Mare Somniorum

This book has been described as “Wonderful mind-expanding stuff”, and “a real trip”. That’ll be the gentle take on it. “Permutation City” takes on the concept of self-aware entities that aren’t based on the biology we know. They’re computer programs, or life evolved in simplified virtual world. The computer programs are copies of people, in effect, they are the very people they were scanned / copied from, and they’re aware that they are just that, copies. Exact copies at that, from a mental and memory perspective. They remember everything up to the scan. They are copies in the true sense of the word.

However, this also includes being self-aware. They retain a concept of identity, they retain a self they cling to in various degrees — for as your mind is a program, you can alter yourself as you please. You can remove memories, implant new ones, instill desire, remove passions, you can recreate yourself as you see fit. And you are self-aware during the entire process.

The question some copies ask when this is done, is who you are once you’ve altered yourself directly. If you remove the bad memories that torment your life, a simple enough task, do you remain the same entity? When there is no physical body to easily pin identity to, what does indeed happen when your memories aren’t your own anymore? What else defines you? As one conversation in the book goes, as one character contemplates splitting himself into distinct entities using experiences that he has imposed on himself over a long time:

“The people the software creates when you’re gone won’t be you in any way.”
“They’ll be happy, won’t they? From time to time? For their own strange reasons?”
“Yes. But –”
“That’s all I am, now. That’s all that defines me. So when they’re happy, they’ll be me.”

Egan stated in an interview that he wanted to make people rethink the way they thought of AIs, that they were more than props for a story. I can safely say he succeeded with me. But as if that wasn’t enough, the work itself moves beyond the “simple” bit of questioning identity. Reality is questioned, causality is questioned, the very concepts we hold as time and space are neatly peeled away.

The result is a head trip. A patchwork of realities woven together with passion, a steady hand and a storyline that drives you on. The writing itself is good, and in a sense it’s good that isn’t more elaborate. There are enough things to give you a headache in this book, you really don’t need the language to be dancing around in your head to boot. This is about the concepts, the story and their interplay.

Oh, and the book is pure magic with anagrams and pattern concepts. It’s a head trip that really deserves to be read.

Deep within
the roar bellows
as the demons
rise

Blood boils
heating the flesh
Chemistry twisting
all vision

Thoughts clutter
memories fade
darkness comes
the beast lives

Out of the void
the howl devours the soul
Pain becomes pleasure
feeding upon itself

The skin tears
every muscle screams
fury pumped throughout
and the fire burns

It calls
We abide

Darkness envelops all.
Its wake dusted with tears.

The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World by General Sir Rupert Smith has been on my reading list for a while, and it’s finally read. It’s a well written book that comes in several parts, of which the main part deals with a concise history and the development of military doctrine. It is a study of history that serves as a backdrop for understanding where we are today and why we’re having trouble changing our ways. There is a lot of information in the book, reading it in small doses might be advisable for those who haven’t studied military history previously. This is not to say that the work is anything but accessible, it is merely a statement to the quantity of material.

There are also repetitions of ideas and concepts, but often their context change and the purpose would seem to be to show us patterns repeating across contextual changes. The theater might change, the basis of the play remains. There are also quotes which in their simplicity seek to underscore the authors point of view. And mostly, Smith succeeds very well, like when he speaks about the way war amongst the people is fought.

This [aim] is an inversion of industrial war, where the objective was to win the trial of strength and thereby break the enemy’s will. In war amongst the people the strategic objective is to capture the will of the people and their leaders, and thereby win the trail of strength.

“The Utility of Force”, Knopf hardback, p. 279.

The amazingly enlightening chapter regarding Smiths time in Bosnia is a case study both with regards to why we failed, but also to how the author came to understand the change of paradigm in war. The traditional view separating the political and the military theater is stunningly brought to bear as Smith informs Richard Halbrooke about the impending application of force to break the siege of Sarajevo. Halbrooke responded that he saw “the intended action as a separate and disconnected activity and apparently of no consequence to him.” However, once the siege was lifted, Halbrooke suddenly found his negotiations to be a lot smoother, and became a participant in the tactical operations.

Military force is still thought of as only being able to supply either decisive victory, or be inconsequential for the political agenda. This leads to Smiths evaluation of current thoughts on how the talk of transformation with regards to the utility of force, often isn’t.

[T]here is an acceptance in many circles that that we now conduct operations rather than wars, but we still expect them to deliver a definitive military victory in its own right that will resolve a political problem, rather than one that contributes and supports the resolution by other means.

“The Utility of Force”, Knopf hardback, p. 375.

Smiths quote “war no longer exists” has become somewhat famous. Taken out of context you might wonder what he’s on about, but when you read the entire passage, you can’t help but see his point.

For it must never be forgotten: war no longer exists. Confrontation, conflict and combat undoubtedly exist all around the world and states still have armed forces as they use as a symbol of power. Nonetheless, war as cognitively known to most non-combatants, war as a battle in a field between men and machinery, war as a massive deciding event in a dispute in international affairs, industrial war — such a war no longer exists. We are now engaged, constantly and in many permutations, in war amongst the people. We must adapt our approach and organize our institutions to this overwhelming reality if we are to triumph in the confrontation and conflicts that we face.

“The Utility of Force”, Knopf hardback, p. 415. Emphasis in original.

This is also the concluding paragraph in the book. Anyway, sometimes the question is not only, “is this a good book”, but it is also “is this an important book?” In almost every way, the answer to both questions, at least today, is “yes”.

This is a draft of the first three paragraphs of some work I’m in the process of writing. Its style of writing is quite deliberate and seeks to paint a landscape of impressions in a very short internal time frame. As much as I love to work with characters and their conversations (yes, I know, it’s something that doesn’t reach the blog often), I try to work on more ways express both concepts and ideas. Anyway, on to the draft.

Dawn spreads its wings on the rice fields of the eastern lands, the mighty bird of life again arriving at the very place from where it departed into the memories of its subjects. Golden rays descend from the heavens to the realm below, long shadows telling the promised tale of another day. Another day to live and learn, another day for flight or fight, another day to atone for the days you have already lived through.

Life stirs, shadows dance, there is a certainty to the implicitness of the morning that comes. It carries its own promises, individual prayers answered or ignored, all to be told as the shadows trade their size for the hustle of a waking world.

Across a grassy field a blossoming plum tree greets yet another morning in solitude. The flowers gleam and dance in the sunlight, their translucent white petals shimmer, reaching to the heavens, refracting the rays and leaving a moment of prismatic joy in their wake. The slight winds coming as air is heated, only serving to rustle the flowers gently, further spreading the trees sweet scent. It has been there for so long and yet every morning continues to instill it with the same wonder, the same promise, the same faith. There will be darkness, and there will be light. It is the very heartbeat we now as the circle of life.

The weeping willow
stretches itself towards the sky
while reaching forand the ground

It grows to reach every goal
it expands in the space
between either promised land

Every reach
fails
as one hope grows distant

Left to its own life
it grows into the intermediate space
filling it with its being

Every season
every day
every heartbeat

The willow expands
into the hollow space
between the heavens
and the earth

Reaching neither

Always weeping
for what could have been

I haven’t listened to this album in ages. Heaven knows why. Now admittedly I listen to a lot of different stuff when I write, but I tend to end up with “familiar” stuff in one shape or another. I’ve waddled between Jarre, Oldfield, Rammstein, Natalie Merchant, Juno Reactor, Depeche Mode, some classic and, well, loads of stuff really. Today however, “Reverence” got slotted into the play list.

Man. Some things come back to bite you. I love this album. It’s just damn solid for what it aims to be. It creates a fabled landscape of sound as tracks mingle and voices lure, it moves moods and sensations through phases as its clock ticks, it rivets and releases, it tenses and unfolds, it naturally flows where ever it goes and it all comes together to make “Reverence” very pleasant for both background ambiance and for pure listening. Another thing, tracks vary from 3:05 to 10:47. Every track is its own mistress. They get the time they need, no more, no less. This probably helps a lot to make it feel as solid as the album is mostly perceived.

A few individual tracks do stand out, but all in all it’s a solid album. There isn’t anything in it that makes me want to desperately move on to the next track, this is always a nice thing. Like all music, it isn’t for everyone, but it made my morning, and for that I am grateful.

Er. Uhm. Whow.

Okay, I admit that it took about 150 pages for it to grip me. I admit that I read it with less of a constant awe factor than “Chasm City” instilled on me. I admit that I didn’t get all swooned by the story for quite some time. But above all, I admit that sometimes you just don’t see a good thing until it smacks you in the face.

“Revelation Space” is complex. It doesn’t seek to be simple in any way at all. It revels in the realm of science fiction and it presents concepts far outside of most peoples minds in a fashion not unlike how most people would present a cup of tea. It just is, there is extremely little techobabble, some minor stuff here and there, but mosly it’s a case of “this makes sense if you know some stuff, if not, accept it”. It reads like the novel was written for the realm in which its set, not for the realm the reader (most likely) inhabits.

The characters are strong and even the minor ones take on a life of their own. Reynolds is damn good at giving life to a character in very few lines, and it’s done in a fashion that leaves a lot of the extrapolations to the reader, which is honestly a thrill for me. I enjoy trying to understand the character, and sometimes being wrong or surprised at their actions. Especially as the author shows that he’s got things under control. Big yummyness.

The plot… Well, it’s grand, yet not “typical”. It’s big but at the same time very condensed. It’s mind-boggling, but still possible to wrap inside your head. And it’ll keep you trying to pry out its secrets until the very last pages. Very good stuff.

I’m not the slightest bit surprised that the book got “Best science fiction novel of the year” by Science Fiction Chronicle when it was released in 2000. It is damn good. It might start off slow, and I do admit that “Chasm City” is better paced, but “Revelation Space” is a roller coaster to a much higher degree than “Chasm City” is. And a roller coaster needs to do a bit of climbing before we can get into the high G maneuvers. Is it worth a read? Yeah, it is. It is very much worth a read.

Oh, and as another side note. The book is self-contained. You don’t have to pick up the next book in the same saga (“Redemption Ark”) to get a conclusion to the story. Apart from giving the reader a lot more freedom, it also leaves the books a lot more on their own, which is a good thing for a reader, and a scary thing for an author. Personally, I’m going to pick up “The utility of force”, and possibly “Permutation City”, before I continue with the Revelation Space saga, as good as it seems to be.

There once was an idea to buy some books. Some books became a few more books and suddenly there were a lot of books being bought. I don’t exactly want to check how many it ended up being, but there were a lot of them. The first one reached the door today, and I suppose there is some subtle irony that the first arrival was Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Commemorative Edition) (Princeton Classic Editions) by John von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern, Ariel Rubinstein, and Harold William Kuhn. The math will be a bit of a challenge, but most of the content seems quite approachable, and it was a book I really felt I should read and own.

On the other hand, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World by General Sir Rupert Smith is still upstream somewhere and is one of the first books I wish to devour once I finish my current reading list, which include Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds, Permutation City by Greg Egan as well as a re-reading of Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter.

Somewhere in the river of books we also find I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century by USMC, Colonel Thomas X. Hammes, Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings (New Directions Paperbook) by Jorge Luis Borges, Andre Maurois, Donald A. Yates, and James E. Irby, as well as Two-Person Game Theory by Anatol Rapoport. Oh, and The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett, and some more random stuff, like Feynman Lectures On Physics (3 Volume Set) by Richard Phillips Feynman, duh.

If you’re seeing a pattern to this I’d suggest you seek professional help, and welcome to the boat — the river of books is frothy today.

This story was written sometime in 2001, probably even a bit earlier than that. It features as one of the stories I wrote as a project for a fantasy realm as the author “Mionisa Cerrom”. This is from her collection “Histories of yesterday, today and tomorrow”. It has been brushed up a bit before it went all bloggy, essentially some minor linguistic work has been applied, but the content hasn’t been altered in any meaningful way.

First truth

Again I wandered through the forest. This pearl of nature. But no longer green and sparkling with life, the coldness had come. Leaves where turning yellow, and shades of red sought to devour the remainding green. Only a few of the trees could show me the green beauty that was the forest, it’s very life. All the beauty I loved so highly was gone. Along the banks of Chiso I wandered this morning. This desolate time, where everything was to be forced to its knees and murdered. God how I hate this season. Not even the water is its own self anymore… Filled with all these signs, from yellow to red, all telling the same tale. And the mist was rising from the river, greying out the signs of life even further. King Winter has his chariot out.

(more…)

Silence

Broken

The trees whisper to me
the faintest song
the eternal pulse
of life

The voice mesmerizes.

I dream.

I float.

I sense.

I am.

There is no reflection.

There is no thought.

There is no judgement.

I am.

And then the angel
falls into silence.

And I wake.