(urth) Theism Supports Free Will Better than Materialism Does

[Lee]

>Jeffrey Wilson: Branching is not the only form of choice for Sev.


Agreed. Severian chooses to take seven steps backward (upstream to the past)

on Brook Madregot. But the brook does not have any branchings in this direction

implying that there are not multiple pasts for Severian, only multiple futures.


>The green man says he runs up and down the Corridors of Time looking for 
>a time to help Severian, so that's him using reverse time travel to 
>retrace his steps and access other branches previously ruled out.


I am not sure this is so. As the Green Man moves to the past he may be exploring

only one pathway of time and just trying to find the right spot (5 steps? seven steps?)

on that single line to help Severian. It is my opinion that the Green Man probably

couldn't explore the Ragnarok future. I think he can only travel on the line from

far-future Ushas back to Urth, not other branchings.


>"Juturna pointed like a village woman directing some lost traveler, her hands and 
>arms extending in directions I had not seen until she indicated them. 
>'That way the future, this way the past. '"


This may be an example of a character who can explore multiple branchings of both

the past and future. I suspect Tzadkiel can also do this.  These are superhuman beings

who perhaps can explore time more flexibly than human beings.


Tzadkiel compares Severian, as a human, to a pawn. I take the chessboard to be the symbol

for time. Humans (normally) like a pawn on a chessboard, can only move forward and one

space at a time.


The Green Man and, eventually Severian can move backward and forward in time in more than

one step. But they are both human and thus perhaps still limited in their movement through

time compared to superhumans like Juturna and Tzadkiel. I think they can only travel a single

pathway while multiple pathways may be open to angels, they being closer to God (who has

access to all possible timelines, past and future) and plural beings.


(I think that Severian is best described as a human-derived demi-god and the Green Man also,

given the mystical associations of his name http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Man)