Analog of Solaris
by Patrick Zgarrick
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Title
Analog of Solaris
Artist
Patrick Zgarrick
Medium
Painting - Acrylic On Sheetrock
Description
The title refers to the novel, 'Solaris' by Stanislaw Lem.
From the translation (Coryright 1970) by Joanna Kilmartin & Steve Cox:
"Tell me something. Do you believe in God?"
Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction:
"What? Who still believes nowadays..."
"It isn't that simple. I don't mean the traditional God of Earth religion. I'm no expert in the history of religions, and perhaps this is nothing new--do you happen to know if there was ever a belief in an...imperfect god?"
"What do you mean by imperfect?" Snow frowned. "In a way all the gods of the old religions were imperfect, considering that their attributes were amplified human ones. The God of the Old Testament, for instance, required humble submission and sacrifices, and was jealous of other gods. The Greek gods had fits of sulks and family quarrels, and they were just as imperfect as mortals..."
"No," I interrupted. "I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a ...sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems or mechanisms that serve specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and measures his unending defeat."
Snow hesitated, but his attitude no longer showed any of the wary reserve of recent weeks:
"There was Manicheanism..."
"Nothing at all to do with the principle of Good and Evil," I broke in immediately. "This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot..."
Snow pondered for a while:
"I don't know of any religion that answers your description. That kind of religion has never been...necessary. If I understand you, and I'm afraid I do, what you have in mind is an evolving god, who develops in the course of time, grows, and keeps increasing in power, while remaining aware of his powerlessness. For your god, the divine condition is a situation without a goal. And understanding that, he despairs. But isn't this despairing god of yours mankind, Kelvin? It is man you are talking about, and that is a fallacy, not just philosophically but also mystically speaking."
I kept on:
"No, it's nothing to do with man. Man may correspond to my provisional definition from some points of view, but that is because the definition has a lot of gaps. Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve his age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside. If there was only a single human being in existence, he would apparently be able to attempt the experiment of creating his own goals in complete freedom--apparently, because a man not brought up among other human beings cannot become a man. And the being--the being I have in mind--cannot exist in the plural, you see?"
"Oh, then in that case..." He pointed out of the window.
"No, not the ocean either. Somewhere in its development it has probably come close to the divine state, but it turned back into itself too soon. It is more like an anchorite, a hermit of the cosmos, not a god. It repeats itself, Snow, and the being I'm thinking of would never do that. Perhaps he has already been born somewhere, in some corner of the galaxy, and soon he will have some childish enthusiasm that will set him putting out one star and lighting another. We will notice him after a while..."
"We already have," Snow said sarcastically. "Novas and supernovas. According to you they are the candles on his altar.
"If you're going to take what I say literally..."
"And perhaps Solaris is the cradle of your divine child." Snow went on, with a widening grin that increased the number of lines round his eyes. "Solaris could be the first phase of the despairing God. Perhaps its intelligence will grow enormously. All the contents of our Solarist libraries could be just a record of his teething troubles..."
"...and we will have been the baby's toys for a while. It is possible. And do you know what you have just done? You've produced a completely new hypothesis about Solaris--congratulations! Everything suddenly falls into place: the failure to achieve contact, the absence of responses, various...let's say various peculiarities in its behavior towards ourselves. Everything is explicable in terms of the behavior of a small child."
"I renounce paternity of the theory," Snow grunted, standing at the window.
For a long instant, we stood staring out at the dark waves. A long pale patch was coming into view to the east, in the mist obscuring the horizon.
Without taking his eyes off the shimmering waste, Snow asked abruptly:
"What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?"
"I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is."
Image Copyright 2014, Patrick Zgarrick, All Rights Reserved
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September 7th, 2014
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