Erik's Reviews > Anathem

Just to come right out with it, this is probably my favorite book. It made me feel homesick for a home that exists only in the imagination.

It’s about philosopher-mathematician-scientist monks. It’s about Plato’s allegory of the cave and his world of forms. It’s about the power of ritual. It’s about the conflict between dogma and skepticism. It’s about the love affair between human beings and ideas. It’s about the beauty of the human mind, unchained from economic bondage.

If you’ve read any of my reviews, it should be clear why this appeals to me. Philosopher-scientist-mathematician monk? Yeah that’s everything I aspire to be. If a daemon appeared before me and offered me the chance to be reborn within the world of Anathem, to become a mathematician-monk within the Mathic world, I would take it without hesitation.

I love to explore the works of philosophers, scientists, and artists - because these are people whose thoughts have escaped the drudgery of the economic present. Like everyone else, they must abide by this economic reality, this need to dwell in a daily mundanity, to fulfill animalistic needs for shelter, food, and community. But their minds manage, on occasion, to pierce that veil and transcend into higher realms. They can see worlds that do not exist but could exist, if time or physics or color or geometry or genetics were different.

As the Buddha wrote, life is dissatisfying. I sometimes liken it to a fog of darkness which can feel impossible to understand or navigate. Well these philosophers and scientists and artists create works that serve as beacons of light that grant both clarity and warmth. Or as the character Orolo advises: “Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.”

And while Anathem has a fun sci-fi (though better to call it phi-fi) plot, the surface narrative is ultimately only a staging ground from which to explore larger, grander questions. How do philosophers and scientists and artists come up with their ideas? What differentiates a good idea from a bad one? How can we tell? What is the ideal world or system in which to cultivate such thoughts and thinkers? What is the thinkers’/scientists’/artists’ relationship, both their responsibility and their expected recompense, with the unreflective majority? Is the point of existence corporeal or cognitive?

Roughly mid-way through Anathem, the protagonist Erasmus has an epiphany that I believe serves as the keystone for the entire novel. In a discussion with his extramuros (i.e. not one belonging to the mathic world) sister, he talks about how much more advanced their basic machines could be, if the mathic world were allowed to improve them.

His sister counters that she wouldn’t like that… because the machines would be too advanced for her to understand. From this, Erasmus has a major epiphany - he generalizes their discussion to the pursuit and communication of ALL knowledge. He asks himself in despair, “What is the point of pursuing and gaining complicated knowledge if no one else will be unable to understand or appreciate it?”

In considering that question, avoid any temptations to consider the technological/economic applications of knowledge. For example, suppose we were considering building a solar system sized particle accelerator to gain better knowledge about the quantum world - knowledge that, by the way, only the 0.00001% of humanity with the necessary mathematical background will actually grasp. However, suppose we were somehow absolutely certain it wouldn't help us advance our technology or economy one bit. Should we undertake such an endeavor?

That question and the ways in which we might think about answering it is basically what Anathem is all about. As is my life's pursuit.