Rinndalir describes chaos as:
"'...the liberator, that annihilates the old and engenders the new.'" (p. 371)
His idea of chaos is drawn from:
"'...the quantum heart of things.'" (p. 372)
In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, quantum chaos changes history for the worse and the surviving Patrol agents change it back again. But imagine that another quantum fluctuation changes history for the better, generating what we would regard as a utopian timeline, e.g., a twentieth century without the World Wars and all their consequences, a genuine liberation. Then I think that it would be the duty of any surviving Patrol agents to guard that timeline, not to restore their remembered history. Of course, they would disagree about this. And there might be a Patrol that had originated in that yet, to quote a strange phrase used by Guion in The Shield Of Time.
17 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
One thought I had was that if Sarajevo and the World Wars had not happened, then WE, personally, would probably not have come to exist. We would have to decide whether a far better timeline/world would be worth the price of US not existing.
And Rinndalir was wrong: chaos for HUMANS would be a nightmare. Chaos for humans would mean anarchy, any chance thug feeling free to kill, rob, rape, enslave, etc., anyone he fancies doing those things to. No, to avoid that, most people would prefer supporting any man on horseback who promises to bring back some predictability and order to life. And give him his saber and knout!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Your 1st para: That is how the Time Patrol poses the issue. In fact, if Sarajevo etc had not happened, then you and I definitely would not have been born. But:
if we were among the surviving Patrol agents, then we would still exist;
if we were not among those agents, then we would not be involved in making the decision;
the inhabitants of a deleted timeline did exist in it before it was deleted.
(The words "did" and "before" show that we are talking about a second temporal dimension. Along the temporal dimension of the new timeline, you and I were never born but, along the second temporal dimension of successive timelines, we were born and lived in a previous, now deleted, timeline.)
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And you have argued those "deleted" timelines did not cease to exist. Rather, they became inaccessible to the timeline of the Patrol. I can imagine Patrol agents stranded in those "deleted" timelines trying to regain contact with the Danellians and the Patrol, and failing to do so.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I argue not that there is a single temporal dimension in which the deleted timelines still exist but have become inaccessible to the Patrol but that there is a second temporal dimension in which the deleted timelines have indeed ceased to exist. But every moment of a deleted timeline did exist in the past of that second temporal dimension. From the the point of view of an inhabitant of a deleted timeline, he was born, lives and will eventually die. There is no moment along his timeline in the first temporal dimension when he suddenly ceases to exist.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I don't know, but that still seems to mean, de facto, that "deleted" timelines continued to exist. At least as far as the people who lived in those timelines are concerned.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But the "deleted" timelines did continue to exist as far as the people living in them are concerned. I don't think that you grasp the implications of two temporal dimensions.
In our familiar temporal dimension (the only one that we experience), there are successive states of the universe. Each such state has three spatial dimensions. Thus, at time t1, Britain is on the side of Earth facing the Sun whereas at time t2 (later) Britain is on the side of Earth facing away from the Sun. At t2, it is true to say that Britain is not now facing the Sun but is not true to say that Britain was never facing the Sun.
In the hypothetical second temporal dimension, there are successive states of a four-dimensional continuum. Each such state has three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension and comprises a single timeline. In timeline 1, the Romans won the Second Punic War. In timeline 2 (later along the second temporal dimension), the Carthaginians won the Second Punic War. It is true to say that, in timeline 2, the Romans did not win the Second Punic War but it is not true to say that the Romans never won the Second Punic War in any timeline.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Because it is so easy to get lost in the thickets trying to understand time traveling, alternate or parallel worlds, quantum mechanics!
If there are any number of possible timelines in which historical events turned out differently, as in the example you discussing using Rome and Carthage, your argument still seems to mean the people we see in the Carthaginian timeline of "Delenda est" continued to exist even after Manse Everard and Piet van Sarawak "deleted" it.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
They did continue to exist along the first temporal dimension but not along the second. You are still thinking in terms of only a single temporal dimension.
Imagine two horizontal parallel lines. The lower line is timeline 1. The upper line is timeline 2. The horizontal dimension of the page is the first temporal dimension. The vertical dimension of the page is the second temporal dimension. The people of timeline 1 continue to exist in timeline 1 but they do not exist in timeline 2 which is higher on the page, therefore later in the second temporal dimension.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
NOW I think I get it, with some difficulty!
t2 -------------------------------------------------------
t1 -------------------------------------------------------
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Yes. In terms of terminology, I used "t1" and "t2" to mean earlier and later moments along a single timeline, not two successive timelines, but that is just a terminological point.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But terminology can be confusing and an endless source of misunderstanding. And I recall you stating Anderson came to at least partly agree with your arguments, saying he would have to keep them in mind if he had written more Time Patrol stories after "Death and the Knight."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Yes. I hoped for another time travel work from Anderson and one from Blish. Both would have consulted correspondence that they had received from me.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Unfortunately, Blish died too soon. Plus, Anderson gave us so many fine stories that I am not really complaining. Well, I would have liked a Young Nick story! (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
As for liberating chaos, I’m reminded of an old WW2 soldiers’ joke, when confronted with a stretch of burning pulverized rubble scented with rotting corpses: “Well, we liberated the s*it out of this place.”
I thought it was Vietnam where, unfortunately, in order to liberate a village, it was necessary to destroy it but this sort of statement has probably been made in wars before wars.
Paul: Yup, it's an old one. In that form it probably does date to WWII, where "liberating" territory became a very common trope in the press.
(Since newspapers started covering wars, mocking what appears in them has been a constant of soldier humor.)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Since newspapers as we know them began in the 1700's, soldiers must have been mocking oleaginous or hypocritical press coverage of wars ever since then!
Ad astra! Sean
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