Borski and cacogens (Long)

Roy C. Lackey · 23 May 2006, 08:34 · from 2006-May.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 03:34:56 -0500
Subject: (urth) Borski and cacogens (Long)
Message-ID: <001001c67e43$c875a6a0$c53ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>

Macronaut wrote:
>Another apparent difference is that FI and the C seem
>to be living forwards -- they show none of the signs
>F, B and O do of living in reverse.  On this point,
>it's hard to imagine how Inire could supervise
>construction of the gardens and the secret House if
>every day he forgot what he did the day before.

b sharp wrote:
>On F, B and O's time sense:  I think it has previously been successfully
>argued that they only travel backward in time. They can't perceive time
>backward or they couldn't even have a conversation. To them the previous
>sentence would appear as:  .noitaservnoc a evah neve t'ndluoc yeht ro
>drawkcab emit eviecrep t'nac yehT.

Regardless of how they personally cope with their temporal backwardness when
interacting with normal people, the fact remains, as I pointed out about a
week ago in the "Baldanders" thread, from the viewpoint of forward-living
entities, they know less and less as time goes on. Just revisit their first
meeting with Severian on the Ship to see it.

One of Ossipago's primary baby-sitting functions may have been to serve as a
data source/timekeeper for his charges, allowing them to interact with those
who experienced time conventionally. As a machine with sensors and a
data-storage and retrieval system, he must have experienced the flow of time
in a clockwise fashion.

-Roy

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