arbre's proximity to the HTW as an endorsement of their system. The Arban intellectuals have a stronger understanding of HTW with some impressive results for the millenarian abilities (and perhaps they can understand it better because they are closer to it, rather than the other way around), but their world is not necessarily superior in general. The cloistering would hugely inhibit research and learning, and that cloistering was necessary because that world did not manage appropriate use and broad understanding/acceptance of new discoveries. Arbans had a huge technological lead on us, but could not hold onto it and ultimately regressed very steeply. There is a warning in there about the dangers of isolationism, disdain and ivory towers for scientists.

Not really. The first disaster is a result of the Avout leaving their concents and seems to have been some sort of global warming/thermonuclear war/etc kinda thing.

And all the sacks are basically the saecular world freaking out about what the Avout have discovered and killing a bunch of them.

[Datepalm]

By the way, the description of the first experience extramuros, focusing on strip malls, casinos, etc actually feels pretty real to anyone visiting the US for the first time. I remember my impression of strip malls when I first saw them, and BTW Seattle has a lot of small dingy casinos littered throughout the strip malls, which is why they would figure prominently in NS' description.

Yeah, to be fair, a great deal of the remaining impressions of my few visits to the US really are immensely oversized strip malls and giant fast food places with the ambience of dining halls in an insane asylum. (I seem to have steered clear of the casinos.) For me its a question of the tone though, not so much of the content. I'm almost certain that if search was up I could find myself railing at Meivilles patronizing endorsement of geek-socialism someplace. (Probably about Kraken.)

[Eponine]

Yeah, to be fair, a great deal of the remaining impressions of my few visits to the US really are immensely oversized strip malls and giant fast food places with the ambience of dining halls in an insane asylum. (I seem to have steered clear of the casinos.) For me its a question of the tone though, not so much of the content. I'm almost certain that if search was up I could find myself railing at Meivilles patronizing endorsement of geek-socialism someplace. (Probably about Kraken.)

I liked Kraken more than Embassytown, but feel ridiculously unintellectual for doing so.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Datepalm,

My first experience in a casino was going to Worldcon in Reno. It's sensory overload city. They are designed to be difficult to find your way out. But if you want to find a restaruant in the building you have to walk through the Casino to do it.

[unJon]

Jurble,

My problem with Anathem is that, there seems to be one "correct" worldtrack. But at the same time, he seems to subscribe to multiple worlds theory, so all probabilities happen at the same time. The fact that Incanters and Rhetors can mix and match pieces of worldtracks doesn't really make sense to me, since based on sheer probability, any worldtrack they create would still have happened anyway. Like, the worlds where the aliens are from, aren't worldtracks in the same sense as Multiple Worlds Theory, the fundamental values used in their physics are different -> the membranes that collided to produce their universes did so in a different manner. They come from a different universe. Different universes and different narratives/worldtracks are two seperate things.

A universe consists of all the different possibilities that can happen from point A (Big-Bang) to point B (end-of-the-universe). But the laws of physics are constant across a universe. Another universe has different laws of physics. So, what Stephenson is doing is assuming that Multiple Worlds theory is right, and that Multiple Universes also exist. Now, when the Aliens enter Erasmus' universe, they are now part of all the near infinite narratives that progress.

Yet the problem I have is that, the story in the book seems to imply that there is a correct narrative, and that all others are inconsequential. It doesn't change the fact that, across all the probabilities on that ship, most of them seemed to end up with everyone dead. Or with certain characters dead. Now here, the Rhetors and Incanters seemed to use their awareness of multiple narratives to produce an optimal world - but I don't see how that's necessary, since based on sheer probability, the optimal narrative they created would have occurred anyway, their doing so doesn't change that fact. Moreover, all the other narratives weren't "fake" they all actually occurred, so in many other probabilities, everyone is dead, or Erasmus is dead, or so one. What bothers me is that, Stephenson decided to stick to one worldtrack in the end, when he could have kept up the multiple world-track thing all the way to the end of the novel, and showed us how all the different probabilities would have ended - though obviously he would have had to cut out several trillion billion that differed only in the movement of air in a room.

Basically, I don't see the need for Rhetors or Incanters, since the events that happened would have occurred through sheer chance anyway - even if that chance were .00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%, since every probability that can happen, does happen.

I just spoilered the whole thing 'cuz I don't know what's spoiler and what ain't.

You aren't giving NS enough credit. He discusses this in book during one of the Messal dinners. The point is that the other universes are "world tracks" in the sense that if you get close enough to the Big Bang you get to a point in time prior to the time at which the physical constants were 'set' and they could have been 'set' at different values. And its those possible changes that lead off to the different "universes" in Anathem, so in that sense they are worldtracks, that just broke off a long time ago.

Hylaen Theoric World theory doesn't deal with worldtracks, it deals with Universes. A World-track is narrative existing in a Universe. Universes are composed of infinite worldtracks following all lines of probability from A to B. Universes are fundamentally different from each other - they differ not only in the narratives, but also in physical constants - numbers whose origins in our universe exist simply because they are i.e. the gravitational constant, differ.

HTWs deal with multiple Universes with each Universe being closer to the ideal Universe of pure geometry.

Again, I don't quite think this is true in the text (not saying whether the text is true to cutting edge QM theory). HTW is simply one or more worldtracks (in the sense that even other universes are worldtracks given my comments above) that can bleed information into the worldtrack that you are in.

But what confused me is that the point of the HTW was that there could not be loops. If one world is 'upstream' then information/cnoons flow in one direction and a downstream world cannot loop back to bleed cnoons into the upstream world. But that seems to be contradicted by the fact that all the aliens come from downstream worlds and managed to journey upstream to the Arbe world. :dunno:

[unJon]

Apologies for double-post. I thought this Scientific American article fit nicely with Raidne's musings above about testing moral philosophy. Enjoy.

http://www.scientifi...ts-philosophers

ETA: Oops double apologies, just realized most of the article is behind a paywall...

[SerArthurHeath]

Just read Anathem. Rate it as one of the best books I've read in the past 5 years. My kind of thing and I thought it was much better paced than the Cryptonomicron or Baroque Cycle and the characters were fully fleshed out and real and there was more drama than usual. Might be heavy for some but I loved it.