{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1455",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1455,
    "subject": "Paradoxes",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-03-30T01:02:56+00:00",
    "last": "1999-03-30T01:02:56+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0024-0102@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-03-30T01:02:56+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Paradoxes",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Tony Ellis wrote:\nBut the \"original\" author is Severian himself. He's the one who actually\nwitnesses the end of Urth and lives to write about it. Sev witnesses\nUrth's last day, Sev writes about it, Sev presumably casts his narrative\ninto the seas of Time. (I say \"presumably\" because I can't remember if\nhe ever actually says he is going to do this or not - but surely the\nimplication is there.) If you can accept that Severian's narrative\nconstitutes, either wholly or in part, the \"lost\" Book of the New Sun on\nwhich Dr Talos says his play is based, rather than Canog's text, then no\nparadox exists.<<"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "    But that is precisely where the paradox occurs. That chapter, chapter\nXXXVII, is titled \"The Book of the New Sun\". The title implies, if anything,\nthat Canog is the author of _TBotNS_. Either way, it is still a paradox\nbecause when Sev tells the story in his cell he has not yet witnessed Urth's\ndestruction, which is still in his and Urth's future, which is why he has to\nrely on Dr. Talos's play for the information he relates.\n    Regardless of who put pen to paper when--Sev, Dr. Talos, Canog, or\nanother--none of them originated the story. I've read _The Anubis Gates_,\n\"By His Bootstraps\" and countless other time-travel stories, as have we all.\nTime-travel stories inevitably involve paradoxes; there's just no way around\nit. If they don't, that's just because the author hasn't pushed the logical\nconsequences far enough. When someone goes into the future and \"steals\"\nsomething--a book, idea, invention, whatever--then brings it back and uses\nit, that person is not it's originator, and whomever it was stolen from then\ncan not/will not originate it. Thus we have uncreated creations. Effects\nwithout causes.\n    Which brings me to Dr. Talos again. He is several times mentioned as\ntinkering with the script of the play to accommodate his circumstances. When\nhe does so is he changing history/destiny?\n\nRoy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}