Suppose a person travels to a historical time before they were born and breaks the event that led to the traveler's birth. This problem has been commonly explored by asking 'What if one kills their own father's mother before she first conceived your father?' The apparent paradox is then of a logical sort:
- X forces NOT X and NOT X forces X.
- Thus the "Ad Infinitum" endless loop.
Some stories entertain the notion that you can go back and change things, but not those things that would lead to paradox. I would like to put forth the view that there is something wrong with all of these approaches and that the only view which is successful at resolving the paradox is an alternate universe theory of time travel which we shall explore momentarily. Such a view was expressed in "The Terminator" in which a character from the "future" confesses that maybe he just comes from a "possible future " not the actual future of this time.
When a time travel event occurs, it is helpful to see that it may be one of two kinds. Take, for instance, a "traveling" from time point c to time point b, where c is later than b. Either we are sending an object to a time and place where it already was and it is the same object in every respect as that object in that time and place or we are sending it to a place that it wasn't or at least wasn't in that exact state. Let us consider the second possibility first.
Supposing that the object wasn't at b but we intend to send it there anyway. If we are successful then we have created a contradiction, for it becomes clear that when the time travel event occurs it becomes true that the object was at time point b and yet it was false that the objec

2 comments:
I don't believe in time travel and I wish you and Kj didn't either.
Okay I read your blog and it is like reading a software manual to me. Let me say this about time travel, it would be a nice concept if one could go back in time and view someone that is no longer alive, as an example, I would enjoy seeing my mother again. The only way I could ever consider the notion of time travel is providing the future or the past can not be altered only visited.
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