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That's not how I remember the book. My impression was that there were dozens of churning civilizations, each writing over the wreckage of the previous with their own particular personality. None more 'enlightened' than the next, just different. Why not enlightened? Because they didn't have the continuity that the mathic society has. But I suspect I forgot something in my two readings of the book.

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I recall there being this huge internal debate about whether or not there's any sort of external normative quality metric to reality, or if it's all subjective.

The conclusion is that there's a DAG of 'flow' where information or something else moves from reality to reality, with the downstream realities being more capable of peaceful self organization and intellectual pursuits. The ship which brings people to the Anathem society has collected something like 3 societies in it, the first being relatively barbaric, and then each improving with each jump as it continues down the DAG. I think it's implied that we're one step under the protagonist's world on that ordering.

ooOOooh! Shoot, I totally remember that part now. Ha. I'd totally dismissed it as nonsense. But it makes sense now. Ah, that lovely meta narrative. I love 4th wall breaking in literature. Good stuff.

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