T.
Liam Vederman (Boston, MA)
The
Arcane Science
Lately I have been thinking about meaning. What does our work in the software industry mean in a moral sense? Does it have any meaning or is it simply a technical function that can be applied to either good or evil ends.
I have also been thinking about whether fiction writing really means anything anymore. With destruction and fear are so close can you still read made-up stories? Many people cannot. They watch TV news for hours and check news web sites every twenty minutes but have no interest in fictionalized drama because it doesn't have any weight anymore.
Some people think that at times like these the only fiction that will work is Harry Potter type escapism, something whose entire purpose is to distract the reader from reality. I still believe, however, that fiction can deal with the real world, in both its beautiful and ugly aspects, without being either inappropriately lighthearted or one dimensionally depressing. To do this, though, an author has to be much more skilled and rigorous than the average writer. He has to be a historian and technical researcher as well as an observer of human emotion.
One author who is able to do this is Neal Stephenson, the author of the novel Cryptonomicon. The plot of the book is very complex, involving technology start-ups in the late 1990's, soldiers in WWII, and buried treasure. Therefore rather than present a confusing synopsis of the plot I will simply discuss the aspects of the book I liked.
The arcane science of cryptology (from the Greek kryptos, "hidden," and logos, "word") is the methods of secret communication and cryptanalysis is its application. The title, Cryptonomicon, refers to a book containing all the knowledge that WWII code breakers had about breaking enemy codes. Codes and code breaking is a challenging subject for a novel because many people assume that it is dry and difficult. Stephenson knows however that code breaking is a way of revealing secret knowledge thereby granting power. Power and what people do with it is a fertile topic for literature.
In ancient times military intelligence included trying to capture couriers that carried messages between enemy armies and interrogating them. Once orders started to be transmitted electrically people started trying to capture them via other means. Telephones and telegraphs were tapped. Since radio messages could be listened to by anyone they had to be encoded giving incentive to decode them.
The connection between the two main story lines, the one set in the late 1990's and the one set in WWII, is cryptology and its offshoot, computer technology. Computers were originally developed to assist code breakers to cycle through all the numerous combinations of letters until they found the key for the encrypted message. As was the case with other technologies, wartime provided the incentive for rapid advances in the state of the art. It is no accident that the word for a hidden message and instructions given to a computer is the same.
Stephenson combines colorful adventures and technology right from the beginning of the book where Corporal Bobby Shaftoe is trying to drive a truck through a crowed Shanghai street in 1941. The fact that the crowds of people are slowing down the truck's progress naturally leads to the question of why are they crowded, the answer being that Friday afternoon is when the local banks settle accounts with each other. Couriers are needed to travel from bank to bank to exchange each other's notes thereby causing the congestion. Stephenson is such a lively writer that the explanation is not a dry dissertation but a revelation of a piece of secret knowledge that underlies the fabric of a society.
These digressions into the technology and culture of the society do not slow down the story but rather give the story weight and meaning. They indicate that the story is not solely a product of the writer's imagination but is grounded in reality. Although Stephenson satirizes popular culture and people's mannerisms by describing them in a slightly exaggerated surreal way, the underpinnings of his world are realistic.
Stephenson describes characters making intellectual jumps. One character remembers seeing the innards of a church pipe organ for the first time and being told how it works. "Now he had learned that a machine, simple in its design, could produce results of infinite complexity." He later learns that ath is the cosmic skeleton that once you find allows one to know everything about it and manipulate it though calculations on a piece of paper.
The concerns of the characters in 1990's story line, making money, seem trivial compared to those of the WWII era characters, staying alive. Back in the 1990's other people had felt that their lives were lightweight hence the nostalgia for the "Greatest Generation" etc. Today, however, we are back at war so that is no longer a concern. Rather than just watching the stock market, we feel the great currents of history pulling us for good or for ill.
Cryptanalysis is what binds the characters together. The WWII era characters are either engaged directly in performing cryptanalysis or taking part in related military intelligence. The 1990's characters are descendants of the WWII individuals and use cryptanalysis to keep business secrets or to discover hidden treasures. Stephenson's description of how cryptanalysis was used in WWII and today is based on fact.
If Stephenson's description of cryptanalysis is based on fact why didn't he just write a historical tract? A novel is more entertaining can make the reader experience the events more vividly, as if he imagined he was there. It also allows room for some philosophical speculation that cannot be put in a normal history, because it cannot be proven, but can be put forth by a fiction writer as being logically consistent with the imagined world he has created. Stephenson's philosophical speculations carry more weight than most writers because of the rigor he has used on the rest of the book.
And what are Stephenson's conclusions about the world? The world is a cruel place especially during wartime. There are certain immutable laws of the universe. These laws are not concerned with human feelings; they are not fair. They are available for use, however, by those who make the effort to discover them. These laws include mathematics, which is the basis for cryptanalysis.
And what moral dimension does mathematics and science in general have? The moral dimension comes from the conflict between two worldviews. One is the rational, scientific, experimental approach that attempts to find new knowledge in the world. Another is the irrational or spiritual view is one that assumes that all the important knowledge about the world has already been discovered.
It is too simplistic to say that the United States is on the rational side and Islamic terrorists are on the irrational side. Science and technology have caused many evils such as in the case of Nazi Germany. Stephenson's conclusion, however, is that searching for knowledge, trying to crack the code of the universe, is, on the whole, a morally good pursuit. I think that Cryptonomicon is a great book both because of its conclusion, which validates my work, and because of Stephenson's ambition and rigor which demonstrates how meaningful both emotionally and intellectually fiction can still be.