Mistake

The title of the Heinlein story is "Life-Line" (not "Timeline") - for those who care.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: George Murphy
  To: Iain Strachan ; Glenn Morton
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 7:15 AM
  Subject: Re: quantum physics and Buddhism

  But the relativistic picture is in a way less individualistic than Larkin's because there is continuity between the world tubes of different persons. If a maximal theory of common descent is correct, the world tubes of all living things on earth are connected in a space-time network.

  Two classic SF stories that make use of the 4-D picture of human beings are Heinlein's "Timeline" (his 1st p[ublished story) & Harness's The Paradox Men.

  Shalom
  George
  http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Iain Strachan
    To: Glenn Morton
    Cc: asa@calvin.edu
    Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 3:11 AM
    Subject: Re: quantum physics and Buddhism

    Though it's not to do with science as such, Glenn's post reminded me of a remarkable metaphor of particles coming together, cohering for a time then scattering for life and death, in Philip Larkin's poem "The Old Fools":

At death you break up: the bits that were youStart speeding away from each other for everWith no one to see. It's only oblivion, true:We had it before, but then it was going to end,And was all the time merging with a unique endeavour
To bring to bloom the million-petalled flowerOf being here. Next time you can't pretendThere'll be anything else.
    Though Larkin's view is bleakly atheistic (Larkin was obsessed with a fear of death), I find it a remarkable metaphor that reminds me of the physics of what's going on (though Larkin was not a scientist), and also is a celebration of the preciousness of life itself (the "million-petalled flower/ Of being here").

    Iain

    On 6/19/05, Glenn Morton <glennmorton@entouch.net> wrote:
      Moorad wrote:
>I am not sure how to visualize humans embedded in a Minkowski
> spacetime.

      If you picture the worldliness of the particles that make up our bodies, we
      would appear as particles coming into a cloud and particles leaving the
      cloud as it traveled through time. At the end, when the material of our
      bodies is dispersed, the cloud disappears because the particles scatter.

    --
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    There are 3 types of people in the world.
    Those who can count and those who can't.
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Received on Mon Jun 20 08:44:41 2005