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Fantods, whole no. 9, Winter 1945
Page 12
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page 12 EFTY-NINE world split off from mine. Before that the same things happened in both our histories, so we musta been in the same world, then. Citizen: Oh, oh! That violates the Law of Conservation of Mass. Now I think we must've had separate worlds all along. TT: And before 1943 they were just the same, only different? Nope, I disagree. I still think we've a branch there. Citizen: Well, here comes a semanticist. Let's ask him...Hey, there! (Interval of one hour, while the two define "Hey" for the semanticist, and explain what they intended to convey by "there".) Citizen: Well, there's the question. What's the answer? Semanticist: What question? All you've done is recite a sense-free string of words. Here, read my article in the Fancyclopedia. I have set forth my dislike of the dynamic viewpoint, with its "Creation" of "new" worlds, elsewhere and at wearisome length. It's a possible way of looking at it, but unfruitful, I feel, for an adequate discussion. You have also objected to multidimensional time on the ground that it is a complex theory whereas the notion of unidimensional time agrees with all our experience and hence, by scientific method, should be accepted. So it does, and as a consequence multiple time has no standing as a scientific theory. Have I ever promulgated it as such? It's not science, but metascience -- metaphysics, if you prefer. As a logical structure it will suffice if it's internally consistent; if it also gybes with the evidence of our senses (which I b believe it does), so much the better. But it will not become science until the phenomena it predicts are observed and found explicable in no simpler way. That doesn't mean that a theory of multidimensional time must meanwhile be but an idle fantasy. Few there are who would assert that the conception of an electron moving through a space of three quintillion dimensions has physical reality. Yet the notion does correspond, in a sense, to a physical reality and is useful in discussing it. May not a logical theory of multidimensional time prove likewise to have useful applications? Incidentally, the simplicity of the hydrogen atom is, indeed, strictly relative. Consider the various H spectra and their quantumechanics! The philosophizing on J. B. Speer's world gets my vote for most interesting essay, this mailing. It's a bit chilling, sometimes, to realize how vastly men's thought processes may differ. Yet they can be good friends, and even understand one another slightly, for all that. "Suggested Ethics" are reasonable enough and comprehensive enough to merit acceptance without further ado. What say ye, fen? No positive complaint over Condensed Impressions, the slight bother of expanding them only makes them more fun, like cryptograms. But I miss the thumbnail comments, which, worth saying or not, were always amusing. And yet another Stranger calls it the "Strangers Club". Chirp "onkel", Art--yer unanimously howledown! Having been in on that meeting I kin appreciate Crate's impressions, though some elude me. This have-seen-be-
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page 12 EFTY-NINE world split off from mine. Before that the same things happened in both our histories, so we musta been in the same world, then. Citizen: Oh, oh! That violates the Law of Conservation of Mass. Now I think we must've had separate worlds all along. TT: And before 1943 they were just the same, only different? Nope, I disagree. I still think we've a branch there. Citizen: Well, here comes a semanticist. Let's ask him...Hey, there! (Interval of one hour, while the two define "Hey" for the semanticist, and explain what they intended to convey by "there".) Citizen: Well, there's the question. What's the answer? Semanticist: What question? All you've done is recite a sense-free string of words. Here, read my article in the Fancyclopedia. I have set forth my dislike of the dynamic viewpoint, with its "Creation" of "new" worlds, elsewhere and at wearisome length. It's a possible way of looking at it, but unfruitful, I feel, for an adequate discussion. You have also objected to multidimensional time on the ground that it is a complex theory whereas the notion of unidimensional time agrees with all our experience and hence, by scientific method, should be accepted. So it does, and as a consequence multiple time has no standing as a scientific theory. Have I ever promulgated it as such? It's not science, but metascience -- metaphysics, if you prefer. As a logical structure it will suffice if it's internally consistent; if it also gybes with the evidence of our senses (which I b believe it does), so much the better. But it will not become science until the phenomena it predicts are observed and found explicable in no simpler way. That doesn't mean that a theory of multidimensional time must meanwhile be but an idle fantasy. Few there are who would assert that the conception of an electron moving through a space of three quintillion dimensions has physical reality. Yet the notion does correspond, in a sense, to a physical reality and is useful in discussing it. May not a logical theory of multidimensional time prove likewise to have useful applications? Incidentally, the simplicity of the hydrogen atom is, indeed, strictly relative. Consider the various H spectra and their quantumechanics! The philosophizing on J. B. Speer's world gets my vote for most interesting essay, this mailing. It's a bit chilling, sometimes, to realize how vastly men's thought processes may differ. Yet they can be good friends, and even understand one another slightly, for all that. "Suggested Ethics" are reasonable enough and comprehensive enough to merit acceptance without further ado. What say ye, fen? No positive complaint over Condensed Impressions, the slight bother of expanding them only makes them more fun, like cryptograms. But I miss the thumbnail comments, which, worth saying or not, were always amusing. And yet another Stranger calls it the "Strangers Club". Chirp "onkel", Art--yer unanimously howledown! Having been in on that meeting I kin appreciate Crate's impressions, though some elude me. This have-seen-be-
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