Author-Authur wrote a short story 55 years ago - “The Nine Billion Names of God” which has not received as much comment in the various obits which have come out -- as the more famous "Childhood's End" ... which curiously, was written at almost the exact same time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God ... in which story, computer programmers were sent to a remotemonastery in Tibet to help the monks compile alist of all the names of God. The story offers more surprising insight into the kind of "spiritual atheism" which Clarke is suspected of harboring. His was a kind of Buddhist outlook, more so than atheistic. Never mind that in a rewrite of the tale in 2008, any old X-boxes could do the job of figuring our all the permutations of the possible names in about 10 microseconds. That is part of the quaint naiveté of many Sci-Fi stories from the fifties, when looked back in retrospect. Anyway, ACC's story came around long before the X-box was available; and to make the plot work, it was said that once the list was complete the monksbelieved that the pre-ordained cosmic destiny of our planet would be fulfilled; and the "worldwould end." This is somewhat reminiscent of the denouement of "Childhood's End" ... at least in transactional relevance. Take the two plots together, and you have the insight into Clarke's kind of Zen. The reason this came to mind just now, was not only the recnet changes in the night sky - but also a song playing on internet radio as I was stargazing last night, The song was titled "9 million bicycles in Beijing." Isn't the human mind a very strange kind of information processor ? BTW the short story ends with the programmers fleeing the monastery to escape the monks’ disfavor -- since the program finished the task, and the world was still there, but oops... one of them looks up: “Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.” Come to think of it.... without Authur around, the night sky does seem to twinkle less that before. Jones
