The Barrier Moment

"The Barrier Moment" was short enough to read over lunch. Poul Anderson shows how time travel would be able to answer a philosophical question that previously was inherently unanswerable but I will not state the question here.

However, I will comment on one statement made by the philosopher character:

"'The human psyche does not feel comfortable with any form of philosophical idealism...any belief that mind is somehow supreme over matter.'" (Admiralty, p. 309)

On the contrary, the human psyche has embraced idealism in all its forms from propitiating gods to believing that society is based on ideas like freedom rather than on a particular stage in the material struggle for survival.

Like "My Object All Sublime," in Vol 2, "The Barrier Moment" should be included in a revised edition of Past Times, the collection of Poul Anderson's non-series time travel short stories.

That's all for now, folks.