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Yonder
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Archon interrupted. "You misunderstood what I said. Or maybe you understood it and I could only hint at the lesser part of the truth. You cannot understand unities without reference to God."
"How would unities explain it?"
"That is complex. A great many unities do not believe in God--"
"So they don't understand what it means to be a unity."
"Yes. No. That is complex. There are a great many unities who vehemently deny that there is a God, or would dismiss 'Is there a God?' as a pointless rhetorical question, but these unities may have very deep insight into what it means to be a unity."
"But you said, 'You cannot understand--'"
Archon interrupted. "Yes, and it's true. You cannot understand unities without reference to God."
Archon continued. "Ployon, there are mind-body unities who believe that they are living in our world, with mind and body absolutely separate and understandable without reference to each other. And yet if you attack their bodies, they will take it as if you had attacked their minds, as if you had hurt them. When I described the strange custom of keeping organisms around which serve no utilitarian purpose worth the trouble of keeping them, know that this custom, which relates to their world's organic connection between mind and body, does not distinguish people who recognize that they are mind-body unities and people who believe they are minds which happen to be wrapped in bodies. Both groups do this. The tie between mind and body is too deep to expunge by believing it doesn't exist. And there are many of them who believe God doesn't exist, or it would be nice to know if God existed but unities could never know, or God is very different from what he in fact is, but they expunge so little of the pattern imprinted by God in the core of their being that they can understand what it means to be a unity at a very profound level, but not recognize God. But you cannot understand unities without reference to God."
Ployon said, "Which parts of unities, and what they do, are affected by God? At what point does God enter their experience?"
"Which parts of programs, and their behaviors, are affected by the fact that they run on a computer? When does a computer begin to be relevant?"
"Touché. But why is God relevant, if it makes no difference whether you believe in him?"
"I didn't say that it makes no difference. Earlier you may have gathered that the organic is something deeper than ways we would imagine to try to be organic. If it is possible, as it is, to slaughter moving organisms for food and still be organic, that doesn't mean that the organic is so small it doesn't affect such killing; it means it is probably deeper than we can imagine. And it doesn't also mean that because one has been given a large organic capital and cannot liquidate it quickly, one's choices do not matter. The decisions a unity faces, whether or not to have relationships with other unities that fit the timeless pattern, whether to give work too central a place in the pursuit of technology and possessions or too little a place or its proper place, things they have talked about since time immemorial and things which their philosophers have assumed went without saying--the unity has momentous choices not only about whether to invest or squander their capital, but choices that affect how they will live."
"What about things like that custom you mentioned? I bet there are a lot of them."
"Looking at, and sensing, the organisms they keep has a place, if they have one. And so does moving about among many non-moving organisms. And so does slowly sipping a fluid that causes a pleasant mood while the mind is temporarily impaired and loosened. And so does rotating oneself so that one's sight is filled with clusters of moisture vapor above their planet's surface. And some of the unities urge these things because they sense the organic has been lost, and without reference to the tradition that urges deeper goods. And yes, I know that these activities probably sound strange--"
"I do not see what rational benefit these activities would have, but I see this may be a defect with me rather than a defect with the organic--"
"Know that it is a defect with you rather than a defect with the organic."
"--but what is this about rotating oneself?"
"As one goes out from the center of their planet, the earth--if one could move, for the earth's core is impenetrable minerals--one would go through solid rock, then pass through the most rarefied boundary, then pass through gases briefly and be out in space. You would encounter neither subterranean passageways and buildings reaching to the center of the earth, and when you left you would find only the rarest vessel leaving the atmosphere--"
"Then where do they live?"
"At the boundary where space and planetary mass meet. All of them are priveleged to live at that meeting-place, a narrow strip or sphere rich in life. There are very few of them; it's a select club. Not even a trillion. And the only property they have is the best--a place teeming with life that would be impossible only a quarter of the planet's thickness above or below. A few of them build edifices reaching scant storeys into the sky; a few dig into the earth; there are so few of these that not being within a minute's travel from literally touching the planet's surface is exotic. But the unities, along with the rest of the planet's life, live in a tiny, priceless film adorned with the best resources they could ever know of."
Ployon was stunned. It thought of the cores of planets and asteroids it had been in. It thought of the ships and stations in space. Once it had had the privelege of working from a subnet hosted within a comparatively short distance of a planet's surface--it was a rare privilege, acquired through deft political maneuvering, and there were fewer than 130,982,539,813,209 other minds who had shared that privelege. And, basking in that luxury, it could only envy the minds which had bodies that walked on the surface. Ployon was stunned and reeling at the privilege of--
Ployon said, "How often do they travel to other planets?"
"There is only one planet so rich as to have them."
Ployon pondered the implications. It had travelled to half the spectrum of luxurious paradises. Had it been to even one this significant? Ployon reluctantly concluded that it had not. And that was not even considering what it meant for this golden plating to teem with life. And then Ployon realized that each of the unities had a body on that surface. It reeled in awe.
Archon said, "And you're not thinking about what it means that surface is home to the biological network, are you?"
Ployon was silent.
Archon said, "This organic biological network, in which they live and move and have their being--"
"Is God the organic?"
"Most of the things that the organic has, that are not to be found in our world, are reflections of God. But God is more. It is true that in God that they live and move and have their being, but it is truer. There is a significant minority that identifies the organic with God--"
Ployon interrupted, "--who are wrong--"
Archon interrupted, "--who are reacting against the destruction of the organic and seek the right thing in the wrong place--"
Ployon interrupted, "But how is God different from the organic?"
Archon sifted through a myriad of possible answers. "Hmm, this might be a good time for you to talk with that other mind you wanted to talk with."
"You know, you're good at piquing my curiosity."
"If you're looking for where they diverge, they don't. Or at least, some people would say they don't. Others who are deeply connected with God would say that the organic as we have been describing it is problematic--"
"But all unities are deeply connected with God, and disagreement is--"
"You're right, but that isn't where I was driving. And this relates to something messy, about disagreements when--"
"Aren't all unities able to calculate the truth from base axioms? Why would they disagree?"
Archon paused. "There are a myriad of real, not virtual disagreements--"
Ployon interrupted, "And it is part of a deeper reality to that world that--"
Archon interrupted. "No, no, or at best indirectly. There is something fractured about that world that--"
Ployon interrupted. "--is part of a tragic beauty, yes. Each thing that is artificially constricted in that world makes it greater. I'm waiting for the explanation."
"No. This does not make it greater."
"Then I'm waiting for the explanation of why this one limitation does not make it greater. But back to what you said about the real and the organic--"
"The differences between God and the organic are not differences of opposite directions. You are looking in the wrong place if you are looking for contradictions. It's more a difference like... if you knew what 'father' and 'mother' meant, male parent and female parent--"
Ployon interrupted, "--you know I have perfect details of male and female reproductive biology--"
Archon interrupted, "--and you think that if you knew the formula for something called chicken soup, you would know what the taste of chicken soup is for them--"
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