Friday 26 February 2010
Settling the Seas for Freedom
Sunday 21 February 2010
Re: "A plea to Iain M Banks" (Guardian)
While I totally empathise with Damien's enthusiasm for the Culture novels, I think his call for a conclusion is as naïve as my expectation that the “Matrix Revolutions” would bring revelation. Of course, it brought only disappointment and an appallingly ridiculous gun toting mechasuits vs “squidies” battle.
The point is that I should never have expected some kind of ultimate enlightenment; a view into or beyond the reality of an computationally superhuman society: post Singularity is by definition unpredictable/unimaginable.
It was, to my mind, made very clear that the Culture (more specifically the Godlike ship/hub minds) deliberately limited themselves from transcending. Any societies that had done so effectively disappeared from the universe. By anthropic principle, the Culture must then be composed entirely of those intelligences who have foregone the next step (perhaps the ultimate change). Many stuck around because they consider it irresponsible to just 'sublime' and leave developing (planetary) societies to fend for themselves. Hence the repeated theme of 'Special Circumstances' policy/practice of interference (in global wars/politics of lesser sentient societies).
For this fundamental reason, there could be no