(urth) The argument for Intractability
Jeff Wilson
jwilson at io.com
Wed Dec 24 09:01:00 PST 2008
Dave Tallman wrote:
> Jeff Wilson wrote:
>> A female Severian (50% likelihood) would not be raised as a torturer,
>> and would thus have a very different mentality.
>>
> I'm glad that someone caught my point. In general, time-travelers would
> have to be very careful about changing the conception circumstances of
> anyone important. I don't think Sev's conception could be left to chance
> (it had to happen by chance the first time, but once it did...).
On the other hand, the author may not have subscribed to the chaotic
model of parallel universes, or of human development. The Corridors of
Time might be organized in some way that the closest parallels are
grouped together and more readily accessible to time travelling meddlers
than others. Likewise, there could be some dogma in play like the Well
of Souls that implies some part of Severian's persona exists
independently of his fleshy chromosomal crapshoot.
--
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >
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