Tuesday 10 September 2019

Reading History

When I read in Bentham:The Final Years that a particular member of staff resigned from one of his positions within the school in 1981 whereas, according to my memory, that resignation had already occurred before I entered the school in 1980, I conclude that this is a slight chronological error in the text. A Time Patrol agent who, on returning from a mission to the past, reads a text that contradicts his memories has to wonder whether he has traveled forward into an alternative timeline. Life is complicated for time travelers in a mutable timeline. And this is just one example of how concepts from Poul Anderson's fiction can color our perceptions of this normally straightforward timeline.

"Star Of The Sea," a culminating Time Patrol story, is built on the discovery of a variant text of Tacitus' Histories. See:

Records Of What Did Not Happen II
Unstable Space-Time II
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3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I'm reminded of how, in 1992, I gave Poul Anderson a copy of Lewis Thorpe's translation of St. Gregory of Tours TEN BOOKS OF HISTORY (better known as the HISTORY OF THE FRANKS) as a birthday present. I can just as easily imagine a Patrol agent studying a variant text of St. Gregory's work and becoming alarmed by finding it recording events differently from the "original" text.

Ad astra! Sean

11 September 2019 at 07:32
S.M. Stirling said...

One thing you learn in law school is how mutable memory is, and how little eyewitness testimony is worth -- especially if there's any time between the event and the recollection.

If your client is guilty, go for witnesses; if they're innocent, use circumstantial evidence.

13 September 2019 at 20:57
Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

That is a principle I've seen repeatedly stress in some TV crime shows, such as "Law and Order." I mean the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.

Ad astra! Sean

14 September 2019 at 08:05

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