{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1649",
    "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": 1649,
    "subject": "Jonas's memories; Time's Arrow",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-05-28T09:46:48+00:00",
    "last": "1999-05-28T09:46:48+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0027-0028@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at sirius.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-05-28T09:46:48+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Jonas's memories; Time's Arrow",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Robert Borski,\n\nFirst, the counter-digestive process--I believe you that it is in TIME'S\nARROW, but it isn't all that rare a notion: from secondary sources I have\nbeen led to believe that PK Dick's COUNTERCLOCK WORLD does it; and from\nfirst-hand reading, Lewis Carroll's SYLVIE AND BRUNO probably takes the\nprize as first (1889).\n\n(For the curious: the process begins as the little girls use forks to draw\nmeat from their mouths; when their plates are full, they hand them to the\nadult, who carves the slices onto the roast . . . all the way to the meat\nbeing carried backwards to the butcher shop.)\n\nOn to Jonas.\n\nGood idea to parse Jonas's memories.  We have, at least:\n\n1) Jonas's first-hand experience (which can be divided up all sorts of\nways: before the crash, after the crash; etc.).  But we've said before that\n\"Jonas\" is the post-crash name, so already I've hit a snag here.\n\n2) Jonas's \"book learning\" which seems to have taken place on a/the ship,\nand involved Lewis Carroll's THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (reference to the\nWhite Knight), probably augmented by some history books.\n\nThen again, it becomes very complicated to introduce talk of Miles, since\nthat opens another can of worms.\n\nGranted: when there is a larger theory in mind, then obviously \"all\nelements that agree with the larger theory are agreed with; all elements\nthat disagree are disregarded.\"  So if the larger theory assumes that Miles\n= Jonas in a certain combination (i.e., Jonas the hijacker of Miles; Miles\nthe prosthetic elements of former Jonas; or Jonas trifold combo of Miles\nand robot and robot's prosthetics; etc.) this branches out into assumptions\nabout the nature of the Claw, the phases of posthistory, the\ndestination-point of mirror travel from Briah, etc.  Ripples going through\nthe entire \"reading\" or version of the text. All of which can be covered,\nor not, in a larger theory; but as isolated elements, shorn or innocent of\nany connection to conscious larger theory, they are like pebbles . . .\nhmmm, which makes a larger theory like a statue.  I like that!  So we can\nlook at the statue and say, well I like it or dislike it overall, these are\nthe things I like best about it; ah, but pebbles--what's there to say?\n\nNow then, if we are back in the antechamber, again talking about Jonas, the\ncentral mystery seems to me to be: what is so upsetting to Jonas?  It seems\nto be something(s) that the prisoners told him, rather than just an\nupwelling of empathy for their terrible situation.  Why does he seem to\ntake it so personally (again, moreso than just an empathetic surge along\nthe lines of \". . . and I'm in the same situation as these poor bastards, I\nmight as well be one of them\")?  Why does he become so panicked?  (This is\nbefore the attack by the exultants.)\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}