Chapter 76: FTM

Use this section for any discussion specifically related to the chapters posted online of the unfolding biography, "Defying Gravity: The Parallel Universe of T. Townsend Brown
Langley
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Re: interesting comments

Post by Langley »

James Barrett wrote:Gregg,

Talk of crystal wands, foxes and puppies, atomic bombs and flying saucers, Visitors and the CIA ..... spymasters retiring in Jamaica and Ursula Andress stepping out of the sea. Lions at the Dublin zoo and Italian cooking. How can you match the reaction to this book? JDB
The Hitch hiker's Guide to TT Brown. At least its not raining whales yet.
greggvizza
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Re: interesting comments

Post by greggvizza »

James Barrett wrote:Gregg,

Do you remember writing this? You were addressing Paul in the " "Sprawling Epic" thread

"I think you may go down in history as the person that started the interactive book craze. I am not going to be able to just read a book and be satisfied anymore. I will always want to participate in the plot. This is such a totally immersive experience and I don't see how we will ever be able to go back to the old way of reading ever agin. We have all been spoiled."
Yeah, I remember. I still think it.
Quite an immersive experience to be able to participate in a book that you are reading. Reading an old fashioned stand alone book now feels so removed, so impersonal.

GV
Victoria Steele
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wind through the leaves

Post by Victoria Steele »

I agree with you Gregg. This has been an amazing experience and I think those of us who are involved just a little bit beyond the level of the sort of " reader passing through" we have all been drawn into this on a far different level than other situations would provide. Everything compared to this is BORING.

Thats the magic of this book and I don't think it will go away (this feeling of participation as the story is developed ).... at least I hope it won't Paul. You really need to keep these little asides to your readers in the final book because thats part of this sharing deal!

And sometimes I think that a section on just what your reactions have been would be wonderful too. You are the main chime through which this magic wind is blowing. Thats the mental image that I have had for a long time. That somehow we are all set up in some sort of magical windchime and when that invisible breeze hits us we all respond individually and each in our own special way. Which is part of the wonderful message here. That we are all connected, but we are all special in our own right ... none really more important than the other ..... but a set of chimes. Victoria

Oh, the other thing that I think is absolute magic are the words that you have been given by Linda and Morgan. Maybe Morgan interests me particularly because somehow his observations of what was going on around him cut really to the core of this story. I remember that you asked him once maybe in the future if you could write his story and he came back with " You already are" ( thats one of my favorite parts of what you have written.) Of course everything written about Morgan is fascinating to me. Told you that right off. Hes my leading man in this, thats for sure. Wish and hope that you will be able to tell us more about him and that he won't have just disappeared to California with a Peacock. Victoria
flowperson
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Re: interesting comments

Post by flowperson »

[quote="James Barrett... spymasters retiring in Jamaica and Ursula Andress stepping out of the sea. Lions at the Dublin zoo and Italian cooking. How can you match the reaction to this book? JDB[/quote]

RE: Ursula Andress stepping out of the sea. WOOF, WOOF !!!

*whimpers, wags tail, waits patiently*

flow.... :P
Dancing is better than marching
Paul S.
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Re: wind through the leaves

Post by Paul S. »

Victoria Steele wrote: Thats the magic of this book and I don't think it will go away (this feeling of participation as the story is developed ).... at least I hope it won't Paul. You really need to keep these little asides to your readers in the final book because thats part of this sharing deal!
Are you speaking of the "Notes from the Rabbit Hole" chapters, or the parts in later chapters where I just inject the first person (uh... or... or... or... both??).

That's one of the issues I have to confront come the rewrite -- i.e. treating those first person interjections consistently.
And sometimes I think that a section on just what your reactions have been would be wonderful too. You are the main chime through which this magic wind is blowing. Thats the mental image that I have had for a long time.
Much as I don't usually care for wind-chimes (i.e. other people's, when they're outside MY window...) I think that's a great metaphor. One of the task awaiting me in these final chapters is to find away to honor that sentiment. Having a visual image to focus on will help.

That somehow we are all set up in some sort of magical windchime and when that invisible breeze hits us we all respond individually and each in our own special way. Which is part of the wonderful message here. That we are all connected, but we are all special in our own right ... none really more important than the other ..... but a set of chimes.
And that reminds me also of one observation I shared with Morgan early in our correspondence. Something along the line of "following the life of Townsend Brown is like trying to describe the wind; the best you can do, sometimes, is describe the movement of the trees and branches and leaves that are affected by the wind...." Or words to that effect.

--PS
Paul Schatzkin
aka "The Perfesser"
"At some point we have to deal with the facts, not what we want to believe is true." -- Jack Bauer
Gewis
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Post by Gewis »

I wonder, in going back to talk of the FTM, whether the capabilities of the machine have been unwarranted assumptions on our parts. The text of the chapter says nothing about the machine enabling its users to pop up in different spots like a... whatever pops up in different spots. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it's a conclusion not necessarily supported by the evidence. I can imagine a scenario where we can go back and observe and interact with the past without changing anything (i.e. because it's in the past, thus the interaction has already happened even if you haven't done it yet).

But perhaps, instead of having to invoke "intentionality," the FTM merely changed the flow rate of time by changing its local gravity. (If you significantly increased or decreased the gravitational potential of the inside of the submarine while havinh a relatively flat gravitational gradient, you'd avoid any accelerative stresses.) Thus the submarine doesn't have to teleport to a different spatial position of earth in a different time. We're moving through space, so if you want to go a year in the future or a year in the past, you've got both a long ways to teleport and an insanely difficult calculation to do. If the outside of the submarine stays grounded to the earth and simply accelerates or decelerates time flow rates, then you run into no causality or spatial location problems, and it would still be clearly characterized as a FTM.
"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research!" -Einstein
James Barrett

sounds familiar

Post by James Barrett »

Gewis,

I think what you are expressing here has similarities with what kevin has been trying to form into words also from his Hobbits perspective. Perhaps this thing is not so much a " machine" in its finer moments but the result of an understanding of the nature of our own reality. I have supposed that once you reach that level of understanding ... "Machines" become .... sort of silly.

But why then would some individuals be able to " tap into" or be " taught" this understanding? And not others? Sometimes you can't go forward with teaching until the student is ready. So what makes some ready now? And some not?

MarkC will back me up on that I think with his years of experience will back me up on that thought. So how do you educate a group of individuals who may be standing on the rim of understanding?

Well, I suppose you first have to find them first! But perhaps as I think kevin just said ... perhaps there is cream that rises to the surface and turns to butter?

but then I could go all Dylan on you and launch off into the value and meaning of butter ..... and the loop continues. JDB
Mikado14
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Post by Mikado14 »

.....and maybe some just can't be taught.

Not every person on the face of the planet can have the talent to be a butcher, baker, candlestick maker etc.

Tools are a mere extension of natural human abilities, a car is only an extension of your legs.

Mikado
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy
kevin.b
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Post by kevin.b »

Given that it appears that the FTM, whatever it is ?, was in a submarine, it cannot logically be a huge device.
If it's a developement of the fan, and can be connected to very high voltages, then the radio room seems the likely area.
I haven't a clue how many can fit into such an area ?
Then there are two possibilities, either the whole ship and a big blob of water around it were enveloped in a porthole, or a porthole was established in the radio room allowing an individual/s to step through.
Either way the rest of the crew may not have been aware, pop up in the ocean a thousand years ago, and i guess only the lack of signals will be much different?
The apparent change in certain signals, IE, where the stars etc are , will have given a clue to time?
And if an individual stepped through a time portal, how long is time, if you have a key?
They may spend a lifetime away, and only a second pass aboard the ship, it's all mind blowing to consider, WHY are we not talking about the possibilities?
It doesn't matter how silly it sounds , there are no rules or experts, YET.
Kevin
fibonacci is king
Gewis
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Post by Gewis »

kevin.b wrote:Either way the rest of the crew may not have been aware, pop up in the ocean a thousand years ago, and i guess only the lack of signals will be much different?
Kevin,

1000 years ago, how far away from here was the earth? How did the FTM port-hole into that little sliver of space we call oceans?

-Gewis
"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research!" -Einstein
Mikado14
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Post by Mikado14 »

kevin.b wrote:Given that it appears that the FTM, whatever it is ?, was in a submarine, it cannot logically be a huge device.
kevin, would you please...

Define what your logic is as to why it cannot be a huge device?

Mikado
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy
Mikado14
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Post by Mikado14 »

A general statement,

I will go on record and state that the fan is NOT the FTM. The only character in common would be the High Voltage involved, and that is just for starters. The wing of the B2 has more in common with the Fan than the FTM. The Fan is Electrohydrodynamics where as the disc at the Bahnson lab is not, the latter involves a fixed dielectric whereas the fan is fluid.

I would bet my first born child that the missing books contain the actuality of the FTM as well as possibly math derived by Beau Kitselman.

One more item, if the sub was/is an FTM it would be the entire craft and not just the radio room.

I will further go out on a limb and state that I don't believe that an FTM, fully operational, has been built.

Mikado
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy
kevin.b
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Post by kevin.b »

Mikado 14,
If the device was installed on an existing submarine, it is logical to assume it is not too large, as there is barely room to swing a cat about in those things.
It could have employed the whole structure of the sub, and surrounding salty water.
But the basic thing cannot possibly have been too large.
If the navy got what they wanted out of this, which presumably is a silent running ship, then manipulation of the sea water as drive is reasonable to assume, but as well as creating a field that made the ship apparently move silently, it may have had a second affect local to whatever created the effect, or the whole ship flipped in time, that really would be quiet then, as it would not exist.
Nobody on the ship would realise they were in another time, and they would be under orders of total silence.
Kevin
fibonacci is king
Paul S.
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Like A Staples Ad

Post by Paul S. »

You know, in a way, you guys make my job a lot easier than it seems sometimes.

Like I said a while back, the best I can do is tell you all what others have told me.

Then it's up to you guys to figure it out.

I'd say I have the easier side of that equation <g>

--PS
Paul Schatzkin
aka "The Perfesser"
"At some point we have to deal with the facts, not what we want to believe is true." -- Jack Bauer
Victoria Steele
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easier job?

Post by Victoria Steele »

Not hardly the easier job. You are the person who has spent the last five years pulling all of this information into this one area where we can all see it clearly. None of us could have ever even dreamed of having the resolute and consistant determination to do that.

I use that word because I have borrowed it from you and hope that you will recognize it. You used it very early on to describe Dr. Brown. RESOLUTE. Gracious and resolute manner I think you said ... or something close.

And I keep praising you for the work that you have done and I am taking nothing away when I add my praise to Elizabeth Helen Drake.

They say that you have to watch out for the ladies who use all three of their names <g>. But I can see your spirit woven throughout these pages and I just wanted you to know that I admire you more than any woman I could meet, or hope to meet.

Would make a great name for a ship. Putting the name in the hat.

The RESOLUTE. Victoria
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