Re: What would make you believe?

In Message-ID:<0t0sq3dbpdo8mtj17t8ia12b591h885dd5@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Wildepad <noreplies> wrote: 

>A tall young man comes to your door. He speaks with a heavy accent and
>occasionally uses nonsense words. After a few pleasantries, he tells
>you that he's from a parallel universe that is a near duplicate of our
>own except that it's several centuries ahead.
>
>His mission is to change our future.
 <snip>
>But there is something you can do. They have records from 'our' time
>and know that tonight's lottery won't have a winner. He's checked the
>numbers from six different games for the past two weeks (as displayed
>on a poster at a gas station he passed on his way from the transfer
>point to your home), and all 552 numbers agree with those on his list,
>indicating high parallelism with their universe. Since the drawing is
>within hours and at a considerable distance, it is highly unlikely
>that his presence will affect the balls drawn.
 <snip>
>What, if anything, could he say to convince you to spend a dollar to
>play 'his' numbers for a $65,000,000 lottery?

     It doesn't matter.  Given infinite parallel universes: in
some I'll be convinced; in some I won't; in some I'd have played
those numbers, regardless.

     Your homework assignment is to read Niven's "All the Myriad
Ways" (a short story collected in a book of the same name).

-- 
Arthur T. - ar23hur "at" intergate "dot" com
Looking for a z/OS (IBM mainframe) systems programmer position