Frederick Turner

What an honor to have Frederick Turner in our classroom today.  His credentials and accomplishments speak for themselves; his body of knowledge is so well-rounded.  It seems, and this is all relative, but people either know a lot about a little or a little about a lot.  I find Frederick Turner incredible in that he knows a lot about a lot and he understands and ties in varying and seemingly unrelated fields into his writing.  This unique understanding of the world gives him an unparalled insight and perspective on the way things are, the way things were, and the way they will be.  When he speaks, people listen.  This was obvious last night at the Museum of the Rockies.  You could hear a pen drop in that auditorium, or a door open…which it did several times.  I’ve never seen so many people look back in disgust at the noise culprit, offended that they had the nerve to break the silence commanded by his very presence.  That focused and attentive atmosphere is how I imagine the great storytellers of the past, such as Ovid and Homer, would have inspired.

It’s a shame we ran out of time today in class.

Speaking of time, in Frederick’s work “Brief Explanation of Time”, he writes about time being a nested hierarchy of temporalities, like Russian dolls.  Human temporality is the outermost shell, containing the simpler temporalities, such as those of animals.  If we all evolved from a common ancestor, how did humans evolve this unique and heightened temporality, thus distinguishing ourselves from animals, or “beast-men”?  What would the characteristics of the next level up in the temporal hierarchy be?  Can we evolve to that state?  If so, would that then make us something other than human?  Would we then be gods?