Split Second (38 page)

He gestured to Blake. “You asked
about free will in a block universe. I found this the ultimate, most depressing
expression of lack of free will I’ve ever read. If you have a tablet, I’ll try
to find it.”

Blake handed him one of several he
had nearby, and after a few minutes of searching through cyberspace, Walsh
found the passage he was after and began reading:

“‘On April 3, 2040, I am born. On
December 2, 2150, I die. The events in between take place in a single instant.
Say that I range up and down them at will, experiencing each of them again and
again and again eternally.

‘For me, time as you think of it
does not exist. I do not move from moment to moment sequentially like a blind
man groping his way down a tunnel. I am at all points in the tunnel
simultaneously.

‘I know that it is no use trying to
tell any of them that knowledge of the future is useless, that the future
cannot be changed because it was not changed because it will not be changed.
They will never accept the fact that choice is an illusion caused by the fact
that future time-loci are hidden from those who advance sequentially along the
time-stream one moment after the other in blissful ignorance. They refuse to
understand that moments of future time are no different from moments of past or
present time; fixed, immutable, invariant. They live in the illusion of
sequential time.’”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Douglas E. Richards is the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of seven technothrillers, including
Wired
,
Amped
,
Mind’s Eye
,
BrainWeb
,
Quantum Lens
,
Split Second
, and
The Cure
.
He has also written six middle grade/young adult novels widely acclaimed for
their appeal to boys, girls, and adults alike. Douglas has a master’s degree in
molecular biology (aka “genetic engineering”), was a biotechnology executive
for many years, and has authored a wide variety of popular science pieces for
National Geographic
, the
BBC
, the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
,
Earth and Sky
,
Today's Parent
,
and many others. Douglas has a wife, two children, and two dogs, and currently
lives in San Diego, California.