(urth) Science catches up to the New Sun

[James Wynn]

>>> the various Hieros are rather vague on the concept of
>>>successive "universes." The word gets thrown around
>>>a lot, almost casually: you have stacked universes, 
>>>sequential universes, and so on. How does one escape
>>>a universe when it implodes? 

>>Since Time collapses with successive universes, the idea of
>>"sequentiality" between universes would be either naive or
>>would mean something totally different from what we mean
>>by it. If we assume that the Hieros are "causality-based", 
>>then successive universes would be a theoretical model
>>rather than an observed phenomena. It would mean that the
>>Hieros have the ability to move between parallel worlds...
>>some adjacent and others not...like those in "There Are Doors".

>Apheta makes it fairly clear that causation has occurred. 
>The Hieros happened, and then the Hierogrammates happened. 

David,

Yes, I agree, the Hierogrammates are casuality-based beings they can only exist in some relative Time. However, when you say:

>The Hieros' old universe is gone, and Briah has not. 

You are making a conclusive leap here. The story is that "at the destruction of their universe" the compainions escaped to Yesod. That is a point in Time within their universe. But what does it mean when you say "the Hieros' old universe is gone"? Look at your next sentence:

>Naturally, the Hieros can move from Yesod to any universe,
>but only any universe that exists. So the model of universes
>separated by time is a given in her version. 

If the Hieros can move to "any" universe then they can move to one of various manvantara accessible from Yesod simultaneously, not only the *next* one. They don't have to wait for the current universe to end before moving on to the next. So the sequentiality of the universes is irrelevant to them. They can't go back to a time in their original universe because it would create a paradox--so in a practical sense, I guess, it is "gone", but only in a practical sense. That's why I said that "successive universes would be a theoretical model [for the Hieros] rather than an observed phenomena." They know their own universe collapses, and can probably determine that the others will as well. Given what we know they know, the "successive universe" theory would be a pretty obvious one. Yet, they could not examine various world's from a place beyond causality. For them, they are merely moving like Adam Green in "There Are Doors", from one parallel "dimension" to another--or rather, they are moving in a more sophisticated fashion through a corridor beyond the dominance of any particular dimension. Immediately successive universes would be like Green's adjacent dimensions (his guitar string analogy).

Does it matter? Only when trying to imagine the vague "concept of successive 'universes.'" 
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