Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 21:06:38 +0000 (GMT)
From: Josh Geller 
Subject: Re: (urth) FTL Travel



On Mon, 18 Nov 2002, Andy Robertson wrote:

> Shoot, I'd have to do the maths: and there is an end to all civility.

> I think it is quite clear that Wolfe shows FTL travel to be a doorway to a
> divine realm.   Consider the Ship, the corridors of time, the mirrors.

> And yes, I do believe Wolfe is **intentionally** conflating the
> Gd-outside-time of the Catholic Boethius with the time-as-fourth-dimension
> of the relativistic Physicist.

The idea of time as a dimension is much older than Boethius and very
widespread.

> Modern theoretical Physics is after all descended from Theology:  Her
> bastard with the Blacksmith Hephaestos/Technology..

These are all recent developments, Aquinas, Aristotle, all of it.

You find 'advanced' ideas about time among indigenous Africans, Americans,
Australians, Polynesians and 'heathen' Europeans, as well as in ancient
Middle-Eastern and Indian books.






















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