Neil Stephenson

[kladner]

With regard to the age of Enoch Root, he seems to be ageless. He appears in The Baroque Cycle books a few hundred years earlier, with ancestors of some of the Cryptonomicon characters. He also has what seem to be super natural knowledge and powers.

[LaurV]

Now, that is interesting! So he wants to suggest something "highlander" style! Occult powers, and/or "observers", who do or do not "mix" much into human business, but run the things from the shadow. I have to go to find and read those books soon. I was a bit pissed off when I found out about the missing years in his age in the book, and I wondered to desperation about how the author could make such an elementary mistake! But what you say, it makes sense.

[edit: for clarification, this topic is a continuation of the offtopic discussion in this thread]