One of the stories in Ted Chiang's collection, Exhalation, concerns a far future gadget called a prism, a gadget about the size of a present-day laptop, a quantum machine which, among other things, allows users to communicate with alternate selves who live in their own plane of possibility based on life choices made by the self using the prism. Of course, the alternate selves, whom as far as they are concerned on not alternate at all, are using their own prisms as well, without which no connection could have been made.
Well, I had not set out to explain the quantum mechanics of Chiang's imagination, though in doing so, I've discovered an additional facet of Mr. Chiang's talent--that being the ability to make the ridiculous sound reasonable. But no, I meant to say that this story left me with some interesting thoughts about how we look back on our lives, how we regret certain things, how we sometimes idealize the choices we did not make. If only, you know? And were we fated in any case to make the choices we made? Are the results, whether positive or negative, a product of the choice itself or of own's own manner of handling things in life (any life).
When we make one choice, we discard all others. These others have a life of their own--in Chiang's story as alternate selves on their own timeline; in real world terms as what we would be had we done things properly, or at least differently. In short, we have created living figments, ghosts, and are haunted by our own creations.
It is, as I say, very difficult to describe the setting Chiang has created here, and, again, it leaves me with new appreciation for his particular talent. Come to think of it, he does this in quite a number of the stories contained in Exhalation, so that I am newly impressed when I consider the thing. Not that all of the stories in the collection are successful. They aren't. There are a few nearly perfect gems, and most of the rest at least give the reader something to ponder. In all, Chiang has invited us into alternate worlds that seem at the same time both wildly unlikely and eerily familiar.
Well, I had not set out to explain the quantum mechanics of Chiang's imagination, though in doing so, I've discovered an additional facet of Mr. Chiang's talent--that being the ability to make the ridiculous sound reasonable. But no, I meant to say that this story left me with some interesting thoughts about how we look back on our lives, how we regret certain things, how we sometimes idealize the choices we did not make. If only, you know? And were we fated in any case to make the choices we made? Are the results, whether positive or negative, a product of the choice itself or of own's own manner of handling things in life (any life).
When we make one choice, we discard all others. These others have a life of their own--in Chiang's story as alternate selves on their own timeline; in real world terms as what we would be had we done things properly, or at least differently. In short, we have created living figments, ghosts, and are haunted by our own creations.
It is, as I say, very difficult to describe the setting Chiang has created here, and, again, it leaves me with new appreciation for his particular talent. Come to think of it, he does this in quite a number of the stories contained in Exhalation, so that I am newly impressed when I consider the thing. Not that all of the stories in the collection are successful. They aren't. There are a few nearly perfect gems, and most of the rest at least give the reader something to ponder. In all, Chiang has invited us into alternate worlds that seem at the same time both wildly unlikely and eerily familiar.
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