8 Jan 1505
I
have a question for you, Jenny.
Sure.
There's a row of trees along side the parking lot.
I see them.
Then if you stand in the parking lot, you'd see a bunch of trees.
Yet from this window, looking down the row, you only see one.
So?
Well, which is it? One or many?
A bunch. You can only see one, but the rest are hidden behind it.
Prove it.
Mary!
My point is from one position, you project a series of individual
trees, but from another point of view, they are projected into a single
tree. Which is the correct view? One or many?
It's still many. It doesn't matter how it appears, only what its true
nature is.
But we learn its true nature only from its appearances. Both projections,
many separate trees or one big tree, are equally valid. From their own
points of view.
If I told you where I came from, you'd really think me insane.
Where do you come from, Mary?
Outer space.
Oh, sure.
Prove I'm wrong.
Where's your spaceship?
Our starcraft is at the airport.
How convenient.
Not really. I had to plot a hyperbolic approach.
You?
I'm the navigator. It's my job to help people find their way. I
had to be careful to bring us into this decade. Any earlier and we couldn't've
made repairs. Any later and we'd jeopardise our own past.
Oh, and a time traveller, too.
All supralight travel is time travel.
Get serious, Mary, or they'll never let you out of the locked unit.
Jenny, will you be there at my birth?
No.
Or when we rescued culture ACC-2 or fell into that casuality violation
at ASC-2344?
No....
You don't believe, fine, but you have no basis to disbelieve me.
So I'm suppose to accept any crap you spout?
Not accept, tolerate. You never have complete information, never,
on anything. Everytime you make a decision you have to fill in the gaps
with assumptions. Why make assumptions, and decisions, unless you need
to?
But you have to decide sometimes.
Sure. But remember you may be wrong. Like my roommate here, Azar.
We all have to make decisions about religion because it determines our
lives. I chose Jesus and Azar Mohammed. I fear she's wrong and will be
damned for it. But I can't be certain. So I have no right to interfere
in her beliefs. I have no right to judge other people, because I cannot
have complete information about them.
You can't live like that. You have to anticpate who's going to try
to hurt you.
I know. I have an internal model of the world, including you. But
it's my model, not reality. When they disagree, it is my responsibility
to correct my assumptions, not to inflict my beliefs on the outside world.
the ice and fire the ash and snow
the wild rocks like waters flow
from womb of hel to winter's hoar
in the mist and rain the mountains soar
above the sea the bulwark rears
in sterile glass a stalk appears
You say you're a christian.
Yes.
Then you must believe in a absolute God.
Oh, yeah, and there is an absolute morality. I just don't
have access to it. Elementary physics.
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