(urth) Key to the Universe

[Son of Witz]

On Dec 17, 2010, at 10:20 AM, Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
>> Son of Witz- "We had penetrated the fabric of time, and the fuligin vortex marked the end of 
> the universe. Or its beginning. If >its beginning, then that shimmering ring of stars was the 
> scattering of the young suns, and the only truly magical ring this >universe would ever know.
> 
>> Severian doesn't really know if he's seeing a Big Bang or a Grand Gnab, he is guessing. 
> 
> 
> True, though I think it goes deeper than that, even. Consider Malrubius' words:
> 
> 
>> "Just as a flower blooms, throws down its seed, dies, and rises from its seed to bloom again, so the 
>> universe we know diffuses itself to nullity in the infinitude of space, gathers its fragments 
>> (which because of the curvature of that space meet at last where they began)..."
> 
> The parenthetical part is as Severian describes it. The beginning is at the same point as the end.
> 
> Normally when we think of sequences, there has to be a beginning of one element distinct from the end of
> the previous element. Otherwise it is just circular. The closest I am able to picture is a spiral shape
> where the end of one coil is right there at the beginning of the next. Maybe that's how Wolfe meant us
> to picture it. (Yesodis like the helix)
> 

I have always thought the shape of the universe was a torus. Hawking described a globe which had opposing poles that were the Big Bang and Big Crunch.  It seems obvious to me that a better model is a torus, the center of which is this Black Hole/ White Fountain. Time and creation whirl around the surface and through the center again and again.  
(this is actually a cosmology I believe in, which may be why One of the reasons I find this book so resonant.)



> Consider also there is the issue of the location of Yesod. In last year's discussion we learned there are text
> passages suggesting it is forward in time from Briah and text passages suggesting it is backward in 
> time. How can it be both?

Because it is outside our time-space and are capable of perceiving the breadth of temporality within that time bubble in a multi-linear way.  
Don't over think what is a simple metaphor. They escaped the wheel of time. They are outside of any time-space that concerns us.

> I get the impression Wolfe is trying to describe some of these concepts in a confusing, self-contradictory 
> manner to make the point that these things are too vast and n-dimensional for a human brain to comprehend.
> (I think Frank Herbert does the same thing to describe Paul Atreides' pan-temporal prescience in the 
> early Dune books).                         
>