From: trw@spl1.spl.loral.com (Tim R Witort)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: Re: the linear time thing - (spoiler?)
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:28:15 GMT
Organization: Loral Software Productivity Laboratory

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:
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|> >>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.
|> >>
|> >   They seemed to have at least one concept of time... Before Sisko met
|> >them and after.  (I don't really want to list all the logical inconsistencies
|> >I catched; I'm sure other people here will do it better than I can.)
|> >   The linear time idea as presented in DS9 was not very logical at all;
|> >it only works as an exposition of Sisko's character; OR the aliens turn
|> >out to be benevolent psychoanalysts... :)
|> >   Major flaw on DS9's part, but IMO not enough to destroy my interest.
|> > 
|> 	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.

   It sure SOUNDED like they lived outside of the time dimension.  They
seemed more puzzled by the fact that humans couldn't tell what was going
to happen than by anything else.  The fact that the future is not known
to us was our major weakness/strength.  If we can accept FTL travel and
all of the other impossiblilities, why not a being (or beings) for whom
time is the same sort of dimension as length or width is for us.  For them
it would have no specific direction.  And there are even MORE dimensions
than the 4 that we are bound by!
   The reason that there seemed to be a linear nature to their knowledge
of Sisco and the opening and closing of the worm hole is that WE are
time-bound beings - it seems to US that we are just meeting this new
being now, but to them EVERYTHING is NOW, just as they said.  Everything
being "now" is the byproduct of living beyond the dimension of time.
   This idea was not so hard to accept/grasp.  Anyone who has seriously
contemplated the nature of God has pondered on these ideas for a long
time.... hmmmm.... did I say "time" again?

-- Tim
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current