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You like science fiction, don't you? Of course you do!

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MilesAhead:
I agree. Of course, it doesn't make sense. That's because it's science fiction,
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I don't think the lack of sense is due to fiction but the obsession in these stories with the start date the person initially gets in the time travel device as "the present."  In other words, in The Time Machine if it's January 1 1900 when the traveler first embarks, then that's "the present" and he can go forward, backward but comes back, maybe a few days after he left.  Maybe the number of nights slept away is added to the departure time so he doesn't return before he left.  Whatever. My point is, whenever you are, it's the present. If you go 2000 years into the "future" or the "past" you have no more control of events than anyone else. You may have some foresight since you see how the scam usually plays out.  But flipping a coin in the fountain doesn't ripple back.  That's absurd.  The present is always now. It's just relative to when you are. But enough of my harangue. :)

Speaking of sci/fi writers. I just watched another flick about Philip K. Dick. He was giving this speech in France at some Sci/Fi convention in the early 70's.  The woman who accompanied him is giving an interview about it in the documentary.  She talks about how she wanted to disappear because he was rambling this crazy stuff. But here's the funny part. He was talking about reality just being a computer program and if you get deja vu, it was because somebody changed a variable in the simulation. Everyone is wincing in discomfort at these ravings.  But I'm thinking, he thought of The Matrix 20 years before the Wachowski Brothers. Maybe they even saw the speech and got the idea from him?  :)

app103:
Speaking of sci/fi writers. I just watched another flick about Philip K. Dick. He was giving this speech in France at some Sci/Fi convention in the early 70's.  The woman who accompanied him is giving an interview about it in the documentary.  She talks about how she wanted to disappear because he was rambling this crazy stuff. But here's the funny part. He was talking about reality just being a computer program and if you get deja vu, it was because somebody changed a variable in the simulation. Everyone is wincing in discomfort at these ravings.  But I'm thinking, he thought of The Matrix 20 years before the Wachowski Brothers. Maybe they even saw the speech and got the idea from him?  :)
-MilesAhead (December 29, 2011, 12:55 AM)
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It's just another angle on the "dollhouse god" concept, where reality is manipulated by some outside force or entity, as if it were nothing more than a child's toy to be played with.

IainB:
Maybe the number of nights slept away is added to the departure time so he doesn't return before he left.  Whatever. My point is, whenever you are, it's the present. If you go 2000 years into the "future" or the "past" you have no more control of events than anyone else
-MilesAhead (December 29, 2011, 12:55 AM)
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Absolutely. This kind of relativistic phenomenon is a characteristic of miracles.

A Muslim cleric, a Roman Catholic priest, and a Jewish rabbi were discussing their individual experiences of miracles.

The Muslim cleric said, "Once I was riding a camel alone, in the middle of the Sahara desert, and suddenly a fierce sandstorm appeared from nowhere.  I truly thought that my end had come as I lay next to my camel while we were being buried deeper and deeper under the sand, but I did not lose my faith in the almighty Allah, and I prayed and prayed and recited passages from the Koran.  Suddenly, a miracle occurred, and it seemed as though for a hundred metres all around me, the storm had stopped, but I could see it still raging beyond that distance."

The Roman Catholic priest spoke up next, "My experience was very similar.  One day when I was walking down a street in Belfast in Northern Ireland, during the time of the Troubles, I was walking past this pub when people ran out screaming 'It's a bomb!'.  Well, I just stood still, put my hands together, and prayed, thinking to protect all the poor people who might get hurt if it was indeed a bomb. Sure enough, just then, a bomb went off inside the pub, and blew out the wall next to where I was standing, throwing bricks, nails and bits of glass in all directions.  When the dust settled, I was still standing unharmed, in what seemed to be circle of safety all around me in a radius of about a hundred feet.  Inside that circle, no-one had been harmed."

The Jewish rabbi said, "I too have had an experience similar to this.  It was one Sabbath (a Saturday) when I was walking down the street to my synagogue in London.  I like to walk along past the Mercedes showroom, to look at the cars.  I would have loved to buy a new 350SL - it's my favourite car - but I could never afford it unless they sold it for half the price!  As I approached the showroom, I saw a sign in the window that said 'Today only! One only!  Special offer! Brand new 350SL demonstration model at half price!'   I nearly cried!  What could I do?  It was a Saturday, and Jews are not allowed to handle money or engage in commercial transactions on the Sabbath, so I could not buy it even though I could have afforded it.  So I put my hands together and prayed and prayed.  Suddenly, in answer to my prayers, a miracle occurred - for 500 feet all around me, it was a Tuesday!"

oblivion:
I have also been listening to the Foundation series -- whiled away a long car journey with it, going to visit my son a couple of days ago -- and apart from some nasty contrasts between relatively quiet dialogue and some surprisingly loud electronic squeaks and whistles courtesy of the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, found it an absolute delight.

My first sf was Asimov: my dad lent me his copy of "I Robot" in, oh, probably about 1970, and I became a sf enthusiast almost instantly. (I was 8 or 9, just the age when things get lodged the deepest.) The Foundation trilogy followed soon afterwards and, probably because I lacked the critical facilities that made older commentators criticise the lack of character depth and the various other things that Asimov's been accused of, over the years, I absolutely loved it. (It's also responsible for one of the aphorisms that I still think should be a motto for every leader everywhere: "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.")

I must also declare here that I was a huge fan of the Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, loose ends and all, and can be inspired to quote chunks of it at people even now with only the tiniest incentive. (The radio series that started it all was still the definitive version, for me. The one that has the original name of the poet who was worse than the Vogons -- later changed, presumably because there was a real poet of that name, although I don't think I ever knew for sure.)

I can't listen to The Eagles' "Journey of the Sorcerer" without expecting to hear Peter Jones (The voice of the Book) to cut in at any moment...

So thanks for the pointers, App103 and MaxEvilTwin: you have made an old fart very happy.  ;D

oblivion:
The reminiscences I've just had has brought back another memory. This is probably ultra-obscure, but it puzzled me for ages and I find myself wondering if anyone knows anything...

My dad had a book of sf short stories. I don't remember anything much about it now, but it might have been a Readers' Digest book.

One of the pieces in it claimed to be an extract from one of Keith Laumer's Imperium books, written in the early 1960s. (Keith Laumer might be best known for a series of books featuring that most pragmatic of diplomats, Retief. I urge anyone unfamiliar to seek them out -- pure, unbridled entertainment.) The extract was a description of a sequence made by moving sideways through a series of parallel universes that started out with a gardener hoeing around a plant, gradually changed into some sort of dreadful battle between a warrior and a huge and fearsome sentient vegetable and then gradually changed back into a gardener and some sort of sprout with some sort of minor deviation from the original scene -- maybe the gardener now had horns or tentacles or something, I don't really remember.

Anyway, while the book I originally read that piece in has long disappeared, I spent ages trying to find the book in which that sequence occurred. My memory said it was "Worlds Of The Imperium" but I tracked down a copy (with the aid of a library), read it and failed to find it.

So I've always wondered if my memory was faulty. Maybe it wasn't KL. Maybe it was, but not that book. Maybe KL wrote it specifically for inclusion in that collection but it was just based in the universe(s) of the Imperium rather than actually being an extract from the book.

I think the piece might have been called "Sideways [or maybe sidewise] In Time"

Anyone recognise any aspect of the above?

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