-SM Stirling in the combox for Personal Responsibility.
Is this because some events are not caused/determined but chaotic/random? (I still think of "caused" and "determined" as synonymous although Mr Stirling also states that: "'Cause' is not the same as 'determine.'" I welcome clarification of this point.)
In Poul Anderson's "Delenda Est," Time Patrolmen:
find that a "Punic" timeline has replaced the Danellian timeline;
learn that Neldorian time criminals have intervened and changed events;
counter-intervene against the Neldorians;
thus, restore the Danellian timeline.
In Anderson's The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, Time Patrolmen:
find that the alpha timeline has replaced the Danellian timeline;
think that a random quantum fluctuation in space-time-energy has changed events;
intervene in order to restore the events of the Danellian timeline;
but now find that the beta timeline has replaced the alpha timeline;
learn that Sir Lorenzo de Conti is a personal causal nexus;
neutralize Lorenzo;
thus, restore the Danellian timeline.
In Anderson's "Star of the Sea," Everard of the Patrol reflects that the plenum has powerful negative feedback.
If Mr Stirling is correct, then the plenum lacks negative feedback and the Patrol would have failed both in "Delenda Est" and in The Shield Of Time.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm inclined to think that by the time he wrote THE SHIELD OF TIME, Anderson would have agreed with what Stirling said. That, ultimately, events were chaotic, unpredictable.
Sean
Not all equally -likely-, but that cuts both ways. The way Western civilization developed -- via the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, for example -- is in my opinion very unlikely indeed. A high probability is not a certainty.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And considering the role played by Christianity in how Western civilization eventually contributed to those Scientific and Industrial revolutions, the absence of Judaism and hence Christianity, would make what became Western civilization even more unlikely. As Anderson speculatively shows us in "The House of Sorrows."
Ad astra! Sean
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