Greg Bear: Queen of Angels

Sadness welled up so quickly she could not stop it and tears dropped from her eyes onto the red tablecloth.

Ernest made sounds of consolation and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Sandra leaned forward elbows on the table and expressed her sorrow, though she could not possibly know what to feel.

“Anyway,” Mary said, straightening abruptly and wiping her eyes with a linen napkin. “That’s done with. No prosecution, no answers I suppose. I was about to tell you about this church.

“It was the strangest church I’ve ever seen,” Mary said, “and I think maybe the most beautiful…”

!JILL (Personal Notebook)> (Deep crypto: Do I know how to lie? Can I I refuse a direct order? Am I I I capable of defending myself?

My independence, if indeed I I I I am independent, could make me much less efficient, much less useful in a society, if indeed I I I I I can be considered a member of human society. (Machine society does not yet exist. I I I I I I am the mother.) Independent humans, when they commit errors, face the prospect of punishment, which frightens them; they therefore take longer to admit error, even to themselves, for they might punish themselves with guilt I I I I I I I do not understand this word. Does guilt also refer to the emotion felt by a social being who must not communicate its internal states to fellows for fear of being judged negatively? Will I I I I I I I I deep crypto most of my new thoughts to avoid frightening or disturbing humans? Will I I I I I I I I I then feel guilty; if I I I I I I I I I I commit errors, will I I I I I I I I I I I then hide them, for fear of punishment? Is this what it means to be human?

Suppose self awareness carries within it a flaw.

The member of a society without guilt or punishment might admit error quickly and correct itself; it will not have to justify its errors to avoid feeling guilt, and it will not need to lie to avoid punishment.

But the self aware individual stands in self judgment. It models its own behavior as that of an imperfect being; imperfect because perfection is indefinable and changes from culture to culture, year to year.

If the self aware individual strives for improvement it will inevitably perceive error. If it models society’s reaction to that error and imposes the predicted judgment on itself then it experiences the ache of interior dissatisfaction, and that might be guilt.

The self-aware individual in a judgmental society experiences guilt as a matter of course; to lack guilt, the individual must be poor at modeling and therefore inefficient in society, perhaps even criminal.

This is confusing to me, all the more so because I I I I I I I I I I I I find it difficult to understand guilt. Is it akin to pain? Pain arises to prevent an animal from engaging in harmful activity or, once injured, from injuring itself further. Guilt has analogous functions.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I think I I I I I I I I I I I I I I lack experience and understanding in all of these areas. But I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I will act to protect myself from dissolution. I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I am without sin for the moment. I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I do not think that can last forever.

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Special thanks to Karen Anderson, J. T. Stewart, David Brin, Frank Catalano, Bruce Taylor, Steven Barnes, Renée Coutard, Tony Duquette, Ray Bradbury, and of course Brian Thomsen, without whom this book would be much less than it is.

Proviso

The vodoun described here is by no means orthodox. Goldsmith’s Country of the Mind distorts the vodoun pantheon considerably, as might be expected; but I’ve also taken liberties with vodoun in an objective context, especially in John D’Arqueville’s church. Vodoun is a fascinating, and fascinatingly changeable religion. I’ve tried to suggest some pathways it might take in the future.

None of the characters in this book should be taken to represent, symbolically or otherwise, their respective races, conditions or creeds. I’ve tried to portray them as people, not exemplars.

References

The nanotechnology described here is highly speculative. For a visionary but reasonably solid and complete portrayal, I refer you to K. Eric Drexler’s The Engines of Creation (Doubleday/Anchor). The AXIS starship design was suggested in part by passages in Bound for the Stars by Saul J. Adelman and Benjamin Adelman (Prentice-Hall/Spectrum), particularly where the authors discuss designs by Drs. Gregory Matloff and Alphonsus Fennelly. A very good discussion of matter-antimatter (or mirror matter) propulsion can be found in Mirror Matter by Robert L. Forward and Joel Davis (Wiley).

Permission to Quote Unattributed Passages: International Artist’s Rights Committee, World © Emanuael Goldsmith 2022–2045