Christian Brannock lived in the twenty third century, Laurinda Ashcroft in the twenty fifth. Their uploads meet billions of years later in an AI virtual reality of eighteenth century England. Her Inglay does not sound English:
"'Benveni, Capita Brannock...'" (p. 147)
-but they have been supplied with each other's languages and with eighteenth century English. Towards the end of her original life, Laurinda had thought:
"'Was that all?'" (p. 148)
Life seems long or short depending on what we compare it with. Childhood can seem very far away especially if there has been a lot of inner and outer change over the decades. A child climbed a fence with me standing behind him. We both remembered when we had done that before. I thought, "We did this a year ago." He said, "I remember us doing this a very long time ago." One year was a longer proportion of his life to date than of mine. To a child of two, a your is fifty per cent of his life so far whereas to a man of fifty the same year is a fiftieth. How will time travellers or immortals think of time? Someone who lives well into his second century will probably count his life in decades, not in years, just as we count in years, not in months.
2 comments:
I think it's true that one's duration-sense speeds up as one ages, and not only by comparison.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And that kind of duration sense doesn't need long periods of time to be felt. Time can feel slow humdrum, everyday, even boring times--or seems to be going too fast if you are having a very good time.
Ad astra! Sean
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