I stumbled onto this thread via reading critiques of Heinlein’s work. This Google listing looked interesting, I clicked on it and here I am, a “guest” and probationary member. Howdy, everyone.
“Gulf” was mentioned in passing as a prequel to Friday, admittedly a much more exciting and interesting work; one of Heinlein’s first after undergoing neurosurgery. May I offer some insight and perhaps dispel a misconception or two?
First, Heinlein’s statement about language was a paraphrase of Korzybski’s research which showed that thinking is performed symbolically, not necessarily in language. Language is *one *way of thinking symbolically, but not the *only *way. When we presume that we think in non-linguistic terms, we are still thinking by using symbols of one kind or another. It need not be in language, although I feel sure that if Chronos were to examine *how *he thinks, he might recognized that he still uses symbols of one sort or another, even if they are unique to him.
Second, in Friday, Dr. Baldwin clearly states that he remained on Earth while the rest of his “self-styled supermen” moved to Olympia because he was, for “sentimental” reasons, fighting a rear-guard action, possibly against the greed and predatory behavior of humans upon other humans. Also, the briefly-described background may have something to do with his decision. We know that there has been a limited nuclear exchange because Seattle no longer exists and Baldwin ensures that Friday’s forged birth records indicate that she was born there. In addition, Baldwin notes that he was sent to a high-security prison for some years, making it impossible for him to contact Friday before she left the orphanage and went on to learn “doxology.” (I presume that’s an academic description of “Hooker101”) Last, the United States has become thoroughly balkanized (a favorite subject of RAH’s), some regions of which are quite fascist and totalitarian; the Chicago Imperium, for example.
By these points, we may presume that Baldwin had many reasons to stay on Earth. Perhaps the failure of his secret group to prevent the war or the fragmentation of the United States resulted in a massive sense of guilt. In “Gulf,” it’s evident that he feels responsibility toward the human species.
My analysis: he was married, but never had children. Friday is an Artificial Person (another one of Heinlein’s techniques to demonstrate our species’ xenophobia), a combination of many different human genotypes, including Baldwin’s and his wife Emma’s. (Also Joe and Gail Greene’s, although much of theirs was rendered unusable due to various mutations) He stayed on Earth because he had a daughter that he could *not *abandon. So he found her, recruited her, trained her in the best possible way to survive (a combat courier is a *very *tough individual) and, knowing that his task was finally done, allowed himself to die. I suspect Heinlein used himself as a model for Baldwin, as do many other Heinlein aficianados.
As for the possibility that a single phoneme can be used to indicate a complete word/symbol, that *is *quite possible, although out of the realm of practicality, at least in terms of our current science of linguistics. See Shannon’s work on complexity of language. However, I disagree with some of Shannon’s analysis, notably his conclusions that dolphin language is much less complex than human speech. I note that dolphin speech occurs on a frequency curve that is a hundred thousand times more extensive than human hearing. Audio frequencies are measured on a logarithmic scale. Shannon’s analysis uses an arithmetical scale and does not take into account enough models of data compression. I suspect Speedtalk is already in use by at least one of the other four sentient species that inhabit this planet.
There is my analysis. *Friday *is really a very good book, although certainly not Heinlein’s best. Another interesting thread would be to discuss what might be Heinlein’s best work, either long or short form and why.
I believe the Grandmaster would be pleased.
PS: The teaching terminal that Friday uses in satisfying the “elephant’s child” of insatiable curiosity and the search engine she uses to bounce around from subject to subject exactly prefigures today’s Internet and Google search engine; oddly enough, the way I found this forum and the way *all *of us find the information we need to know these days. The Grandmaster invented many things: waldoes, the water bed, mass-drivers (Yes, I know, Eugene O’Neill is given credit for it. He got it from Heinlein, who was too polite to challenge a respected scientist) and the first detailed description of a search engine on a decentralized information network. Had he patented those things, he would have indeed been “the Man Who Sold the Moon” and everyone in the world would know his name. As it is, he just wrote about them and others built them according to specifications.
