scholarly journals A Bridge between Worlds: Parallel Universes and the Observer in “The Celestial Plot” by Adolfo Bioy Casares

KronoScope ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-129
Author(s):  
Victoria Carpenter ◽  
Paul Halpern
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Many Worlds ◽  
Fiction Writing ◽  
Multiple Realities ◽  
Parallel Universes ◽  
Adolfo Bioy Casares ◽  
The Many ◽  
Main Protagonist

AbstractAdolfo Bioy Casares’s story “The Celestial Plot” (1948) is among the best known examples of Latin American science fiction writing of the early twentieth century inspired by contemporary advances in quantum physics. Most readings of the story focus on the movements of its main protagonist, Captain Ireneo Morris, as he traverses realities while test-flying a plane. This approach overlooks the role of the story’s other protagonist, Dr. Carlos Servian, who, we argue, is the lynchpin upon which the multiple realities are dependent. We read the changes to Dr. Servian’s character from a variety of scientific and philosophical perspectives on parallel universes. By addressing variations in Servian’s character and language, and focusing on the disparate representations of the key objects in the story, we show how the story anticipates in some ways the Many Worlds notion which argues that reality bifurcates during quantum measurements, leading to near-identical copies of observers.

Year Zero Art

Joanna Russ ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 39-68
Author(s):  
Gwyneth Jones
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Feminist Criticism ◽  
Women In Science ◽  
Science Content ◽  
Many Worlds ◽  
Radical Feminist ◽  
Award Winning ◽  
Second Wave Feminism ◽  
The Many ◽  
Second Wave

“Year Zero Art” situates Second Wave feminism in the context of the “domestic revival” decreed by Cold War politics; examines historical female-ordered utopias, and provides a close reading of the polemic, idyllic, and lyric voices; the layered realities and the “many worlds” speculative-science content of Joanna’s highly personal 1975 novel, The Female Man. Essays and reviews described include radical feminist criticism of Ursula K. Le Guin’s novels; the groundbreaking “Why Women Can’t Write”; the controversial “Image of Women in Science Fiction” and “Alien Monsters,” in which Joanna defines the pernicious sf figure of the “he-man.” Stories related to The Female Man (1971-75) include “When It Changed,” the Nebula Award-winning conventional sf version of The Female Man.

The Nature of Contingency

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alastair Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Physical Phenomenon ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Many Worlds ◽  
Quantum Theories ◽  
One Step ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

Contingency is everywhere, but what is it? This book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach to quantum theory and on cutting-edge metaphysics and philosophy of science, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities rather than as telling us solely about actuality. When quantum physics is taken seriously in the way first proposed by Hugh Everett III, it provides the resources for a new systematic metaphysical framework encompassing possibility, necessity, actuality, chance, counterfactuals, and a host of related modal notions. The framework is a modal realist one, in the tradition of David Lewis: all genuine possibilities are on a par, and the actual world is simply the one that we ourselves inhabit. It departs from Lewisian modal realism in that quantum possible worlds are not philosophical posits but scientific discoveries. Contingency and other modal notions have often been seen as beyond the limits of science. Rationalist metaphysicians argue that the metaphysics of modality is strictly prior to any scientific investigation: metaphysics establishes which worlds are possible, and physics merely checks which of these worlds is actual. Naturalistic metaphysicians respond that science may discover new possibilities and new impossibilities. This book’s quantum theory of contingency takes naturalistic metaphysics one step further, allowing that science may discover what it is to be possible. As electromagnetism revealed the nature of light, as acoustics revealed the nature of sound, as statistical mechanics revealed the nature of heat, so quantum physics reveals the nature of contingency.

Spacetime as a Multicursal Labyrinth in Literature with Application to Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle

KronoScope ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-66
Author(s):  
Justin Everett ◽  
Paul Halpern
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Mikhail Bakhtin ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Umberto Eco ◽  
Many Worlds ◽  
Alternate History ◽  
Many Worlds Interpretation ◽  
The Many

Abstract We examine the narrative structure of The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. We place the novel in the context of the alternate history genre of speculative fiction. Noting its complex plot with multiple timelines, we apply the theoretical ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin and Umberto Eco and show how its chronotope, or relationship between space and time, resembles that of a multicursal labyrinth. We connect this analysis with ideas in quantum physics, particularly the Many Worlds Interpretation, and show how it explains the ambiguity of the novel’s ending, and the failure of the characters to reach their goals. In particular, the characters’ search for truth is thwarted by the existence of multiple truths in a maze of competing realities.

scholarly journals The Invariant Set Postulate: a new geometric framework for the foundations of quantum theory and the role played by gravity

2009 ◽  
Vol 465 (2110) ◽  
pp. 3165-3185 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. N. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
State Space ◽  
Fractal Geometry ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Nonlinear Dynamical Systems ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Invariant Set ◽  
Geometric Framework

A new law of physics is proposed, defined on the cosmological scale but with significant implications for the microscale. Motivated by nonlinear dynamical systems theory and black-hole thermodynamics, the Invariant Set Postulate proposes that cosmological states of physical reality belong to a non-computable fractal state-space geometry I , invariant under the action of some subordinate deterministic causal dynamics D I . An exploratory analysis is made of a possible causal realistic framework for quantum physics based on key properties of I . For example, sparseness is used to relate generic counterfactual states to points p ∉ I of unreality, thus providing a geometric basis for the essential contextuality of quantum physics and the role of the abstract Hilbert Space in quantum theory. Also, self-similarity, described in a symbolic setting, provides a possible realistic perspective on the essential role of complex numbers and quaternions in quantum theory. A new interpretation is given to the standard ‘mysteries’ of quantum theory: superposition, measurement, non-locality, emergence of classicality and so on. It is proposed that heterogeneities in the fractal geometry of I are manifestations of the phenomenon of gravity. Since quantum theory is inherently blind to the existence of such state-space geometries, the analysis here suggests that attempts to formulate unified theories of physics within a conventional quantum-theoretic framework are misguided, and that a successful quantum theory of gravity should unify the causal non-Euclidean geometry of space–time with the atemporal fractal geometry of state space. The task is not to make sense of the quantum axioms by heaping more structure, more definitions, more science fiction imagery on top of them, but to throw them away wholesale and start afresh. We should be relentless in asking ourselves: From what deep physical principles might we derive this exquisite structure? These principles should be crisp, they should be compelling. They should stir the soul. Chris Fuchs ( Gilder 2008 , p. 335)

The many worlds of reducing interleukin-1

2005 ◽  
Vol 52 (7) ◽  
pp. 1960-1967 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles A. Dinarello
Keyword(s):  
Interleukin 1 ◽  
Many Worlds ◽  
The Many

scholarly journals Amusing Ourselves until (Dis)appearing in La invención de Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 72-78
Author(s):  
Santiago Sevilla-Vallejo
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Preference ◽  
Adolfo Bioy Casares ◽  
The Way

La invención de Morel  reflect on how the use of technologies could be fascinating and dangerous at the same time; and the way the island seems to be a space of freedom while it is actually a place of prison and death. La invención de Morel presents a utopian situation that transforms into a dystopia. Characters, especially the narrator, project their desires along with the holograms, but they are deceived without realizing about their loss of reality. The novel uses phantasy and science fiction resources to reflect about the way humans self-imprison. This is studied by analogy to the effects of technologies in today's society. In this sense, the novel by Adolfo Bioy Casares is about a menace due to the human preference of imaginary life over real one. 

scholarly journals Sentence Fragments in the Narration of the Novel "The Hunger Games"

Lexicon ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhani Nurhusna
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fiction Writing ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Hunger Games ◽  
Essential Components ◽  
The Hunger Games ◽  
Dependent Clause

The use of sentence fragments is generally discouraged in good English writing because they lack one or more essential components of a sentence, namely a subject and/or a predicate, and thus are grammatically unacceptable. However in fiction writing, the use of sentence fragments is not only quite common in dialogue, but in narration as well. The present study analyses sentence fragments in the narration of the first novel of the young-adult science-fiction trilogy The Hunger Games written by Suzanne Collins, to investigate the types of fragments employed in the novel and their classification based on syntactic structure in the form of dependent-clause fragments and phrase fragments. The sentence fragments were further analysed for their use based on the context of their preceding sentences. The use of sentence fragments in the novel basically serves the function of creating emphasis or stressing important points in the story.

Introduction: the many worlds of Dostoevsky

2015 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Olga Maiorova ◽  
Deborah Martinsen
Keyword(s):  
Many Worlds ◽  
The Many

Using Quantum Agent-Based Simulation to Model Social Networks

2011 ◽  
pp. 42-54
Author(s):  
C. Bisconti ◽  
A. Corallo ◽  
M. De Maggio ◽  
F. Grippa ◽  
S. Totaro
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Many Body ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Microscopic Interactions ◽  
The Many

This research aims to apply models extracted from the many-body quantum mechanics to describe social dynamics. It is intended to draw macroscopic characteristics of organizational communities starting from the analysis of microscopic interactions with respect to the node model. In this chapter, the authors intend to give an answer to the following question: which models of the quantum physics are suitable to represent the behaviour and the evolution of business processes? The innovative aspects of the project are related to the application of models and methods of the quantum mechanics to social systems. In order to validate the proposed mathematical model, the authors intend to define an open-source platform able to model nodes and interactions within a network, to visualize the macroscopic results through a digital representation of the social networks.

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