Offensive Squid

I read Incandescence by Greg Egan over the weekend. Fearless organizer of the chicago-sf close reading group organized a q&a with Egan on the book, and I meant to reread it in case I had any questions to submit.

It turns out I had never read it. for the life of me, I thought I had. I bought it a while back. I actually accidentally bought two copies because I thought webscription had a new Egan ebook and jumped at it. So I "gave" one of my friends the extra copy.

Ever since then, oh wait, do short stories count? I also read some Asimov mag stories this weekend.

I decided to ask an information theory question about intelligence, to see if he'd answer back that I am asking a nonsensical question or not. In this book, intelligent beings are transmitted through a network of gates as a signal. So it was a good chance for me to ask how it could be that someone could tell that a signal contains intelligence. Also, how could one detect executable code in a signal (that is probably something I could figure out on my own, or more likely find via google, but he'd most likely have more insightful things to say than I would come up with.).

Btw, in case any of you have never gone to his web page, go there. He has fun applets based on concepts found in his stories.

One thing I like about his fiction is how principled his characters are. amazingly principled. "Singleton" (available online) sticks in my mind due to how much the father characters works to be able to allow his daughter have the choice to make real choices.

Also, his story "Oceanic" (available online) really grips me because I feel amazingly close to the character who deconverts from the religion in the novel. I grew up in a pentecostal tradition and thought through things for a long time and deconverted as well. Oh, and then I found his Born Again, Briefly essay recently. neat.

keanani said:

A PW Interview~

http://aescifi.ca/

I read that too, after seeing pw post it to facebook (who has also been posting cute pictures from Australia).

and today I started reading Black & White by Lew Shiner.

Post edited 8:49 am – September 1, 2010 by Hljothlegur

keanani said:

 

 

 

A PW Interview~

http://aescifi.ca/

 

First he says: But have you noticed the paucity of actual villains in my work? Everyone has an excuse; everyone is trying to do the best they can. The corporate executives who kill thousands are only doing that to try and save millions of others; the homicidal sexual psychopath is so worried about the immorality of his impulses that he swears off sex with real people completely, for fear of hurting someone. He only turns into a monster when some third party neurochemically destroys his conscience — again, with the noblest intentions. There are no Dick Cheneys and Dubya Bushes in my fiction, no unrepentant assholes who'd gladly feed the planet into a wood chipper for no better reason than to line the pockets of their oil industry buddies. There are no genocidal hate-mongers, no money-grubbing televangelists. You will encounter the occasional thug with a badge who just likes to beat the shit out of people, but they're peripheral characters, low on the totem pole; they don't call the shots. The characters at the center of my novels, protagonist and antagonist alike, are generally just trying to make the best of a horrible situation.

Upon being asked about the border patrol thing: Oh, there are bad guys, all right. [Customs and Border Protection Officer Julie] Behrendt, the woman who initiated contact, was belligerent and sarcastic from the time she opened her mouth; she set the tone for the whole encounter. [Officer Andrew] Beaudry came charging over and inserted himself into a situation which, by his own admission, he didn't understand.

I'm assuming that villains and bad guys are the same, then Behrendt and Beaudry aren't villains by that definition, are they?  Not politicians, hate-mongers, oilmen,  nor televangelists, and they might qualify as "occasional thug with a badge." In fact, I bet you that both people felt at the time they acted that they were doing the right and correct thing.  Under the definition above, you must have no excuse and no self-justification for your actions to be a villain.  Actually, don't the best villains think they are doing what's best for everyone?

I'm not saying it furthers The Good to beat the crap out of 50-something writers, of course, but I totally don't get the definition he's offering.

Hljothlegur said:

[snip]

I'm assuming that villains and bad guys are the same, then Behrendt and Beaudry aren't villains by that definition, are they?  Not politicians, hate-mongers, oilmen,  nor televangelists, and they might qualify as "occasional thug with a badge." In fact, I bet you that both people felt at the time they acted that they were doing the right and correct thing.  Under the definition above, you must have no excuse and no self-justification for your actions to be a villain.  Actually, don't the best villains think they are doing what's best for everyone?

 
You highlighted the part of the interview I wanted to bring up eventually (maybe over in ethics post). Anyway, his description sounds like villainy is a spectrum from thuggery, to banality of evil, to truly antiheroic jaw dropping banality of evil, to outright full blown villainy. So I wouldn't say that villains and bad guys are the same.

(aside, villainy is scalar? no, it has a direction)

I'm not saying it furthers The Good to beat the crap out of 50-something writers, of course, but I totally don't get the definition he's offering.

there are 50 of him?

(aside, writers have age? I think I forget that except for the very very old or the very very young.)

Flanders said:

Hljothlegur said:

[All that stuff]

---

Maybe we should start a "parsing the latest public statement from El Squiddo" thread.
 

I, myself, have had a longstanding policy of not trusting cephalopods.

But, in short, I would argue that Peter, like most of us, maintains a distinction between reality and fiction, and the ideas Peter wants to explore in his fiction necessitates an elision of many aspects of the real world as it is lived.

Anyway, whaddayareeeeeedin?

I claim the right, as an official fangirl, to overthink any statement by my FanObject, from the profoundly composed to items dropped casually during a drunken rant, and to create reams of exegesis on same.  ;p

I squee, therefore, I am.

I am reading Interaction with the Absorber as the Mechanism of Radiation (1945), with little effect.  The first page has a footnote that takes up as much space as the actual text.  Will let you know when I get to any pretty pictures.