I've noticed that OSC seems to enjoy coming up with interesting interpretations of atomic theory in his different books and series...and that they're surprisingly similar in allowing direct mental control of atomic connections. Specifically
In the Enderverse: The smallest particle is the philote, and sentience is contained in one philote. Sentient beings can directly control philotic connections.
In Homecoming: Humans can create physically noticable connections between themselves, though there's not as much description of the connections as relating to atoms.
In Alvin Maker: Each individual atom is a will, which can be controlled and persuaded if shown the way by a Maker.
And then, in Magic Street: The universe, and all of its underlying components, consists of wishes and desires, with the tiniest wishes being the smallest particles.
I don't have a good idea what it implies, but there does seem to be a similarity between the 4 universes in that respect.
Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :
well... considering no one really has much of a BETTER idea about how atomic theory works, I think it's just sort of a fun experiment. Engergy and gravity seem to hold everything together, but exactly what those things ARE is still open for interpretation.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
I suspect the commonality of all four is their similarity to Mormon beliefs . . .
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
Rivka, I definitely did recognize those themes in the Enderverse and Alvin Maker series as similar to Mormon beliefs.
I didn't see it in Magic Street. And I thought the Homecoming idea of connections was really interesting, but it didn't ring familiar to me. But perhaps they're all just variations on a theme, the seeds of which may be found in Mormon doctrine.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by JennaDean: I didn't see it in Magic Street. And I thought the Homecoming idea of connections was really interesting, but it didn't ring familiar to me.
I didn't either. But then, I wouldn't have summed up the ideas in those books the way Edgehopper did. Given his(?) summation, though . . . Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
It's just a way to make the irrational seem rational for fictional purposes. It's all about causality. Magic is something that has causative processes that don't make sense. I try to make them make sense because even when writing fantasy my characters need to believe they live in a rational universe.
Posted by Brian J. Hill (Member # 5346) on :
So the similarities to the Mormon concept of "intelligence" and the spiritual nature of matter are totally coincidental?
Posted by Oobie Binoobie (Member # 8059) on :
Considering the paucity of actual Mormon canon on the subject, yeah.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
I don't know any two Mormons who understand these ideas the same way anyway. Joseph Smith was struggling to find vocabulary to express ideas that had not been expressed before. The result is there IS no "doctrine" of intelligences, just a vague idea that is interpreted many ways. Whether that was a starting point in my unconscious mind is both unknowable to me and irrelevant to my fiction. I'm not teachinng Mormon doctrine, I'm not expressing Mormon doctrine - I'm telling a story. I don't understand the desire to find "sources" of ideas. It's like the people who think they can understand Milton by reading every book he was known to have read and finding similarities. In the end, what do you know that you did not know better just by reading Paradise Lost?
Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :
Well... I don't know anything about Mormon beliefs or anything like that, but I think it's fun. As I said in my first post, no one really actually KNOWS what happens at a substantially sub-atomic level, so any guess is as good as another. Reading stories that play with ideas is interesting, because you can wonder about what might really be hidden from us so far in reality. If it happens in alot of books, it's hardly unusual. Most fictional worlds set up new "rules" for their universe. This is simply a way to take the world we're used to and "expand" the rules a bit.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I just finished reading Magic Street yesterday, and I definitely saw parallels to Children of the Mind, in how Mack had been divided from Oberon. I found the character of Word very compelling as well. I think the volitional influencing of subatomic particles is analogous to the Christian conversion, of surrendering to God and in the process coming to a "glorious liberty" as it says in Romans 8. The majority of Mormons I know believe in salvation by grace "after all we can do" whence comes the stereotype that they are not Christian.
But salvation by grace and grace only would mean God saves whom he predestined. You take the sinful Paul, the lawyer Martin Luther, and Alma the younger and they get zapped with Salvation. In reality, each of them had a choice to either turn to the Lord or continue in captivity and death, though apparently on a somewhat accelerated schedule. Having turned to the Lord with full purpose of heart, they became not servants, but sons.
I was reading the wiki on 1984 last night, which some interpret to be an anti-religious treatise. We do have the responsibility to be ruled by our own conscience rather than the will of other mortals. But because God's ways are higher than man's ways, when we submit to his will we become something greater than what we could have been on our how.
How this plays out in Islam is something I've been trying to study lately. SaLaaM is peace, ISLaM is submission and MuSLiM is one who submits or makes peace. They are morphological variants of the same idea, which we have many words for. There are ways in which the subcompenents of language are like aiuas, that we can strive to master.
Posted by Libbie (Member # 9529) on :
Cool post, pooka.
quote:The majority of Mormons I know believe in salvation by grace "after all we can do" whence comes the stereotype that they are not Christian.
That particular stereotype has always driven me nuts. It did when I was LDS, and it still does today! Mostly because the LDS version of Christianity seems to be more in line with the teachings of Christ than any other version I've ever encountered! Whatever you feel about all the Mormon afterlife stuff, it's awfully hard to deny that Mormons are supposed to be really kind and helpful and Christianly on Earth. (And have lots of babies).
![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
Whatever you feel about all the Mormon afterlife stuff, it's awfully hard to deny that Mormons are supposed to be really kind and helpful and Christianly on Earth. (And have lots of babies).