From: "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Reality and the Alternatives
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 13:41:05 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

	As Spock didn't say, "I admire your mind."
	I'd like to borrow _Alternate Realities_ sometime.  Based on your
description, it discusses perceptions of reality rather than reality itself,
but it sounds interesting and useful.
	What Heinlein book(s) included "fictons"?  _The Number of the
Beast_?  Might have to reread it.  Strictly for research purposes you
understand.  B-)
	Both of the Robinsons are on my "D" list, meaning that I will
probably never read anything by either of them, but don't rule the
possibility completely out.  Yuppies in space and yuppies in cyberpunk:
what a lack of concept!							Lee

-----Original Message-----
From: Erica VD Ginter [mailto:eginter at klgai.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 12:47 PM
To: 'WSFA members'
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Texas, more than you thought

This discussiond reminds me of "fictons," created by Heinlein, in which all
possible imagined universes exist; each such universe is a ficton. Spider
Robinson has adopted the idea and used it with distinction in some of his
Callahan's stories.

I am also reminded of one of my favorite nonfiction books, "Alternate
Realities: The Search for the Full Human Being," by Lawrence LeShan
(Ballantine 1976, NY, ISBN 0-345-3494-5). LeShan talks about the different
approaches to viewing the universe we all share, i.e., the
religious/mystical vs. the scientific, and argues the validity of each
approach. I should reread it and review it for the journal, but I just
bought Stan Robinson's new book, soooooo... (It's received so many excellent
mainstream reviews that I had to go to 4 bookstores to find it! We're proud
of you, Stan!)

Erica

-----Original Message-----
From: Strong, Lee [mailto:StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL]
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 7:57 AM
To: 'WSFA members'
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Texas, more than you thought

	Sam, I understand your point of view and agree with it in part.
However, I think we should reserve the term "alternate history" for
universes where objective history differs one from another.  Otherwise, a
useful term acquires a totally different meaning and becomes almost useless.
Perhaps we should use "ideoverse" to describe an individual worldview within
a single universe by analogy with the established term "ideolect" used by
speech scientists to describe individuals' unique speech sub-languages
within a standard language.

-----Original Message-----
From: Samuel Lubell [mailto:lubell at cais.com]
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 11:26 PM
To: WSFA members
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Texas, more than you thought

At 09:01 AM 4/8/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Sam,
>	If you're really interested, I think I can find my hard copy
>reference.  Most of the proposals I read in a bound master's thesis at the
>University of Mississippi.
>
>Lee
>

Not that interested, sorry.  But I will comment that every work of history
is an alternate history as two historians, looking at the same events will
come up with different interpretations.