Saturday 9 July 2022

Time Travel And Reality

It is logically possible for a human being to experience a sequence of events that cannot be fitted into any coherent theoretical framework. Currently, scientists are having trouble with quantum phenomena.

Features Of Manse Everard's Time Travel Experience
(i) It is logically possible that someone could experience the sequence of events described in "Delenda Est" or in "Amazement of the World" or in the somewhat dissimilar "Star of the Sea."

(ii) I cannot accept every aspect of the Time Patrol's account of such events.

(iii) Nor can I formulate any other fully satisfactory account.

So what would I think if I were to experience such events? That reality was beyond my comprehension? That there was no external reality? That I was inside a virtual reality like one of the "emulations" (conscious AI simulations) in Anderson's Genesis?

If there is any region of the universe where such events occur, then it is far from here. If our experiences were very different, then our concepts and expectations would also be very different. There is profundity. (I wrote that last sentence sarcastically but maybe this line of reasoning does have some profundity.)

4 comments:

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Kaor, Paul! More and more I think we are far more likely to somehow travel from our universe to a parallel or alternate world than to travel thru time a la the Time Patrol. Such as Anderson's THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS or Stirling's CONQUISTADOR. Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Reality -is- probably beyond our comprehension. Why not? Algebra is beyond a dog's comprehension.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

But we can still say whether the conclusions follow from the premises within a work of fiction. Within any work of fiction, especially including time travel stories.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

I agree with both you and Paul. We have to at least try to understand.

Ad astra! Sean