{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3677", "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": 3677, "subject": "Time must have a stop", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-12-16T21:14:50+00:00", "last": "2002-12-17T03:44:34+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2002-12-16T21:14:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Time must have a stop", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "--- Don Doggett wrote:\n[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Silk's enlightenment and the stoppage of all action on\nthe\nball court are completely separate events. So again I ask, why did time\nstop on the Whorl?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because the Outsider wanted it to.\n\nSince I don't have the text here, I'll accept for the sake of\nargument your claims that time stopped rather than something else\nhappening and this is separate from Silk's enlightenment. Your\ncontention is that this happened because of some action of the\n_Whorl's_ space drive, maybe coming out of FTL (I don't quite\nremember what you wrote), and the Outsider miraculously exempted\nSilk from this stoppage. Right?\n\nI would assume--but correct me if I'm wrong--that the Outsider's\nchoosing this moment wasn't a coincidence. For some reason the\nstoppage of time was a favorable circumstance for his enlightenment\nof Silk. Do I have that right?\n\nBut if stopping time was favorable for enlightenment, than the\nOutsider (who is omnipotent) could have stopped time on his own. \nAnd would have--why not? So we're choosing between the Outsider's\ntaking advantage of an event in the _Whorl's_ trip to work a miracle,\nor the Outsider's working one miracle to create the right set-up for\nanother.\n\nIf we had some independent evidence that the _Whorl_ did have FTL,\nand (better) that Wolfe's imagined FTL involved time stopping at some\npoint, then your suggestion would tempt me. But as it is, the\npossibility that the Outsider is directly responsible for everything\nSilk experiences seems much easier to believe." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jerry Friedman" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2002-12-16T22:00:05+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Time must have a stop", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But as it is, the\npossibility that the Outsider is directly responsible for everything\nSilk experiences seems much easier to believe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks Jerry, this is, essentially, not far from what I proposed in my post \nas a reasonable alternate explanation, and which Don didn't address in his \nreply. Basically, the Outsider is directly responsible, possibly by means of \nSilk having an embolism. The embolism is much easier to believe than the FTL \nexplanation, if we're looking only for the most believable/possible answer.\n\nI am not a crusader against the Blushas theory, though I do not believe it. \nI just think there are more fertile grounds to pursue the question than this \nparticular line. In the absolute best case, if one proves beyond reasonable \ndoubt that FTL did occur, one merely proves that the Blushas theory is *not \nimpossible* - it does nothing to establish its truth. And there are much \neasier ways to show that Blushas is not impossible, without resorting to \nFTL. You could say that the ship went in a circle, or it might never have \neven left the solar system in the first place. There are arguments against \nboth of these, too, I grant, but they both require less justification.\n\nChris" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Don Doggett", "address": "harlekin at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2002-12-17T03:44:34+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Time must have a stop", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jerry Friedman wrote:\nIf we had some independent evidence that the _Whorl_ did have FTL,\nand (better) that Wolfe's imagined FTL involved time stopping at some\npoint, then your suggestion would tempt me. But as it is, the\npossibility that the Outsider is directly responsible for everything\nSilk experiences seems much easier to believe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Fair enough. The thing I think that keeps me drawn to my theory is the fact\nthat Marble's internal clock is off by three thousand years (well 2,700)\nsoon after Silk's enlightenment. I know that's circumstantial evidence and\neverything is breaking on the Whorl, but it seems compelling to me.\n\nDon" } ] } ] }