Pullman's question to us.

[eggnostic]

This is directly quoted from the lantern slides in the amber spyglass:

"In Lyra's world, daemons; in the world of the mulefa, the oil-bearing wheels- both ways of making the workings of Dust apparent. In our world, what?"

...well?

[Trystobefunny]

Hard question to answer. The only conclusion I can pull from the question is "nothing". That would explain why our world is coming apart at the edges. Nothing is constant, nothing is truth. In my opinion our world is in a mental slump. People are zombies now. We sit home after working a job we hate, to watch TV all day, and buy useless material goods that we don’t need. Not everyone but most. There is no great exploration in our world. People are so set in their ways when it comes to religion, their views on science, and the world we live in. I’m sure there are many people out there that do not fit into this category but I would say that most people in this world would. And yet we live in a world that is always renouncing their beliefs almost instantly after there questioned about it. Maybe this makes no sense to anyone but that is my answer…Nothing.

[eggnostic]

writing, art.

Do not forget, ours is the world where the book was written. Our creative spirit is what reveals dust to us, our soul.

[Trystobefunny]

writing, art.

Do not forget, ours is the world where the book was written. Our creative spirit is what reveals dust to us, our soul.

I think he was asking a more specific question. In the other worlds I'm sure there was art and obviously literature. I’m not saying it’s a bad answer but the examples he gave were of the things specific to that world.

[barnabat]

Hmm... trusty companions we never go far without and rely on, day-to-day?

Mobile telephones. ^^

[WBA_premiership]

Hard question to answer. The only conclusion I can pull from the question is "nothing". That would explain why our world is coming apart at the edges. Nothing is constant, nothing is truth. In my opinion our world is in a mental slump. People are zombies now. We sit home after working a job we hate, to watch TV all day, and buy useless material goods that we don’t need. Not everyone but most. There is no great exploration in our world. People are so set in their ways when it comes to religion, their views on science, and the world we live in. I’m sure there are many people out there that do not fit into this category but I would say that most people in this world would. And yet we live in a world that is always renouncing their beliefs almost instantly after there questioned about it. Maybe this makes no sense to anyone but that is my answer…Nothing.

That would make sense since the other world with no obvious thing, Cittagazze is also coming apart, they are even worse than us.

[eggnostic]

How dreadfully pessimistic, I stand by my answer.

[Trystobefunny]

How dreadfully pessimistic, I stand by my answer.

Theres bound to be art and books in all the worlds....so I stand by my awnser.

[Pausert]

How dreadfully pessimistic, I stand by my answer.

Theres bound to be art and books in all the worlds....so I stand by my awnser.

What about worlds in which a holocaust wiped out all sentient beings? Also, in this world they're needn't be a physical representation of Dust onset. This would be similiar to how people in "our"/Will's world have they're daemons inside them. (Yes, Marry could see hers. This doesn't mean that it was always a separate entity from herself. Except Skadi, I think, said that she could see others daemons eventually. Does this mean in Wil's world daemons aren't really inside their corresponding human?)

[Trystobefunny]

^^^^^ That’s what it would seem to mean. Like a guardian angel or something.

[moyeongsu]

This is most definitely not what Pullman had in mind, but I'd like to throw it out there: Sports.

I think it would be near impossible for anyone to perform sports in Lyra's world because a daemon would be rather inconvenient on a field or trying to run a marathon. Also, there is no mention of any sport in any world...probably because Pullman is no athlete and it really has no place in the books. But still, I can't help but think that many people in our world use sports to define themselves and we put a big amount of emphasis on football games and other big sporting events.

I want to justify this thought by saying that sports utilize the spirit and the body to accomplish difficult tasks. This, to me, is very close to some of the themes in HDM. I think this might be the way we connect with Dust.

[aklebury]

I think it would be near impossible for anyone to perform sports in Lyra's world because a dæmon would be rather inconvenient on a field or trying to run a marathon. ...

But what about how useful the children's daemon's at Bolvangar were during the snowfight. Not quite the same thing as sports I realise, but you can see that in many occasions they would help rather than hinder. Also presumably sports in LW would be totally different to sports in ours as they would have been formed with daemons in mind.

[DNA]

Based on what I've read about Pullman, I think he would try to answer his own question by looking at his own books, and seeing if they had an answer. And in The Subtle Knife, there is a potential answer: Mary's lab's experiments.

Those aren't clearly articulated, but maybe in our world, the way we'll eventually see Dust (assuming it exists) is with something like quantum computing. In fact (although I don't know that I necessarily agree) there are scientists who theorize that the origin of the "soul" of a person comes from quantum mechanical interactions in the brain: that the "mechanics" of the brain create our mind, but something beyond the purely mechanical generates self-awareness, and "the soul." These people hypothesize that no mechanical computer will ever replicate what humans have, until they replicate this (currently unknown and unspecified) quantum aspect of human brains.

Our world seems to be much more technologically focused than Lyra's world, and certainly the Mulefa's world. So maybe its technology that will be our gateway to Dust. Maybe Lyra's world got their view of Dust automatically, and for free, and the Mulefa got theirs evolutionarily, but we'll take longer to get there technologically. Who knows what technology will allow us to do, and what it will allow us to see, in fifty years, or a hundred, or a thousand?

It may seem clunky, and even sad, to think that we'll need technology to get what Lyra's people get with daemons, and the Mulefa get with just a little oil, but every world is different, and there's no reason to think that (high) technology is a worse way than seed-wheels and oil.

So maybe the correct answer is: nothing, yet.

[eggnostic]

daemons, Mulefa, Oil-Bearing wheels: these are all inventions of the human mind. Abstract representations used to explain a complex concept. As I said, our creative spirit (aka soul), created these ideas to reveal Dust to us, but perhaps I should elaborate. Dust its self is this an invention of this creative spirit. Or is the creative spirit an invention of Dust? In a sense all of the ways Pullman invented of making Dust apparent in his novels, these things don't belong to Lyra's world. They don't belong to the Mulefa's world. They belong to ours. To Phillip Pullmans.

Any way in which you express yourself is how you reveal Dust. Be that sports, religion, science creating art, experiencing art, or being in love. The only true wrong answer to the question is that there is no answer.

[daemonpurra]

well the daemons and the wheels are their "souls" so figure out what your soul is and you got it

[Imagine]

This is directly quoted from the lantern slides in the amber spyglass:

"In Lyra's world, daemons; in the world of the mulefa, the oil-bearing wheels- both ways of making the workings of Dust apparent. In our world, what?"

...well?

It should be remembered that this was fiction. Let's not treat this as a holy book.