17th September 2006 – 09:02
What do we understand from the word “fiction”? A fiction could be considered worth to read when it gives a remarkable path in our binary (or in Allan’s suggestion, m-ary for m equals to at least 2) tree. At the end, the tree itself is so large and so diverse. Each non-cyclic path with a reasonable length can be a story. This means, if a story starts with 10, then it already discarded all other beginnings of 00, 01 or 11. The writer must be aware of the fact that each decision of “yes” contains at least one more decision, which can be “no” in binary tree, can be many other possible decisions in an m-ary tree. Basically, writer’s job is to find the best path which describes the idea which is in his/her mind before writing the story. Once you kill A in your story, then A can not be back unless you are writing another story! If a writer wants to write different ends for the story, it is quite possible but he/she must be admit that each end creates another story. I prefer to read a story with only one end since a story means a “convergent series of events”. If it diverges again at the end, it makes a hole in the heart of the story.
Let’s now take a small part from Borges’ story:
“Not in all,” he murmured with a smile. “Time forks perpetually toward innumerable futures. In one of them I am your enemy”
Here we see a “forking path” in one story. From the point of context, we know that A and B are friends or they are behaving like friends. Then suddenly, time frame changes! We are in another time frame! This leads me a certain contradiction if we stay in the same story. As time frame moves, then story must move too. There is no point in keeping contradictory events in one story to make it against common sense. When I say common sense I mean simple scientific facts which we believe they are true without doubt.
I believe nothing in the universe is contradictory as Pope said in his last speech. If there is something looks contradictory to common sense, it is because the common sense is wrong. A good example for this how the emergence of quantum mechanics challenged to classical determinism in Western Science. Newtonian Physics suggesting that if we know the current situation and all the contributing factors, we are able to guess the future. However, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle showed that there is a limit in the certainty of our predictions, which is determined by Heisenberg Constant. Time may or may not be sequential. Actually, we all know that time itself has different frames in different speeds. Twins Paradox is about two brothers at the same age, one goes to interplanetary journey with 0.8C and the other one stays on earth. For the one stays on earth, time goes as usual and after 50 Earth years, he becomes 50 years-older. However the other brother who travels with 0.8C time would be much slower. He might come back to Earth as a guy who got just few years older. Is this against the common sense? Of course not! Common sense has no idea about the concept of time in high speeds. At the end, common sense must obey the scientific facts, not the vice versa!
As a conclusion, in his fairly complicated story, Borges tries to show us something different, something which has never been attempted. I am sure he knows what he is doing and I am sure he is aware of the contradictions. As (From Allan’s article) Carter Wheelock says “he wants to question his own trial”. A story can be created as a labyrinth but time must be something above the lanes of the labyrinth because time is the only non-moving frame for the people on this earth. Borges’ story can be considered as a fantasy fiction with cleverly built fantastic concepts. However, it is not the writer but the inconsistency in the system of the concepts in the story will ultimately kill the story itself. Once, you try to build more details on it, the system will not survive and collapse immediately. It is actually worth to try to keep an inconsistent story alive as long as it takes. The logical and physical difficulties can challenge the writer and each attempt to solve the paradox can enhance the writer’s imagination to one step further. But, the more the writer continues to build up contradictory concepts, the more the story will be out of sense because the reader will lose the point in reading the story. It is the exactly same as trying to solve an inconsistent system of linear equations. We can play with them, we can get different mathematical expressions, we can substitute one with another but eventually the result will halt!
But still, one thing keeps me busy about the story which ends where it starts! I think this has been tried by many writers many times and we can even see the Hollywood versions of this type of stories. I wrote one (The Story) long ago and there is still a half story (The Tenth Chapter) which waits to be ended with a surprise resolution. One day I will complete it.
Tomorrow, I will write on Pope’s comments about Islam and some other daily things… Here is a link to full speech of Pope: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_09_06_pope.pdf
What do we understand from the word “fiction”? A fiction could be considered worth to read when it gives a remarkable path in our binary (or in Allan’s suggestion, m-ary for m equals to at least 2) tree. At the end, the tree itself is so large and so diverse. Each non-cyclic path with a reasonable length can be a story. This means, if a story starts with 10, then it already discarded all other beginnings of 00, 01 or 11. The writer must be aware of the fact that each decision of “yes” contains at least one more decision, which can be “no” in binary tree, can be many other possible decisions in an m-ary tree. Basically, writer’s job is to find the best path which describes the idea which is in his/her mind before writing the story. Once you kill A in your story, then A can not be back unless you are writing another story! If a writer wants to write different ends for the story, it is quite possible but he/she must be admit that each end creates another story. I prefer to read a story with only one end since a story means a “convergent series of events”. If it diverges again at the end, it makes a hole in the heart of the story.
Let’s now take a small part from Borges’ story:
“Not in all,” he murmured with a smile. “Time forks perpetually toward innumerable futures. In one of them I am your enemy”
Here we see a “forking path” in one story. From the point of context, we know that A and B are friends or they are behaving like friends. Then suddenly, time frame changes! We are in another time frame! This leads me a certain contradiction if we stay in the same story. As time frame moves, then story must move too. There is no point in keeping contradictory events in one story to make it against common sense. When I say common sense I mean simple scientific facts which we believe they are true without doubt.
I believe nothing in the universe is contradictory as Pope said in his last speech. If there is something looks contradictory to common sense, it is because the common sense is wrong. A good example for this how the emergence of quantum mechanics challenged to classical determinism in Western Science. Newtonian Physics suggesting that if we know the current situation and all the contributing factors, we are able to guess the future. However, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle showed that there is a limit in the certainty of our predictions, which is determined by Heisenberg Constant. Time may or may not be sequential. Actually, we all know that time itself has different frames in different speeds. Twins Paradox is about two brothers at the same age, one goes to interplanetary journey with 0.8C and the other one stays on earth. For the one stays on earth, time goes as usual and after 50 Earth years, he becomes 50 years-older. However the other brother who travels with 0.8C time would be much slower. He might come back to Earth as a guy who got just few years older. Is this against the common sense? Of course not! Common sense has no idea about the concept of time in high speeds. At the end, common sense must obey the scientific facts, not the vice versa!
As a conclusion, in his fairly complicated story, Borges tries to show us something different, something which has never been attempted. I am sure he knows what he is doing and I am sure he is aware of the contradictions. As (From Allan’s article) Carter Wheelock says “he wants to question his own trial”. A story can be created as a labyrinth but time must be something above the lanes of the labyrinth because time is the only non-moving frame for the people on this earth. Borges’ story can be considered as a fantasy fiction with cleverly built fantastic concepts. However, it is not the writer but the inconsistency in the system of the concepts in the story will ultimately kill the story itself. Once, you try to build more details on it, the system will not survive and collapse immediately. It is actually worth to try to keep an inconsistent story alive as long as it takes. The logical and physical difficulties can challenge the writer and each attempt to solve the paradox can enhance the writer’s imagination to one step further. But, the more the writer continues to build up contradictory concepts, the more the story will be out of sense because the reader will lose the point in reading the story. It is the exactly same as trying to solve an inconsistent system of linear equations. We can play with them, we can get different mathematical expressions, we can substitute one with another but eventually the result will halt!
But still, one thing keeps me busy about the story which ends where it starts! I think this has been tried by many writers many times and we can even see the Hollywood versions of this type of stories. I wrote one (The Story) long ago and there is still a half story (The Tenth Chapter) which waits to be ended with a surprise resolution. One day I will complete it.
Tomorrow, I will write on Pope’s comments about Islam and some other daily things… Here is a link to full speech of Pope: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_09_06_pope.pdf
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder