Marc's smoking gun?

Chris · 14 Dec 2002, 23:29 · from urth-v0212.mbox · original

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From: "Chris" <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Marc's smoking gun?
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 23:29:49 +0000
Message-ID: <urth-v0212-2422 at digest.urth.net>
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What any of this has to do with the Blushas theory is tenuous at best. Even=20
if you assume the Whorl travelled at the speed of light, this does nothing=20
to help establish the identity of the Whorl's destination or even what=20
direction it was going. But I'll respond, since I don't see the question as=20
valid.

Time stopped for Silk, or so he felt. Time is subjective, it has a frame of=20
reference and appears to pass at different rates, respectively, when you=20
compare them. Silk described what he experienced - this doesn't mean that=20
everyone else experienced the same thing, and in fact no one else described=20
experiencing anything of the sort at that time. If you're saying that Silk=20
experienced a time stoppage because of acceleration to light speed, then yo=
u=20
need to explain how Silk did so - and without disastrous physical=20
consequences - while everyone else did not, and with no apparent motion=20
between them.

Silk describes his own perceptions of being outside time - this narrative i=
s=20
being delivered by Horn and Nettle, based on what Silk told them. This in=20
itself is not staggering, because mystics have been describing this=20
phenomena from time immemorial, in much the same terms. Whether you believe=20
Silk's enlightenment was mystical in nature or not, in order to describe it=20
he pretty much has to fall back on the vocabulary of mysticism - and given=20
his background, he naturally would.

On my first reading, and also on my second, I find no consistent problem=20
with my own interpretation of the passage. Basically, I commit the shameful=20
and extremely unwise sin of believing what Silk says. He was enlightened, h=
e=20
partook of the consciousness of the Outsider who stands outside of time, an=
d=20
saw - ever so fractionally - through the Outsider's eyes.

The joke at Dr. Crane's expense is *not* that his idea of Silk having had a=20
stroke or embolism or whatever is necessarily incorrect. The joke on Dr.=20
Crane is that he missed the *point* of the whole thing in the process of=20
focussing on the physical phenomena involved, as if they made any differenc=
e=20
- this, by the way, tastes of the humor of G.K. Chesterton, whose influence=20
runs through the entire series. So, with a wink and a nod to Dr. Crane, if=20
the mystical offends, then say he had a stroke if you like.

Chris

>Hi everyone,
>
>I'm way way way behind on the list, but I have to put in my two cents and
>take a counteroffensive to the "how do you explain this" contingent that
>argues Blue is not Ushas.  While I agree that the burden of proof is
>generally on the Blushas group, as the default answer is the negative, I
>need a reasonable explanation for this:  Why does time stop on the Whorl
>during Silk's enlightenment?  And don't say that time doesn't stop.  It
>does.  As I argued to Crush (and Blattid agreed)  since Silk was outside of
>time during his enlightenment he saw everything as it happened/happens -
>past present and future.  So if he perceived time as stopped on the Whorl,
>it was stopped.  And don't argue that Wolfe was careless in this.  He knows
>full well what being outside of time means.  If time didn't stop, the=20
>proper
>way to show Silk's enlightenment would have been for him to see his own
>prone body on the ball court as everyone huddled around him wondering what
>was going on.  Silk's enlightenment and the stoppage of all action on the
>ball court are completely separate events.  So again I ask, why did time
>stop on the Whorl?
>
>Don diggity Doggett
>
>
>
>--

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