In the dialogue, Smullyan comes up with a wonderful definition of the Devil, the unfortunate length of time it takes for sentient beings as a whole to come to be enlightened. This idea of the necessary time it takes for a complex state to come about has been explored mathematically in a provocative way by Charles Bennet and Gregory Chaitin. They theorize that it may be possible to prove, by arguments similar to those underlying Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, that there is no shortcut to the development of higher and higher intelligences (or, if you prefer, more and more “enlightened” states); in short, that “the Devil” must get his due.
Toward the end of this dialogue, Smullyan gets at issues we have been dealing with throughout this book—the attempts to reconcile the determinism and “upward causality” of the laws of nature with the free will and “downward causality” that we all feel ourselves exerting. His astute observation that we often say “I am determined to do this” when we mean “I have chosen to do this” leads him to his account of free will, beginning with god’s statement that “Determinism and choice are much close than they might appear.” Smullyan’s elegantly worked out reconciliation of these opposing views depends on our willingness to switch points of view—to cease thinking “dualistically” (i.e. breaking the world into parts such as “myself” and “not myself”), and to see the entire universe as boundaryless, with things flowing into each other, overlapping, with no clearly defined categories or edges.
This seems an odd point of view for a logical to be exposing, at first—but then, who says logicians are always upright and rigid? Why should not logicians, more than anyone, realize the places where hard edge, clean logic will necessarily run into trouble when dealing with this chaotic and messy universe? One of Marvin Minsky’s favourite claims is “Logic doesn’t apply to the real world”. There is a sense in which this is true. This is one of the difficulties that artificial intelligence workers are facing. They are coming to realize that no intelligence can be based on reasoning alone; or rather, that isolated reasoning is impossible, because reasoning depends on a prior setting up of a system of concepts, percepts, classes, categories—call them what you will—in terms of which all situations are understood. It is there that biases and selection enter the picture. Not only must the reasoning faculty be willing to accept the first characterizations of a situation that the perceiving faculty must in turn be willing to accept these doubts and to go back and reinterpret the situation, creating a continual loop between levels. Such interplay between perceiving and reasoning subselves brings into being a total self—a Mortal.
D.R.H.
And if he left off dreaming about you…
No one saw him disembark in the unanimous night, no one bamboo canoe sinking into the sacred mud, but within a few days was unaware that the silent man came from the South and that was one of the infinite villages upstream, on the violent mountainside where the Zend tongue is not contaminated with Greek and where leprosy is infrequent. The truth is that the obscure man kissed the mud, came up the bank without pushing aside (probably without feeling) brambles which dilacerated his flesh, and dragged himself, nauseous and bloodstained, to the circular enclosure crowned by a stone tiger which once was the color of fire and now was that of ashes. This circle was a temple, long ago devoured by fire, which the malarial jungle had profaned and whose god no longer received the homage of stranger stretched out beneath the pedestal. He was awakened by high above. He evidenced without astonishment that his wounds had closed; he shut his pale eyes and slept, not out of bodily weakness but out of determination of will. He knew that this temple was the place, by his invincible purpose; he knew that, downstream, the incessant trees had not managed to choke the ruins of another propitious temple gods were also burned and dead; he knew that his immediate obligation was to sleep. Towards midnight he was awakened by the disconsolate cry bird. Prints of bare feet, some figs and a jug told him that men of the region had respectfully spied upon his sleep and were solicitous of favor or feared his magic. He felt the chill of fear and sought out a sepulchral niche in the dilapidated wall and covered himself with some unknown leaves.
The purpose which guided him was not impossible, though it was supernatural. He wanted to dream a man: he wanted to dream him with minute integrity and insert him into reality. This magical project had exhausted the entire content of his soul; if someone had asked him his own name or any trait of his previous life, he would not have been able to answer. The uninhabited and broken temple suited him, for it was a minimum of visible world; the nearness of the peasants also suited him, for they would see that his frugal necessities were supplied. The rice and fruit of their tribute were sufficient sustenance for his body, consecrated to the sole task of sleeping and dreaming.
At first, his dreams were chaotic; somewhat later, they were of a dialectical nature. The stranger dreamt that he was in the center of a circular amphitheater which in some way was the burned temple: clouds of silent students filled the gradins; the faces of the last ones hung many centuries away and at a cosmic height, but were entirely clear and precise. The man was lecturing to them on anatomy, cosmography, magic; the countenances listened with eagerness and strove to respond with understanding, as if they divined the importance of the examination which would redeem one of them from his state of vain appearance and interpolate him into the world of reality. The man, both in dreams and awake, considered his phantoms’ replies, was not deceived by impostors, divined a growing intelligence in certain perplexities. He sought a soul which would merit participation in the universe.
After nine or ten nights, he comprehended with some bitterness that he could expect nothing of those students who passively accepted his doctrines, but that he could of those who, at times, would venture a reasonable contradiction. The former, though worthy of love and affection, could not rise to the state of individuals; the latter pre-existed somewhat more. One afternoon (now his afternoons too were tributaries of sleep, now he remained awake only for a couple of hours at dawn) he dismissed the vast illusory college forever and kept one single student. He was a silent boy, sallow, sometimes obstinate, with sharp features which reproduced those of the dreamer. He was not long disconcerted by his companions’ sudden elimination; his progress, after a few special lessons, astounded his teacher. Nevertheless, catastrophe ensued. The man emerged from sleep one day as if from a viscous desert, looked at the vain light of afternoon, which at first he confused with and understood that he had not really dreamt. All that night the intolerable lucidity of insomnia weighed upon him. He tried to explore the jungle, to exhaust himself, amidst the hemlocks, he was scarcely able to manage a few snatches of feeble sleep, fleetingly mottled with some rudimentary visions which were useless. He tried to convoke the college and had scarcely uttered a few brief words of exhortation when it became deformed and was extinguished. In his almost perpetual sleeplessness, his old eyes burned with tears of anger.
He comprehended that the effort to mold the incoherent and vertiginous matter dreams are made of was the most arduous task a man could undertake, though he might penetrate all the enigmas of the upper and lower orders: much more arduous than weaving a rope of sand or coining the faceless wind. He comprehended that an initial failure was inevitable. He swore he would forget the enormous hallucination which had misled him at first, and he sought another method. Before putting it in effect he dedicated a month to replenishing the powers his delirium had wasted. He abandoned any premeditation of dreaming and, almost at once able to sleep for a considerable part of the day. The few times he dreamt during this period, he did not take notice of the dreams. To take up his task again, he waited until the moon’s disk was perfect. Then in the afternoon, he purified himself in the waters of the river, worshipped the planetary gods, uttered the lawful syllables of a powerful name and slept. Almost immediately, he dreamt of a beating heart.
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“The Circular Ruins,” translated by James E. Irby, from