From: "Chris" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Marc's smoking gun?
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 23:29:49 +0000

What any of this has to do with the Blushas theory is tenuous at best. Even 
if you assume the Whorl travelled at the speed of light, this does nothing 
to help establish the identity of the Whorl's destination or even what 
direction it was going. But I'll respond, since I don't see the question as 
valid.

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

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

On my first reading, and also on my second, I find no consistent problem 
with my own interpretation of the passage. Basically, I commit the shameful 
and extremely unwise sin of believing what Silk says. He was enlightened, he 
partook of the consciousness of the Outsider who stands outside of time, and 
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 
stroke or embolism or whatever is necessarily incorrect. The joke on Dr. 
Crane is that he missed the *point* of the whole thing in the process of 
focussing on the physical phenomena involved, as if they made any difference 
- this, by the way, tastes of the humor of G.K. Chesterton, whose influence 
runs through the entire series. So, with a wink and a nod to Dr. Crane, if 
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 
>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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