The past is fixed, the present is fleeting and the future is unknown, therefore multiple option. At least, that is how time appears to us at every moment. Every moment is the present moment to any beings that are conscious within it. It is also possible to discuss a period of time, e.g., 1001 AD to 2000 AD, as divided into days and years but without referring to any moment within that period as a now separating a past from a future - while always remembering that every moment appears that way to any beings conscious within it. Abandon any idea of immaterial consciousnesses taking time to move along time even though this idea crops up all the time in casual conversation and discussion.
Given that the future is multiple option, sf authors write alternative fictional futures and future histories. We should not want any author's works to comprise a single future history but should regard them as multiple options with a single creator. We appreciate reminders and parallels like a Solar Commonwealth both in Poul Anderson's Technic History and in his Time Patrol series.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul! As far as I know, English and all other languages, quite simply does not have what it needs to make linguistic sense when it comes to talking about time traveling. For that we would need an artificial language like Temporal to have the right tenses, etc. Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But we can certainly understand that there have to be at least two past tenses.
Paul.
Assuming a mutable timeline, of course.
Kaor, Paul!
And I think the actual, if only theoretical "evidence" we have favors the existence of alternate/parallel universes, not a mutable timeline. Fictional examples being Anderson's THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS and Stirling's THE PESHAWAR LANCERS.
Ad astra! Sean
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