Aug. 16th, 2008

bonny_kate: (rose)
I've been thinking lately about how sometimes love is hard; sometimes it hurts more and costs more to care. Sometimes love means making the hard decision when there are only two hard options.

A couple weeks ago, the sweetest little grey cat was crying for the attention of everyone who walked into my work. My heart melted, because I really am a cat person, and I would rescue every poor little stray in the world if I could. But he was gone by lunch. A few days later, he was back, and so I took this cat home and set him up in my bathroom. He followed me around the house, rubbing against my feet (which tickled), and was just so affectionate and sweet. I promptly named him Gandalf the Grey, and would have kept him if I could. But we already have two cats, and are soon to combine households with my grandmother, making it three cats, and my mother firmly said that we could not keep another cat.

I tried to find the cat a home, unsuccessfully, for two weeks. But then the poor cat got quite sick, and would just lay on the rug and attempt to purr, and after a day or two he wasn't eating, not even tuna water. I've never seen a cat refuse tuna water before. So then I'm stuck with the hard decision. Do I take the cat to the animal shelter, where he has almost no chance of getting adopted, or do I take the cat to the vet and perhaps only prolong the inevitable? We hadn't had anyone really interested in adopting Gandalf in two weeks, and people who adopt cats out of the paper generally want kittens instead of an adult cat, however well trained and sweet.

My mom took him to the animal shelter for me.

I was devastated. I know I made the right decision. I knew when I first took the cat home that I might just end up taking him to the shelter, and I chose to take him home fully conscious of that fact. I let myself fall in love with that scrawny little cat fully aware that I would have to give him up, one way or another.

Whoever dumped this cat, for he was much too affectionate and sweet to be a feral cat, refused to make the hard decision. They left him to starve, or be attacked by dogs or other cats, or to be hit by a car, because they could not deal with the near certainty of his death at the animal shelter. But rationally, it is a mercy, though a severe mercy, that I chose for the cat. I could not have let him continue to suffer at my house, and I certainly did not even think of leaving him on some street corner. But that doesn't make it easy.

Choosing to love or choosing to care often means that your heart will be broken because you have to make a hard decision, and there may be no easy way out, no last minute reprieve. But I say that it is better to love and break your heart, and it is better to love in the full knowledge that your heart will be broken, than to never love at all.
bonny_kate: (doctor and rose)
One of faeriemaiden's latest posts started me thinking about time, parallel universes, time travel, and the nature of reality, yet again. So, here are my thoughts, and my reasons for them, as well as the implications for science fiction literature.

I should start by saying that I have probably the minority opinion, at least when it comes to physicists, on pretty much all these topics. My view is generally the one that gets the little paragraph at the end of the chapter. Also, I'm going to try to discuss this in non-technical terms, so, for instance, I'll be using the terms parallel world and parallel dimension to mean loosely the same thing.

So, to start with parallel dimensions, there are two separate things that people mean when they talk about parallel dimensions. The first (which faeriemaiden mentions) is defined as a parallel world or dimension created by an alternate outcome from a decision or event. In other words, whenever you choose to go right instead of left, somewhere there's a parallel world where you chose to go left. That parallel world might look exactly like our world for all intents and purposes, or it might look drastically different. However, I don't think that there's any compelling evidence for the existence of this sort of parallel world. Further, I think it is either impossible or very difficult to really believe in the existence of this type of parallel world and to live as if this multiplicity of worlds exists. If for every decision that you make, there exists another world where you made the opposite choice, it doesn't matter what you choose, because you will have made all possible decisions somewhere.

The second type of parallel world is that of a parallel world or dimension that is a separate, distinct reality. It is not a mirror of our world, and it has not ever been. Narnia is this type of parallel world. I think this type of world exists, at least theoretically.

Now I come to quantum physics. Quantum physics is weird. The state of quantum particles does not appear to be certain until it is observed. This is illustrated with the example of Schodinger's cat. You take some poor cat and put it in a box. Then you put in a gun, which is triggered by the state of some quantum particle. If the quantum particle is in one state, then the gun does not fire, but if the quantum particle is in other state, the gun will fire. You close the box up, without looking at the quantum particle. Now, the quantum particle is neither state and both states until it is observed. Therefore, the cat is both alive and dead *simultaneously*. I think this makes no sense. Either the cat is alive, or the cat is dead, but the cat is not in some strange state where it is both alive and dead (yes, I have purposely excluded the possibility of a zombie cat). The conclusion of this is that I think reality exists independent of our observation of it (although of course our observation of it may change what we are seeing, but because of the methods that we must use to observe, such as using light to observe electrons will put them in a higher energy state).

Alright, moving on from quantum physics and parallel universes, I come to time travel. I think time travel is impossible, at least in the sense of making a box with dials and whatnot and sending someone back (I exclude here supernatural means of traveling forward or backwards through time, and I also exclude from this discussion in relation between people in different times, such as Charles Williams discusses in Descent into Hell, and focus only on the physical travel of an individual to the past or future). I think time travel is impossible for two reasons.

First, I think time is not a dimension in the way that length, height, and depth are dimensions. We are able to move around freely in three dimensions. (Barring, of course, such things as the existence of physical objects where we wish to go, such as a wall, but that is merely the law that no two objects can occupy the same space at the same time, and gravity doesn't count because we can counter it with an equal force). However, we cannot move about freely in time. We can only move forward in time. When scientists speak about time as a dimension, I think it is a useful way of thinking about things, such as for equations and experiments, but it is only useful to a point (such as the model of the atom as various discrete protons and neutrons with electrons spinning around them is only useful to a point).

Second, I think time travel is impossible because it contradicts the notions of causality. If I know a line of Taming of the Shrew, and then I happen to quote it to Shakespeare when traveling back in time, who really came up with the that bit? Did anyone come up with it at all? It invites all sorts of contradictions.

I want to point out also that time travel and faster than light travel are basically the same thing. If you can travel faster than light, you can in essence, travel back in time, and the reverse is also true.

So, the sum of all this is that it puts me in a rather strange place to be fond of sci-fi. I don't believe in a multitude of parallel dimensions created with every decision, I think reality exists independent of our observation, I think time travel and faster than light travel are both impossible. So, while I enjoy all sorts of sci-fi, I usually doubt the mechanics of it (such as Star Trek's Warp Drive, Dr. Who's TARDIS, and Diana Wynne Jones' parallel worlds of Chrestomanci).

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Kate Saunders Britton

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