Re-reading through an article for my extended project the idea flashed through my head like some kind of crazy flashy thing.
I didn't quite yell "eureka!"
I did decide to publish it in my blog.
In His Dark Materials, Lyra's alethiometer is a truth device telling her all that is happening in the present. It is powered by Dust, this giving me the following idea. Dust to Pullman's Church is Original Sin, but to the narrative voice and outsiders to the Church it is experience and wisdom. We are made from it, it is our conscious and even unconscious being. Surely this Dust, which is in us and in the very fabric of Pullman's universe, is the means by which Pullman can claim that everything is determined.
Mind flashes back to rather strange super computer illustration in philosophy.
Imagine there is a supercomputer that knows all the laws of nature and knows every human action that has happened since the beginning of time. In other words, imagine a machine with the mind of God. If you asked it what would happen in the future it would collect together all this information to form a cause which in turn would result in one unique effect that forms our future. The future is closed and cannot be otherwise.
Does this ring a bell? Liken the supercomputer to Lyra's alethiometer. The alethiometer contains the substance which is the essence of human experience and the nature that surrounds it. When Lyra asks it a question it can only ever give one answer, regardless of how cryptic it may be.
The only question in my mind now is why Lyra never asks the alethiometer about the distant future.
Maybe she, like the rest of us, didn't really want to let go of her fond attachment to what Pullman may call an illusion: freewill.
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Monday, 20 October 2008
Just a thought, or two...
I had the most peculiar feeling walking down my well-trodden route into town. The feeling that once I had been a complete stranger to this land. I remember the first time I set foot in Cambridge city centre nearly two years ago down Emmanuel Street.
The first things that came to my ears were the melodious shoutings of "Annnnybody like a Big Issue?" (the staples come for free don't you know, it's multi-purpose...in the worst case scenario it can be used as a substitute for a handkerchief or toilet paper; preferably not both). Maybe it wasn't going to be so different from Birmingham after all. Then again, I decided to be as melancholy as possible. It was small, and it wasn't familiar and I was with my parents. Being 15 that was justification enough.
I never comprehended the move until it actually happened. I remember the weird transition moments when I knew that I would no longer see my friends at Church every Sunday, that I would no longer reminisce about the plastic sword fights every Saturday at orchestra. It was the small things that I appreciated at the end of the day - when two guys brought me a cake and stuck as many candles in it as possible and lit them all while it was balanced precariously in its flimsy cardboard box. The plastic swords made my last day there memorable.
But my last day altogether in Birmingham was lonely. I look back and chuckle to myself as I remember sitting on the work surface in the kitchen, snuffling from a cold and being told by a removals man that I had a "pretty smile". Disturbing at the time, if not a little sad, but evidently something to be remembered. It would have meant more from someone with a little more integrity.
And since then it's been a time of massive development. A time to grow up a little; a time to force me to be more confident and outgoing. Last year had its ups and downs, and in various ways was strange. I was acutely aware of my growing familiarity with Cambridge and began to forget to compare it to Birmingham. It's a new life, and a new life requires a new mindset. However there is one huge thing I miss. Cambridge is overtly beautiful and I take it for granted. Odd it may sound, but I enjoyed the hidden beauty my suburb had to offer. It was a nice change. Everything's too open here. It's too...taken for granted.
But I took for granted the culture available to me in Birmingham. If I'd been brought up in Cambridge I probably wouldn't be so interested in other religions. A clear memory was the Leicester trip last year in R.S. and the girls were fascinated by the rich Indian and Hindu culture that dominated the street we shopped in. I almost thought "so what?" when I realised they hadn't had the luxury of seeing such a street. In Birmingham I'd go past Stratford Road every time I wanted to go into town; where saris would be hanging in shop windows and Indian run kebab takeaways were rife. It was different to Cambridge. One of my R.S. classmates told me a few weeks ago that I was "cultured" or seemed to be so. But is not everyone cultured? We belong to a culture, whether it be financial or fashionable, musical or in the media. I was just lucky to be exposed to a variety of cultures, and to even be a relative minority within the school I went to.
And so these are just a few thoughts from my first year or so in Cambridge; many more still occurred to me and either I have forgotten them or I feel I am not in a position to disclose them because they are so personal. Either way it's been a fantastic opportunity (although I would complain about the music service, Birmingham's is clearly much better), and I wouldn't be the person I am now had I not moved. I wouldn't know all the wonderful people I know now.
Wow.
The first things that came to my ears were the melodious shoutings of "Annnnybody like a Big Issue?" (the staples come for free don't you know, it's multi-purpose...in the worst case scenario it can be used as a substitute for a handkerchief or toilet paper; preferably not both). Maybe it wasn't going to be so different from Birmingham after all. Then again, I decided to be as melancholy as possible. It was small, and it wasn't familiar and I was with my parents. Being 15 that was justification enough.
I never comprehended the move until it actually happened. I remember the weird transition moments when I knew that I would no longer see my friends at Church every Sunday, that I would no longer reminisce about the plastic sword fights every Saturday at orchestra. It was the small things that I appreciated at the end of the day - when two guys brought me a cake and stuck as many candles in it as possible and lit them all while it was balanced precariously in its flimsy cardboard box. The plastic swords made my last day there memorable.
But my last day altogether in Birmingham was lonely. I look back and chuckle to myself as I remember sitting on the work surface in the kitchen, snuffling from a cold and being told by a removals man that I had a "pretty smile". Disturbing at the time, if not a little sad, but evidently something to be remembered. It would have meant more from someone with a little more integrity.
And since then it's been a time of massive development. A time to grow up a little; a time to force me to be more confident and outgoing. Last year had its ups and downs, and in various ways was strange. I was acutely aware of my growing familiarity with Cambridge and began to forget to compare it to Birmingham. It's a new life, and a new life requires a new mindset. However there is one huge thing I miss. Cambridge is overtly beautiful and I take it for granted. Odd it may sound, but I enjoyed the hidden beauty my suburb had to offer. It was a nice change. Everything's too open here. It's too...taken for granted.
But I took for granted the culture available to me in Birmingham. If I'd been brought up in Cambridge I probably wouldn't be so interested in other religions. A clear memory was the Leicester trip last year in R.S. and the girls were fascinated by the rich Indian and Hindu culture that dominated the street we shopped in. I almost thought "so what?" when I realised they hadn't had the luxury of seeing such a street. In Birmingham I'd go past Stratford Road every time I wanted to go into town; where saris would be hanging in shop windows and Indian run kebab takeaways were rife. It was different to Cambridge. One of my R.S. classmates told me a few weeks ago that I was "cultured" or seemed to be so. But is not everyone cultured? We belong to a culture, whether it be financial or fashionable, musical or in the media. I was just lucky to be exposed to a variety of cultures, and to even be a relative minority within the school I went to.
And so these are just a few thoughts from my first year or so in Cambridge; many more still occurred to me and either I have forgotten them or I feel I am not in a position to disclose them because they are so personal. Either way it's been a fantastic opportunity (although I would complain about the music service, Birmingham's is clearly much better), and I wouldn't be the person I am now had I not moved. I wouldn't know all the wonderful people I know now.
Wow.
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