interpretations

In that country, all agree that the true religion teaches that the world is written like a book. But there are disagreements among them as to how the book is created.
The orthodox say that it does no good talking about the rough draft or outline of the book, since we can never see them. The only thing that can be properly discussed is the finished book, and all else is best left as an unspeakable mystery. This was the most popular sect for many years, but its popularity seems to be waning. The symbol of this sect is a mermaid on a rock.
Others say that there is a vast and ever-expanding collection of writing fanning out, where all the possibilities are explored for every possible option. The world we see is just one of these versions, not the best or most popular, and no more legitimate than any of the other versions that others may pick up. The symbol of this sect is an image of the tallest mountain.
A third group believe in an outlining process, where the possible influences of various events and actions are carefully plotted, and only once the outline is complete is the story written. The symbol of this sect is a pilot guiding his ship across the waves.
Others believe that the book is written in drafts, and that events from the end of the book may cause earlier events in the story to take place as draft after draft is written until a final draft that is consistent is arrived at. The symbol of this sect is a pair of shaking hands.
Another group feels that the book is left by the printer in an unfinished state, with tall piles of pages that may be picked up and read according to chance and whim. They see these stacks of pages collapsing as pages are pulled out and read.These teach that it is only when the book is read that the story is actually completed. The symbol of this sect is a cat in a box.

Comments

Mike Stay said…
Even those schisms have internal divisions; among those of the cat in the box, there are some who believe that the papers get pulled from the stacks when the text on some page in the stack differs enough from the page on the bottom. This happens in a deterministic way, but one that cannot be computed. The symbol for this group is a pen and a rose.

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