Talk:Mind (The Culture)

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[edit] List of Mind names

OK... After adding Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival and thinking about adding some more curious ones, I noticed that there had already been a rather lenghty list of Culture's ships' names in the article some time ago; and I also noticed Tarquin's opinion on this... And I do feel alike - I mean that it would be silly to turn "The Culture" into another list... but Culture's ship's names are interesting... So maybe we should make a page listing those... But not in the very article about Culture... Then, the names could become links to information about some of the more important of the ships (like Grey Area or Sleeper Service, Killing Time and other memorable Minds).

Having said this I will now put it into being :)... Hope I will not get cursed at for this... --BlueShade

I certainly think we shouldn't have many (any?) more names on The Culture page, but the few we have are indeed necessary, as they capture something important about the novels. I'm generally not in favour of more "list of xx" articles, but I see no harm in it. On the other hand, we could just as easily like to a (hopefully definative) external source like [1] and leave it at that. --Finlay McWalter 13:12, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I agree with Finlay. We should have a few examples here, but for the full list I recommend we link externally. We don't need to store copies of EVERYTHING here; and furthermore it could be argued that a list of nothing but names invented by Banksie could be copyright. --Tarquin 13:17, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Maybe you are both right... anyway, I have already added the said page- it's now under The Culture - Minds and it indeed contains a list of Culture Minds... Having listened to your arguments- might I suggest that we still have the list here in Wikipedia - although maybe we should limit the list to:
  • the Minds who have some significance in the plots of Banks's Culture novels
  • the names that are funny, interesting or otherwise curious.
How would you relate to such proposal? --BlueShade
Hey, it's cool. There's inevitable confusion between minds and the ships on which they're installed (don't bigger GSVs have three minds?), but I can't think of a decent solution to that. I'm fairly confident that the "Elench" is a splinter faction of the Culture, and I think the same is true for "ulterior". I think (with no evidence to hand) that "eccentric" is a ship that's a one-man faction (that it hasn't formally quit the culture, but that it just flies around doing its own thing, and the culture's laissez-faire attitute permits this). --Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:15, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
You're right about the Elench and Eccentrics, but I'm not sure aobut the Ulterior.. --Sam
Perhaps the ulterior is a faction within the culture, or one that's "semidetached". In either event, I think both they and eccentrics are essentially "part" of the culture, whereas the elench isn't anymore. This stuff should be in The Culture, not in minds in particular (as humanoids and drones are members of each faction, not just minds). --Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:52, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

ok... summing up the above:

  1. I assume you're OK with my idea of putting a limited (important/otherwise interesting) list of Minds/ships here...
  2. About those three-Minded GSVs - wasn't that in ye olde times? When the Minds were not as powerful as they are now (now being The Culture novels' widely perceived "present")...
  3. If you know some better definitions of certain terms - wouldn't it be better to just include them in the article? (my explanations of some of them sure aren't the best possible...)

regards, --Blueshade 00:21, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

In Excession (which, taking place 500 years after the Iridian War, I figure is actually one of the later - chronologically speaking - novels) The Wisdom Like Silence describes itself as acting in "multiple mode" explained as the three-mind grouping so I think that ir is a modern thing too. Logically if one mind is good for a GCU, three of them sounds fine for a GSV. --MrWeeble 21:27, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)
In Excession there is also mention of the GSV Sleeper Service having been a three-Mind grouping previously. I added quite a few bits to the article, including a reference to multiple Mind groupings - if I made any errors, feel free to stomp 'em. --Suitov 11:33, 7 May 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Identity of ships and Minds

In the article it is mentioned that the identification of a Mind with the ship/orbital of which it is the Mind leads to "an interesting take on dualism". This is incorrect. Dualism is a positions that puts mind and matter in different ontological categories. This is not suggested by the example. The Mind and the ship/orbiatal are fundamentally the same kind of thing: this is a robustly physical universe. At most what is suggested is a commitment to temporary or contingent identity: the Mind is the ship, but it might not have been, and if it is transferred it won't be. But a far more reasonable interpretation is simply that when the Culture citizens identify the Mind with the ship they mean partial identity as opposed to strict identity. I.e. that the Mind is part of the ship. I recommend that the reference to dualism be deleted. --RossCameron 17 Nov 2004

So I gather that the policy is to make the changes and let people put it back if it's thought wrong? In which case I made the change that I recommended above. If I'm doing this wrong, let me know.


[edit] Moral of Minds

Does my paragraph on occasional morally interesting decisions my Minds seem on the money? --Evercat 4 July 2005 17:51 (UTC)

E'en so. --Maru (talk) Contribs 23:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] True Eccentric?

I question the use of the Sleeper Service as an example of an eccentric mind. At the end of the novel the Sleeper admits to being a Culture agent, a deniable weapon of sorts.

I think it's still a good example- very few eccentrics are protrayed, and it acts like an eccentric, so in lieu of a better example... --Maru (talk) Contribs 18:04, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Classes

Was there not summat about gaangster class of ships in Excession (scope_creep 17:38, 4 August 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Reworked

As for now doing the merges I had proposed some time ago:

Sorry for anybody trying to follow my dozens of steps getting there. Everything should be retained, though it may have moved within the various Culture articles as I try to focus the articles and avoid unneccessary duplication. Still not done, but maybe so for the moment. MadMaxDog 05:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Merge work - 'lost' ship names

While merging, I have found a ship name which does not appear in the List of Culture ships yet, but I cannot enter it as I do not know which book it is from, or what its details are. Its Heavy Messing. Vandalism, or oversight? MadMaxDog 01:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)