Standard Wolfean riddle

António Pedro Marques · 13 Aug 2010, 18:53 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: entonio at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?QW50w7NuaW8gUGVkcm8gTWFycXVlcw==?=)
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 19:53:54 +0100
Subject: (urth) Standard Wolfean  riddle
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David Stockhoff wrote (13-08-2010 01:52):
> Ant?nio Marques wrote:
>> Ok, so now explain to us what a branching universe is. This is a
>> rhetorical demand, but an honest one.
>
> That's a good question. All I can do is point to Ash and the Green Man,
> who clearly were born in futures far ahead of Severian's. Since their
> futures are presumably incompatible, they represent a branching.

I have my doubts that Master Ash belongs in the same universe or at least 
planet. His explanation of why he daren't leave the house surely points to 
quantical branching. But he's supposed to be only a few liftimes after 
Severian. Where did he get such scientific understanding? (Of course select 
people have science, but he seems to explain it in terms much more familiar 
to our own time than to Severian's.)

Otoh, if true branching were at work, his 'probability' shouldn't be 
determinable in Severian's time, at least not so definitely. And who's Vine? 
I was going to say branching implied a 5th dimensional universe, but Ash's 
disappearance and the odd way he talks about Severian's suggest to me that 
he is not a future of that Severian, possible or otherwise.

> As for Yesod being before Briah,

What would that mean?
What would its opposite mean?

I suppose you mean Yesod having 'gnabed into' Briah or a 'predecessor' of 
Briah. But I don't think it can be put that way. Even if in our analogies 
there is a succession A -> B -> C, the '->' isn't really temporal, so it's 
more of something we use for our benefit than something which has true 
significance - i.e., A -> B doesn't really connect A to B.

> I don't think so. I understand Yesod to
>  be "higher" than Briah; but what that means is not entirely clear. I
> generally agree with Roy's position that this means exactly what it seems
> to mean: a higher plane with no intersection with Briah. Madregot or FTL
> is needed to bridge them.
>
> By saying she was in a time before the birth of Severian, Apheta seems to
> contradict this scheme. It needs to be explained away.

Well, it could mean that at the point in Yesod's time in which they were 
there was yet no passage to Briah.

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