I will try to precis Flux at some point - in the meantime, here are a few
comments ("Flux" was written in 1963, by Moorcock and Barrington Bayley -
my favourite fantasy and SF writers, respectively).`Flux' is a sardonic retelling of the H. G. Wells classic tale `The Time Machine'. In a near-future European Union facing economic and social collapse, the multi-skilled genius Max File is sent 10 years into the future to try and divine where things went wrong, and how calamity may be prevented. Unfortunately time travel is a tricky business, and Max soon finds himself going farther in space and time than he ever expected.... ----------- When the government of the European Economic Community has no idea what to do next, they send Marshall-in-Chief Max File ten years into the future to find out the eventual effects of their actions. Although this story was too abstract for my taste, I did enjoy the early presentation of what today might be called a Boltzmann Brain. [Apr 2012] *The world from which he had come, or any other world for that matter, could dissipate into its component elements at any instant, or could have come into being at any previous instant, complete with everybody's memories!* -------------------------- Here is a review... http://www.graemesfantasybookreview.com/2010/07/flux-michael-moorcockbarrington-bayley_07.html On 4 February 2014 12:12, David Nyman <[email protected]> wrote: > On 2 February 2014 18:53, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > > I will come back on this when I have time >> > > Thanks. > > >> but - to continue my suggestions re SF stories - "Flux" by Michael >> Moorcock addresses the "momentary frog question" rather nicely. >> Philosophically, at least, it is always possible that we ARE just momentary >> frogs. >> > > I can't seem to locate a reasonably priced copy of this. You would be > doing me a most tremendous favour if you could precise the relevant bits? > > Actually, I've had the glimmer of an idea. It's not fully worked out, but > I'll just dump what I have. When Mad Max talks about the bird view, the > assumption is that it's a panoptic (god's eye) view that encompasses all > the momentary frogs together. IOW, all the frog perspectives are available > "simultaneously" from this extrinsic perspective. When he talks about the > frog view, it's natural to think of the focus as collapsing right down to > that of a single momentary frog. But perhaps we should rather think of the > frog focus as continuing to be fundamentally panoptic (i.e. encompassing > all the frog perspectives) except that "down there" the extrinsic > simultaneity is intrinsically broken by the discrete perspective of each > momentary frog. If so, one could then see Hoyle's heuristic as a frog's eye > view of the experiential consequences of this broken simultaneity. > > David > >> >> >> On 3 February 2014 03:19, David Nyman <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On 2 February 2014 03:42, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> To answer the question about the frogs. We imagine we are an "extended >>>> frog" because of memory; without it we really would be stuck in the present >>>> moment, a series of individual isolated moments - and completely unable to >>>> function, of course. (If you haven't seen "Memento" do so because it's very >>>> good AND it shows the illusion of continuity up very nicely.) >>>> >>>> Ironically I don't have any more time to write on this! Later... >>>> >>> >>> Actually I was lucky enough to see Memento when it was premiered at >>> Sundance in 2001, I think. Great movie. >>> >>> Yes, I've got the bit about memory - this allows each "momentary frog" >>> to perceive itself as an "extended frog". But now we seem to have conjured >>> up a collection of momentary frogs each one of which imagines itself to be >>> an extended frog with more or less history, if you see what I mean. What >>> I'm interested in is why or how this could resolve into a singular >>> momentary frog that has the impression of one history that keeps extending >>> itself. One can see that this must be true of each of the momentary frogs, >>> each stuck in its pigeon hole, so to speak, but the logic we are discussing >>> seems to imply that each such frog is deluded and that its particular >>> history (memory, that is ) never in fact changes. >>> >>> The more I think about this the worse it gets. I realise that I can >>> never actually prove that I'm not just one of those momentary frogs stuck >>> in a pigeon hole with my memories of a past history, because that frog >>> could never observe any "transition" to a future moment (i.e. one not yet >>> encoded in its memory) in which that proof would occur. But accepting that >>> "I" am just one such momentary frog seems about as difficult as believing I >>> am not conscious simply because I apparently can't appeal to consciousness >>> to explain why I'm having the thought that I'm conscious (another thread!). >>> I think this is what Hoyle was getting at with his flashlight: we can't >>> seem to help thinking of ourselves successively as one frog at different >>> times. His flashlight idea just pumps the intuition that though we can >>> consider the pigeon holes in any order we like, we can't seem to avoid >>> considering them in some sort of order, even if that order is merely >>> logical, not temporal (because the temporal ordering is already in the >>> pigeon holes themselves). >>> >>> David >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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