I just finished reading Number of the Beast by Robert Heinlein. Again. The first time I read it was in college -- many moons ago. I loved it then. I still love the plot and the philosophy... However. I'm a bit red-cheeked over how this book has shaped my own philosophy. Or maybe it just nudged it. Or revealed it.
I'd be happier to confess only an intellectual interest because the book is one running conversation between four unbearably glib, cheeky, hypersexed and perkily antagonistic individuals which are essentially the same character; soon to be met by other glib, cheeky, hypersexed and perkily antagonistic folk which Heinlein actually takes the trouble to point out are trans-universal twins.
We know. We know.
And yet, I'm in love with his reality-is-myth premise that all universes are creations of authors and become reality out of shared experiences. Not unlike my own Giant Hamster Ball of Infinite Possibility. Quite like it. Papa Heinlein, the old billy goat, seemed to be writing a farewell tribute to his own characters and books, even though this was not his last, as it turned out. It was in fact written after a major life-threatening surgery. It's the book all of us carry in our head but don't dare to write. Except he did. Full of code and anagrams and self-references. I have to admire that. I do.
He's still the philosopher king in my head.
A philo-solipsically speaking. (sorry)
Which leaves me stuck with 'I am god, and so are you, and what do you wanna do today?' I guess that is trans-universal pantheistic multi-communal solipsism.
I'd be happier to confess only an intellectual interest because the book is one running conversation between four unbearably glib, cheeky, hypersexed and perkily antagonistic individuals which are essentially the same character; soon to be met by other glib, cheeky, hypersexed and perkily antagonistic folk which Heinlein actually takes the trouble to point out are trans-universal twins.
We know. We know.
And yet, I'm in love with his reality-is-myth premise that all universes are creations of authors and become reality out of shared experiences. Not unlike my own Giant Hamster Ball of Infinite Possibility. Quite like it. Papa Heinlein, the old billy goat, seemed to be writing a farewell tribute to his own characters and books, even though this was not his last, as it turned out. It was in fact written after a major life-threatening surgery. It's the book all of us carry in our head but don't dare to write. Except he did. Full of code and anagrams and self-references. I have to admire that. I do.
He's still the philosopher king in my head.
A philo-solipsically speaking. (sorry)
Which leaves me stuck with 'I am god, and so are you, and what do you wanna do today?' I guess that is trans-universal pantheistic multi-communal solipsism.
Posts
