the excerpt mill

ELLESMERELAND I

Explorers say that harebells rise
from the cracks of Ellesmereland
and cod swim fat beneath the ice
that grinds its meagre sands
No man is settled on that coast
The harebells are alone
Nor is there talk of making man
from ice cod bell or stone

1952

ELLESMERELAND II

And now in Ellesmereland there sits
a town of twenty men
They guard the floes that reach to the Pole
a hundred leagues and ten
These warders watch the sky watch them
the stricken hills eye both
A mountie visits twice a year
and there is talk of growth

1965

A prince, therefore, being compelled knowingly to adopt the beast, ought to choose the fox and the lion; because the lion cannot defend himself against snares and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves.

Nicolo Machiavellli, The Prince

The best I can do to make sense of Lewis’s story is to liken it to Daniel Dennett’s predicament at a certain point in his marvelous memoir, “Where am I?” (Dennett (1978)). In Dennett’s tale, a body, Fortinbras, is connected remotely to two functionally identical brains, Hubert and Yorick (one electronic and one a human brain that is floating in the proverbial vat). Both brains receive the same perceptual input from Fortinbras, by way of radio signals, though only one of them at a time is able to control him. But since the brains are perfectly synchronized, Fortinbras does what both of his potential controllers simultaneously decide that he shall do, and so it seems to each subject that its decisions are efficacious. Hubert and Yorick are each ignorant of which is controlling Fortinbras (and also of which is the human brain, and which the electronic one). Now suppose we modify Dennett’s story by saying that both synchronized brains are under the illusion that they are controlling two bodies, one on the tallest mountain, and one on the coldest mountain, while in fact one brain is controlling just one of the bodies, and the other the other. Put each brain into the head of the body controlled by that brain. Instead of remote radio connections to send the same perceptual inputs to two brains, we assume that each has divine perceptual capacities to see everything at once, from no particular perspective. Both gods decide both to throw down manna from the tallest mountain and to throw down thunderbolts from the coldest mountain. Each god knows that one of his decisions is efficacious, while the other is causally inert, but neither knows which is which.

(Stalnaker)