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Dream Quest, v. 1, issue 1, July 1947
Page 9
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DREAM QUEST 9 from his race's proper operation of the Probability Engine, because the latter worlds weren't real. I doubt that Sir Arthur would agree with him. The Englishman would point out that people in these hypothetical worlds could (thru the Engine) be observed to weep and wring their hands, and conduct their lives as if they didn't enjoy the results of the hypothetical wrong choices. If he didn't have an illogical penchant for believing consciousness to be the ultimate reality, Eddington would probably conclude from these signs that these unreal people were suffering unreal grief which was as poignant to them as real grief to real people. THE temporal theory of Destiny Times Three is not altogether clear, but for the purpose of this discussion it will be convenient to assume that Prim and his lieutenants were operating on the theory of finite-valued probability, whereas the race which made the Engine accepted the theory of infinite-valued probability. Translating into English: Finite-valued probability here refers to the "Branches of Time" theory -- that a time-traveler or some other extraordinary event creates a new distinct branch on the trunk of time when he comes to rest in a past age and starts making changes therein. Infinite-valued probability is implicit in "Sidewise in Time," "Tomorrow and Tomorrow," and other stories, though i don't call to mind any tale which makes it perfectly clear. The idea is that from every particle in the universe at every instant there radiates a pencil of probabilities, each pencil containing infinite numbers of future possibilities. For purposes of dramatization, only sharply differing possibility lines are usually involved in a story, but it may be implied that there are continuous series of intermediate possibilities between these outstanding alternatives. For our purposes here, the main point is that in this theory the alternative worlds appear automatically, whether we do anything about it or not; in the "Branches of Time" school, they are only called into "existence" by the act of a time-traveler.
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DREAM QUEST 9 from his race's proper operation of the Probability Engine, because the latter worlds weren't real. I doubt that Sir Arthur would agree with him. The Englishman would point out that people in these hypothetical worlds could (thru the Engine) be observed to weep and wring their hands, and conduct their lives as if they didn't enjoy the results of the hypothetical wrong choices. If he didn't have an illogical penchant for believing consciousness to be the ultimate reality, Eddington would probably conclude from these signs that these unreal people were suffering unreal grief which was as poignant to them as real grief to real people. THE temporal theory of Destiny Times Three is not altogether clear, but for the purpose of this discussion it will be convenient to assume that Prim and his lieutenants were operating on the theory of finite-valued probability, whereas the race which made the Engine accepted the theory of infinite-valued probability. Translating into English: Finite-valued probability here refers to the "Branches of Time" theory -- that a time-traveler or some other extraordinary event creates a new distinct branch on the trunk of time when he comes to rest in a past age and starts making changes therein. Infinite-valued probability is implicit in "Sidewise in Time," "Tomorrow and Tomorrow," and other stories, though i don't call to mind any tale which makes it perfectly clear. The idea is that from every particle in the universe at every instant there radiates a pencil of probabilities, each pencil containing infinite numbers of future possibilities. For purposes of dramatization, only sharply differing possibility lines are usually involved in a story, but it may be implied that there are continuous series of intermediate possibilities between these outstanding alternatives. For our purposes here, the main point is that in this theory the alternative worlds appear automatically, whether we do anything about it or not; in the "Branches of Time" school, they are only called into "existence" by the act of a time-traveler.
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