Lem as a philosof

[Clapaucius]

I read and study St. Lem  for almost 25 years. And It is interesting for me to collect or,  if to be more exact,  to define the main Lem's philosofical problems, lines and ideas.
Here they are:
1) Intellect and personality.
The main Lem's problem, which is passes in different variations through almost every Lem's book like a red line.
a)What is "another intellect"?
Is it possible or it is a mental experiment only?
What can be a kind or degree of "anotherness"?
Can it be understood?
Can it be descripted?
What is higher intellect?
If it has some common basis with human mind, can we descript somehow or, at least, imagine any mind structure, which cannot be never understood  by
humans?

2) What is personality?
Can any person be copied and retronslated
Is nonhuman personality possible, and can we

[Clapaucius]

sorry, I continue.

b) Personality and autodescription.
What is personality?
Can any person be copied or retronslated?
Will be the retronslated or copied person a same or the same person (sorry if I define it not clear enough, it is slightly difficult for me to say it in english).
Is nonhuman personality possible, and if it is possible and have completely strange internal structure can we descript it in our human sence as a personality?

This is some sort of Kantial problem;
Lem interpretate the theme the-thing-in-itself (can I say it right?) in a mental way.
The problem can be understood also  as a problem of God description.

2) The nature and the philosophy of chance.
Lem is a probabilist, he views the world as a combination of probabilities and think that  one of the main problems in human mentality is a belief in purpose and sence of every accidental thing.  But there are only statistics and probabilities.

3) Fantomatics -- Virtaul reality.
Can a hole and complete world be produced or reproduced artifitially;
can a person be closed to this virtual world  
and can he distinguish highly detailized virtual world from the real one and to find a mental way out?
And here we can correlate this problem to the theme of "another mind" -- can we find the way out of our preset mind?

that's all for now.

Who would like to continue?

[skrzat]

Who would like to continue?

yes, please!

[Socrates]

I command you to continue as well.
Cheers, Socrates

[Terminus]

Well, since You're poining everything out right there's no reason to argue with you in any way.
So continue please, we'll see what else you've discovered:]

btw. I'm impressed that you read Lem for 25 yrs now, since I'm 25 myself . Greatest respect to You:)

[Karel]

I have never read sci-fi, but always thought about future of mankind. Ihave never been interested in philosophy, but always thought about life. Then I´ve found memories in a bathtub.

good job, Clapaucius

[Clapaucius]

So, if you want me to continue, I'll continue, despite of my poor english.

Some additions to the paragraph, which I've defined as
"Personality and autodescription".

Hary's transformation from "nobody", "noone man" into the "complete person" who realize, "autodescript" herself as a person  is quite interesting mental and literatural experiment.  Noperson converts to person, but when? Where is the point, the "quantum leap" of this transformation? Or is it exists at all, and the process is slooth-continious? And how the person itself sees it?  A very interesting psycological aspect. It was tracked in quite close way in one of my favorite american novels -- Daniel Keyes's "Flowers for Algernon".  It is interesting, that both of them -- Lem and Keis -- have academical degree in psycology (if to be more exact, Lem has one in psyciatric).  The difference between Keyes's and Lem's versions are, that Lem has more kosmopsycolgistic, universalistic view, but Keyes is more psycologistic, as it "sees" a process from inside and also tracks a contaverse process.

Another line in Lem's creativity.  A religion. Lem define himself as an atheist. But he returns to the religious and nearly-religious problems so persistently, that you can't doubt, how interesting this theme  for Lem is.
His books contain a lot of critics of orthodaxal, official religions, mainly the critics of Catholic concepts.  He even presents his own religious (or pseudoreligious) concept, which is scattered in its parts throw many Lem's books from "Cyberiade" and "Star Diaries" to "His Master's Voice" and "Eyewitness Account".  His (or his character's) religious conception is closed to european religiosophistic construction known as "Philosopher's God".  I will not state or retell Lem's concepts, it will take a lot of space and a lot of difficulties to me, because of my poor english. Everyone who cares can find and analize them himself by reading Lem's books.
I will let myself only a little critic notes, that is very delicate theme, so I beg your pardon from everybody, who can be offended by me.  
When Lem mentions critisizes some concepts of orthodoxal religions, he is to concentrated on catholicism and shows an annoying ignorance of jewish religious and philosophical concepts, and this is especially regrettable, because Lem's ancesstors, as he mentioned in one of his books, were jews.  Why it is regrettable? Because many contradictions of christian philosophy are sucsessfully solved in jewish classic and kabbalistic  philosophy, and almost every lapse in Christian Holy Bible, on which Lem directs his criticism, is based on incorrect translation from hebrew.  The great argentinian writer -- Chorche Luis Borches (who is one of the writers, the most respectable by Lem, and one who influents on Lem a lot) is not jewish, but knows a lot about kabbalah and jewish philosophy.
I beg your pardon again.
That's all for today.

[Clapaucius]

>>btw. I'm impressed that you read Lem for 25 yrs now, since I'm 25 myself . Greatest respect to You

BTW.  I discover Lem to myself when I was 10. Now I'm 35 y.o.

[Socrates]

Wow Terminus,
I'm impressed that you're 25; I'm only 22 myself.  But I've been reading Lem since I was 8.  (sorry, just wanted to throw some numbers around; sometimes numbers are needed to keep one grounded).
Cheers, Socrates

[Karel]

Why apologize? I think it is good to know something about others; 23 years, almost 2 years of intensive Lem reading. Someone else?

[SoGo]

Good Day, Gents.
Clapaucius, a very interesting Analysis.
In a line with your, I am just a young guy, only 17 years old. But my first book from lem I got with seven.
(Solaris, the old one from the Volk und Welt Verlag, I am living in Germany)
In the last two years I tried to get all his books.
Not so easy, if you take a closer look on his works, you can see how many he has written.
And every novel a genius work.

But to your question, an interpretation of the lem's view for religion:

In dialogues he has written, that every thing is full of an energy. There was the question of your personal identity ( if I made a copy from you, is those you?)
There he had written that it wouldn't be the same, if the person, you had copied, lifed already.
Only by the way, here comes my interpretation:
The energy, everyone is flowed with, is (in christian name) our soul.
But I prefer the name "Karma", because our soul isn't going anywere.
There aren't any paradise or hell, just only the galaxis, the big nothing.
And Karma is flowing through the universe, (what it is I cant say, maybe we could analyze it one day)
and it fills everything who exist. Of course, a stone hasn't got as much Karma as a plant, a plant not as much as a cow for example, and a cow hasn't got as much as we. The mass of the energy is the grade of your conciousness. Ok, perhaps it sounds grude, if I say the stone can feel anything and has his own feelings.
I wouldn't go so far, but I would say, the stone isn't completely dead, that means has no energy, but thats not right.
So Karma is everywere, all around an in us.

Next thing: The question of God









God is Karma
Karma is God
We are God



Maybe Karma can think
Maybe Karma can doing things, knows everything
Maybe is has made us for a sense only it knows
But thats not the matter, I only gave the object a name.

What are you thinking now?
Please tell me, I would be interesting in, because thats the theory I believe.

Till later, guys
My Respect for your Intellect

[Terminus]

God is Karma
Karma is God
We are God

In a way, Your karma theory is a religious system, similar to buddism.



It is, in fact, buddism. It is not fortunate to call buddism a religion,

as it doesn't include certain dogmats (like God).

Your theory differs from buddism, becouse buddists don't trouble

theirselves with the question of God. You have to admit yourself, that

IF God is Karma, Karma is God, We are God, THEN ,,we are Karma" tells us

as much as ,,we are God''. So God becomes just another name for

,,Karma'' and as it is so, it is just unnecesary to use the word God.

But on the other hand, if ,,Karma is God'' than we can as well forget

about Karma and consider only God.
You said for yourself, that ''We are karma" and that some ,,part'' (or

quantity) of Karma dwells within everyone of us.
That's brilliant, but consider this. Everyone who prefers the word

,,God'' to word ,,Karma'' will tell You, that God is everything, and in

every being and thing ther is something godlike. In a human it is a

soul, because a soul (as western religions consider it) is a part of God

that lives in every human.
So you see, that telling ,,karma is in us'' is as good as ,,God is in

us,  as our soul''.
There is of course the truth, that both this statements are beatiful and

both can be believed in. But the don't differ that much.

I have no doubt that as a German person you were raised among the

Christians, and this is the cause you are talking about ,,God'' and

,,soul''. Someone who lives in, for example, in Tibet, may never have heard a word ,,God'' before but is thinking just the same as You.
That is also a beatifull thing.

There is also a sort of misticism  in Your system. You think that Universe is empty (phisically) filled only with Karma (need I remind the words of the christian Bible: The universe was empty, and the spirit of god was filling it... (or similar)). And You admit that You don't understand the Universe: You hope it will sometimes be known what it is.
And so do the worshippers of many religions. The claim that ,,God is a great unknown'' (Chrisitians) or that the ,,human is unknown for God'' (Muslims) or that the world cannot be fully explained - and there is no need for it to be explained

After all, I want to salute You, and send You congratulations for being so intelectually/religiously active at the age of 17.

I will just add: the religious systems are very similar. Isomorphic, it could be said.

Cheers
...

[wetal]

I `m fond of SF and it is no wonder that Stanislaw Lem is one of my favourite writers.Cyberiad  I consider to be one of the greatest Lem`s works.Author`s special sense of humour,cyber/fairy-tales,very phylosophical ones - is what you can find in this book.

[Jerzyab]

Hi Clapaucius, hi all...

I agree with the philosophical problems you see in Lem, but I think it all boils down to one thing: futurology. And futurology IN philosophy. I mean, he actually and intentionally (?) predicted many of the issues that are now hot topics in philosophy. To give two examples, Golem XIV talks about selfish genes three years before Dawkins did, and the questions about mind and personality follow Wittgenstein's legacy, extending to the Dennett-Searle debate...

See ya!

[Terminus]

I agree with the philosophical problems you see in Lem, but I think it all boils down to one thing: futurology. And futurology IN philosophy. I mean, he actually and intentionally (?) predicted many of the issues that are now hot topics in philosophy.

See ya!

It is true that Lem predicted some trends that emerged later. But does that enable You to think that this   all comes down to futurology ?
What does this sentence mean, anyway?

I see you're brilliant and have figured that Golem speaks the word Wittgenstein repeated later, but does this mean that Lem is a futurologist and nothing more?

I say, he's not only about guessing what will happen. He also gives clues about what already happened. For example, ,,Mortal Engines'' and ,,Cyberiad" contain metaphorical figures that depict totalitarism, as it was in Poland or Czechoslovakia in 1945-89's.

So it doesn't  all ,,boil down '' to futurology.