Are Time Travel Paradoxes Really Paradoxes?

[bobw]

I have been wondering this for a long time. If you had the physical ability to kill your father, i.e. a gun and a body to hold it, it implies that you are physically made of molecules. How could something you do, short of nuking yourself, discombobulate your atoms? Why wouldn't you still be the actual physical you that you are in whatever time you happen to be? So what if my father never met my mother... I'm here, right now (whenever that is), and there is nothing I can do to change that. What is the mechanism that would make me non-existent and why must it be protected?<br /><br />I may go back to a different future, if I could go back at all, but so what?<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vogon13]

Many worlds . . . . .<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Causality.<br /><br />Example: regardless of how you got to that time, were you to murder your own father, you would not have been born to return to the past to murder your father...<br /><br />Yeah, paradox indeed. This is evidently not logically intuitive. But look at it this way: you are assuming a longish transition from something to nothingness, were you to commit this act. But by committing it, you don't exist. You wouldn't dissolve - you would never have been.<br /><br />Some of this can be explained away by Everett's "Many Worlds" hypothesis. That's the one that says, broadly, each miniscule decision-tree in one universe creates new universes, one for each possibility. The coin was heads; the coin was tails; it landed on edge; you never flipped it.<br /><br />So, the idea goes (talk about a speculation based on a speculation!) that were one to travel "back in time," it wouldn't actually be to our particular timeline; it would be to a parallel, closely similar one.<br /><br />So, if you went back and killed your father, it wouldn't really be your father - it would be the father of an analogue-you in this universe.<br /><br />And so the universe protects itself against causal paradox and contradiction.<br /><br />Pretty esoteric stuff, no? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[bobw]

So if I am standing, with a gun, in front of my father before he met my mother I DO exist but if I pull the trigger then I DON'T? I think somebody didn't think this through very well <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <br /><br />In the olden days something was always supposed to happen to prevent me from killing him; multiple universes sound like they eliminate the problem, hence the paradox, completely. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[yevaud]

There's yet another odd factor in the potential of travelling backwards in time: that you would not be able to travel to before you came into existance. So you would never be able to kill your father *before* you were born.<br /><br />Of course, this now opens the paradox of killing yourself at a young age. But you now don't exist, so how did you travel back to kill yourself. Etc...<br /><br />All of this is pretty much unknown and unknowable. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[bobw]

Many worlds . . . . . <br /><br />So somebody else wouldn't exist in the universe where I killed someone else's father? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[bobw]

I think the fact that a cause no longer exists does not imply that it never did. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[yevaud]

This gets into a weird timestream phenomena known as a "CTC" - Closed Timelike Curve, which is described as an "eddy" at the "edge" of the "river of time." (you have to see this to really get it).<br /><br />Events in time might be able to cycle around and around there, semi-isolated from the actual "stream of time." (note all of the quotes - these are concepts only)<br /><br />Who knows? If this is all correct, perhaps those acausal events might become those eddies - detached from the main chronological stream until they resolve themselves. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[spayss]

There is no reason that a stable reality needs to be one in which what is 'real' isn't in constant flux. Quantum theory even promotes this. This is easier to understand if you think of time as a various states of being rather than a straight line. One doesn't go back or forward in time and upset a cause and effect. The reality is that of the moment in that particular structure of matter and energy in space and not a 'consequence' of the metaphor of billiard balls determining the manifestation of some other reality.<br />

 

[bobw]

I take it, then, that you think you could kill your father and still exist to regret it? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[bobw]

<font color="yellow">(you have to see this to really get it)</font><br /><br />I can see it now....<br /><br /><font color="yellow">(note all of the quotes - these are concepts only) </font><br /><br />I'm glad I posted in SciFi and not ATA. It sounds like you are coming around to my way of thinking! The paradox is just a ploy foisted on us by shallow authors. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[summoner]

Hopefully I can get my thoughts across here without causing too much confusion. My take on the whole time line theory is this: If time travel were to be proven as something that can happen then that alone would be enough in my mind to prove a multiple timeline theory. If time is a steady "stream" then to move backward you would have to jump out of that stream just to go backward. By jumping out you would be creating a seperate branch.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> <br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width:271px;background-color:#FFF;border:1pxsolid#999"><tr><td colspan="2"><div style="height:35px"><img src="http://banners.wunderground.com/weathersticker/htmlSticker1/language/www/US/MT/Three_Forks.gif" alt="" height="35" width="271" style="border:0px" /></div>

 

[gsuschrist]

The separate branch concept is more or less part of the quantum theory school of thought as written in an above posting. Not so much different branches going off in different directions but rather branches coming into being and the reverse in various points of space. It's wierd as heck to get our brains around but is the leading theory among some physicists in trying to explain if time exists or not.

 

[yevaud]

Bob, it's hard for me to say if I agree with you or not, as the entire subject matter is so hypothetical that most of it is just conjecture and some quirky Physics.<br /><br />Still, it's interesting as all hell to speculate a little. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[Aetius]

This reminds me of one of my favorite lines from "Star Trek: Voyager", spoken by Captain Janeway:<br /><br />"They tried to teach us all about these time travel paradoxes at Starfleet Academy. The past is the future, the future is the past...the whole thing gives me a headache!"

 

[yevaud]

Colin Kapp wrote an interesting SF book on the topic: "The Chaos Weapon," around 1977?<br /><br />One Universe is dying, and they are going to invade and move into our universe, lock, stock, and barrel, before their space dies in a big crunch.<br /><br />They build a "Chaos Weapon" in the space between the two universe's, and use it to pick off all of our talent in this universe - by making tiny accidents become improbably much, much worse.<br /><br />A very fun book. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[detriech69]

Sliders was a decent Sci-fi show about the "many worlds" concept. As soon as the original lead left the show it went downhill fast, evidently sc-fi channel didn't want to pay what he was asking or he just got tired of playing the same role. It started on Fox.<br />Another example was a ST:TNG episode with Worf in a shuttlecraft getting thrown into a series of parallel versions of his own reality due to some quantum fissue in space he went through. Cool stuff. I think he was even married to Counselor Troi in one "world".<br />Here's a thought: What if time travel is possible, but once you leave your original timeline you can never get back to it, because you would always leap into a parallel universe slightly different than the one you left. Just like Sliders, except with time travel, as well. That would certainly explain why we don't see any time travellers. Who knows? Cool stuff. But if I wanted to shoot my father back in time, I would certainly want to get "my" father and not some other edition. The other editions may be nicer guys and not deserve it. Ha, ha.

 

[craig42]

No it wouldn't. After all if we could travel backwards in time but never to an original timeline. Then what would stop travellers from other timelines appearing in the past of 'ours'. From their point of view we would just be an alternate timeline from the main one.<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>But if I wanted to shoot my father back in time, I would certainly want to get "my" father and not some other editions <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote> if you could do that then all bets are off. (Especially regarding your existences and if you actually killed your 'biological' father or not.<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Just like Sliders, except with time travel, as well. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote> that'd make a good story, I've always liked alternate histories, I'd love to see how the challenger's presence altered history and what the present would be like. (Like the time tunnel?)<br /><br />Of course Sliders was essentially Everet’s(Evereet?) Multi-World Interpretation where different actions in the past result in a different present (We just never saw the history of those worlds)<br />

 

[hracctsold]

foxbat,<br /><br />So you are saying that if you did change your past, then you would be the one that changes those actions to match your new reality, and the world and it's people around you would be the same, because nothing has changed about them. But all the people that your original self interacted with would have to be affected as well. There are several examples of this that come to mind, if I am reading your meaning correctly. The old movie,"It's a Wonderful Life," gives an example of that when George was given the "gift(?)" of not being born, and the effects it had on all those he touched. His brother Harry was saved from drowning as a kid by George, and Harry went on to keep a killing shot from hurting a ship in WW2. That action prevented the ship from sinking and causing many to drown or die.Then that did not happened because George was not there to pull him from the water as a kid.<br /><br />Frequency and the movie about the ever favorite Doc Brown in movie 2 would also show these things in action. That way, Marty and the Doc were the only ones not affected by the new timeline that Marty's action caused, that is , if I have correctly caught your drift. Actually, his action did cause or affect everyone's elses life but their own.<br /><br /> But I have to tell you, that that does explain things better in my mind on how these things could be.<br /><br />Two other movies, "Final Countdown", and "Peggy Sue got Married", with Kathleen Turner and Nick Cage, would also show the effects of how the future, or the knowledge of some events in it, could effect the then now present.<br /><br />I still have a problem with the multiverse concept of if I turn right instead of left at a pivotial moment in time, I alone would be the cause of an entire universe to come into being. But your thoughts here could help explain a lot of things to me. It would seem to me that even Marty did not create a new universe by his action, he just changed the reality of the people through Biff's a

 

[hracctsold]

Thanks for being so prompt in answering me. And what you said about the fun of speculation is the reason I like to read and watch as much sci-fi as I have all my life. I deal with enough reality every day, and like the break that this genre gives me, where I can actually think about it and guess it's outcome or wonder "what if" about some other action that chould happen. Someone from here told me to pick up Harry Turtledove's book about alternate realities and read it, and I am doing that. So far, so good, but tax work and my present school work does not allow much free time. In fact, I am suppose to be studying for two tests this week right now, but I am playing hooky with this thread.<br /><br />But the multiverse was just a part of my thoughts in my last post. I know this idea is being bantered around by some to many, and even some of my teachers have mentioned it, but I am not trying for true reality right now. But on that subject, how does changing my destiny and those who I affect alter the destiny of those not affected by my actions. Example, when John from the movie Frequency caused his father from 30 years or so in the past to literally take a right turn instead of a left, and thus save his life, his father did cause ripple effects to those around him, and thus the movie plot. But on that faithful day, thirty years later, in the bar and the son's present time, John was the only one who felt the change because to everyone else's thinking there was no change in his father's life to them.<br /><br />Now this is the Sci-Fi forum where true reality is suspended for just the fun of it, and the "what if" of what COULD be is explored. True reality can be included in the speculation or left at the door. So, again, in your original post that started my response, do you think what you said is a viable option, (about a person changing their own reality by any action or effect of an action by others taken in that past's present)?

 

[nova_explored]

"If a butterfly flaps its wings in central park we get rain instead of sunshine in beijing."<br /><br />Same crossroads. every piece of fabric of the universe is intertwined. everything would change. hence the multiple universe model...and those wacky crazy eddies.<br /><br /><br />You can't go back and kill your father or play that lottery with a sure thing.<br /><br />the only thing you can really do by scientific precept is slow your own time down so much that the world races by, however once your reference frame at C changes so does the world's, so you could never get ahead enough to get those lottery numbers. <br /><br />but that is a pretty dull answer here for this thread. sorry <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[ordinary_guy]

A few thoughts...<br /><br /><i>Thought One:</i><br />The whole "multiverse" theory may be flawed. Granted, it's a popular conception of quantum probability that every possible permutation of reality actually happens... but that doesn't really jibe with reality: An infinite number of universes require an infinite amount of energy. Considering that our universe is pretty danged big -- but apparently still finite with a set amount of energy -- the infinite energy required to create instantly splitting complete universes makes absolutely no sense.<br /><br />IMO, the concept was an interesting mental exercise but as actual explanation goes, it's a bit of a copout.<br /><br /><i>Thought Two:</i><br />Time itself (or at least the way we think of it) may be a victim of our attempt to quantify its passage. If it is, it'll probably be a while before we're smart enough to figure out the difference and correct our misconceptions.<br /><br />...Heck, the "time" element of the equations may be one of the stumbling blocks between reconciling quantum theory with relativity...<br /><br /><i>Thought Three:</i><br />Personally, I don't think time travel in the SF sense (ie.: <i>backward</i>) is possible. But, assuming that it is, the grandfather paradox may be self-solving. Consider that causality is a concept, like a paper trail of connections and interactions, but it is <i>not</i> a physical connection (as in"continuity bosons").<br /><br />When considered in this sense, if, say, Hank Morgan goes back in time and happens to accidentally divert history so his grandfather is never born... Nothing will actually happen to Hank. He already exists.<br /><br />The first time Hank went back in time, it essentially created energy that was not present in the universe when he arrived. Assuming a closed system (the Big Bang), no new energy would've been introduced in the universe since it's creation. So, when Hank pops in at the Royal Court, that in itself is pretty heavy (in the vernacular of Marty Fox).<br></br> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p style="font:normalnormalnormal12px/normalTimes;margin:0px"><strong>Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority.</strong></p> <p style="font:normalnormalnormal12px/normalTimes;margin:0px">-Andrew Jackson (1767-1845)</p> </div>

 

[nova_explored]

re: Thought one.<br /><br />It is farfetched but guess what, it's the leading theory for one reason, or i should say because of one man- Richard Feynman. The concept is used to explain wave/particle duality of an electron state that, through scientific experiment was acting as if it were everywhere all at once. And Feynman, after much debate in the community, he himself included, just concluded that, yes, that's it. It's just everywhere at once, all possible points...and that requires multiple universes to dissect an infinite modular path (mathematically). and there it is. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[nova_explored]

re: Thought Two.<br /><br />Actually in relativity time is not a factor. It is only in reference points. As Einstein pointed out, if an astronaut were floating in space with no reference point he would not know the passage of time. If he were, further, riding a light beam at C, time would have absolutely no meaning.<br /><br />concerning time, is the passage of information, and theoritically, a photon from the origins of a big bang (at the outset of the barrier, or wherever the light gets formed) carries all the information of time and space, if we could catch up to it (but then of course we can't cross that barrier and see beyond, again, where time has no meaning...because it has no light. No light, no information. ) Interesting huh? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[yevaud]

As to that very last thought. That implies a sort of stateless, effectless, indeterminate Quantum state. Rather like the Probability-Density cloud of an Electron? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>