Hello, again. It's me, the guy who every six months or so posts a message related to understanding what Neal Stephenson is really saying through his novels.
Usually, I start a thread and go away for several months. I'm quite harmless, despite having a somewhat obsessive nature on this subject. I just think it's odd how many other Stephenson fans miss it. It's as if I was talking to a bunch of people who loved Charles Dickens but failed to notice the social commentary.
The first time I posted on this subject, I was drawing attention to the way "The Diamond Age" seems to portray a future in which true AI turns out to be impossible, as preposterous as that may be. I supported this interpretation with passages from the novel, and left unasked the question of whether or not Stephenson actually believes this.
I can't remember all of the responses (the thread quickly digressed from anything having to do with Stephenson's writings), but I seem to remember a lot of people dismissing it as an oversight or a mere plot device.
Recently, through the new search engine Google (excellent! and I love the way the main page doesn't waste your time with a lot of graphics!), I found a page I'd never found before. It is:
http://www.hotwired.com/talk/club/special/transcripts/95-01-19.stephenson.html
and, yes, it's weird that I never found this one before; it's an interview from 1995.
The page pretty much makes my earlier efforts unnecessary, because in it Stephenson (who is being interviewed) comes right out and says some of the things I thought he was saying through his novels.
For example, on the subject of AI, in response to a question about whether the Primer in "The Diamond Age" could become sentient, he says:
"Depends on what theory of mind you subscribe to. If you are a materialistic monist who believes that the mind is a big digital computer, then the answer is yes. I don't happen to subscribe to that theory myself."
His reference to the term "materialist" in this context strongly implies that he disagrees with scientific materialism, the philosophy that the types of energy and matter dealt with in contemporary physics are all that exists. This sort of anti-materialistic stance is typical of people who disbelieve in AI (regardless of Occam's razor).
Other parts of the interview also reinforced my more recent point about Stephenson's low regard for contemporary American culture. In particular, he comes write out and says that these issues are intentional themes in his writing:
Question to NS: "Your British spooks in The Diamond Age rap on about hypocrisy and moral relativism. Is this just a narrative device or a serious theme you develop?"
NS's answer: "Well, if anything it's the central theme of the book. I'm pretty comfortable with moral relativism myself, as are most people of my generation, but it seems to be destroying the country and so it's hard not to find that thought-provoking."
Let the flaming begin…