(urth) Science catches up to the New Sun

[David Stockhoff]

I think that analysis is correct. Foreknowledge is one thing, but throw in interventionism and you have something to chew on, both in theology and in (science) fiction. Time travel in TBotNS is critical to the plot, but I don't consider it the main event---it is not simply a "time travel" story at heart. Nor is it intended as a time-paradox puzzle story---we're told enough that we should be able to figure it out without getting very elaborate. 

One reason I resist the 2-Severian theory is that it is unnecessary (from an authorial perspective), which is to say it is not strictly needed to avoid paradox and in fact would render the Hierodules redundant; another is that it is too showboaty and gimmicky. The rest of the cosmology is probably best not thought about. 

However, I still want to hear more corpse-in-the coffin theories!

P.S.: I don't know Jack of Eagles, but I'm amazed that someone else has read The Third Policeman.

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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:56:07 +1000 (EST)
From: David Duffy <David.Duffy at qimr.edu.au>
Subject: Re: (urth) Science catches up to the New Sun
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0812151704340.30669 at orpheus.qimr.edu.au>
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> >
> > On Sun, 14 Dec 2008, David Stockhoff wrote:
> > Agree to all that. I think one way to summarize it is to say that the
> > cosmological scheme of TbotNS is a literary device, like time travel 
> > itself.
> >
> > As such, it arbitrarily closes off certain possibilities and elides others. 
> > This is similar to the standard problem already pointed out with 
> > branching-timeline models: unless some Overseer is judging the value of all 
> > lines, all lines must exist, even if the likely ones vastly outnumber the 
> > unlikely. So one must simply ignore what doesn't fit.
>   

* * *

The time travel paradoxes are very similar to many theological paradoxes 
eg perfect foreknowledge in general, that of Jesus in particular with 
respect to his actions; as well there is the idea of working in mysterious 
ways (someone recently gave an example from CS Lewis -- Ransomes name, one 
also taken up later by Kurt Vonnegut ;)).  I think Wolfe comes back to 
them because he thinks they are somehow relevant, rather than just cool.
Specifically, if we live in a universe run by an actively inverventionist 
god, then all these issues have real consequences and real solutions, 
some of which may be accessible to entities at a higher level of 
development than poor old present-bound humans.

In BotNS, FTL and time travel go together as they should.

If you can construct a suitable closed loop involving yourself, you are 
then cut off from the First Cause -- most such loops, starting at _The 
Third Policeman_ are hellish.

The BotNS loops are more healthy, as presumably they are connected 
backwards as well as forwards ?

Master Ash's discussion and fate remind me of the model in _Jack oF 
Eagles_.  One character in that book tells the hero he believes he is in 
a low probability future.  Folks might remember that Blish has there being 
a canonical reality, but it is the average of all the subpaths taken.  The 
heroes action leads to a shift in that mixture.

Back to work,  David Duffy.



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