{"id":607,"date":"2008-09-08T14:02:40","date_gmt":"2008-09-08T22:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/?p=607"},"modified":"2008-09-08T19:47:15","modified_gmt":"2008-09-09T03:47:15","slug":"anathem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/08\/anathem\/","title":{"rendered":"Anathem"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been reading an advance copy Neal Stephenson\u2019s new novel, Anathem<\/a><\/em>, preparing to introduce his reading at Moe\u2019s on Wednesday, Sept 10, 2008<\/a>. The book goes on sale nationwide on Tuesday, September 9, 2008.<\/p>\n

Anathem <\/em> is heavy in every good sense of the word, one of the best SF novels I\u2019ve read in the last couple of years. I\u2019d put it up right there with Charles Stross\u2019s Accelerando <\/em> and my own Postsingular<\/em>, not to mention the esteemed recent works of my cyberpunk pals Gibson, Sterling, and Shirley. It\u2019s truly twenty-first century SF, amazingly broad, deep, and well-informed with, at times, the flavor of a classic philosophical treatise.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One particular SFictional\/philosophical theme that Stephenson takes on in Anathem<\/em> is the question of whether our consciousness might span multiple universes, as well as wider questions about ways in which alternate universes might influence each other. <\/p>\n

Stephenson advocates a radical notion under which some possible physical universes might in fact be something like a Platonic world of forms relative to some other universes\u2014he calls this Complex Protism, although we Earthlings might call it Complex Platonism.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The MIT physicist Max Tegmark <\/a>actually has written some papers discussing a somewhat similar notion\u2014see, for instance his online paper (PDF format) \u201cThe Mathematical Universe<\/a>.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Neal\u2019s official website <\/a>(updated as of yesterday), and a casual personal website <\/a> that he sporadically maintains.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Neal likes to write long books, and I\u2019d estimate Anathem <\/em>to be some 370,000 words long, that is, three or four times the length of a typical novel such as we lesser mortals might pen. He liberally uses many made-up words, so at first you\u2019re continually flipping back to the Glossary <\/a>at the book\u2019s end. A bit of a learning-curve, but after a few hundred pages I was totally into the book.<\/p>\n

Rather than going into full plot-spoiling detail about the book, I\u2019ll just paste in some passages that for one reason or another particularly pleased me, marking the quotes by indenting them with a line in the margin. Think of this as a preview reel. Most of the photos were taken in Santa Cruz, CA, this weekend.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The main characters in Anathem <\/em>are a bit like cloistered academics, and often get into dialogs not unlike what you\u2019d find in Plato\u2019s writings. At one point, our hero and a friend are watching two colonies of ants fighting each other.<\/p>\n

\u201d\u009d…You look down on it from above, and say, \u201d\u02dcOh, that looked like flanking.\u2019 But if there\u2019s no commander to see the field and direct their movements, can they really perform coordinated maneuvers?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a little like Saunt Taunga\u2019s Question,\u201d\u009d I pointed out. \u201cCan a sufficiently large field of cellular automata think?\u201d\u009d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Describing a revered philosopher\/mathematician, Saunt Bly, who\u2019d been expelled from his enclave:<\/p>\n

…to live out the remainder of his days on top of a butte surrounded by slines who worshipped him as a god. He even inspired them to stop consuming blithe, whereupon they became surly, killed him, and ate his liver out of a misconception that this was where he did his thinking. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note that \u201cslines\u201d\u009d are common people, and their name is derived from the central letters of \u201cbaseline.\u201d\u009d \u201cBlithe\u201d\u009d is a tweaked plant that\u2019s rich in the psychoactive agent called allswell.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Discussing how the outer word of \u201cSaeculars\u201d\u009d views the enclosed world of the philosophical orders:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Saeculars know that we exist. They don\u2019t know quite what to make of us. The truth is too complicated for them to keep in their heads. Instead of the truth, they have simplified representations\u2014caricatures\u2014of us. Those come and go… But if you stand back and look at them, you see certain patterns that recur again and again, like, like\u2014attractors in a chaotic system.\u201d\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Our hero\u2019s mentor teaches him about the importance of seeking the gnarl in your everyday surroundings:<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the kind of beauty I was trying to get you to see,\u201d\u009d Orolo told me. \u201cNothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.\u201d\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Our hero is talking to his sister about how they\u2019re going to face a possible alien invasion. He\u2019s recently been in a stationery store. His sister is asking what other supplies they might use to try and defend Earth. They joke like mathematicians…<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you need transportation? Tools? Stuff?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs,\u201d\u009d I said. \u201cWe have a protractor.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, I\u2019ll go home and see if I can scrounge up a ruler and a piece of string.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019d be great.\u201d\u009d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Discussing what it is that our ruling class really wants to take from the common people.<\/p>\n

The Powers That Be would not suffer others to be in stories of their own unless they were fake stories that had been made up to motivate them. People … had to look somewhere outside of work for a feeling that they were a part of a story, which I guessed was why Saeculars were so concerned with sports, and with religion. How else could you see yourself as part of an adventure? Something with a beginning, middle, and end in which you played a significant part? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

One of the book\u2019s numerous definitions.<\/p>\n

Dialog<\/b>: A discourse, usually in formal style, between Theors. … In the classic format, a Dialog involves two principals … Another common format is the Triangular, featuring a savant, and ordinary person who seeks knowledge, and an imbecile. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

A discussion between our hero and his mentor Orolo about what we\u2019d call the Multiple Universes hypothesis.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re saying that my consciousness extends across multiple cosmi,\u201d\u009d I said. \u201cThat\u2019s a pretty wild statement.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m saying all <\/em>things do,\u201d\u009d Orolo said. \u201cThat comes with the polycosmic interpretation. The only thing exceptional about the brain is that it has found a way to use <\/em>this.\u201d\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By the way, my friend Nick Herbert has written a really good essay on the slippery topic multiversal consciousness: “Quantum Tantra<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

David Deutsch has also written some good stuff on multiversal computation, see my It from Qubit<\/a> post on this.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A mention of my favorite mathematician, the philosopher-king Kurt G\u00f6del, in a discussion about G\u00f6del\u2019s rotating universe model, in which a sufficiently long round trip can lead back into your past!<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Laterre, the result was discovered by a kind of Saunt named G\u00f6del: a friend of the Saunt who had earlier discovered geometrodynamics. The two of them were, you might say, fraas in the same math.\u201d\u009d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cSaunt,\u201d\u009d similar to our word Saint, is a shortening of \u201csavant.\u201d\u009d A \u201cmath\u201d\u009d is an enclave where dedicated scholars live, and a male scholar of this type is a fraa.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Re. G\u00f6del’s model of the universe, see a nice essay by John Bell <\/a>summarizing how it can lead to multiple universes. The cool image here is from a Japanese essay about G\u00f6del’s universe.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The people in Anathem <\/em>have something like our Internet, which is called the Reticulum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe functionality of Artificial Inanity still exists … for every legitimate document floating around on the Reticulum, there are hundreds or thousands of bogus versions\u2014bogons as we call them.\u201d\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Two miles away\u2014directly across the facet\u2014was a hydrogen bomb the size of a six-story office building. It was essentially egg-shaped. But like a beetle caught in spider\u2019s webbing, its form was blurred by a fantastic tangle of strut-work and plumbing…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yaaar! We\u2019re talking real SF!<\/p>\n

I just finished the book, and I\u2019m sorry to be done. Looking up into the sky, I notice a shiny…metal flying machine. My God! I live on a planet with flying machines! Oh, wait, I knew that already. Anathem <\/em>makes everything seems surprising.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been reading an advance copy Neal Stephenson\u2019s new novel, Anathem, preparing to introduce his reading at Moe\u2019s on Wednesday, Sept 10, 2008. The book goes on sale nationwide on Tuesday, September 9, 2008. Anathem is heavy in every good sense of the word, one of the best SF novels I\u2019ve read in the last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":623,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions\/623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}