{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5892", "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": 5892, "subject": "Sigh", "messages": 15, "voices": 5, "first": "2011-01-12T01:34:36+00:00", "last": "2011-01-12T18:45:17+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T01:34:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio: > Space-time is a strange place. Observers may be looking at their own \nstar system far, far away." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff: When else do we see this happen?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'd say we see something sort of similar when Severian is about to enter Yesod. \nBecause of the curvature of space-time (as Malrubius explained) he sees both the\nbeginning and the end of the universe in the same place.\n \nThen again we can always mistrust the astronomy of a technologically backward planet\nlike Blue full of 300 year isolates from the Whorl. (who was it that claimed to know\nwhich red sun in the sky was Urth's? I forget).\n \nI'm still enjoying Marc's evidence that Lune is planet-sized and has an atmosphere. \nHey, if Urth can have the Andes on the east coast of S. America, the moon could be \nextra-large. \n \nStill I think Jane makes a good point about planetary conjugation. Blue and Green do\nnot seem to orbit each other. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D2D0B87.5070803@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T02:01:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/11/2011 7:34 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Antonio:> Space-time is a strange place. Observers may be looking at their own\nstar system far, far away." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Jeff: When else do we see this happen?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'd say we see something sort of similar when Severian is about to enter Yesod.\nBecause of the curvature of space-time (as Malrubius explained) he sees both the\nbeginning and the end of the universe in the same place." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Perhaps, but this only allows bi-location of objects with lifetimes \nnearly that of an entire manvantara, at least trillions of years, while \nmoving faster than light somehow. Blue and Green's system doesn't do \nthis, nor would it last as long." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T02:33:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "<4D2D0B87.5070803@io.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'd say we see something sort of similar when Severian is about to enter Yesod.\nBecause of the curvature of space-time (as Malrubius explained) he sees both the\nbeginning and the end of the universe in the same place." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson: Perhaps, but this only allows bi-location of objects with lifetimes \nnearly that of an entire manvantara, at least trillions of years, while \nmoving faster than light somehow. Blue and Green's system doesn't do \nthis, nor would it last as long." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nYes, I would agree. I was only trying to answer that question with regard to Antonio's\nstatement. (fwiw, Borges' Library also fits the bill). I would say that those of us who \nare trying to follow Marc's theory may need to rely on the \"poor astronomy on Blue\" \ncorollary to see it through. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D2D1A56.3020001@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T03:04:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/11/2011 8:33 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I'd say we see something sort of similar when Severian is about to enter Yesod.\nBecause of the curvature of space-time (as Malrubius explained) he sees both the\nbeginning and the end of the universe in the same place." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Jeff Wilson: Perhaps, but this only allows bi-location of objects with lifetimes\nnearly that of an entire manvantara, at least trillions of years, while\nmoving faster than light somehow. Blue and Green's system doesn't do\nthis, nor would it last as long." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, I would agree. I was only trying to answer that question with regard to Antonio's\nstatement. (fwiw, Borges' Library also fits the bill). I would say that those of us who\nare trying to follow Marc's theory may need to rely on the \"poor astronomy on Blue\"\ncorollary to see it through. \t\t \t \t\t" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Borges' Library? Do you mean the Aleph? How is either one incorporated \ninto the context of the Sun cycle?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D2D2A35.8030805@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Adam Thornton", "address": "adam at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T04:12:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "<4D2D1A56.3020001@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 01/11/2011 09:04 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nBorges' Library? Do you mean the Aleph? How is either one incorporated \ninto the context of the Sun cycle?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ultan's library occupies some space between (in a mythical sense) \nBorges' Library of Babel and Borges' National Library.\n\nAdam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T04:19:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "<4D2D2A35.8030805@io.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson: Borges' Library? Do you mean the Aleph? How is either one incorporated \ninto the context of the Sun cycle?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nShould have said Borges' Library of Babel. WOrth a read. Was probably an influence on\nBotNS cosmology. http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/library_of_babel.html \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D2D39D9.3000707@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T05:19:21+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "<4D2D2A35.8030805@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/11/2011 10:12 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:\nOn 01/11/2011 09:04 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Borges' Library? Do you mean the Aleph? How is either one incorporated\ninto the context of the Sun cycle?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ultan's library occupies some space between (in a mythical sense)\nBorges' Library of Babel and Borges' National Library." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's fine, but we need a literal antecedent for the see-around-corners \nthing to be a natural feature of space-time." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D2D45B1.5050804@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Adam Thornton", "address": "adam at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T06:09:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "<4D2D39D9.3000707@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 01/11/2011 11:19 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 1/11/2011 10:12 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 01/11/2011 09:04 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Borges' Library? Do you mean the Aleph? How is either one incorporated\ninto the context of the Sun cycle?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Ultan's library occupies some space between (in a mythical sense)\nBorges' Library of Babel and Borges' National Library." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's fine, but we need a literal antecedent for the \nsee-around-corners thing to be a natural feature of space-time.\nna" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Does the supposition in \"The Library of Babel\" that, if you were \nimmortal and went in any direction long enough, you'd eventually \nencounter the same books in the same disorder, which would thereby \nbecome The Order, count?\n\nI've been doing a little meditative combinatorics. I arbitrarily \nassigned the length of the printing on a book's spine (which the \nLibrarian does not tell us) to be one 80-character line. With that \nassumption (and ignoring the Librarian's unsupported supposition that \nthe titles are meaningless), we find that there are approximately \n1.3383768226039 x 10 ^ 1834209 books in the Library. (I've used the \nfreely available \"hypercalc\" program, \nhttp://mrob.com/pub/perl/hypercalc.txt, in this meditation.)\n\nBut of course the supposition that you'd come, when you began seeing \nbooks you had already encountered, upon the same Library in the same \norder, is delusionally optimistic. There are, of course, the factorial \nof the number of books number of orders of each book in the library. \nThat turns out to be roughly 10 ^ ( 2.4548624015714 x 10 ^ 1834215 ) \nlibraries before one must, perforce, begin seeing the books in an order \nin which one has before seen them. It is *this* collection, of course, \nthat must contain the wonders the Librarian speaks of, such as the true \ncatalogue and all the false catalogues, because a single book is clearly \nfar too small to contain such a thing.\n\nBut of course that, in turn, assumes that all the copies of the library \nare complete. If we then postulate that any iteration of the library \nmay or may not have a copy of a particular book then the number of \n(complete and partial) libraries our immortal traveler must traipse \nthrough before encountering repetition becomes the power set of the \nnumber of complete libraries, or 2 ^ ( 10 ^ ( 2.4548624015714 x 10 ^ \n1834215 ) ) . This, rightly, seems like a big number.\n\nBut, in fact, to an arbitrarily good approximation, *all* integers are \nbigger than that.\n\nIndeed, if we adopt even a naive encoding for the books of the story, \n\"01\" for the first character through \"25\" for the last, and simply \nendeavor to transcribe the \nset-of-all-books-in-all-libraries-in-each-possible-order as an integer \nencoded this way...then there is probability zero that this number does \nnot appear somewhere in the decimal representation of pi. So all our \nwandering is for naught: we could just sit crosslegged and contemplate, \nvery closely, a ring.\n\nAdam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T13:15:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "<4D2D45B1.5050804@io.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson: That's fine, but we need a literal antecedent for the see-around-corners thing \nto be a natural feature of space-time." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nSure. Let's remember that explanation for seeing the Red Sun from Blue was Antonio's. I only \nbrought up Borges' Babel Library as a contribution to discussion of that theme. Adam Thornton's\nreverie on the matter is along the same lines.\n \nI think bad astronomy makes a better explanation to rescue Marc's theory than a localized \nspace-time warp. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D2DC441.1000609@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T15:09:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "<4D2D45B1.5050804@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/12/2011 12:09 AM, Adam Thornton wrote:\nOn 01/11/2011 11:19 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 1/11/2011 10:12 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "On 01/11/2011 09:04 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "Borges' Library? Do you mean the Aleph? How is either one incorporated\ninto the context of the Sun cycle?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Ultan's library occupies some space between (in a mythical sense)\nBorges' Library of Babel and Borges' National Library." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That's fine, but we need a literal antecedent for the\nsee-around-corners thing to be a natural feature of space-time.\nna\nDoes the supposition in \"The Library of Babel\" that, if you were\nimmortal and went in any direction long enough, you'd eventually\nencounter the same books in the same disorder, which would thereby\nbecome The Order, count?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If you can show me where it is incorporated into the context of possibly \nobservable by the fictional characters of the Short Sun books, sure. For \nexample, stuff that happens in the Amber books could excusably happen in \nthe Vlad Taltos books, because Steven Brust incorporated Corwin's \nhellride encounter with a horseman in grey as the grey-wearing Vlad's \nencounter with Corwin." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D2DC5CF.1050403@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T15:16:31+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "<4D2DC441.1000609@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson wrote (12-01-2011 15:09):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/12/2011 12:09 AM, Adam Thornton wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 01/11/2011 11:19 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "On 1/11/2011 10:12 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "On 01/11/2011 09:04 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 5, "text": "Borges' Library? Do you mean the Aleph? How is either one incorporated\ninto the context of the Sun cycle?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "Ultan's library occupies some space between (in a mythical sense)\nBorges' Library of Babel and Borges' National Library." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "That's fine, but we need a literal antecedent for the\nsee-around-corners thing to be a natural feature of space-time.\nna\nDoes the supposition in \"The Library of Babel\" that, if you were\nimmortal and went in any direction long enough, you'd eventually\nencounter the same books in the same disorder, which would thereby\nbecome The Order, count?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If you can show me where it is incorporated into the context of possibly\nobservable by the fictional characters of the Short Sun books, sure. For\nexample, stuff that happens in the Amber books could excusably happen in\nthe Vlad Taltos books, because Steven Brust incorporated Corwin's\nhellride encounter with a horseman in grey as the grey-wearing Vlad's\nencounter with Corwin." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What if the whole universe is a kind of Moebius strip? Has that currently \nbeen ruled out?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D2DC819.3050405@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T15:26:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "<4D2DC5CF.1050403@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/12/2011 9:16 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\nJeff Wilson wrote (12-01-2011 15:09):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 1/12/2011 12:09 AM, Adam Thornton wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "On 01/11/2011 11:19 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "On 1/11/2011 10:12 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 5, "text": "On 01/11/2011 09:04 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 6, "text": "Borges' Library? Do you mean the Aleph? How is either one\nincorporated\ninto the context of the Sun cycle?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 5, "text": "Ultan's library occupies some space between (in a mythical sense)\nBorges' Library of Babel and Borges' National Library." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "That's fine, but we need a literal antecedent for the\nsee-around-corners thing to be a natural feature of space-time.\nna\nDoes the supposition in \"The Library of Babel\" that, if you were\nimmortal and went in any direction long enough, you'd eventually\nencounter the same books in the same disorder, which would thereby\nbecome The Order, count?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If you can show me where it is incorporated into the context of possibly\nobservable by the fictional characters of the Short Sun books, sure. For\nexample, stuff that happens in the Amber books could excusably happen in\nthe Vlad Taltos books, because Steven Brust incorporated Corwin's\nhellride encounter with a horseman in grey as the grey-wearing Vlad's\nencounter with Corwin." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What if the whole universe is a kind of Moebius strip? Has that\ncurrently been ruled out?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, because stars don't last long enough for their own light to \ntraverse the universe and arrive before they've gone on to non-life \nsustaining dispositions. The Yesodi's could do it though, and I \nentertained a \"Planet of the Apes\" scenario for the Whorl's return to \nUrth for a while." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D2DCCC2.20100@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T15:46:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "<4D2D45B1.5050804@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/12/2011 12:09 AM, Adam Thornton wrote:\nBut of course that, in turn, assumes that all the copies of the library\nare complete. If we then postulate that any iteration of the library may\nor may not have a copy of a particular book then the number of (complete\nand partial) libraries our immortal traveler must traipse through before\nencountering repetition becomes the power set of the number of complete\nlibraries, or 2 ^ ( 10 ^ ( 2.4548624015714 x 10 ^ 1834215 ) ) . This,\nrightly, seems like a big number.\n\nBut, in fact, to an arbitrarily good approximation, *all* integers are\nbigger than that." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Really? I would've said a bit less than half." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<7310ded3d0425cfab52101ca6e23017a@imap.io.com>", "from": { "name": "Adam Thornton IO", "address": "adam at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T18:42:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "<4D2DCCC2.20100@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 09:46:10 -0600, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 1/12/2011 12:09 AM, Adam Thornton wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But of course that, in turn, assumes that all the copies of the library\nare complete. If we then postulate that any iteration of the library\nmay\nor may not have a copy of a particular book then the number of\n(complete\nand partial) libraries our immortal traveler must traipse through\nbefore\nencountering repetition becomes the power set of the number of complete\nlibraries, or 2 ^ ( 10 ^ ( 2.4548624015714 x 10 ^ 1834215 ) ) . This,\nrightly, seems like a big number.\n\nBut, in fact, to an arbitrarily good approximation, *all* integers are\nbigger than that." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Really? I would've said a bit less than half." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm positive.\n\nOr rather, I should have specified positive integers.\n\nAdam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-12T18:45:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sigh", "in_reply_to": "<7310ded3d0425cfab52101ca6e23017a@imap.io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 10:42 AM, Adam Thornton (IO) wrote:\nBut, in fact, to an arbitrarily good approximation, *all* integers are\nbigger than that." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Really? I would've said a bit less than half." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm positive.\n\nOr rather, I should have specified positive integers." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not necessary -- \"big\" can mean \"of great magnitude,\" in which case\nthe large negative integers are \"bigger than that\" also." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] } ] }