Relative & Absolute

Jon Camfield · 02 Sep 1998, 16:26 · from urth-v0018.mbox · original

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From: GriffJon at mail.utexas.edu (Jon Camfield)
Subject: (urth) Re: Relative & Absolute
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 16:26:46
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John Gersten <jgersten at slip.net> wrote:
[snip]
>Are B&F born in the future?  Do they then "age" as they pass backward in
>time (from Sev's point of view)?  This would seem to be the case.  But
>then how can they interact, even briefly, with people whose physiological
>and neurological processes are, time-wise, working backward from their
>own?  Perhaps they use artificial means to briefly sort of "snap"
>themselves around to Sev's time-arrow direction?  Or am I just
>overcomplicating things (in a Wolfe book?!? <g>)?

I always saw this as similar to Merlin-- he lived backwards (born in our
future, dies in our past (link:Green man:passing through all of our future
in coming here).  He operates 'forward' in that he can interact with us
normally, and no other explanation exists.  sorta Kant-ian: we apply the
ideas of causality to the universe, but it is not necesarily there as we
think of it.

I wish I had TBotNS here with me, so I could look through it and map the
OB&F meetings better, though what Mantis says looks to be what I was
thinking originally.
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