human flight in myth |
1928: cover art by Frank R. Paul |
"He snapped the switch which started the Tesla coil in the shed and pressed a button on an instrument in his hand, attached to his harness by a small steel cable. Instantly there was a creak of straining leather and he shot vertically into the air for perhaps a hundred feet" (source)
able to leap over tall buildings |
The science fiction literature is full of such flights of fancy. In The Languages of Pao, after Palafox flies, he explains his 'wizardry': "Antigravity web is meshed into the skin of my feet." According to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, antigravity as a plot device in fiction began appearing in the 1800s.
Inspired in part by the planet-hopping John Carter, Superman originally had super jumping ability due to his evolutionary origin on a planet with high gravity. Later, it was suggested that Superman's species evolved special organs that produce an artificial gravity field and allow for controlled flight.
Flying Cars
flying car |
source |
"The boat drifted low and grounded upon a sand dune. The two sat quietly, looking out over the moon lit sand."
Mind-Body Dualism
brain-computer interface |
creating a new universe |
source |
Gohrlay's Fear
I've been gently probing the basis for Gohrlay's reluctance to provide me with an account of her first life. Apparently she is afraid that her behavior in the First Reality will be judged as having been socially unacceptable. Previously, I've argued that there were great similarities between the micro-society at Observer Base and Earth's current global society. However, according to Gohrlay, there were also many dramatic differences.
Many of these differences arose from the fact that Observers were forced to take on the Preland body form. That was accomplished by developmental control nanites. The residents of Observer Base were unaware of the presence of nanites in their bodies, but those tiny devices influenced all aspects of Observer life.
source |
Apparently Gohrlay was being "set up" to be treated as an anti-social pervert who could be prosecuted for her crimes and condemned to death. Her brain had been selected to be destructively scanned so that its architecture could be copied into positronic circuits. Towards that end, Gohrlay was largely excluded from participation in clan life and she turned her social yearnings in other directions.
That act of duplicating Gohrlay's brain structure led to the creation of positronic robots, the most famous of which we know as R. Gohrlay. According to Gohrlay it is silly to single out just one of the positronic robots as "being R. Gohrlay" since those robots were telepathically linked and all shared the same brain structure.
in Deep Time |
Gohrlay is still reluctant to tell me what was particularly odd about the social dynamics of the Observers. Apparently it has something to do with both "the very youngest and the very oldest" Observers. The first possibility that came to my mind was that maybe there was a practice of euthanasia that was applied to young and old Observers. Gohrlay denies that.
Related Reading: 2020 - flying characters in Final Change
Next: investigating the First Reality
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