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The Garden of Forking Paths

November 23, 2023

"Garden of Forking Paths" and "The garden of forking paths" redirect here. For other uses, see Garden of forking paths (disambiguation).

"The Garden of Forking Paths" (original Spanish title: "El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan") is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. It is the title story in the collection El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (1941), which was republished in its entirety in Ficciones (Fictions) in 1944. It was the first of Borges's works to be translated into English by Anthony Boucher when it appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in August 1948.

"The Garden of Forking Paths"
Short story by Jorge Luis Borges
Collection first edition
Original titleEl jardín de senderos que se bifurcan
TranslatorAnthony Boucher
CountryArgentina
LanguageSpanish
Genre(s)Spy fiction, war fiction
Publication
Published inEl Jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (1941)
Ficciones (1944)
PublisherEditorial Sur
Media typePrint
Publication date1941
Published in English1948

The story's theme has been said to foreshadow the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.[1][2] It may have been inspired by work of the philosopher and science fiction author Olaf Stapledon.[1]

Borges's vision of "forking paths" has been cited as inspiration by numerous new media scholars, in particular within the field of hypertext fiction.[3][4][5] Other stories by Borges that explore the idea of infinite texts include "The Library of Babel" and "The Book of Sand".[3]

Plot summary edit

The narrator opens the story by noting a delay in a British attack on the Serre-Montauban line during World War I, and states that the signed statement of Chinese professor Yu Tsun allows the events to be understood in a new way. The remainder of the story consists of this statement.

Tsun is living in the United Kingdom during the war but acting as a spy for Imperial Germany, motivated not by a love of the latter country, but by a desire to prove to his chief that he is not racially inferior. He has discovered a crucial bit of information, the location of a new British artillery park. However, he also learns that a British intelligence officer, Richard Madden, has just killed another member of Tsun's spy ring and will surely catch Tsun within the day. Tsun forms a plan to transmit his information to Germany and flees on a train, narrowly escaping capture by Madden.

Tsun arrives at the village of Ashgrove to seek a man named Stephen Albert. Thinking about labyrinths as he walks, he remembers one of his ancestors, a provincial governor named Ts'ui Pên. Ts'ui Pen had retired from civil service to construct "a novel that would be even more populous than the Hung Lu Meng and a labyrinth in which all men would become lost."[6][7] However, he was apparently murdered before he could complete either task, leaving only incoherent drafts of the novel and no known labyrinth.

On reaching Albert's house, Tsun is astonished to learn that Albert is a Sinologist who is himself studying Ts'ui Pen's incomplete novel. Albert, himself thrilled to meet a descendant of Ts'ui Pen, explains that he believes Ts'ui Pen's novel and labyrinth were not distinct projects, but rather two descriptions of a single project. Albert had acquired a letter by Ts'ui Pen that included the statement, "I leave to several futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths."[8][9] In Albert's interpretation, these forking paths represented the various possible futures that spun out from each event of the novel, all of which Ts'ui Pen describes in separate chapters, rather than choosing a single outcome for each event. The novel's apparent multiple drafts of various chapters were in fact a single work, in which the infinitely forking futures are described. The novel is thus "an enormous riddle, or parable, whose theme is time".[10][11]

Overwhelmed with emotion, Tsun states that by unlocking his ancestor's masterpiece, Albert has surely earned his gratitude in every divergent future. Albert replies with a smile that there is at least one timeline where Tsun is his enemy.

At that moment, Tsun sees Madden running through the house's garden. He asks Albert to turn around on a pretext and shoots him fatally in the back. As Tsun awaits hanging in his cell, he explains that he successfully transmitted the message that the British artillery was in the town of Albert, Somme by killing a man of that name, and that his German chief understood the significance when he saw the murder in the newspapers. However, Tsun notes that the chief "does not know (no one can know) my innumerable contrition and weariness."[12][13]

In modern culture edit

  • In statistics, the garden of forking paths fallacy refers to how making a series of decisions along a large decision tree can lead to a higher false-positive rate in an experiment.[14] Named by statistician Andrew Gelman, this concept references "The Garden of Forking Paths" to describe how scientists can make false discoveries when they do not pre-specify a data analysis plan and instead choose "one analysis for the particular data they saw."[15]
  • In 1987, Stuart Moulthrop created a hypertextual version of "The Garden of Forking Paths" titled Victory Garden.[3][16]
  • Parallels have been drawn between the concepts in the story and the many-worlds interpretation in physics by Bryce DeWitt[17] in his preface to "The Many World Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics".[2]
  • Mark Z. Danielewski's novel House of Leaves also had a great deal of influence from many of Borges' short stories, and the character Zampanò is somewhat of a Borges figure himself (his blindness, his obsession with infinity, his masterful writing that seems to loop back on itself but never in the same way...). "The Garden of Forking Paths" is specifically mentioned in footnote #167 of the novel.[18]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b Moran, Dominic (2012). "Borges and the Multiverse: Some Further Thoughts". Bulletin of Spanish Studies. 89 (6): 925–942. doi:10.1080/14753820.2012.712326. ISSN 1475-3820. S2CID 170301710.
  2. ^ a b The Many World Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, N. Graham and B. DeWitt eds., Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1973. "UCIspace @ the Libraries - "The Theory of the Universal Wave Function," long thesis as published, 1973". Archived from the original on 2013-08-25. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
  3. ^ a b c Wardrip-Fruin, Noah, and Nick Montfort, eds. The New Media Reader. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.
  4. ^ Bolter, Jay David; Joyce, Michael (1987). "Hypertext and Creative Writing". Hypertext '87 Papers. ACM. pp. 41–50.
  5. ^ Moulthrop, Stuart (1991). "Reading From the Map: Metonymy and Metaphor in the Fiction of 'Forking Paths'". In Delany, Paul; Landow, George P. (eds.). Hypermedia and Literary Studies. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press. ISBN 9780585354446.
  6. ^ Borges, p. 22.
  7. ^ Spanish: "para escribir una novela que fuera todavía más populosa que el Hung Lu Meng y para edificar un laberinto en el que se perdieran todos los hombres."
  8. ^ Borges & 25.
  9. ^ Spanish: "Dejo a los varios porvenires (no a todos) mi jardín de senderos que se bifurcan."
  10. ^ Borges, Jorge Luis (1964). Labyrinths. Translated by Yates, Donald A. p. 27.
  11. ^ Spanish: "una enorme adivinanza, o parábola, cuyo tema es el tiempo"
  12. ^ Borges, p. 29.
  13. ^ Spanish: "No sabe (nadie puede saber) mi innumerable contrición y cansancio."
  14. ^ Gelman, Andrew. "Garden of Forking Paths and p-Hacking" (PDF).
  15. ^ The garden of forking paths: Why multiple comparisons can be a problem, even when there is no “fishing expedition” or “p-hacking” and the research hypothesis was posited ahead of time, Andrew Gelman and Eric Loken http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/unpublished/p_hacking.pdf
  16. ^ "Eastgate: Victory Garden". www.eastgate.com.
  17. ^ Biographical Sketch of Hugh Everett, III, Eugene Shikhovtsev http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/everett/everett.html
  18. ^ Borges: Influence and References: Mark Z. Danielewski. Retrieved March 15, 2007. Archived 2014-10-15 at the Wayback Machine

External links edit

  • Silvio Gaggi, "Hyperrealities and Hypertexts"
  • Lev Manovich, "New Media from Borges to HTML"
  • Nick Montfort introduction to "The Garden of Forking Paths" in "The New Media Reader."

November 23, 2023
garden, forking, paths, garden, forking, paths, garden, forking, paths, redirect, here, other, uses, garden, forking, paths, disambiguation, original, spanish, title, jardín, senderos, bifurcan, 1941, short, story, argentine, writer, poet, jorge, luis, borges,. Garden of Forking Paths and The garden of forking paths redirect here For other uses see Garden of forking paths disambiguation The Garden of Forking Paths original Spanish title El jardin de senderos que se bifurcan is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges It is the title story in the collection El jardin de senderos que se bifurcan 1941 which was republished in its entirety in Ficciones Fictions in 1944 It was the first of Borges s works to be translated into English by Anthony Boucher when it appeared in Ellery Queen s Mystery Magazine in August 1948 The Garden of Forking Paths Short story by Jorge Luis BorgesCollection first editionOriginal titleEl jardin de senderos que se bifurcanTranslatorAnthony BoucherCountryArgentinaLanguageSpanishGenre s Spy fiction war fictionPublicationPublished inEl Jardin de senderos que se bifurcan 1941 Ficciones 1944 PublisherEditorial SurMedia typePrintPublication date1941Published in English1948The story s theme has been said to foreshadow the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics 1 2 It may have been inspired by work of the philosopher and science fiction author Olaf Stapledon 1 Borges s vision of forking paths has been cited as inspiration by numerous new media scholars in particular within the field of hypertext fiction 3 4 5 Other stories by Borges that explore the idea of infinite texts include The Library of Babel and The Book of Sand 3 Contents 1 Plot summary 2 In modern culture 3 See also 4 References 5 External linksPlot summary editThe narrator opens the story by noting a delay in a British attack on the Serre Montauban line during World War I and states that the signed statement of Chinese professor Yu Tsun allows the events to be understood in a new way The remainder of the story consists of this statement Tsun is living in the United Kingdom during the war but acting as a spy for Imperial Germany motivated not by a love of the latter country but by a desire to prove to his chief that he is not racially inferior He has discovered a crucial bit of information the location of a new British artillery park However he also learns that a British intelligence officer Richard Madden has just killed another member of Tsun s spy ring and will surely catch Tsun within the day Tsun forms a plan to transmit his information to Germany and flees on a train narrowly escaping capture by Madden Tsun arrives at the village of Ashgrove to seek a man named Stephen Albert Thinking about labyrinths as he walks he remembers one of his ancestors a provincial governor named Ts ui Pen Ts ui Pen had retired from civil service to construct a novel that would be even more populous than the Hung Lu Meng and a labyrinth in which all men would become lost 6 7 However he was apparently murdered before he could complete either task leaving only incoherent drafts of the novel and no known labyrinth On reaching Albert s house Tsun is astonished to learn that Albert is a Sinologist who is himself studying Ts ui Pen s incomplete novel Albert himself thrilled to meet a descendant of Ts ui Pen explains that he believes Ts ui Pen s novel and labyrinth were not distinct projects but rather two descriptions of a single project Albert had acquired a letter by Ts ui Pen that included the statement I leave to several futures not to all my garden of forking paths 8 9 In Albert s interpretation these forking paths represented the various possible futures that spun out from each event of the novel all of which Ts ui Pen describes in separate chapters rather than choosing a single outcome for each event The novel s apparent multiple drafts of various chapters were in fact a single work in which the infinitely forking futures are described The novel is thus an enormous riddle or parable whose theme is time 10 11 Overwhelmed with emotion Tsun states that by unlocking his ancestor s masterpiece Albert has surely earned his gratitude in every divergent future Albert replies with a smile that there is at least one timeline where Tsun is his enemy At that moment Tsun sees Madden running through the house s garden He asks Albert to turn around on a pretext and shoots him fatally in the back As Tsun awaits hanging in his cell he explains that he successfully transmitted the message that the British artillery was in the town of Albert Somme by killing a man of that name and that his German chief understood the significance when he saw the murder in the newspapers However Tsun notes that the chief does not know no one can know my innumerable contrition and weariness 12 13 In modern culture editIn statistics the garden of forking paths fallacy refers to how making a series of decisions along a large decision tree can lead to a higher false positive rate in an experiment 14 Named by statistician Andrew Gelman this concept references The Garden of Forking Paths to describe how scientists can make false discoveries when they do not pre specify a data analysis plan and instead choose one analysis for the particular data they saw 15 In 1987 Stuart Moulthrop created a hypertextual version of The Garden of Forking Paths titled Victory Garden 3 16 Parallels have been drawn between the concepts in the story and the many worlds interpretation in physics by Bryce DeWitt 17 in his preface to The Many World Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics 2 Mark Z Danielewski s novel House of Leaves also had a great deal of influence from many of Borges short stories and the character Zampano is somewhat of a Borges figure himself his blindness his obsession with infinity his masterful writing that seems to loop back on itself but never in the same way The Garden of Forking Paths is specifically mentioned in footnote 167 of the novel 18 See also editAlternate history Choose Your Own Adventure Gilles Deleuze s use of this story to illustrate the Leibnizian concept of several impossible worlds simultaneously existing and the problem of future contingents Coherence a 2013 film about people who must deal with reality bending events following a comet sighting Many minds interpretation MultiverseReferences edit a b Moran Dominic 2012 Borges and the Multiverse Some Further Thoughts Bulletin of Spanish Studies 89 6 925 942 doi 10 1080 14753820 2012 712326 ISSN 1475 3820 S2CID 170301710 a b The Many World Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics N Graham and B DeWitt eds Princeton University Press Princeton 1973 UCIspace the Libraries The Theory of the Universal Wave Function long thesis as published 1973 Archived from the original on 2013 08 25 Retrieved 2013 08 25 a b c Wardrip Fruin Noah and Nick Montfort eds The New Media Reader Cambridge MIT Press 2003 Bolter Jay David Joyce Michael 1987 Hypertext and Creative Writing Hypertext 87 Papers ACM pp 41 50 Moulthrop Stuart 1991 Reading From the Map Metonymy and Metaphor in the Fiction of Forking Paths In Delany Paul Landow George P eds Hypermedia and Literary Studies Cambridge Massachusetts and London England The MIT Press ISBN 9780585354446 Borges p 22 sfn error no target CITEREFBorges help Spanish para escribir una novela que fuera todavia mas populosa que el Hung Lu Meng y para edificar un laberinto en el que se perdieran todos los hombres Borges amp 25 sfn error no target CITEREFBorges25 help Spanish Dejo a los varios porvenires no a todos mi jardin de senderos que se bifurcan Borges Jorge Luis 1964 Labyrinths Translated by Yates Donald A p 27 Spanish una enorme adivinanza o parabola cuyo tema es el tiempo Borges p 29 sfn error no target CITEREFBorges help Spanish No sabe nadie puede saber mi innumerable contricion y cansancio Gelman Andrew Garden of Forking Paths and p Hacking PDF The garden of forking paths Why multiple comparisons can be a problem even when there is no fishing expedition or p hacking and the research hypothesis was posited ahead of time Andrew Gelman and Eric Loken http www stat columbia edu gelman research unpublished p hacking pdf Eastgate Victory Garden www eastgate com Biographical Sketch of Hugh Everett III Eugene Shikhovtsev http space mit edu home tegmark everett everett html Borges Influence and References Mark Z Danielewski Retrieved March 15 2007 Archived 2014 10 15 at the Wayback MachineExternal links editSilvio Gaggi Hyperrealities and Hypertexts Lev Manovich New Media from Borges to HTML Nick Montfort introduction to The Garden of Forking Paths in The New Media Reader Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title The Garden of Forking Paths amp oldid 1183742813, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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