(urth) Borski and cacogens (Long)

[Roy C. Lackey]

Macronaut wrote:
>Another apparent difference is that FI and the C seem
>to be living forwards -- they show none of the signs
>F, B and O do of living in reverse.  On this point,
>it's hard to imagine how Inire could supervise
>construction of the gardens and the secret House if
>every day he forgot what he did the day before.

b sharp wrote:
>On F, B and O's time sense:  I think it has previously been successfully
>argued that they only travel backward in time. They can't perceive time
>backward or they couldn't even have a conversation. To them the previous
>sentence would appear as:  .noitaservnoc a evah neve t'ndluoc yeht ro
>drawkcab emit eviecrep t'nac yehT.

Regardless of how they personally cope with their temporal backwardness when
interacting with normal people, the fact remains, as I pointed out about a
week ago in the "Baldanders" thread, from the viewpoint of forward-living
entities, they know less and less as time goes on. Just revisit their first
meeting with Severian on the Ship to see it.

One of Ossipago's primary baby-sitting functions may have been to serve as a
data source/timekeeper for his charges, allowing them to interact with those
who experienced time conventionally. As a machine with sensors and a
data-storage and retrieval system, he must have experienced the flow of time
in a clockwise fashion.

-Roy