SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

This word obviously has such a variety of meanings and interpretations throughout this book. I don't know exactly what I want to talk about here, but I wanted to open up a discussion of this powerful word. For those of you who didn't catch it, the closest literal definition in English is "to drink", and as I continue think of it, that makes sense throughout the variety of meanings. You drink in understanding, drinking in emotion, drink in experience.

Grok means specifically to drink.
To grok is to drink or to partake in the experience.

It is a step beyond understanding almost to the point of becoming. To not just take a walk in anothers shoes but to become the shoes and the feet that are wearing them.

To drink
To consume
To know completely and utterly

Should we take it that there is an connection with grokkle (wandering fool, often used as a term of scorn to describe holidaymakers) and grok?

Grok sounds like grog.

Best wishes
Rowena Cherry

Quoted directly from the (uncut) version of Stranger:

"'Grok' means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the process being observed--to merge, to blend, to intermarry, to lose personal identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science--and it means as little to us as color means to a blind man...if I chopped you up and made a stew of you, you and the stew, whatever else was in it, would grok--and when I ate you, we would grok together and nothing would be lost and it would not matter which one of us did the chopping up and eating."

M.d.: Based on that quote (and others like it), I've long thought that 'to Grok' means 'to destroy'.

When an observer becomes part of the process, they cease to be an observer and their status as an observer and generally speaking their ability to understand the process as a whole is lost. You lose the ability to see the forest because of all the trees.

So, Mike says it means 'to understand', but really it means 'to not understand'.

Likewise, when we merge with anything to the extent that are personal identity is lost, then we've ceased to even understand ourself much less the group. Again, mike says it means to gain knowledge, but really it means to lose it.

If I chopped you up and made a stew of you, everything that made you, everything that is important about you, would cease to be available to me and would be gone and you'd cease to be in the world. You might be elsewhere (a materialist would say that you wouldn't), but you wouldn't be in the stew because you aren't a stew and if my only experience of you is as a stew I know nothing about you. I might grok you, but I certainly wouldn't know you. So Grok means 'not knowing', and not 'knowing'.

To put it in Christian terms, you can eat of His Body and drink of His Blood, but if you don't know Christ then its just bread and wine. He's not in it unless you know Him a priori.

The real problem with 'Grok' as a concept is that it seems to think that the only way to get to know something is to destroy it. There is a basic blindness to a culture that has the same word for 'to eat', 'to drink', 'to consume' and also the same word for 'to know'. I was always struck reading the novel that Mike says that in order to destroy something (like the men and the ships with their guns) he had to Grok it. But did he really? Did he really Grok them to the point where he understood them. Could he really say that he had com-pati with them, suffering together and feeling together with them? I don't think so, nor did I ever feel so.

This is the sort of blindness that Gandalf warned against when he said, "He who destroys a thing in order to understand it has left the path of wisdom." He's not talking about smashing particles to see what's inside, he's talking about losing the sense that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You aren't really just a big mass of chemicals fighting off enthropy at a local level. Whether materialist or not, we ought to recognize that you have emergent properties that cannot be guessed at simply by taking you apart or consuming you.

From there we a glimpse at the underlying depravity of the Martian culture, and with it the cult that Mike introduces.

Matt, you've mentioned this before & I think it's an interesting take on the idea. I get what you're saying about the observer. It's a basic human scientific premise. I think it's wrong, though. Mike groks lots of things without destroying them & isn't a scientist. I don't recall any reference to Martian scientists. They experience & share that experience through their telepathy. They're not practicing science, as I understand it.

I don't believe the Martians believed in 'destruction' as we'd think of it, either. When Mike 'destroys' men & machines, he rotates them out of our space, so they no longer exist here. They're simply inaccessible to our space & time by him or the other characters. Doesn't Mike say he doesn't know how to get them back, but that an Old One either could or might be able to? Nothing is destroyed, only changes states. That's cutting it too fine for me, but I've never seen an Old One nor am I convinced of an after-life.

I'll second what Bunny said about their cannibalism. The spirit is there, so eating the body is just another part of celebrating with & understanding the person who departed the corporeal life. It doesn't seem much different to me than the ritual cannibalism some Christians do - makes a little more sense, actually. No proxy involved; more personal & gross.

Thanks for the quote from Gandalf. It was a good chuckle. I disagree, though. There are times when destruction is the only way to learn about something. It's pretty tough to see how good a fire a type of wood will make unless you burn some first.

I think that both ways of learning are needed. When we experience things for ourself then it tends to be more real to us and tends to impact us more than mere observation can. At the same time when we get involved we also tend to lose any sense of objectivity. We allow our emotion to shadow any observations we make.
We are neither cold unfeeling machine nor are we unreasoning beasts moved solely by our desires/wants.
Having said that it does seem like people tend to lean to one extreme or another. My eldest brother was the sort that needed to go out and make mistakes on his own. If he hadn't experienced it himself then it wasn't real to him. My other brothers and I were more than content to sit back and see the results of his actions. I'm glad that I didn't have to go through those things on my own and have the scars from them, but I also don't have the empathy that my brother does.

Hmmm... I'm clearly going to have to write a longer essay in order to be understood.

I anticipated most of the complaints and misunderstandings, but as they stand they are just single sentenses capturing larger thoughts.

Very briefly, I'm not denying that some knowledge is experiential. There is a difference between knowing what blue is and experiencing the blueness of something. I'm saying that Mike specifically and exclusively describes the process of gaining in terms of losing. So the process of observing is described in terms of losing the power to observe, the process of gaining empathy is described in terms of losing self identity, the process of knowing is described in terms of consuming, and so forth.

I'm not the one advocating a single method of experiencing the universe. I'm not the one arguing that grinding up the universe and eating it is sufficient for total understanding. Mike doesn't just assert that the whole isn't greater than the sum of its parts, but that each of its parts is as great as the whole. You can only believe that Mike's assertion is true if you believe that its always possible to know the totality of something from the smallest peice of it. That not only doesn't match our experience of the universe (information is not conserved) but doesn't even seem to be the case within the framework of the text. It is asserted as true, but I'm not sure we can trust the narrator. The 'enlightened' martians afterall were planning to destroy the Earth, which they surely didn't 'grok' before they planned to do so. And the 'enlightened' cult seems equally blind to the destructive outcome of its own philosophies.

Matt, I don't get that. You wrote, "I'm saying that Mike specifically and exclusively describes the process of gaining in terms of losing."

I don't recall that at all. He groks someone when he shares water or makes love to them as well as eating them after they die - no?

You wrote, "The 'enlightened' martians afterall were planning to destroy the Earth, which they surely didn't 'grok' before they planned to do so."

Actually, it was thought likely that they would, wasn't it?

You wrote, "It is asserted as true, but I'm not sure we can trust the narrator."

Why not? I don't think Heinlein did subtle. I think he said what he meant.

What makes the true meaning of the term 'grok' so difficult to pin down is the changing context with which it is used in casual conversation in the story ... sorta like 'yeah man, I dig ...' In other words it is an overloaded term with more then one definition where examples of its use are not really consistent with the specific definition provided by Mike.

As to the formal definition provided ... I agree with Matt on this in that to truly grok something you must become part of it ... your essence and that of which your are experiencing must merge (which mandates change or destruction of your old frame in favor of a new frame). When I truly grok 'blue' ... blue must also grok me otherwise I am using the term incorrectly.

A counter point to this ... and IMHO not one intended by Heinlein, is that context undermines the whole 'Thou Art G-d' mantra (note he never said thou art A god ... he used the singular here which implies that we are all simply mirrors reflecting the essence of G-d). If we are all in fact simply one essence, there is nothing really TO grok.

"Matt while its possible I suppose that Jim and I are complaining and misunderstanding, isn't it also possible that we simply disagree with you?"

Sure, but when you disagree with me on the basis of things I don't mean, then it's likely than I'm not expressing myself clearly.

"Why not? I don't think Heinlein did subtle. I think he said what he meant."

Just because you write a story in third person omniscient, doesn't make you omniscient. I'm not just noting that a narrator can describe a universe that clearly isn't ours, which is fine, but rather, if the book isn't internally consistant then third person omniscient isn't necessarily a reliable narrator.

Some writers may want to exploit that to explore paradox, contridiction, or meaninglessness. I don't think Heinlein was being so subtle either. So my question is, "Do those characters who claim that in Grokking something that they've achieved perfect understanding of it act in the way we'd expect of characters that actually have perfect understanding?" When the martians say that they have perfect understanding of something by grinding it up and eating it, do they actually have perfect understanding or do they just think that they have it? Are they in fact missing something, and is it reasonable to believe from the text that they really are missing something despite their assertions to the contrary?

"That's fair."

Glad to know I'm not irritating you completely. :)

Give you a quick example of why I don't think I'm making myself understood. You wrote initially:

"Personally I don't think either means of gathering information is inherently superior."

I don't either. In fact, on the contrary I'd argue that the totally of understanding can't be had without both the empirical and phenomenal knowledge of something. You can't really 'grok' (in the sense of fully knowing) something until you both know what it is and experience it. It's not enough to have a description of blue, or to just experience blueness. You have to do both. (Now, maybe if you are a logical positivist or a pure materialist or something you disagree with me, but then we disagree on the basis of understanding and not misunderstanding.)

Now, all that is really something of a tangent. I wasn't really making a point about empirical and phenomenal knowledge, and I'd have to think about it a while before I'd want to make a solid claim about the Martian take on that. My real point is that Martian thought explicitly denies the existance of emergent properties, but as an analogy, my point was that as I read the text the blindness that the Martians had seemed to me to be equivalent to thinking that you could fully know something by only having phenomenal knowledge of something without any emperical understanding of the phenomenom. In other words, it would be like claiming you fully understand 'blue' when you've only experienced blueness and don't know that blue is a particular spectrum of electromagnetic waves.

The Martians claim you can fully know something by knowing its parts. Is that believable even in the context of the story?

So I wasn't contending that the 'observer' position (empericism) was 'best' or 'superior', I was simply noting that Mike defines 'observing' as ceasing to observe. Now, you may object that I'm reading in more than Mike says there, which is true, but I'm reading it in because its more blatant elsewhere like the next line where he specifically says 'losing personal identity' or by the very fact that 'to grok' means both 'to know' and 'to eat'. I can know something without dinishing it or transforming it, but it is bizarre (and I think erroneous) to claim that I can also eat something without diminishing it or transforming it. In that context, I think my reading is fair.

"Ie, either they are enlightened or they contemplated genocide, but both can't be true."

Close. They are either enlightened or else they contemplated genocide as first course of action against a sentient people they (by the text's own admission) ultimately in fact did not fully understand, but both can't be true. They actually planned the destruction of someone before they even knew as a settled question whether or not they were worthy of death. This hardly seems like understanding as I understand it.

Actually, there are other clues that they aren't as full of understanding as they claim to be, but I'm not going there quite yet (and don't have access to the text right now anyway).

Jim: "Actually, it was thought likely that they would, wasn't it?"

Doesn't help much. All that means is that they are arrogant as well as blood-thirsty.

Matt, I don't think there is any doubt the Martians are arrogant & self-interested. They certainly had blind spots, which Mike points out to some extent.

I don't think I agree with you about the Martians denying the existence of emergent properties or fully knowing something by just knowing its parts. That's not how I read it or the impression I got, but I've been known to carry my own preconceptions into my reading, so it's something to think about.

What I'm going to do is copy out a few of your posts that deal with this, print them out & stick them into my copy of the book. When I re-read it in 5 or 10 years, I'll read them & see what I think. I've found time has changed my opinions on some things & your observations are splitting a line that I find rather thin. I might be able to read it that way, but I don't think so. It will give me an added dimension next time I read it though. Thanks.

-----

I often print out book lists, miscellaneous facts, histories & comments about books & authors & stick them into the appropriate place on the book shelf. Usually this is done for re-reads or on series - it's hard to keep all of them straight. Some authors lend themselves to this better than others.

Does anyone else do this? Do you think it worthy of a topic? For instance, I'm going to print out a lot of what we discussed about 'A Night in Lonesome October' as well including some historical stuff on some of the characters. I expect it to add a lot to the book next time I read it. It will help me grok it better.

Matt,

I see more "grok" as "assimilate" rather than destroy. In fact, I'm quite certain the Star Trek writers were influenced by the concept when they created the Borg.

With grokking, individuality is less an issue than becoming a part of the community, the collective. When Mike "sends away" the cops because of their wrongness, that's what he sees as destruction. If he had eaten their bodies then they would have lived forever within him and achieved immortality.

Kristjan,

What I find so brilliant about Zelazny's invention of this word is that he was able to use it to demonstrate the divide between two cultures. Earth people interpret it based on their own knowledge, standards, prejudices, etc (the way we're doing now) whereas its interpretation for a Martian is different, and ne'er the twixt shall mix.

Heinlein very subtly showed how prejudice works and how we apply our own standards to other races. It's especially flagrant today with all the racial and religious conflicts going on.

@M.d.

I disagree ... Mike can't act on something until he 'groks' it. He explains this in that last part of the book when he is describing how the Martians might destroy the earth:

"...It merely takes a certain fundamental knowledge of physics, how matter is put together - and the same sort of control that you have seen me use time and again. Simply necessary first to grok what you want to manipulate."

M.d.:

It's not prejudice. I'm not predisposed to judging against Martian culture because I have a unease with Martian culture. I'm not judging the claims or behavior negatively because of some bias against Martians (as if that was even possible) or bias against Heinlein or even a bias against science fiction. I like Heinlein. I love science fiction.

I'm not even predisposed to judging against the Martian culture because of the ways it departs from my norms (which is more reasonable charge), because for example, I consider the 'shocking' sexual behavior of the Martian cult to be about its most trivial problem. I don't approve of it, but as presented it doesn't particularly concern me. (And unless you think I'm lying, my claim really shouldn't be too suprising, as some other critics of the book on Goodreads with more 'modern' 'liberal' mores have criticized the book for being too conservative on this front.)

It's not prejudice - it's post-judice. It's not a judgement I'm making in the absence of knowledge or based on some hidden or ulterior agenda. I've read the book several times and the more I read it the more a few glaring flaws stood out with the proposed alternate lifestyle Heinlein presented. The more I thought about those flaws the more damning that they seemed, and the more damning that they seemed the more I considered how people didn't notice them. The slippery vagueness of the provided definition for 'Grok' is I think one of the reasons. The more Heinlein tries to explain 'Grok' the less it turns out is really there, but by leaving the term ambigious it slips past you in a way a term like that would never do in a non-fiction work. He uses the fact that this is fiction you are reading to get you to accept nonsense with a shrug of your necessary suspension of disbelief shoulders.

Kristjan is quite right. To destroy something, the Martian must first 'grok it'. But that means that when he "sends away" the cops that they would have to live within him forever and become fully part of him. But, presumably these cops are just working Joes, with families back home, mothers, fathers, and so forth who are just trying to do their job because they've been told that Jubal and the rest are dangerous lawbreakers. If Mike really did understand the cops, they wouldn't be the faceless people to him that Heinlein leaves to his reader, and if they weren't faceless people but people Mike really understood I have a hard time imagining he'd just send them away. And indeed, when he does send them away it's with a completely immature understanding - he doesn't realize that he could just send away the guns and he's very disturbed at the potential wrongness of what he's just done. So 'grok' can't mean what Mike elsewhere claims it means. It can't be a full understanding. It's a partial understanding that sees the thing only in part.

The one thing that bothered me about SISL was the presumption that the Martians were so superior. They were portrayed as almost god-like and their ideas were revered, not just by Mike, but by everyone who encountered them. I think the big clue to the nature of the Martians though is brought to light with the mentions of the fifth planet. The passages are short and easy to dismiss, but it's my impression that the Martians don't have a lot of respect for other cultures. They destroyed the fifth planet of the solar system for art and it appears that their intent is eventually the same for Earth.

There is another concept here. Nothing is actually destroyed. It is merely pushed at 90 degrees from the 4 dimensions we can perceive. As such these things and people still exist just in a parallel universe.

Whether life exists in this plane who knows. But it could be identical to our world just absent human life.

Actually that was a perception, not a fact. It was as IF the object manipulated were turned 90 degrees to the perceived dimensions and Heinlein very briefly talks about the square in a 3d universe; HOWEVER, there is SO much wrong with this concept as presented that for all practical purposes, the object is destroyed (e.g. a 3d object CAN act within a 2d world ... objects that Mike manipulates NEVER act on our 3d world ... even if they had the free will to do so).

Quoted from discussion above,
"You wrote, "The 'enlightened' martians afterall were planning to destroy the Earth, which they surely didn't 'grok' before they planned to do so."

Actually, it was thought likely that they would, wasn't it?"

From the last page of text (491) in my version:
"But, by the time that they would slowly get around to it, it would be highly improbably approaching impossible that the Old Ones would be able to destroy this weirdly complex race. The hazard was slight that those concerned with the third planet did not wast a split eon on it."

I took this to mean that while the Martians would clearly decide to destroy Earth, by the time they made the decision, the Earthlings would advance enough to be able to have a means of defense - probably because Mike's understanding of the Martian culture, combined with his newly acquired knowledge of the human culture, would allow the human culture to gain in power much more rapidly.

quoted from Sandi:
"The one thing that bothered me about SISL was the presumption that the Martians were so superior."

I didn't read the Martian culture as superior. I saw them as supremely logical but lacking in emotion. I think this truly represents the difference between Mike and the Martians. He has their capacity for logical understanding (and the great powers that come with it) but initially, he is an infant in terms of the ability to feel. It is the combination of the Martian language/logic and the human ability to connect that Mike plans to use to help advance his cause.

From Bunny,
"He can't find a way to fit into the culture so he sets out to try to change it."

To build on this,
I believe he tries to change it by taking what he perceives to be the best features of the Martians and combining them with the best features of the Earth culture.

The last line of the book - 'he could see a lot of changes he wanted to make.' - implies the process is continuing.

Jim, I love what you revealed about the way you carry fragments and errata into future readings. I am going to start doing that. Thanks for the insight.

As for the idea that "to grok" is "to destroy," it was my understanding from Mike's final discussion with Jubal that only physicality is destroyed. Spirit, or fullness, is merely sent to the back of the queue to start again. Spirit cannot be destroyed.

I use grok to specifically mean "intuitively understand" vis-à-vis understanding that comes gradually through study, research or learning.

The OED's definition is:

grok, v.

U.S. slang

 a. trans. (also with obj. clause) To understand intuitively or by empathy; to establish rapport with.
 b. intr. To empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment.

1961    R. Heinlein Stranger in Strange Land iii. 18   Smith had been aware of the doctors but had grokked that their intentions were benign.
1961    R. Heinlein Stranger in Strange Land xxiv. 250   Now that he knew himself to be self he was free to grok ever closer to his brothers.
1968    T. Wolfe Electric Kool-aid Acid Test vi. 86   Instead they are all rapping and grokking over the sound it made‥as if they had synched into a never-before-heard thing, a unique thing.
1968    Playboy June 80   He met her at an acid-rock ball and she grokked him, this ultracool miss loaded with experience and bereft of emotion.
1969    New Yorker 15 Mar. 35,   I was thinking we ought to get together somewhere, Mr. Zzyzbyzynsky, and grok about our problems.
1975    D. Lodge Changing Places iv. 137   Nestling earth couple would like to find water brothers to grock with in peace.
1984    InfoWorld 21 May 32   There isn't any software! Only different internal states of hardware. It's all hardware! It's a shame programmers don't grok that better.