Sunday, November 11, 2012

The Garden of Forking Paths

Have you ever read "The Garden of Forking Paths" by Jorge Luis Borges?

I have been mind fucked by this piece of literature.

It is possible that an "infinite series of times" is growing in a "dizzying net of divergent, convergent, and parallel TIMES"? This network of times, if it exists,  "embraces ALL possibilities of time". So if you are faced with a decision and it has multiple outcomes, those outcomes will occur at the same time in multiple times of our one universe.

Mind fucked right?

Do you believe that all the decisions we make, and of those decisions, the outcomes of which are happening at the exact same time.
Imagine, one decision we make can go in so many different directions and lead to other meetings and other decisions and other outcomes all happening at the same time, but in different universes.. it's insane just thinking about all the possibilities and how one decision could have changed our lives forever.

Where, "we do not exist in the majority of these times; in some you exist and not I; in others I, and not you; in others, both of us," and all the while these time universes are all happening at exactly the same moment.

So in this piece of literature I have had to read for my World Literature class, the piece states this, so that you understand where I'm coming from..

" I leave to the various futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths... Almost instantly I understood: 'The Garden of Forking Paths' was the chaotic novel; the phrase 'the various futures (not to all)' suggests to me the forking in time, not in space. A broad rereading of the work confirmed the theory. In all fictional works, each time a man is confronted with several alternatives, he chooses on and eliminates the others; in the fiction of Ts'ui Pen, he chooses - simultaneously - all of them. He creates, in this way, diverse futures, diverse times which themselves also proliferate and fork. Here, then, is the explanation of the novel's contradictions. Fang, let us say, has a secret; a stranger calls at his door; Fang resolves to kill him. Naturally, there are several possible outcomes: Fang can kill the intruder; the intruder can kill Fang, they both can escape, the both can die, and so forth. In the work of Ts'ui Pen, all possible outcomes occur; each one in the point of departure for other forkings."

Those forkings can then converge, diverge, or become parallel.

It's insane, the possibility of that really happening, it blew my mind. It is, although, in my opinion, completely capable. It's incredible what this one mad has thought of and what this one man has opened so man doors to.

But then I stop and think, you know how some people think that we have "old" souls and "new" souls? The concepts of the different "soul ages" makes so much more sense now. I believe I have met people in past universes and the reason I have met them now or why strangers seem so familiar is because I have ran into them in just one of the other occurring universes and we were meant to have met or come across each other for a reason. 

Dang, all this philosophical thought has my mind whirling around in itself. I think it might be time for bed before I get a head ache or start writing all over my walls because I'm obsessing over these concepts.. maybe I am in another universe.. the possibilities are endless.

No comments:

Post a Comment