Tuesday 9 May 2017

History, Paradoxes And Beyond

I wrote here that a text of Tacitus from another timeline shows up - somehow. Here, here and here, I suggested how this might have happened. Anderson combines speculation about temporal paradoxes with information about real history. See also here.

In SM Stirling's Emberverse, coyotes, a wolf, a lobo pack and buzzards feast on corpses after a battle. As with members of those same species in our timeline, all that they know is hunger and food. That they are in one of many timelines is entirely beyond their comprehension. Olaf Stapledon's Neptunian narrator remarked that one of the First Men transported to the world of the Last Men would be as unconscious of most of the happenings around him as a cat in London is of finance. Ordinary sense organs cannot detect radio, television or the Internet.

So what might be happening around us now without our knowledge? Of Stirling's characters, Edain recounts his dream conversation with Father Wolf whereas Mathilda receives absolution and communion from Father Ignatius. The deities are our imaginings of superior beings interacting with us - but what is really out there?

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Well, ** I ** believe God is real and that the universe we can observe thru our senses and instruments is also real. And I also think it is possible there are alternate universes or timelines. Many of which split off or diverged from our timeline. But as of now we have no means of contacting or visiting those alternate worlds. And time traveling is even more speculative!

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
And there is also dark matter and dark energy making up most of the universe.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I forgot about that. PA touched on similar ideas with stories like "In The Shadow."

Sean