Here’s a post covering writing, history, and speculation on the nature of the universe — subjects near to my heart.
The Unfolding Series has a number of characters who have the ability to view beyond our current levels of perception. Several are capable of seeing beyond the present moment in time, looking into the past, or possible futures that are unknown to the others.
Carol, Drew’s wife for instance can see time linearly – looking back and forth through time as though it were one long history. Candice’s vision is of a different sort, allowing her to see the threads of what is and what may come, though her sight is mainly limited to the span of her current incarnation.
These characters exist because I’ve met a number of them in real life and remain inspired by the events we have shared.
____________________________
The Garden of Forking Paths (Original Title: El Jardín de senderos que se bifurcan) by Jorge Luis Borges
Written in 1941, it is a short story involving espionage and describing a theory of the universe.
“…was I—now—going to die? Then I reflected that everything happens to a man precisely, precisely now. Centuries of centuries and only in the present do things happen; countless men in the air, on the face of the earth and the sea, and all that really is happening is happening to me . . . “
An idea worthy of debate, for sure.
In fact, the story is much more than a simple spy tale built around the nature of time and space. It’s been given credit as the inspiration for hypertext and stories of the create your own adventure genera.
It is also interesting to find that The Garden of Forking Paths describes a universe with multiple simultaneous realities being written years before Hugh Everett presented his paper The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics in 1957.
The Story
The Garden of Forking Paths from Google (English):
— OR —
The Garden of Forking Paths from Google (Spanish):
____________________________
Commentary
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Forking_Paths
As a Literature Assignment (good questions):
The Garden of Forking Paths: Time as an Expanding Labyrinth by Prof Paul Halpern
____________________________
And a visual aid – from the TV series Flash Forward
Proving again, any idea worth lifting is worth doing well:
And more importantly, proving that a story well written and involving a great mystery can have a long, long life.
Choose your paths well my friends,
– Jeffrey A. Limpert
__________________
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/manyworlds/pdf/dissertation.pdf
The Garden of Forking Paths from Google (English):
Alternate Source (English):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Forking_Paths
http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~ppotash/borges_analysis.html
http://fajardo-acosta.com/worldlit/borges/garden.htm
http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Halpern_Labyrinth_of_Time.pdf
Image Information:
Garden of Forking Paths
https://secure.flickr.com/photos/editor/4769521799/
By Editor B (Bart Everson)
Amazon – Unfolding: Awakening