{"id":4935,"date":"2019-04-26T05:00:26","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4935"},"modified":"2019-04-21T09:39:06","modified_gmt":"2019-04-21T16:39:06","slug":"mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iii-chapter-6-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2019\/04\/mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iii-chapter-6-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;The Science of Discworld III&#8217;: Chapter 6, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the first half of the sixth chapter of <i>Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Watch<\/i>, we discuss the nature of time travel and its fictional counterparts! Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>The Science of Discworld III<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>And now we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re back to discussing time travel!!! This is something that has come up numerous times not just while reading <i>Discworld<\/i>, but more specifically in the <i>Science of Discworld<\/i> books. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve talked about paradoxes and the possibilities inherent in time travel, and while this chapter treads some of that same ground, the lens through which it is discussed still felt different to me. The authors consider the implications of time travel through fictional means, both with references to the <i>Discworld<\/i> series (namely, <i>Pyramids<\/i> and <i>Thief of Time<\/i>) and many popular and seminal science fiction works that helped influence the tropes and archetypes that we now see in science fiction stories about time travel.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Though I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to ignore that this is <i>also<\/i> about the strangeness of how our minds perceive time. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of those thought conundrums that makes my brain hurt when I consider it because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 how long <i>does<\/i> the present last? The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153present\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is such a fleeting concept, and so it makes sense that humanity has struggled with it in various ways over the course of our history. (This feels related to the first time I ever thought about thinking and it was way, way too much to consider as a kid. It still fucks me up. How do we <i>think<\/i>? Why do we hear a voice when we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing it, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not <i>hearing<\/i> a voice? And does each of us think in our own voice or a different once from our own? OH NO, I CAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T DO THIS RIGHT NOW.)<\/p>\n<p>Anyway: literary time travel! Speculative fiction writers are largely responsible for our mass consciousness regarding what is capable in time travel, though I still love that physicists are like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Actually, time travel is <i>technically<\/i> possible based on what we know about physics, soooooo\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And then I think about how we would have already seen time machines had they existed? But then I think about a Tweet I saw once that explained how the world unraveled in the last few years specifically because we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re watching a time travel war unfold in real time. SEE, FICTION CAN EXPLAIN SO MUCH. (I mean, we can actually track why the world is descending into chaos, but sometimes, a neat story feels better. Narrativium at work!)<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>There is a trope here that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never heard of, though:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Another celebrated time paradox is the cumulative audience paradox. Certain events, the standard one being the Crucifixion, are so endowed with narrativum that any self-respecting time tourist will insist on seeing them. The inevitable consequence is that anyone who visits the Crucifixion will find Christ surrounded by thousands, if not millions of time travellers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I genuinely had never even considered this??? But holy shit, this <i>is<\/i> something that would happen, right? And now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m creeped out by this thought, THANKS EVERYONE.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Anyway: I was surprised that <i>Doctor Who<\/i> was not referenced during all of this! I think the authors were only sticking to the written word. (Except for that passing reference to all the trash adaptations of H.G. Wells\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>The Time Machine<\/i>. Seriously, why are those movies always so bad?) Still, I wonder if there are other popular tropes we see often that aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mentioned here. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the trope of meeting one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s self in the past undoing your own timeline, which is something the Doctor themself has to deal with. Or the way that time travel creates doubles in <i>Primer<\/i>, which is still one of my favorite time travel stories.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m interested to see where the authors will take the talk of the fourth dimension, though. Wells talked about it in the opening of <i>The Time Machine<\/i>, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m curious how much of that notion affected our understanding of time. It certainly stuck around as part of pop culture. (Now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking of <i>The Twilight Zone<\/i>, which is an entirely different thing.) But is it all that accurate, or just a stepping stone to a greater theory?<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/g_DnSL41N7U<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markoshiro.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/19\/the-anger-is-a-gift-paperback-edition-is-out-may-7-2019\">The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now up for pre-order!<\/a> It comes out on May 7, 2019.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><strong>If you&#8217;d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, <a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/ey636\">sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the first half of the sixth chapter of Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Watch, we discuss the nature of time travel and its fictional counterparts! Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Science of Discworld III.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,248,559],"class_list":["post-4935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-science-of-discworld-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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