(urth) Standard Wolfean riddle

[David Stockhoff]

António Pedro Marques wrote:
> David Stockhoff wrote (13-08-2010 01:52):
>> António Marques wrote:
>>> Ok, so now explain to us what a branching universe is. This is a
>>> rhetorical demand, but an honest one.
>>
>> That's a good question. All I can do is point to Ash and the Green Man,
>> who clearly were born in futures far ahead of Severian's. Since their
>> futures are presumably incompatible, they represent a branching.
>
> I have my doubts that Master Ash belongs in the same universe or at 
> least planet. His explanation of why he daren't leave the house surely 
> points to quantical branching. But he's supposed to be only a few 
> liftimes after Severian. Where did he get such scientific 
> understanding? (Of course select people have science, but he seems to 
> explain it in terms much more familiar to our own time than to 
> Severian's.)
>
> Otoh, if true branching were at work, his 'probability' shouldn't be 
> determinable in Severian's time, at least not so definitely. And who's 
> Vine? I was going to say branching implied a 5th dimensional universe, 
> but Ash's disappearance and the odd way he talks about Severian's 
> suggest to me that he is not a future of that Severian, possible or 
> otherwise.

That's why his tower disappears.
>
>> As for Yesod being before Briah,
>
> What would that mean?
> What would its opposite mean?
>
> I suppose you mean Yesod having 'gnabed into' Briah or a 'predecessor' 
> of Briah. But I don't think it can be put that way. Even if in our 
> analogies there is a succession A -> B -> C, the '->' isn't really 
> temporal, so it's more of something we use for our benefit than 
> something which has true significance - i.e., A -> B doesn't really 
> connect A to B.
I'm not sure why I'm being asked to explain something I don't think is true.
>
>> I don't think so. I understand Yesod to
>>  be "higher" than Briah; but what that means is not entirely clear. I
>> generally agree with Roy's position that this means exactly what it 
>> seems
>> to mean: a higher plane with no intersection with Briah. Madregot or FTL
>> is needed to bridge them.
>>
>> By saying she was in a time before the birth of Severian, Apheta 
>> seems to
>> contradict this scheme. It needs to be explained away.
>
> Well, it could mean that at the point in Yesod's time in which they 
> were there was yet no passage to Briah.
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