The Subtle Knife discussion

I thought I had a good idea what Dust was until I came across a section around page 248 involving Mary Malone. On this page she was talking to the "Shadows" through her machine, and they told her that they were angels. Since Shadows and Dust are the same thing, it doesn't make sense to me that they would be angels?
What are other people's thoughts?

(Contains Spoilers) (and maybe some grammar errors)
I think it makes sense, if you see dust and also the angels as a metaphor, that's what I did when reading His Dark Materials.
I just finished the trilogy and the ending made this thought even more reasonable. It's said that Will and Lyra have to help humanity to become more cheerful, friendly, hungry for knowledge, brave and patient. We have to learn, think and work hard for the dust to stay and grow, which leads to an even better existence (I would quote it but I read it in German and translating is hard. - it's on the last page).

Thinking about when dust came to exist (when creatures got consciousness), it may exist (1) BECAUSE consciousness or (2) is the reason FOR consciousness - which lead me to thinking that dust may be the meaning of life (which is the list above).
But this may be too much of an interpretation:D

I do agree with your interpretation, I also thought that :) What confused me was just the name "Angel" given by Dust, because there are a group of Angel characters who are presumably not the Angels that Dust is talking about?

Perhaps the dust was just rushing to get Mary Malone finally moving and for that it used a word that Mary was familiar with. It's not like they meant the "actual angels", like Metatron or Baruch, because Mary had no idea that angels actually exist like that.
Dust reminds me in many ways of pantheism "dust is everything and everything is dust". Maybe there aren't names for dust, that would fit it well and names like dust, angels, shadows (...) were just attempts to describe the indescribable.

(Just talked to a friend, she thinks the same and she added that dust is improvement - because the antagonist of the dust was the church, which wanted to stop every advance.)

I think dust is sort of the semi-conscious ONE thing that everything is. You gather dust as you age because it's attracted to the experience of living because it is life. And the part where the dying turn into dust makes it like a sort of reincarnation but not in the sense that you, or your soul or whatever, the same personality and things, return to life, but that you go into the one consciousness and then are reborn into the living as they gain experience and advancement. That's sort of how I read it anyway.

It's clearly meant to be interpreted, but I didn't think dust actually was angels literally. I found it interesting that dust could communicate at all given how I interpreted it. Like the one mind definitely seemed to have an agenda when talking to Mary, but the fact that the church could get equally honest answers out of the alethiometer made it seem like dust would just talk to anyone who paid attention to it. So it's weird. If dust is advancement and improvement, why would it help the opposition of those things?

That makes me think it doesn't necessarily have an agenda, it just is the stuff of life and it likes experiencing life and being acknowledged. Since there are obvious biblical allusions in the books (even though the series definitely seemed anti organized religion) I think of that part of the bible where John is describing the beginning of the universe (First there was the word) to me that's saying there was nothing, then that nothing recognized itself and then everything else happened from that. Also, this line from the Rig Veda also describing the beginning of universe, "Then even nothingness was not, nor existence...In the beginning desire descended on it, that was the primal seed, born of the mind." Both of those to me talk about nothingness recognizing itself and that bringing about a desire to also be known so possibly creating the things to know it. To me that sort of defines dust. It's the essence of whatever *is* wanting to be known, which is only possible by experience and seeking knowledge... thus being attracted to people who are in the place of life where that begins to happen. That's why daemons don't settle at 12 or 13 or some specific age, but when that particular person has matured.

Blue wrote: "I think dust is sort of the semi-conscious ONE thing that everything is. You gather dust as you age because it's attracted to the experience of living because it is life. And the part where the dyi..."

I love your answer.

I spent a lot of time since writing that reply considering a couple of aspects of the books specifically in relation to my interpretation of dust.

The question I started with was, if dust is a sort of pantheistic consciousness, why is it more attracted to adults and not attracted to children and why did Lyra almost instantly lose her ability to read the alethiometer? Here are some of the things I considered in trying to answer these questions, which may be even more esoteric than even my original reply here lol.

So.. here are a few things that informed my thinking...several of which make a logically consistent theory of dust difficult in my view.

The beings in purgatory are not 'souls' as they are, I think, commonly considered in this mythology. Daemons are like souls and Pan must be left behind to enter and none of the characters from Lyra's world have their souls with them in purgatory and Will definitely makes it seem like the part of him that has gone missing is his soul. They sort of define it as the thing that makes them feel alive, as the longer they are there.. both Lyra and Will and all the other beings, seem to be less like the living and more 'zombie-ish' and lacking any motivation or ambition or will to thrive or even remember who they were in life.

Now, when those beings leave purgatory they evaporate into dust... and we know that daemons evaporate into dust when people from Lyra's world are killed because of the way the evaporation is described and specifically because Lee Scoresby says when he leaves purgatory his atoms will be rejoined with Hester's. He might be speculating about that, but given the rest of the information we have regarding what happens to the daemon of the deceased, it seems right to me. The series seems to make it evident that all other world's have a similar system for 'souls', even if you can't see them as you can see the daemon 'souls' in Lyra's world.

So what bit of a person in this mythology is 'them' but not their soul and not their physical body (since Lyra can't hug Roger or Scoresby, they are like ghosts with no solid form, and we know the crazy end Scoresby's physical body met)? If the daemons are pure dust, the soul *is* dust. (does that sound consistent so far?) That makes it seem like dust is in everyone (or, in Lyra's world, an integral part of them) that makes one have the will to live and thrive.

This is where I lose the thread of it all though. Dust is attracted to adults much much more than children. If my original statement is true that dust is just an agenda-less consciousness that is everywhere and just wants to be known, why the difference between adults and children? If it only wants to be known, why does it stop communicating with Lyra?

It almost seems like.. children *are* dust somehow. It's easy for Lyra to read the aletheiometer because she is still part of that one thing that is everything, but once a person has reached so-called maturity, they suddenly have ego. I think the ego is the crux here. Buddhists think ego separates humans from Nirvana because you can't be part of everything if you are still *you*. So, growing up gives you an ego that parts you from dust and ever-after the dust seeks to bring you back into the fold. The older you get, for most, the less ego you have because the more you learn the more you realize how little you know (that's a paraphrase of a quote from someone famous I can't recall right now). So dust feels your ego letting go and gets attracted to the possibility of bringing you back into the one-ness.

So, basically, my conclusion was that children are still so close to being one with the universe that the dark matter part of dust, the bits that aren't formed into something currently tangible in the way we measure mass and light and all those things, doesn't feel a compulsion towards children because they are already 'in the fold' so to speak. Adults (and young adults) develop an ego that separates them from that fold.

Phew, that was a lot, lol. Anyone have thoughts on this? I've clearly thought about it way too much, but I'd love to read other ideas and see what people think about mine.

Also, in case you can't tell, I talked myself into this conclusion as I wrote it, lol. It's fitting together to me though.. the thing in purgatory that isn't your soul or your physical body is your ego. Kids still do have one even as infants because they feel physical sensation and know 'me' and 'not me', so they still go to purgatory, it's just not as developed as adults so not as strong a draw to dark-matter dust.

Also, it works with the new framework of purgatory, that once you've told your story, your tale of what made up "you", you're free to let your ego go and return to being dust. I like it as a theory, I hope someone will gab about it with me. I clearly have a lot to say.

Philip Pullman interview on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N6vz...