From: jblum@hamlet.umd.edu (Hi ho -- Kermit the Frog here...)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: Re: the linear time thing - (spoiler?)
Date: 8 Jan 93 06:10:09 GMT
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park

In article <x_!3n+m@rpi.edu> ruderg@aix.rpi.edu (Gregory Allen Ruderman) writes:
>In article <16B4FDE92.YANJUNA@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu> YANJUNA@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu writes:
>>In article <1993Jan7.181650.27424@aio.jsc.nasa.gov>
>>andy rogers <rogers@ial3.jsc.nasa.gov> writes:
 


>


>>>if the creatures experienced all time simultaneously, then they already had
>>>squirted the commander out as far as they could tell. why did they give him
>>>such hell about his kind and intentions when they already experienced the
>>>whole thing. many other paradoxes boggle.

>	Now wait a sec.  What we do know is that the aliens have no concept
>of linear time.  Not that they exist in all times simultaneously.  Try this
>(addmittedly ad hoc) explanation on for size:  The wormhole aliens do not
>deal with time in a linear fashion, however from the indications we saw in the
>episode, they do seem to be acted upon by linear time.  For example, the aliens
>closed the wormhole _after_ the Cardassian ship went through.  If they truly 
>were not acted upon by linear time, they could have closed it before.  As for
>whether they knew Sisco's future (or their own for that matter) I think that
>their nature gives them something like a catalog of experiences which they can
>experience in any order, whenever or however often they chose, but since they
>are acted upon by linear time, as time passes, their "catalog" grows, although
>they do not have to read from the catalog in a linear fashion.  This way, they
>do not know what happenens in the future.

But if they realize that there are things which have not yet entered into
their catalog, then they have a "future", even if it is not the exact
same linear future as ours.  They might have Time's Corkscrew instead of
Time's Arrow, but there is still a direction involved.

I prefer to think that the aliens did exist in some linear time frame (though
not necessarily ours) -- they just had no concept of what it meant.  Kind of
the way no one thought about gravity until old Isaac got bonked on the head
by the apple.  The easiest reason why is, they have no way of measuring time
--after all, they're not even made of matter--so they have never bothered to
investigate the concept of past and future.  Perhaps they only think in terms
of Known and Unknown, rather than Has Happened and Not Happened Yet.

That's what I really liked about the DS9 premiere -- it actually dealt with
an alien mindset.  Completely inhuman concepts of the way the universe works.
Something which neither TOS nor TNG has tried too often.
>
>****************************************************************************
>	More pathetic ramblings ;-) from ruderg@rpi.edu
>		Also known as: Dooley.The.Mauve
>
>	"I suppose you've come to take the office."
>	"Well, I thought I'd come up and say 'hello', and _then_ take the
>		office, but we can do it in any order that you'd like."
>****************************************************************************
>:


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