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Everyone who paid any attention to science fiction, or for that matter to science, eventually came across the concept that reality as we knew it was a computer program.
He considered making himself a millionaire, but why risk it when he could make himself a thousandaire anytime he wanted?
He knew that in this day and age, that was a problem, but he also saw that was the answer. This day and age. He could escape to the past, and nobody alive today could touch him.
Houdini died after he was punched in the gut by a fan.
Martin could prove that the world was created by a computer program, which made no difference, because who created the program? God? Random chance? He hadn’t answered the question, he had just pushed it back one step.
Martin had the easy air of a man with a plan.
“The only power you need to know about to make your decision is the power to lead a life where you’re free to pursue whatever seems interesting without the pressure of keeping a job, or paying off a car loan or a mortgage. We live like gentlemen of leisure. Our greatest challenge is looking busy. Welcome to wizarding. Your last hard day was yesterday.”
You know, the less you talk, the more people assume that what you’re not saying is important.”
You see, faith doesn’t have to make sense. If it did, it wouldn’t be faith, it would be logic.
As long as people are sure you’re doing something, they don’t worry too much about what.
Our main job as wizards is to convince people that we’re doing important, mysterious things all the time.
focusing on failure just makes you more likely to fail.
I’m sure you figured out that cause always preceded effect from your point of view, so you couldn’t really mess up your own future.”
Some think that something happens later that erases all of this from history and puts things right. Whatever it is, in the future it’s already happened, so we see the fixed reality, but back here it hasn’t happened yet, so we’re free to muck about all we want.”
Predetermination. If that explanation is true, it means that everything we do was set in stone hundreds of years before we were born. It means we’re not individuals, just robots running through pre-programmed responses, and I can’t accept that.”
The other explanation is that when we go back in time past a certain point, the program, whatever it is, creates a parallel instance of the past for us to go to.”
The program already has this place set up, so it sort of influences us to come here instead of some other place.”
comfortable looking chair Martin had ever seen. Next to
“No, but it is consistent with their beliefs. The advantage that religion has over magic or science is that man’s inability to understand is built into the system, so if an explanation is confusing or unsatisfying, it strengthens the point.”
“I said that they can’t prove their belief system, and that the lack of proof is part of that system. It’s all belief and no proof.
Nobody has all the answers, because all the best answers generate more questions.
“the world can be described as a war between two sides. The problem is that everybody has a different idea of what those two sides are.
Also by not asking any one wizard all of his questions, he had a better chance of keeping his macro a surprise.
Martin thought about how in a dark room you couldn’t see anything, and in a brightly lit room you only saw large things, but in a room with very little light, you could see very little things, like dust.
“That’s the point. I wanted to do it myself. There’s a certain pride in looking at something big and complex and knowing you did it without help.”
