Butterfly crush

Tony Ellis · 03 Aug 2001, 08:43 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: "Tony Ellis" <LittleSense at necronomicon.co.uk>
Subject: (urth) Butterfly crush
Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 09:43:51 +0100
Message-ID: <urth-v0030-0597 at digest.urth.net>
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Michael Straight wrote:

> Well, if you're willing to admit it's illogical, I can't argue with you,

Sorry, but I admitted no such thing. The 'logic' I said I wouldn't mind
giving a miss was very deliberately placed in inverted commas.

> but I think dismissing objections as "just the Crushed Butterfly theory"
> is ridiculous.  All of human history and society would be very, very, very
> different if men died immediately after having intercourse.

Different, certainly. "Very, very, very different" is conjecture. Would the
changes you describe necessarily all work in the same direction, and shift
history onto a completely different track, or would half of them cancel out
the other half, and the overall shape of history remain more or less the
same?

And that's just the Time Is A River theory. How about the Many Universes
theory, where every quantum event since the big bang may have created
another reality, or a potential reality? In that case, all Wolfe is doing is
showing us one of the more interesting, lower probability worlds.

I don't see how dismissing two of these theories in favour of a third, when
in fact no one knows what happens when human history is altered, has
anything to do with logic at all.

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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