Science catches up to the New Sun

David Duffy · 15 Dec 2008, 07:56 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: David.Duffy at qimr.edu.au (David Duffy)
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:56:07 +1000 (EST)
Subject: (urth) Science catches up to the New Sun
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Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0812151704340.30669 at orpheus.qimr.edu.au>

>
> On Sun, 14 Dec 2008, David Stockhoff wrote:
> Agree to all that. I think one way to summarize it is to say that the
> cosmological scheme of TbotNS is a literary device, like time travel 
> itself.
>
> As such, it arbitrarily closes off certain possibilities and elides others. 
> This is similar to the standard problem already pointed out with 
> branching-timeline models: unless some Overseer is judging the value of all 
> lines, all lines must exist, even if the likely ones vastly outnumber the 
> unlikely. So one must simply ignore what doesn't fit.

There are a few papers from Deutsch and others on the many worlds 
interpretation and ethics.  Specifically, that you should choose actions 
that maximize a utilitarian type measures over as many futures as 
possible.  Everyone's average history, summing over all time lines, is 
what your your overseer will have to judge on.  Time travel, however, does 
offer a possibility of fixing up all your time lines (depending on the 
infinities involved, you could recruit an infinite number of version of 
yourself to go and fix up the "lesser" infinity of timelines where you 
made the wrong choice).

Wolfe has an awful lot of time travel stories, and must have 
thought at least a little bit about them.  Some random thoughts:

The time travel paradoxes are very similar to many theological paradoxes 
eg perfect foreknowledge in general, that of Jesus in particular with 
respect to his actions; as well there is the idea of working in mysterious 
ways (someone recently gave an example from CS Lewis -- Ransomes name, one 
also taken up later by Kurt Vonnegut ;)).  I think Wolfe comes back to 
them because he thinks they are somehow relevant, rather than just cool.
Specifically, if we live in a universe run by an actively inverventionist 
god, then all these issues have real consequences and real solutions, 
some of which may be accessible to entities at a higher level of 
development than poor old present-bound humans.

In BotNS, FTL and time travel go together as they should.

If you can construct a suitable closed loop involving yourself, you are 
then cut off from the First Cause -- most such loops, starting at _The 
Third Policeman_ are hellish.

The BotNS loops are more healthy, as presumably they are connected 
backwards as well as forwards ?

Master Ash's discussion and fate remind me of the model in _Jack oF 
Eagles_.  One character in that book tells the hero he believes he is in 
a low probability future.  Folks might remember that Blish has there being 
a canonical reality, but it is the average of all the subpaths taken.  The 
heroes action leads to a shift in that mixture.

Back to work,  David Duffy.

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