Conference hydra::dejavu

    What if a person goes back into time and kills his 10-year-old
    great-great-great-grandfather?  Then his great-great-grandfather,
    great-grandfather, grandfather, father and he himself would never
    have been born yet the killer does exist.  This paradoxical situation
    seems to argue against the possibility of time travel into the past.
                                                                
    According to the theory of relativity, you could travel into the future
    by traveling at speeds near that of light, where 5 minutes on your
    watch would go by while hundreds of years would go by for the people
    you left on earth (and their descendants).
    earth.

Re .1
    
    This is known in the literature as "the Grandfather Paradox."  One
    could allow time travel by proposing that circumstance always prevents
    the time traveler from destroying causes that have already had an
    effect on him.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    
    
    re: .1 and .2
    
    Or maybe the time traveler would disappear as his great, great,
    great grandfather took his last breath....and so would anyone
    else in the g,g,gg's future bloodline.  The possibilities are
    endless!
    
    Carole
    

    If the time traveler and his intermediate ancestors disappeared
    (and by this I presume you mean "never existed,") then there would
    have been no one to murder this particular ancestor.  That's the
    way a paradox works -- by throwing you back and forth from one horn
    of a dilemma to the other.
    
    I've heard of three consistent ways of dealing with time travel:
    
    1) It can't happen.
    
    2) It can happen but the past is unchangable.  Any actions you take
    in the past have already had their consequences in the version of
    the present you left from.  There is only one version of any period
    of time.
    
    3) Time has more than one dimension.  If you change the past, this
    is no longer the original version of the past, but a later version,
    "later" being measured along a second dimension of time.
    
    Time travel is also discussed in MTV::SF and DSSDEV::PHILOSOPHY.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    	The SF Conference is now located at NAC::SF.
    
    	Larry
    

I believe that time/space is a neat package.  By that I mean if you went
back in time, then you'd always been back there.  Whatever you do, you've
always done.  If you tried to do something like kill one of your relatives,
circumstances would prevent it.  I've always been intrigued with the
ramifications of going back in time.  This is the scenario that sits the best
with me.

I love hearing what other people feel would happen.  Occaisionally there
is a good movie on this subject.

		Dave

    What if time isn't linear?  We always assume it is but what if it
    is more like layers of all possible times.  Then couldn't you go
    back and change something that might steer the course of that 
    particular time flow off in a different direction without changing
    the history of the time you flow you are in?

    
    We could all *wrinkle*!
    
    Cindy

    re: -1 a great set of books, huh:-).
    
    Also kind of along the same lines of the layered time instead of
    linear time are the Chronicles Of Amber by Roger Zelazny. Check
    it out.
    					Geoff

    	Time travel IS possible.  We do it all the time.
    
    	Time travel into the past is impossible.  Even far fetched
    theories usually have some foundation in scientific research.
    This is one that has none.
    
    -mike z

    Re .10
    
    If you accept the evidences presented for precognition, then there
    is at least some scientific foundation for the belief that information
    can move backward through time.
    
    Even if you do not accept those evidences, the matter is not so
    closed.  According to general relativity, it is possible to travel
    into the past by taking the proper route through a sufficiently
    warped piece of spacetime, such as that surrounding a massive, rapidly
    rotating neutron star.  (Perhaps a black hole would be required
    instead.)
    
    According to special relativity, if a thing can move faster than
    light, then there are slower-than-light reference frames in which
    it is moving backward in time.  And recent experiments into some
    of the stranger quantum effects suggest that some currently unknown
    physical influences may, in fact, move faster than light.  This
    is not a universal interpretation of the evidence, but the alternative
    interpretation is even stranger (in my opinion), though it does
    not involve time travel; this is the notion that physical systems
    may have no definite state until observed.  (We are presently
    discussing these oddities in the PHILOSOPHY file, if you are
    interested.)
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    I'd like to throw up another issue in regards to Time....
    
    Reincarnation.
    
    Go back and time and meet yourself in a previous life,
    
    Travel into the future and see yourself in a future life.
    
    Mystics now say that you can have "past lives" in the "future" since
    the afterlife is not in this dimension.  Does that mean that you
    can have a "past life", or "present life" *RIGHT NOW*.  Maybe the
    term "soul mate" is actually the same soul traveling through another
    dimension.
    
    Does any of this make sense?
    
    Dave

re:< Note 551.12 by HPSCAD::DDOUCETTE "Common Sense Rules!" >
  
>    Go back and time and meet yourself in a previous life,
>    
>    Travel into the future and see yourself in a future life.

I'm really glad you brought this up.  I almost put something into the wild
theories note about this.  Not about travelling in time really, but about
reincarnating into past, present and future times.  I think that if
reincarnation exists, then anytime would be possible for a lifetime depending
on what the needs of soul are.  This would be interesting since we would
be able to reincarnate into *this* lifetime as well.

Sorry to diverge a little.

		Dave

re: .12
>						Does that mean that you
>    can have a "past life", or "present life" *RIGHT NOW*.  Maybe the
>    term "soul mate" is actually the same soul traveling through another
>    dimension.
>    
>    Does any of this make sense?

Dave, maybe there's only one soul that is experiencing all of our
lives (similar to the "one electron" time travel theory in physics).
Does THAT seem to make any sense?
							paul c.

    Bodily time travel or soul time travel?  
    
    I think physical time travel is not available to us but that soul
    travel is.  The soul travels through time and in each "lifetime"
    holds onto bits and pieces of past and previous lifetimes, hence
    "premonitions" and recollections of former lives.  As the soul dreams,
    astrotravels, etc. it can travel past and future, holding on to
    these "memories".
    
    I don't think that physical, bodily travel is available for the
    reasons stated previously, an example, killing off your family chain.
    
    I am wandering.  After three weeks on vacation, I have a lot of
    catching up to do.  You guys [and girls :^)] have been quite busy!

    Soul time-travel into the future (i.e., time-travel in which
    information is gathered though no influence is made) has the same
    trouble that "physical" time travel to the past has -- where have
    you "been" if what you learn causes you to act in such a way as
    to prevent what you learned from being so.
    
    The only logically consistent answers are that "soul" time travel
    to the future cannot take place, or that time has a multi-dimensional
    structure.
    
    I find the evidence for precognition very convincing (although "soul
    travel" to the future is no more necessary for precognition than it is
    logically necessary to travel to a distant star to see it), and
    so I believe time is not linear in structure.
    
    					Topher

          An off the wall source of theory follows (skeptics hit
           Next Unseen)  :-)(also symbol for neck on chopping
           block)
           
           Time travel and its parodoxes has always intrigued
           me, and being an avid SF reader I have heard a
           multitude of theories. 
           
           Background: I have recently been given a "Star
           Seed" crystal and I have had some very intense
           dreams coincident with it residing on the bedside
           table.  (I don't put a lot of weight in their
           "commercially" pushed origins but they are intrigueing
            and it did find me.)
           
           A couple of nights ago I had a *very* intense dream
           dealing with time travel. The dream brought up
           a couple of possibilities I don't remember seeing
           elsewhere. 
           1) Is it possible to "mess up" *future* time when
           time traveling? (Possibly a spinoff of the "all
           time existing at once"  theory).
           2) Our "inner self" will keep us from doing anything
           that could significantly alter events when we are
           traveling outside our "current" time frame. 
           
           Salient points of dream proof ;-) follow:
           
           I was time travelling with two other people in
           the distant future. Details of clothing and
           architecture were exceptionally vivid. We had a
           guide from that time era showing us about. 
           At one point one person in the group had sense
           of urgency to leave area. It was intuitively known
           that this was to avoid seeing someone or causing
           some event that would leave evidence of our being
           there. At another point, us time travelers were
           going to sign the guest book at the U.N. as a lark.
           The first person zipped out their signature and
           we realized that when we looked at it closely,
           it was gibberish. I then tried to carefully write
           out my signature and found I had an "inner" block
           that would not let me leave evidence of my time
           travel. 
           
           Was this a "message from beyond";-) - who knows?
           I hesistate to even enter this, but it was a very
           powerful dream that left a strong impression and
           it does, at least, bring up a couple of interesting
           theoretical points.
           
           Thom
            
           

RE: .18
    
    Some interesting thoughts.
    
    On "altering the future".  If you travel to the future, and can
    affect it in any way (e.g., not just see it) than you alter it.
    But this wouldn't result in a paradox (when you "got back" to the
    past, however, and applied what you had learned in the future --
    that could easily generate paradox).
    
    Your theory about subconsciously avoiding creating paradox:
    
    	1) The first problem has to do with what "significant" means.
    	   We tend to view history as being about human afairs.  As
    	   long as the history books come out right, our gut feeling
    	   is that paradox has been avoided.  In reality a single pebble
    	   scuffed from its place, never having any further effect on
    	   a single human life (or any life at all even) can still be
    	   part of a paradox.
    
    	2) The second problem is much more subtle.  I had a long argument
    	   with Steven Braud a philosopher who concerns himself heavily
    	   with parapsychological issues.  He made the same error, so
    	   you shouldn't feel like you were being dumb.
    
    	   The scientific (or even non-scientific rationalist) view
    	   is that the Universe works by meaningful, consistent rules
    	   (or rather that we can describe how the Universe operates
    	   this way).  One of those rules is *NOT* that the Universe
    	   tries to avoid paradox.  Rather, when we are trying to figure
    	   out what those rules are, if we find a paradox, then we know
    	   that we have made an error somewhere in our figuring.  (We
    	   do this everyday -- if I say "Sam must of come in from outside.
    	   No wait a minute, its raining out, and Sam didn't have a
    	   raincoat, so if he came in from outside, he would be wet.
    	   But he is not wet.  So he must not have come in from outside."
    	   then I have used a paradox (Sam must be wet/Sam is not wet)
    	   to reveal a flaw in my logic).
    
    	   What is needed is not a rule of the form "We don't do anything
    	   that causes a paradox."  There is no force which "desires"
    	   a lack of paradoxes and thus does whatever is needed to prevent
    	   it.  Rather we need a specific mechanism which explains *why*
    	   a paradoxical situation would never arise.  Why we would
    	   be, for example, inhibited from doing anything which would
    	   set up a causal-loop.  The only mechanisms I know of are
    	   1) No time-travel/precognition/retro-PK, and 2) More than
    	   linearly structured time.
    
    Good thinking though -- if I hadn't had that discussion with Steven
    Braude, I would not have had a response ready at hand.
    
    					Topher

	I have a theory that time travel (or at least exchange
   of information through time) is possible.    When paradoxes
   result from it, the universe splits into two tracks, that
   rejoin when the paradox is resolved.

	For example:   (this example is made up, but is based on some *real*
                        dream observations I have made...)

	1) In May I search my *entire* yard with a metal detector, and
           find nothing.
	2) In June, I have a dream in which I telepathically
           influence my April self to bury a coin in the yard.
        3) In July I find and dig up the coin.

	After event 2, my memory of the May search becomes confused.   Two
    time tracks exist from the time I buried the coin, till the time
    I had the dream.   (note this dream is actually *two* dreams, one
    which I had in April, one in June.)   By July, only one track remains,
    where I remember burying the coin and digging it up.    Two selves
    existed in May, one who remembers burying the coin, and then *not*
    searching as thoroughly for it in May.   The other self had no
    memory of burying the coin, and searched every corner of the yard
    and found nothing.    The final result;  there was a coin there,
    and the memory of May is distorted.

	In general my theory states that the act of time travel, or
    exchange of information through time, will cause a second "time
    track" to exist, through the span of time over which the travel
    or exchange occurred.   The area of time between becomes confused,
    and two sets of memories and events are only resolved *after* the
    whole period of time had passed.   The resolution joins the two
    sets of memories, but some events are forgotten or confused.

	This type of thing may explain differing accounts of events;
    In the Bible, for example, two Gospels have slight differences
    in the genealogy of Christ.   Perhaps both are correct, but
    happened in two different versions of the past that were rejoined
    before the Bible was compiled.

	This is similar to the "many universes" theory, except that
    I believe that the split off universes eventually rejoin, also 
    the "split" is a very local effect, and not a split in the
    *entire* universe.

	Alan.

    
    Re.20 - Alan
    
    You might have had a faulty metal detector in May which would account
    for you not locating the coin in the yard.  
    
    Cindy
     
    
    

This seems as good a place as any to describe the way I see
reality.

I believe that there are an infinity of time streams branching
down from the first instant of our current universe:

                            0			Universe begins
                           | |                            
                          / \ \                ^          
                         |  |  |               |              
                        / \  \  \        first few uS of                    
                       |   |  |  |           Universe

Each stream is related to but slightly different from those close
to it...in the very early stages of creation streams split based
upon whether a subatomic particle split or not; I think that this
still occurs, but the infinite number of these nearly-identical
time streams bundle together into "macrostreams."

Macrostreams are influenced by macroscopic events (macroscopic
when referenced to the world we perceive). To illustrate, when
you cut your finger chopping veggies, a universe is generated
where you just put a nick in the chopping board.

Now the fun part. Macrostreams also bundle, into metastreams.
Within a metastream, some macrostreams lie close together, and
it's easy to get from one to another. I believe that just
*imagining* a macrostream is enough to bring it into existence;
if it's close enough to the current reality, you can simply slip
into it.

Two examples. I was in an arcade and wondered what it would be
like if the power failed. The power failed. Travelling down a
country road in New Ipswich a few nights ago I imagined that that
road would be a really rotten place for my car to break down
(it's only a year old and has no history of failure). The timing
belt snapped.

The closer analternate reality is to our current reality, the
easier it is to get there. Some people (we call them enlightened)
have trained themselves to slip significantly far away from
current reality. We do this all of the time, when we create
parking places, when we practice magic, etc.

This has some holes in it, of course, but maybe I'll just slip to
a stream where it's been worked out...

Tananda

    
    re: -about 2
    
    Hmm...I like Alan's idea of local splits that rejoin the main stream.
    I'll have to work that into my model.
    
    Tananda
    

    re: -.2
    
    	I like how you presented that, Tananda.
    
    				Carla
    

    Our "will" could be the rudder which steers our course through the
    time stream.  Just as the atom becomes positive or negative when
    observed, ... the time stream we ride may open up to us at a critical
    choice moment.  Our history may be a series of "critical choices"
    or "key events" (for example, the birth of a child) directing us 
    through the flow.  What we remember may be merely "key events", 
    few people can remember everything they have experienced
    on a daily basis since childhood.
    
    Thom, what is a star seed crystal?  (and where can I get one_:-) 

    (If this had been solely my thoughts, I'd own up to
    them...unfortunately, they are some concepts that have come
    from Lazaris, so I must therefore acknowledge that.):
           
    Herewith some thoughts:
         All possibilities exist.  There are infinite possibilites.
    There is a constant contraction/expansion (simultaneously) of 
    awareness (similar to the contraction/expansion which our universe
    in constantly in--remember, this is *not* necessarily my own thinking.)
         Next point:  Which events happen?  All of them.  Which are
    relevant?  Those which you wish to be.  Can past lives change 
    (as future lives "obviously" can?)  Yes.  How?  By focusing on a
    different POSSIBILITY (which therefore becomes PROBABLE.)  What
    happens to the former probability?  It becomes one of the infinite
    possibilities.  What's going on here?  It's called changing your
    reality.  How?  By thought.  By thinking differently than you did
    before.  By not "buying in" to the concepts held by your current
    beliefs (which include the concepts of the consensus reality.)
    How do you change thoughts or beliefs?  By choice.  What creates
    the choices?  You do.  You make the decision to do so.  But don't
    you then become "warped" or "neurotic" or somehow different from
    everyone else (and are viewed that way by them) if you do?  That's
    precisely the point.  If you want a different reality, one of the
    possibilities is that others will see you differently.  On the other
    hand, a reality EXISTS wherein not only you will be different, but
    others, too.  Therefore you will make others *like* you.  How does
    this tie in to time and time travel?  Because it requires a recognition
    that all time is simultaneous and that indeed paradoxes can and
    do exist and that change not only *can* exist but is a certainty.
    Do we need to figure out how these paradoxes can come about?  NO.
    We are limited beings who are incapable of figuring out many of
    the aspects that reach into other aspects of God/Goddess/All-That-IS.
    
         The point is, yes, it is an interesting question/thought. 
    I believe that the Information you "received" is but a hint or
    an insight, if you will, into that which can occur.
         This "train of thought" leads very handily into the idea of
    transcendence.  Now *there's* a scary thought for many!  Imagine
    for a moment only (so that you don't get too scared) the possibility
    of leaving this body and this reality (by WILLING it) and suddenly
    finding yourself as a farmer or basket-weaver in the South Pacific.
    Would you have any memory of this life?  Not likely.  Would you
    have a "past" attached to that life?  Of course, just like we do
    now.  Where did that past come from?  From the realm of possibility.
    When?  Now!
         Far fetched?  No, I don't think so, not any more anyway.  Can
    we transcend this reality?  I believe so.  What does it require?
    Impeccable thought.  Why don't we do it?  I believe some do.  For
    me it is a matter of fear.  I wish to "know" where I'm going to
    go before I choose to "check out" of this reality.  Besides, I'm
    not displeased with this reality nor am I "ready" to leave it.
    When I am, however, I wish to make the choice to leave it and go
    to a new reality where there are new things to learn (after all,
    if I've *evolved* to the point of transcending my reality by choice,
    consciously, then I believe I will have succeeded in having dominion
    over the physical plane and have therefore no "need" to stay within
    it.)
                                                        
        *Remember*, if you will, that TIME is one of the TOOLS of the
    physical plane, along with SPACE, the FUTURE, the PAST and the
    EGO which serves up our reality to us.  Once you have mastered the
    use of the tool, you create new tools.
      
    
    Frederick
    

    From a number of different sources (who probably heard it from the same
    one :-)) I've heard tell that time doesn't exist outside of the
    physical plane (or reality system).  That it exists here as a
    [ synchronization | boundary | dimension | limit ] to make the physical
    plane work well.  After all, if you go back in time and kill your body,
    you shouldn't have a body to come back to in what was your 'present'
    time.  Just think, somebody would have to:

       o   Go back to your present time and get rid of your body
       o   Go back and forth in time and get everyone else there to
    	   agree to forget about you.
    That's no way to run a reality-system.
    
    Additionally, if the idea about parallel times is correct, then there
    would probably need to be multiple reality-systems about, running
    different time segments, so that you could have parallel times.
    
    So, it seems that on the highest level, time travel wouldn't be
    possible 'cause there is no time outside of a reality-system.

    Additionally, time travel probably wouldn't be possible WITHIN a
    reality-system either, 'cause that wouldn't work within the limits
    of the reality system (if you tried it, they'd probably make you
    go play somewhere else ;-)).
    
    However, you might be able to synthesize time-travel by switching
    between reality systems.  However, I'm not all that sure that you'd be
    [ able | allowed ] to take a reality-system body with you. 
    
    If you tried to beat the rap be moving to a reality-system that
    didn't have time, you couldn't time travel 'cause there wouldn't
    be any!  :-)

    So, what you'd probably need, to be able to time-travel, is a
    reality-system with time as something relatively unimportant, so that
    you could bop back-and-forth and do stuff without breaking the
    reality-system.  Alternately, you'd need a system where time was
    important, but you would be allowed to travel only as long as you (or
    your higher self) agreed not to do anything that messed things up. 

    So, I guess the answer to 'Is Time Travel Possible?' would be
    [ yes | no | maybe ], depending on what reality-system you were
    hanging around in at the time.  ;-)
    
    Kak

    If one makes an event happen by switching to the time track containing
    that event, what does that look like to people back in the previous
    time track?  Did you vanish?  Were you replaced by a near-identical
    twin swapping in from another time track?
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    Earl,
    What happened to the kid who sat behind you in the 5th grade?  
    Our reality is composed of a certain number of "real" people who
    we know and interact with on a daily basis.  The people all of us
    have left behind... (the kids who sat behind us in the 5th grade
    for example), do not exist for us anymore, ..most of us can't 
    remember their names, what they looked like, or how and where they are.  

    Those who have been close to us all of our lives must be in the
    same time track.  Those thousands of people we experienced some
    of life with (our school bus driver) could be anywhere right now
    and we wouldn't know the difference nor does he know or care where
    we are.  So it would be events that take us away, our absence would
    be logically explainable and the people in the previous time track
    would'nt even think about us unless they choose to switch time streams
    by a (key choice) event and come and "find" us.
    
    Mary

    

    To clarify, I don't think one makes an event happen by switching
    to the time track containing that event, rather I think one switches to
    another time track by choosing to participate in a key event.

    
    Yes, Mary, I agree to an extent. But my point is that you CAN choose
    to modify your reality by moving into a time stream that contains
    that reality. The ones that are *very* close to our current reality
    are easy to get to...they contain all of the folks we interact with
    on a daily basis, for example, but may contain a parking place that
    *didn't* exist in the previous reality. Time streams that are *very*
    far away, say one in which the person sitting next to you was never
    born, are *extremely* difficult to get to.
    
    Another thing that I have to assume in this hypothesis is that there
    is no future, only past and present (Ok, smartass, just pop into
    a reality where there IS a future |^P  ) Allowing a future bringgs
    up the question of predestination, a question which I don't want
    to deal with yet.
    
    Although I like the idea of time strands separating for a brief
    period and coming back together, I can't accept it. It would require
    too much synchronicity to get the two streams back into the same
    time frame...it's much more likely that the two branches simply
    run parallel.
    
    Tananda
    

    I disagree Tananda.  If one views time not as a hard material substance
    but as a flowing energy field (like the currents in a stream) then
    time could indeed ebb and flow in and out of different currents.
    Also, if there is a past than there must be a future (or if there
    are a myriad of "possible" pasts then there must be a myriad of
    "possible" futures.  The decay rate of the kaon (?) particle indicates
    the specific time "current" perhaps?
    
    If time is an illusion, just as a current is not the true nature
    of water but merely the stream *reacting* to forces pushing it in
    a specific direction, then WHERE one goes in time,... in one's life,
    is a result of other determining factors.  Lets see if we can figure
    out what those factors are.
    Mary

    Has anyone ever been in a theater watching a who-done-it, and someone
    yells out the answer?
    
    I can remember such an instance that happened to me once. There
    was about an hour left in the movie, and someone shouts out
    the answer. Once enlightened, the movie became booring and slow.
    It had lost its magic.
    
    It was as if time itself had been changed. Instead of having
    to wade through the movie for the remaining hour, it had
    already ended. My realization of the conclusion had preceeded
    the movie by the hour remaining.

    Another example of this time-shift occurs when you recognize
    and become cognesent of a pattern in behavior. For example,
    those taught to handle customer complaints recognize certain
    scripts or tells, and are taught to manipulate the outcome. Or
    salesmen are trained to understand the "sales process". Or
    poker players, or mystics?
    
    A second effect noticed in the theater was that the entire
    audience seemed to go through three phases of awareness;
    disbelief, acceptance/anger, and finally admiration.
    
    Disbelief:
        At first, the new facts had to be fit into the frame of the
        picture.
    
    Acceptance/anger:
    	Once the facts jived, the conclusion was accepted. The anger
        came from not wanting to accept that the movie was over.
    
    Admiration:
    	And finally, we all admired someone who could 'see' the ending
        so early in the movie.
    
    These three phases seem to apply to mystics too. Those that predict
    the future are not necessarly beleived or rejected. Once time
    plays out a bit, and the facts can be fit into place, we then
    accept the prediction as being true. If we don't like any eventual
    outcome, we become angry. And finally, we admire folks that posess
    these special tallents.
    
    

    RE: .33
    
    I don't know about you, Cal, but I think the person who shouted out to
    everyone whodunnit was a rude A-hole.  What was his motive but to
    ruin the film for everybody else?  He certainly wouldn't have gotten
    my admiration or acceptance!
    
    John M.

.34  Going further down a rathole... speaking of theatre etiquite, and for
those who don't read HYDRA::DAVE_BARRY...
================================================================================
    368.0                                                       16-DEC-1987 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Rudeness Epidemic Takes Total Toll at Mall Movies
                              By Dave Barry
    
    We're at  the  movies.    We're  in  one  of those modern shopping mall
    "cinema complexes" where  each  individual theater is the size of a Pez
    dispenser, which means it  is  very difficult to avoid sitting near the
    Loud People.  They're always  there.   One theory is that they actually
    live  in  the  cinema  complex,  bearing  live  offspring  and  feeding
    themselves  by  hacking  off  chunks of the  inch-thick  layer  of  old
    Raisinets coating the floor.

    As soon as we sit down, a herd  of Loud People lumbers up behind us and
    begins  to  discuss  the incredibly complex problem of where  everybody
    will sit.  This keeps them busy all the way  through  the opening Short
    Feature,  which  years  ago  consisted of Heckle and Jeckle engaging in
    comical  stunts but  now  consists  of  a  public-service  announcement
    wherein Clint Eastwood tells  us,  in  a  stern voice, not to use crack
    cocaine.  (Easy for him  to say.  He's not sitting in front of the Loud
    People.)

    We know from experience what will  happen  next.    What will happen is
    that we will experience each scene from the movie twice:  once when  it
    appears on  the  actual  screen,  and  once  whn the Loud People, whose
    brains operate on  a  10-second tape delay, comprehend it.  If, for ex-
    ample, the villain, in  a  shocking and dramatic moment, suddenly pulls
    out a knife, and the camera moves in for a close-up, so that the entire
    screen is filled with a knife the size of a 1967 Buick, there will be a
    10-second pause, and then one of the  Loud  People will say:  "He has a
    knife." Or maybe:  "What is that?  A knife?"

    So we decide to move to seats that  are  closer  to  the  screen, which
    turns out to be foolish because it puts us near the Teen-agers, who, in
    terms of their grasp of basic theater etiquette, make the  Loud  People
    look like the royal family.  It is not their fault.  Due to raging hor-
    monal  imbalances  over which they have no control, their entire social
    hierarchy undergoes  a  complete transformation every four minutes, re-
    quiring all 137  of  them to change seats immediately.  We occasionally
    catch glimpses of the  screen  in  between  the teenage bodies lurching
    back and forth, sometimes getting stuck in the Raisinets.

    And now, rising above the din, is a new sound, coming from a person who
    is standing near the screen and  carrying  on  a  lengthy  and friendly
    conversation with people, who, to judge from this person's voice level,
    must be in Nova Scotia.  We strain to see, between Teen-agers, who this
    person is;  imagine our suprise when we realize that it is:  the usher.
    It is a chilling moment,  similar to the moment experienced by the her-
    oine in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" when she discovers that every-
    body, even Donald Sutherland, has been taken over by the pod creatures.
    Suddenly we see that we are not in a situation where a majority of bas-
    ically polite people are being inconvenienced  by  a few louts;  we are
    in a situation where, as far as  we  can  tell,  everybody  else in the
    theater is rude.

    This  kind of thing is happening more and  more  as  a  result  of  the
    International  Rudeness  Epidemic, which scientists now believe started
    in France, and which has been worsening rapidly.  I myself have tracked
    its growth via  the simple research technique of holding doors open for
    people walking behind me.    Years  ago,  almost  everybody  would say,
    "Thank you" and I would  say,  "You're  welcome."  Then a lot of people
    stopped  saying  "Thank  you,"  and I  compensated  by  saying  "You're
    welcome" anyway, in a loud and brutally polite voice, which would cause
    some of them to become sheepish and say, "Thank you." Then they stopped
    becoming  sheepish  and started making obscene gestures.  Now  many  of
    them don't even bother to do that.  We have  reached  the point, in the
    International Rudeness Epidemic, where people have gotten too rude even
    to give you the finger.
    
    So we find ourselves hunched down in our theater seats,  trapped in the
    middle  of  Expo JerkFest '87.  We are, quite frankly, terrified.    We
    decide to try to make a break for it.  Our plan  is to walk brazenly up
    the  aisle,  laughing  and  burping real loud so nobody will notice us,
    then sprint  for  the  car.  We're just about to make our move when the
    theater doors burst  open.    Our  eyes  are  momentarily  blinded by a
    tasteful flash of light,  and then, standing in front of the screen, we
    see:  Miss Manners.   She  reaches  into  her purse, which is of course
    exactly the color of her shoes, and pulls out:  Clint Eastwood's gun.

    "What is that?" says one of the Loud People.  "A knife?"

    
    Re.35
    
    Jay, why is it that I'm not surprised to see that you are a DB fan?!?
    
    Cindy

Cindy;  DB fanatic! I have every article ever posted on HYDRA:: Some are
better than others, but they're all worth reading.

    
    Yes, he is great!  I've been reading his stuff even before his books
    started coming out.  His 'baby' book is my favorite.
    
    *Sigh*, if I only had the TIME to spend going through the conference
    on HYDRA....                                                      
    
    Cindy

    WARNING....Bumpy road, serious memory loss ahead....
    
    Since we are on the subject of movies (note 703) and I was reading
    this note earlier, I am reminded of a movie.  About 5 years ago
    there was a movie (forgot the title) starring Christopher Reeve
    and some woman (memory failure).  Anyway Chris wants to go back
    in time to meet said woman.  He is convinced upon investigation
    that this can be done and does it.  Adventures ensue and he is 
    returned to his own time upon discovery of a modern penny in his
    suit pocket which collapses his belief bubble.
    
    The only thing I really remember about this movie, was there was
    a serious time/existence problem.  It was the watch.  If you catch
    the movie on late TV or cable ask yourself "Where did the watch
    originate?"  It exists only in a closed (recursive) loop in time 
    in which it was not created.
    
    Stan

    Re: 39
    
    Believe the movie title is "Somewhere In Time."
    
    Charlene

    RE: .41
    
    Uh.... thanks for giving away the ending.
    
    
    John M.

    On the other hand, I'm afraid that I'd quite forgotten the ending
    to the movie and I pour forth copious thanks to le monsieur for
    refreshing my memory.  ;-)
    
    Re: .42
    
    Besides, you won't know if that's *really* the ending until you
    actually see the movie!  ;-) 
    

    Re: 'bortaS blr...'
    
    Which PC said that?  :-)
    
    Kak

    The movie can be found in most video stores...
    
    Charlene
    

    whats a seed crystal??
    
    mary
    

    Re .46 (Mary):
    
    >whats a seed crystal??
    
    Well, in conventional technology, it's a small crystal that's used
    as a point for a larger crystal to grow from. If you have a saturated
    solution of sugar, for instance, and then lower (suspend) a small crystal
    of sugar into the solution, it'll be the "seed crystal" for the
    rock candy you can grow through evaporation. 
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    2nd e.g.  Seed crystals are used to grow a silicon ingot of specific
              crystal orientation (and dopant level) in the manufacture 
              of silicon substrates used by Dec Hudson to manufacture 
              integrated circuits for Digital (who else?) computers.
                                  
    						Don