(urth) Science catches up to the New Sun

David Stockhoff dstockhoff at verizon.net
Sun Dec 14 06:56:03 PST 2008


I think it's somewhat more important than that---if only to rule out disturbing implications such as a literally repetitive cycle of universes where everything plays out the same or nearly so. (For example, for all we know, if there was a Severian 1, he lived in a previous Briah and the current Briah overlays his.) Such a theory is not necessary because Yesod is an over-universe in which time is not any kind of constant. That allows the Hieros to move among universes almost at will, I assume. At very least, it allows them to look "forward" and to send themselves "backward."

However, if I understand you, you are making a distinction between a past universe being "gone" and being "inaccessible." This makes sense, because there must be some limitations on the Hieros' abilities.

Two specific phenomena may or may not depend on this. First, the "future" history Apheta lays out, using Gunnie's "lady parts" as a model. I presume that some kind of agonism is always needed for each "species" to evolve or to do whatever it does. Thus, the point of this (hi)story is not the cyclical and alternating repetition, which is maddening, but the struggle played out in each universe. (This struggle is analogous to a constant struggle of good vs evil, which is readily understood because those principles can be grasped as universal constants, but rather it is a struggle against ourselves with the aid of higher beings, which is more complicated.)

Is it really played out over and over with variations, or is it played out once, simultaneously, in two universes connected only at Yesod? In myth, it is a basic assumption that the god or hero dies the same death over and over, or every year, or whatever. Is this the same idea? Or is Apheta actually describing a seemingly nearly pointless and Sisyphean process in which two species keep each other alive through all of eternity? 

Are all the universes either human universes or Hiero universes, and each species are as gods to the other? If so, which was the first? And what about all the other sentient species?

Second, the Hierodules who supposedly live their lives moving backward through time. I can grasp going on a time-travel mission in which one pops in and out of time, but I do not understand beings who live time backwards, or how that fits into the model. Which is meant? 

Clearly, not only do all universes exist, but all time exists. What does this do to Apheta's agonistic model? Her race has already either won or lost its struggle. If it ever once misses in its aim of raising up Man or being raised up in turn, does it become always already extinct? And if it doesn't, who cares whether they succeed or not? Why is it SO IMPORTANT that their scheme succeed? (Humans don't care if their descendants go extinct in a few centuries--why should the Hieros care?)



------------------------------

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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