Integration And Muttering Wind
The Earliest Moment Of Consciousness?
Such a course would cover:
the passage of time as represented in fiction;
philosophical questions about the nature of time;
the fiction, logic and physics of time travel.
The "physics" would be not a complete Physics course but just a sufficient introduction to relativistic physics to enable conceptual analysis.
St. Augustine, both theologian and philosopher, said that he knew what time was until anyone asked him what it was. See here.
Two characters in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series ironically refer to time without knowing that they are dealing with time travellers:
"'It shall be my pleasure, if time allows.' Everard noted that Frederick did not say 'God' as a medieval man ordinarily would."
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, July 1991), PART SIX, 1245beta A. D., p. 395.
Does the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II somehow intuit that he is in a divergent timeline? (Hardly.)
Veleda tells Heidhin:
"'I want you riding to Buhrmund tomorrow. Time is on our heels.'"
-"Star of the Sea," 7, p. 535.
Veleda is potentially initiating a divergent timeline.
Finally, a character in another time travel scenario reflects on both time and time travel:
"It was a strange thing to meet her at intervals of months which for Havig were hours or days. Each time, she was so dizzyingly grown. In awe he felt a sense of that measureless river which he could swim but on which she could only be carried from darkness to darkness."
-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, 1973), IX, p. 98.
See also:
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I remember those last books of St. Augustine's CONFESSIONS, from when I first read them 52 years ago. I fear his thought was way over my head in those days. Hmmm, time is easy to know but hard to define. Also, a bit surprisingly, the past and the future does not exist, to us living in the present. But we know the past existed, from our memories, records, relics, monuments, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
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