Time And Minds

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Weinbaum and Wald receive messages from their future and thus gain some knowledge of future events but cannot experience those events any sooner than anyone else. One of these messages links Quincunx to Midsummer Century by Blish. (46) In this second short novel, John Martels’ personality, though not his body, is projected from 1985 to 25,000. Personalities are semi-stable electromagnetic fields. Martels’ field is projected accidentally and received by a preserved brain. He could return to 1985, although he opts not to, so his "time-projection" is genuine time travel. His experience is consistent with the Time Traveler’s theory that it is our "consciousness" or "mental existences," not our bodies, that move along time. Wald adds:

"And the consciousness of Robin Weinbaum is moving along that entity in that invisible direction." (45)

There are problems with this theory. First, it contradicts the Time Traveler’s practice, though not Wald’s. Secondly, the Time Traveler describes "mental existences" not, e. g., as "fields" but as immaterial and dimensionless which suggests that they are undetectable and even non-existent. (47) Thirdly, as before, motion "along the Time-Dimension with a uniform velocity" would take time so this dimension would not be time. (47) Fourthly, the theory suggests that, before or after the passage through human bodies of their minds, these bodies are mere automata although indistinguishable from conscious organisms.

This radical mind-body dualism leads to solipsism. Each of us has no way of knowing whether other organisms are really conscious. My neighbor’s mind, if he has one, may move along the fourth dimension more slowly or quickly than mine. Thus, it may not be present in his body when I am speaking to him. Indeed, it is unnecessary:

"He is not free in any way to change the shaping of the ultimate creature; all he can do is observe…" (45)

"…the shaping of the ultimate creature…" includes the movements of his own body and even of its vocal organs. I remember Blish suggesting in a conversation at a science fiction convention that minds might move along time at different rates but this is surely an absurd conclusion to arrive at. If the conclusion is valid, then I cannot be sure that Blish’s consciousness was present when it was suggested.

Wells, Blish And Moore

HG Wells, The Time Machine (London, 1973)
"'There are really four dimensions, three of which we call the three planes of Space and a fourth, Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.'" (p. 8)

"'There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it.'" (p. 8)

"'Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform velocity from the cradle to the grave.'" (p. 10)

James Blish, The Quincunx Of Time (New York, 1983)
"'...if time is a linear dimension, just like length, height, and width, then the entity that I see before me as Captain Weinbaum is only a second-by-second section through a much larger entity, one of whose extensions is invisible to me...And the consciousness of Robin Weinbaum is moving along that entity in that invisible direction.'" (pp. 101-102)

Alan Moore, Jerusalem (London, 2016)
"It was as though while people were still living they were really frozen motionless, immersed in the congealed blancmange of time, and simply thought that they were moving, when in truth it was just their awareness fluttering along the pre-existing tunnel of their lifetime as a ball of coloured light." (p. 363)

I comment on this general concept here. The next post will copy another relevant comment.

Blog Crossovers

We are mainly discussing Alan Moore's Jerusalem on the Personal and Literary Reflections blog because it is a work of literature. However:

Further Digging was posted on the Logic of Time Travel blog because it is about time travel;
Preliminary Thoughts On "Eternalism" and "It was still there..." were posted on the Religion and Philosophy blog because they are philosophical;
Three Alan Moore Quiz Questions was posted on the Comics Appreciation blog because, although occasioned by reading Moore's prose fiction, it is mainly about his graphic fiction.

This is bound to confuse blog readers because it is confusing me.

Having glimpsed the future of this blog, I prophesy that:

the next post will compare quotations from HG Wells, James Blish and Alan Moore;
the post after that will copy a relevant passage from Time Travel And Poul Anderson on the Poul Anderson Appreciation blog;
the post after that again will probably discuss these issues further.

"Upstairs"

See Dead Men (Tell Tall Tales) and A Peculiar Question.

Blogging about a rich and complex text, Alan Moore's Jerusalem (London, 2016), while still reading it for the first time, I can make mistakes but will correct them as soon as I see them. See here.

Jerusalem presents both Eternalism and continuity of individual consciousness after physical death. Eternalism is presented as a serious proposition. Is survival?

Survival has been and remains a widespread belief although in many mutually incompatible forms. It can legitimately be presented in fiction, e.g., in a chapter of Moore's Voice Of The Fire fantastically narrated by a severed head or when Swamp Thing rescues Abbie from Hell. When survival is a serious proposition - e.g., I meditate with Buddhists and have Muslim and Wiccan neighbors and Christian and Spiritualist acquaintances - I am critically skeptical and ask for evidence.

Michael Moorcock says that "Jerusalem buzzes with life..." (back cover):

several births;
six generations of a Northampton family;
a large extended family crammed into a small terrace house;
social life in the local pubs;
extended reflections on memories and experience.

We can add "and death": deaths and ghosts.

The Road Ahead II

Alan Moore, Jerusalem (London, 2016).

I am staying with the comparison made in the previous post in order to highlight a difference between space and time.

Space
Standing on a high hill, you see on the horizon a town where you will arrive after a further hour of travel but, of course, you do not see yourself in the town.

Time
Gazing eighty plus years into the future along his daughter's mortal span, Snowy Vernall sees not only the house in which she will die but also her dying in it.

Difference
Thus, Vernall's daughter will not travel along the eighty plus years in order to arrive at her death but is already there, at least as perceived by Vernall.

An additional detail is that Vernall is also able to discern emotional overtones, luster, then melancholy. His foresight is not merely physical.

The Road Ahead

Alan Moore, Jerusalem (London, 2016).

May is born on p. 260 and is in labor on p. 263. This transition is accomplished by the literary devices of the chapter and the change of scene. If we have read the book consecutively, then we know that May, carrying her baby, will converse briefly with a young man outside a theater and that that first child will die young. Thus, the novel gives us a partial perception of a time as a dimension and of the prescience that is granted to some of the characters.

Imagine: before a long journey, you consult a map but you cannot remember every detail of the route while traveling. Or: the road goes up a high hill that presents a panoramic view of the route ahead but, again, you are not able to recognize every place on the road as you pass through it. The places along the road exist concurrently but you experience them successively. Here are two dimensions, the length of the road and the time taken to traverse it. When May's father:

"...gazed along the long jewelled tube that was his daughter's enviable mortal span..." (p. 259)

- there were not two dimensions, her mortal span and the time that she will take to traverse it, but one dimension, her mortal span which is the length of time through which she will live. Thus, there is not an exact parallel between seeing the road ahead and prescience.

Imponderables

Alan Moore, Jerusalem. See here.

Can an author write about experiences that are not his? Can a man write from the point of view of a woman giving birth? Read "The Breeze That Plucks The Apron." (pp. 263-292) Of course, a woman reader might say that I as a male reader cannot know whether Alan Moore as a male writer has got it right. We can only make our own assessments of the veracity of what we read.

"'...turning all that money down.'" (p. 267)

Those five words sound autobiographical?

The midwife makes the point that, if May had been rich, then she would not have married Tom and therefore would not have been having this child. See If Not. We cannot assess different versions of our lives or, e.g., compare the children that we would have had with different wives or husbands. Fortunately, we do not have to.