Key to the Universe

Lee Berman · 17 Dec 2010, 18:20 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 13:20:27 -0500
Subject: (urth) Key to the Universe
Message-ID: <SNT123-W562F799874237EE4268803CF160 at phx.gbl>

>Son of Witz- "We had penetrated the fabric of time, and the fuligin vortex marked the end of 
the universe. Or its beginning. If >its beginning, then that shimmering ring of stars was the 
scattering of the young suns, and the only truly magical ring this >universe would ever know.

>Severian doesn't really know if he's seeing a Big Bang or a Grand Gnab, he is guessing. 

True, though I think it goes deeper than that, even. Consider Malrubius' words:

>"Just as a flower blooms, throws down its seed, dies, and rises from its seed to bloom again, so the 
>universe we know diffuses itself to nullity in the infinitude of space, gathers its fragments 
>(which because of the curvature of that space meet at last where they began)..."

The parenthetical part is as Severian describes it. The beginning is at the same point as the end.

Normally when we think of sequences, there has to be a beginning of one element distinct from the end of
the previous element. Otherwise it is just circular. The closest I am able to picture is a spiral shape
where the end of one coil is right there at the beginning of the next. Maybe that's how Wolfe meant us
to picture it. (Yesodis like the helix)

Consider also there is the issue of the location of Yesod. In last year's discussion we learned there are text
passages suggesting it is forward in time from Briah and text passages suggesting it is backward in 
time. How can it be both?

I get the impression Wolfe is trying to describe some of these concepts in a confusing, self-contradictory 
manner to make the point that these things are too vast and n-dimensional for a human brain to comprehend.
(I think Frank Herbert does the same thing to describe Paul Atreides' pan-temporal prescience in the 
early Dune books).

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