7.7 KiB
[RL] Unsong Chapter 21: Thou Also Dwellest In Eternity
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Author: u/None *
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URL: http://unsongbook.com/chapter-21-and-was-jerusalem-builded-here/
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Score: 45
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Created: 2016-05-22T19:28:04
Post:
Comments:
u/DCarrier [+19] (an hour later)
Is Scott finding all this kaballah stuff himself? That comparison between San Francisco and Jerusalem is crazy. Is there some kind of kabbalist wiki where you can look that stuff up? Did he put tons of research into this? Is he making some of it up?
u/alexanderwales [+18] Time flies like an arrow (an hour later)
Some of the similarities are causal rather than coincidental; the Golden Gate Strait, which the Golden Gate Bridge is named after, got its name because John Fremont was making a reference to the Golden Gate of Constantinople, which in turn was named by Constantine, who was Christian and presumably knew about the Golden Gate of Jerusalem (especially given the symbolism).
I'm fairly certain that Scott is just putting in a bunch of work though, and hiding all the comparisons that don't pan out, which makes it more impressive.
u/DCarrier [+10] (an hour later)
Let us hope Scott never gets paranoid schizophrenia.
u/callmebrotherg [+7] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (11 hours later)
At this point, I'm not sure that it'd be easy to tell.
I mean, for all we know, Unsong is his manifesto, and he just has enough self-awareness to market it as fiction.
u/Chronophilia [+1] sci-fi ≠ futurology (an hour later)
Some of it is made up, in particular all the actual religious stuff (e.g. the Devil isn't called Thamiel by any sect that I can find on Google).
Most of it is coincidence.
u/ScottAlexander [+14] (2 hours later)
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (11 hours later)
So, um, literally the first result on Google, if you search for "Thamiel," gets you this:
Thaumiel (twins of God) is the name of one of the Qliphoth in the Kabbalah, the shadow side of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. It is the shadow of the Sephirah Keter (the crown). While Keter is concerned with the unity of God, Thaumiel represents the dual contending forces, struggling, and it is represented by two giant heads with bat-like wings.
Well, okay, his heads aren't giant, but he's still got two of them. Also, that other stuff's been mentioned, I'm pretty sure.
But just in case it wasn't, the article also says this, point blank:
The ruler of Thaumiel is Satan.
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (11 hours later)
Isn't that a bit different though? I mean, if I'm reading this right, Thamiel is either a class of angel or class of existence rather than a singular angel. And Satan is the ruler of these angels, rather than literally a being called Thamiel. It's like a place or categorization scheme rather than a person.
u/NeverSitFellowWombat [+8] (12 hours later)
Thaumiel is the personified form of the duality of God and the Sephirot. Whether Thaumiel is a person or a place doesn't really matter, just as God is both a person and a spirit. In fact, Thaumiel is both a person (one with two heads and bat-like wings) and a place (which Satan rules).
Anyways, Thamiel isn't Satan. Thamiel is Thaumiel. Sataniel is Satan.
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (a day later)
I think that they're sharing the role. Sataniel has some of the characteristics of Satan or the Devil (e.g. led a third of the host of heaven in rebellion), but so does Thamiel (e.g. ruling Hell, actually being called "the Devil").
u/callmebrotherg [+2] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (21 hours later)
Rereading them, I can see how the text is more ambiguous than I remembered, but there's this passage in chapter six, which I interpreted to mean that Thamiel is more than just a type of angel, and what we see as Thamiel is just the incarnation of something that is far bigger:
I remembered reading something about how Thamiel was a facet of God and couldn’t actually be killed
Also, when Uriel is telling Sohu why he can't kill Thamiel, he explains that even if he did do so, Thamiel would still be able to interfere (in some way that dead angels, it seems, cannot).
Like I said, though, this is less clear cut than I recalled.
u/sir_pirriplin [+1] (a day later)
Sataniel said Thamiel was a new aspect of God that he discovered in the center of the Earth. Back before Uriel made the Universe run on Math, things that we now think of as metaphors were actual people, so it makes sense that "the duality of God" would have a physical incarnation.
u/alexanderwales [+12] Time flies like an arrow (15 minutes later)
Well that was ... weird.
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+11] (2 hours later)
It seems rather odd that some of the statements used to wake up Ana (conservation of mass, the light speed barrier, natural selection) are things I'd assumed were retcons by Uriel.
u/Iconochasm [+16] (2 hours later)
Uriel's retcons seem like exactly the sort of thing that would help break someone out of a severe attack of transcendent joy. "No, now all that universal love junk runs through a filter that turns it into neurons."
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+6] (5 hours later)
This is very much not the conflict between truth and beauty that the comments section portrays it as, though. At least within the context of the world of Unsong, it's a conflict between awareness of a bigger-picture truth/beauty and awareness of the present, local situation - the latter of which is directly epistemologically inferior, as the former isn't unaware of the present, local situation, it just realizes its true irrelevance.
The Right Hand Of God isn't ignorance, as the comments suggest; it's the opposite, awareness. And the Left Hand Of God (Thamiel) isn't truth, either: it's a lie.
u/SoundLogic2236 [+1] (23 hours later)
Err... where are you referring to? I don't see any comments that seem to match your description.
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+1] (23 hours later)
The comments section on the site, not here.
u/SoundLogic2236 [+1] (23 hours later)
I looked there too. I'm not seeing it.
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+1] (23 hours later)
Random guess at an an important theme: blissful ignorance vs. bitter truth, as seen with angels and Ana, perhaps reflecting Raikoth’s truth/beauty dyad.
It seems (almost) like the moral equivalent of just putting them on opium for the rest of their lives, which we could do now but don’t really.
u/Frommerman [+5] (2 hours later)
The old man with "faces." Typo, or does being in the City of Angels change your physiology as well?
u/awesomeideas [+2] Dai stiho, cousin. (10 days later)
Universal love.
u/TheAtomicOption [+2] (20 hours later)
I just started reading this. I'm to ch9 so far. I think he wrong the entire story just so he had somewhere to put this amazing line:
“MOST OF IT RUNS ON SAPPHIRES ON PATHS, BUT I USE RUBY ON RAILS FOR THE DATABASES.”
u/Calsem [+1] (a day later)
cough wrote cough
u/Xenograteful [+1] (5 days later)
I like the original version more. It has kabbalistic implications.