2008-06-21, 06:28 | Link #1241 |
Aspiring Aspirer
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There's many rhetorical things about "good" and "evil" I just use those as terms, there's in fact no "good" and "evil" just a common agreement on what it is. Is killing one person to save someone else wrong? Some may ask, who is the other person? And depending on that it can be overlooked. But no doubt if absolute judgement is used, then it IS wrong. But human judgement is corrupted like that. Though we may think as long as the good from the action is greater than the bad of the outcome means that its right, in reality as long as we're doing something bad, though the entirety of the action may be concieved as good, there are evil aspects to that action.
Lao Tzu once said, “The words of truth are always paradoxical.” And in this case its true, often enough, for you to do something "good" something "evil" is done, of course in a different person's perspective. Perspective is always the key.
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2008-06-21, 06:41 | Link #1242 | |
books-eater youkai
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Betweem wisdom and insanity
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2008-06-21, 08:49 | Link #1243 |
Sensei, aishite imasu
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Hong Kong Shatterdome
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It's hard to argue that one side is evil or not. We simply don't have any idea about the real identity of either faction.
And while we might not like sneering bastard because he kidnapped Mikuru, lets stop and think for a moment about the 2 rival time traveling factions. Faction Mikuru:Wishes to maintain their historical continuity. Faction sneering bastard:Wants to prevent the invention of time travel. The thing that strikes me most about the Mikuru faction, is their adherence to continuity. This was explained in the short story where they manipulated Kyon into causing a random guy to get injured, so that he'd meet his future wife who was working at the hospital. The Time travelers did this, because they need that guy to have the children he did, so that the future as the future people remember it exists. This seems lovely and noble, until you begin to examine the mechanics of it further. What if in order for the time travelers future to come true (as in, history has to stay the same) has to include a major war breaking out between two countries who have a dispute with each other. Lets say diplomats from the two countries meet together, and find a mutually beneficial compromise that would avert war, and put the two countries on friendly terms. To ensure that the war does happen, and future remains the same, the time travelers sabotage the peace talks. A war breaks out, and hundreds of thousands of people die in it. Given that Future Mikuru has openly stated that ensuring the future that people from her own time experience is her ultimate objective, I'm not going to jump to the conclusion that the rival future faction is necessarily evil. |
2008-06-21, 09:50 | Link #1244 |
books-eater youkai
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Betweem wisdom and insanity
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Why would we not be looking at the intend of all faction:
Nagato' faction; getting information for archiving evolution Kuyou's faction: ? Koizumi' faction: Keeping their god (haruhi )happy, worshipping their god Kyoko's faction : Having a full god ( Sasaki), worshipping their god Mikuru's faction: preserving the present time-line Sneeking bastard' faction : Prevent time travel Saying than one side is good and the other is evil is only a mather of partisanship, all the daction than we know the intend may have some very good reasons for having those intend. |
2008-06-21, 10:12 | Link #1245 | |
Sensei, aishite imasu
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Hong Kong Shatterdome
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The groups with Espers in them really are a wild card compared to the time travelers and the data space people. We are fairly knowledgeable about how their groups are organized. Much less is obvious about the organization, and the anti org. |
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2008-06-21, 10:59 | Link #1246 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: North Carolina
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I don't think that he is actually trying to prevent Time Travel. If he was then he would not have given Kyon the memory chip. It is quite possible that he represents an alternate future. One of the new time lines could lead to him and the other to Mikuru. And the decision that Mikuru big told Kyon that he would have to make will determine which time line to follow. But it must involve a lot of other things too since she was worried about what his decision would be.
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2008-06-21, 14:43 | Link #1247 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2007
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2008-06-21, 15:44 | Link #1248 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: North Carolina
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No. Volume 7 when Mikuru from a week in the future comes back and Mikuru Big leaves them tasks to accomplish. One of those tasks is to recover the damaged memory module with Time Travel formulas on it and send it to an address. SB got it first, but he gives it to them saying that it is necessary for his future too. At the end Mikuru Big meets with Kyon and tells him what she can of why he and Mikuru from a week in the future did what they did. And she mentions that he will have to make a big decision and she hopes that it is in her favor.
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2008-06-21, 18:10 | Link #1249 | ||
Homo Ludens
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Canada
Age: 34
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For the good/evil thing...
The "greater good" is a form of justification for immoral acts. In reality, there is no such thing. Evil acts are evil acts, regardless of the motivation behind them. Sometimes you do have to commit evil acts to create a good outcome, but that's a slippery slope. It's better to find a way to create the best outcome without committing atrocities. Quote:
They have no choice but to cause the war. They cannot choose, because the future has already happened. Quote:
The Haruhi series seems to follow the Novikov Principle (for the most part). Essentially, the future cannot be changed, because it has already happened. There is only one timeline, and it cannot be changed. It can only be fixed, restored, or otherwise affirmed. The only exception appears to be the "Harupowers", and it is this last that I believe Fujiwara and his people want control over. With Haruhi (or Sasaki) under their command, they could rewrite history and thus create the ideal world they want. If the time travelers and data entities, due to their foreknowledge of events, have no free will, then Haruhi's powers, to them, must represent the freedom they have been looking for. |
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2008-06-21, 18:48 | Link #1250 | ||
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
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Spoiler for for length:
Actually, reading it again now, it seems pretty ambiguous. He seems to be saying that he's handing the chip over because he has to for timeline consistency. Quote:
All this assumes that: Time travelers can arrive from any timeline that has a possibility of existing, not just the most likely one. And that multiple possibilities are even tolerated by the universe. In some sense, Haruhi's existence nullifies Novikov's principle. There are self-consistent theories of time travel, etc. which don't invoke the principle, and I think that once you bring Haruhi's powers into play, one of these(ie multiple timelines) takes precedence. ....that was really difficult to type. I still don't think I got it out clearly enough. Oh well. |
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2008-06-21, 18:55 | Link #1251 | |
Homo Ludens
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Canada
Age: 34
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Unless Haruhi created the alternate timeline, it can't exist. Specifically, her powers only nullify the principle when used to do so. In addition, a time traveler from an alternate timeline would more fall under the definition of "slider" than anything else. Besides, Fujiwara has actually met Mikuru before, and since she doesn't remember, he probably means her older self. |
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2008-06-21, 19:23 | Link #1252 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
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So yes, Haruhi overrides the principle only when she actively uses her powers, but when she does do so it applies to all time, so even the possibility of her doing so in the future, unless it is definitely resolved by Haruhi herself, is enough to allow another timeline to semiexist, in the sense that it's not really secure unless the other timeline is eliminated. Also, if there were two timelines, I would say that they would both be part of the universe, competing to be "the" timeline, and neither would really be an alternate, unless you define the less likely one as such. Look, I'm not saying that the books make this obvious or there is tons of (or even any) evidence for this. I'm just saying that the wide scope of Haruhi's powers make such an interpretation possible, and we won't really know for sure until Tanigawa resolves it (whenever that happens...). Also, I've always interpreted Fujiwara's statement more along the lines of, they've met each other while maneuvering through the past, and possibly fought. Edit: Just to make my point especially clear. Supposed Haruhi has some chance in the future of creating another timeline, or even just changing the timeline. Then if that timeline sends people to the past to before she changes things, you would expect to see those people in the past. It's Haruhi's power which allows such sketchy things as possibilities of people to have a somewhat real existence. |
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2008-06-21, 19:51 | Link #1253 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: North Carolina
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2008-06-21, 20:16 | Link #1254 |
Kneel Before Your King!
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Time travel is a difficult concept to accurately convey, and nearly impossible to use as an "afterthought" to a story. Every theory or principle that exists about time travel is guaranteed to conflict with one another, and is impossible to actually prove, simply because time travel itself cannot occur.
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2008-06-21, 20:51 | Link #1255 | ||||
Homo Ludens
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Canada
Age: 34
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But again, the simpler explanation is that Fujiwara is from the same timeline as Mikuru. Quote:
So the timeline never existed, hence Fujiwara never existed, if he was from that timeline. Quote:
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2008-06-21, 21:59 | Link #1256 |
Kneel Before Your King!
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Amusingly, pretty much every work of fiction that involves time travelers actually interacting with the past and/or future creates paradoxes, and Haruhi is no exception. About the only instance that doesn't create a problem of some sort is the John Smith thing, which seems to be the only one that was planned ahead of time. Though, given Melancholy's very standalone-ish nature, Haruhi noting that Kyon seemed familiar could have really meant anything until Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody.
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2008-06-21, 22:27 | Link #1257 | |
Homo Ludens
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Canada
Age: 34
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And no, I'm not counting predestination paradoxes and time loops. Those still make sense. |
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2008-06-22, 01:24 | Link #1258 |
Kneel Before Your King!
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Disappearance has a rather nasty one which basically makes Kyon's entire existence afterwards questionable.
Spoiler for ... I'm not even sure why I'm putting this in spoiler tags...:
If you have an explanation for this instance, I'd really love to hear it. This isn't sarcasm, I truly do wish for an explanation to this situation, as it's the one moment in Disappearance I've never really understood.
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2008-06-22, 01:32 | Link #1259 | |
Homo Ludens
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Canada
Age: 34
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It's a predestination paradox, or a casual loop or sorts. Kyon remembers hearing his own voice (as well as the voices of Yuki and Mikuru) at the point where he passes out, therefore he knows that he has to go back in time to save himself, and bring Yuki and Mikuru with him. In the prologue of Vol. 7, he does just that, closing the loop. It's a bit confusing, but it's not a universe-shattering paradox. |
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2008-06-22, 03:00 | Link #1260 |
Kneel Before Your King!
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I'm not referring to the predestination paradox of him knowing he has to go back and do it, I'm referring to the ontological paradox of him only living because he will eventually go back and do it. You seem to have missed that point.
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shounen, sneaker bunko, seinen, light novels, manga |
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