Recent Reading
Last night I finished off the Ender saga - a series of books detailing the life of Andrew Wiggin, Speaker for the Dead.
There are a number of interesting aspects to the series. In the first book, Ender’s Game we see a world where the ability of a child to learn better and faster than any adult is put into practice in an attempt to create brilliant armies which can then be put into combat with an alien race. The book continues with details of the psychological issues of both Ender and his teachers, as they attempt to mould him into their vision of a perfect soldier and leader. Very much worth reading if you haven’t gotten around to it yet.
The other three books show Andrew Wiggin’s attempts to save more than one alien species from destruction. His, and others’ efforts too, of course. These three books are rather more interesting for the philosophies and ideas introduced through the medium of story than for the story itself - the story was interesting enough though.
One idea is that of an auia which is responsible for the intelligence evidenced by beings. Everything is controlled by an auia, and some auias can control other auias. These auias always exist, and have always existed, and can enter the “real world” under some conditions. To enter the world, an auia needs to be able to visualise the whole of its being - this means that the cleverest and most intelligent auias are the ones which are able to take the form of a living being. And it requires a yet more intelligent auia to take human form. This dovetails nicely with the idea that increasing complexity leads to the development of life, and eventually to intelligent life. An interesting way to see things…
Another idea shown in the last book, Children of the Mind, is that of Edge cultures and Centre cultures. The idea is that some cultures are supreme in self-confidence, and do not need to expand violently in order to expand the culture - the Centre cultures. On the other hand, other cultures (the Edge cultures) are less self-confident, and attempt to take over other lands and expand their culture by that means. One of the best examples of a Centre culture is the Chinese. They have been conquered many times over their history, and yet all other cultures were eventually subsumed into the Chinese one. Where is the Mongol culture? An Edge culture which needed to expand, and yet could not survive once they expanded too much - the culture died and the original cultures were restored. Two other Centre cultures were the Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures - both of which were only laid low with the onset of Islam. Card brings up the possibility of the US as a Centre culture in the making (or already made?). Enough on this for now.