I have believed for quite some time now that the true structure of our reality is based on something like the process upon which you elaborate and from which the title of this story is derived. As witnesses to whatever-this-is, we agree to maintain eventual consistency across our respective local caches. Nevertheless, anomalies sometimes arise and have to be purged. Like the black deja-vu cat and Donnie Darko.
"I am struck by a similar sense of holy terror when I look at Aleksei’s labyrinthes, especially the black ones, and I cannot help but reflect on what sacred mazes and holy books both have in common: that they are composed of passages; that they are designed to capture us; and that we become lost in a labyrinth almost as readily as we are lost in a book."
Amazing comparison between mazes, and books... and how both can ensnare us.
"The Prison and the Infohazard" — sounds like something Curtis Yarvin might write in the style of Jorge Luis Borges, and Philip K. Dick.
Good metaphysics bring clarity, no matter how shocking they are in form; the effect matters. The form can be adjusted, improved, nothing should be discarded based on appearances, no matter how goofy they might be at first sight.
This revelation eventually eroded my puritanist atheism, over time, into something less athesitic yet more intellectually liberating.
I don't know where this liberation will end, but I feel no anxiety about the nature of the ultimate destination. I feel less and less anxious as I get closer, as I discard more and more of what I thought was superior clarity but turned out to be self-limiting dogma.
"...in which he saw the construction of the Chinese emperor’s palace, and he heard music, and he knew—the way we know things in dreams, intuitively, inexplicably—that the music was building the palace."
Destructively established opulence? A song constructing a leviathan of a structure?
Maybe we're all better off for Coleridge forgetting this dream of his.
I have believed for quite some time now that the true structure of our reality is based on something like the process upon which you elaborate and from which the title of this story is derived. As witnesses to whatever-this-is, we agree to maintain eventual consistency across our respective local caches. Nevertheless, anomalies sometimes arise and have to be purged. Like the black deja-vu cat and Donnie Darko.
My favorite line from this story is:
"I am struck by a similar sense of holy terror when I look at Aleksei’s labyrinthes, especially the black ones, and I cannot help but reflect on what sacred mazes and holy books both have in common: that they are composed of passages; that they are designed to capture us; and that we become lost in a labyrinth almost as readily as we are lost in a book."
Amazing comparison between mazes, and books... and how both can ensnare us.
"The Prison and the Infohazard" — sounds like something Curtis Yarvin might write in the style of Jorge Luis Borges, and Philip K. Dick.
Good metaphysics bring clarity, no matter how shocking they are in form; the effect matters. The form can be adjusted, improved, nothing should be discarded based on appearances, no matter how goofy they might be at first sight.
This revelation eventually eroded my puritanist atheism, over time, into something less athesitic yet more intellectually liberating.
I don't know where this liberation will end, but I feel no anxiety about the nature of the ultimate destination. I feel less and less anxious as I get closer, as I discard more and more of what I thought was superior clarity but turned out to be self-limiting dogma.
Embrace your Jungian shadow
"...in which he saw the construction of the Chinese emperor’s palace, and he heard music, and he knew—the way we know things in dreams, intuitively, inexplicably—that the music was building the palace."
Destructively established opulence? A song constructing a leviathan of a structure?
Maybe we're all better off for Coleridge forgetting this dream of his.
I’m not sure how I missed this. It’s lovely
this is my least popular story, but I like it
I am going to be honest, I don't fully understand it. It's a little too... allegorical?
as far as I know I am not the wizard