problems of time travel being common and ordinary

[barlennan]

I've always disagreed with the argument one would notice ones time changing. If my timeline got altered, my current memories would all coincide with the past changes made and I wouldn't know any different. If your coworker disappears right infront of you, your memories of him would be equally gone.

You're getting into a grandfather paradox territory, here (you can't go back in time and kill your grandfather as a child, because then you will never be born, and there'll be no-one to go back and kill your grandfather).

What if you were the person that altered your past by jumping? Surely that person would need to remember the reality that they left. That is what the archetypal hero of these stories is: Marty McFly must go through time fixing the mistakes he made in 1955 and ensuring a happy future for his family.

What I have been cautioning Harpo against is writing a story based on a time-travel premise, rather than writing characters and conflicts. The story of someone who never jumps and who meets people who claim to have altered history is interesting, a quest for truth, but it's a very dry, philosphical approach. It worked well in The Time-Travellers Wife where there was essentially one time-traveller, but the plot was not the sort of hard SF / serious social SF that Harpo wants to explore.

 

[Harpo]

in my version there will be no changed-event paradoxes, because no matter how many times people try to change an event, the final version is the one that'll be remembered, and the other might as well not have happened.

 

[Abernovo]

in my version there will be no changed-event paradoxes, because no matter how many times people try to change an event, the final version is the one that'll be remembered, and the other might as well not have happened.

So, perhaps, you could effectively be creating an alternate universe by changing something, but you would never know, because your reality has changed. If you killed your grandfather, you might cease to exist, or you might transform into the grandchild of another grandfather, your grandmother having moved on.

You could even have factions changing something back and forth, not realising that they've done it repeatedly in the past, or something like it.

The branching realities theory. Works for me, Harpo.

 

[Harpo]

OK then, it might have to be the branching realities theory.

 

[Drakai]

I've always disagreed with the argument one would notice ones time changing. If my timeline got altered, my current memories would all coincide with the past changes made and I wouldn't know any different. If your coworker disappears right infront of you, your memories of him would be equally gone.

I think that is arguable. What about soul? What if the memories are what makes our soul? Then that would either mean when our memories change we are going to be a totally different person or that even if the memories change, the soul will somehow restore itself to it's former self, reclaiming the lost memories. Your version too could very well be the case but we can speculate as much as we want.

 

[TacticalLoco]

I think that is arguable. What about soul? What if the memories are what makes our soul? Then that would either mean when our memories change we are going to be a totally different person or that even if the memories change, the soul will somehow restore itself to it's former self, reclaiming the lost memories. Your version too could very well be the case but we can speculate as much as we want.

Very interesting thread.

1st of all; Harpo forget about all the posts saying time travel in impossible or you're not doing it right. The only important thing is that your story is consistent. One might as well argue unicorns are not real and dragons could never fly. Good luck.

2nd of all; Drakai introducing a soul would be adding the supernatural to the story. That is fine, but it moves the work from scifi into fantasy. Interesting concept though.

3rd of all; All this talk of other universes got me wondering what could happen if people from different timelines started mixing together. Yikes!

 

[Harpo]

3rd of all; All this talk of other universes got me wondering what could happen if people from different timelines started mixing together. Yikes!

I'm thinking of a spin-off story in which a wanted supercriminal hides in a year when the world is enveloped in a huge dust cloud in space - everyone would avoid that year, of course, and so it'd be a great hiding place. He'd just keep revisiting the start of the dust year when he gets to the end of it, and there would be many of him (each aged a little more or less than the next)

 

[Drakai]

2nd of all; Drakai introducing a soul would be adding the supernatural to the story. That is fine, but it moves the work from scifi into fantasy. Interesting concept though.

Sci-fi and fantasy seem distant but I think they are pretty similar and as an enthusiast of both I find it difficult not to mix them.

 

[AJB]

To get sciency...

Time is a vastly complicated and mind bending concept in itself! Especially when it has been scientifically proven to be relative to each person/obect i.e. time speeding up when travelling (the faster you go the faster time goes) and also goes slower when in a stronger gravity field. Also the idea that space and time are part of the same substance spacetime and that mass bends spacetime and that this bend is essentially gravity.

The consequences of some of this is fascinating. Just say an alien billions and billions of lightyears away is exactly stationary and so are we, you could say that we are both experiencing time in the same NOW. But if this alien moves in one direction , the aliens NOW-ness turns equivelent to our time (or NOW-ness) many years into our future, but if it then the alien moves in the opposite direction, the alien NOW-ness is equivelent to many years in the past to our NOW-ness. This large fluctuation only becomes so dramatic because of the VAST distance between us though. These relative time of now-ness is so minute to say us on Earth, we don't really notice it.

Also, there is suggested thoughts that time moving in a linear fashion is perhaps just our perception of time moving. Scientists believe that the past, present and future happens all at the same time simultaneously. This, Harpo, may go along with your idea of the taintrack analogy (which I like btw, as well as the significant point in history when the first timestation (if you will) is created): Travelling from one point in spacetime to another point in spacetime....

Hope some of these facts help!

 

[Harpo]

Yes thanks AJB! Terrific

 

[AJB]

btw, when I said "Scientists believe that the past, present and future happens all at the same time simultaneously" I think is just a science theory, not fact.... I think....

 

[AJB]

No probs Harpo, I'm glad you were able to understand my explanation.

Time is definitely one of those subjects that can have you thinking and thinking more about it when you start to unravel it.

Good luck with the story!

 

[Harpo]

It might be a series of Branching Realities stories now. Like interconnected short stories that don't have to fit into one big story but are part of the same conceptual universes.

 

[Darth Angelus]

Interesting topic.

I am in the very sceptical camp, when it comes to (backward*) time travel, which I think would entail far too many paradoxes for a reality to fulfill the coherence it needs to work. I have yet to see a time travel story where I have not needed to suspend disbelief at all, which tells me a great deal about the (paradoxical) nature of time travel.
Most of these problem have been pointed out already. One point bothers me in particular, though, and it is ignored in movie narratives such as Terminator and The Looper what makes the "first"** interference from the future to any one point in time final. If we look at Terminator, and one terminator (T1) is sent back to time X from time Y to kill John Connor (JC), and it succeeds to destroy the resistance's terminator (T2) and JC, why can't the resistance send back another terminator (T3), to time X, or even time Y, to destroy T1 before it succeeds
Ok, one might argue (rightly or wrongly) that the future resistance would not know about JC's importance (or likely, would not exist) if JC is taken out at an earlier point, but the point stand for narratives following this structure. If two future parties have opposing interests in the outcome of one particular event, they could just send more and more agents/forces back in time to point X. What would close point X in time off from further future interference, so there could be a final outcome?

Confusing? Probably, yes, quite a bit. However, this confusing state of matters does very much seem to fit into the convoluted mess created by backward time travel.

All in all, I agree with Fishbowl Helmet on time travel, save for the part about big bang, which doesn't seem to fit into what I have learned about the latter subject. It is more than just a big explosion, whose radius travellers could be outside. Space itself is expanding since big bang, rather than galaxies moving outwards in space from some center point. If we travelled back in time to the very start (and, for that matter, that were even possible), we would find ourselves within that singularity (scale factor = 0, and space itself does not yet exist), which would certainly not be able to contain living beings in their current form... Let us just say it would be a bit less attractive than curiosity would suggest.
Other than that, good posts, Fishbowl.


As for the specific rule of time travel in the OP, that it is "time train" rather than "time automobile" (or something even more flexible, like "time airplane"), it is an a decent idea, although this restriction was not made clear from the start. I agree that a time traveller would indeed probably come out of such a machine as it is activated for the first time in history.
While a completely arbitrary restriction, the writer may indeed make such a rule. However, it doesn't really solve any paradoxes.

By the way, I like Dr. Who's way of making paradoxes created by time travel harmful to the structural integrity of the universe. That very much seems to be the way it should be, in my mind.
Like J Riff, I am less impressed by Looper, writing-wise. Sure, the actors are quite good, but the story leaves a lot to be desired, and in particular the way it deals with this subject


By the way, sorry if I sound like just another negative voice. I do not mean to discourage, but this is a difficult plot point to get right.


* Time travel only forward obviously creates no paradoxes, as it doesn't create duplications of any point in time.

** First and last may be a bit hard to define in a universe where backward time travel is possible, as time is no longer a straight line. I refer to the first in sequence, here. The second time someone travels back to point X would be in from the "alternative universe" created by the first backwards time travel (to point X) but may actually be a shorter backwards leap in linear time (as in first being from 2465 to 2432 and second being from 2447 to 2432 in the changed timeline).

 

[Glitch]

I think time travel is an interesting theme. I have several ideas involving the subject in my notebook. Like any theme, there are good and bad stories. It depends how well the author can pull it off.

Most stories I've read/seen which use time travel, only really use it as the inciting incident. If you intend to have multiple time jumps throughout the story, like The Time Traveler's Wife for example. I think you need to keep good notes on what's going on. It can be easy to confuse yourself and the reader.

Harpo. I wish you luck with this endeavour; and look forward to seeing it in the critiques section

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

My first thought is that there are always ways around whatever restrictions you place on any law. And having a fixed first point at which people can return to is one such law. I could get around it without even having to break it.

Consider, you can only go back to points (stations I suppose) where time receivers are in existence. And the first one is at say 2013. So can't go back any further? Wrong. It's easy. Assume that the universe is filled with intelligent races. Assume that space travel is easy. And then assume that since the technology is easy enough to develop, they built it too. So what's to stop someone from finding another race that developed time receivers a million, a billion or more years ago, going through their portal, and then buying a spaceship. After that to save themselves the hassle, they build a new one on Earth a billion years before 2013. Easy.

Having said that I don't find it a convincing argument that something that is possible in a limited sense is never going to be able to be developed to something that is not limited. My view is that if time travel is possible in any limited way, then it's fully possible when the technology is developed.

It's like the old beliefs. Mankind can't fly. Then we invented balloons. Then it became mankind can't have heavier than air flight. Then we did. Then it was that we can't fly faster than the speed of sound. We did. After that we can't fly into space. Damn that one's gone too. To the moon? Well been there done that. Next it'll be Mars, the rest of the solar system, and then the stars. They'll all be impossible for one reason or another, until we do them.

So if you allow for backwards time travel to be possiblewithin whatever limited capacity you want to imagine, my view is that sooner or later that limit will be removed.

Next your paradoxes. Granddad dies early, butterflies get stomped on in the Jurrasic. What are the chances that someone back there, and consider that the number of time travellers wandering around back then will be potentially billions or trillions or even more, won't stuff something up? Zero. It's Murphy's Law. (Though actually I'm a believer in Brady's Law - Murphy was an optomist!)

So your guy sitting in his office won't witness the sky change colour. He might however notice himself and the entire world wink out of existence as intelligent life never arose on Earth. (Some say it still hasn't!)

And then there's the physical / temporal hotspots problem. Everybody wants to go to see the crucifiction or the big bang right. So when that everybody can include every intelligent person from every race across all of the rest of time (another fourteen billion years?) how many people does that mean landing in one particular time and place? And if they brought their time ships, well yes, that could equate to the genesis of the Big Bang. I've written that story.

However, as the others have said, it's a story. Don't get hung up on the paradoxes and technology. Just work on the characters and scenarios. Thethings the technology allows.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[barlennan]

Metaphysics of the affair aside, the social impact of a great number of time travellers appearing would most likely be a cultural flattening as everyone of any interest or distinction is erased from history. How many people would need to acquire the ability to time travel backwards before abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther king Jr or Barack Obama were wiped off the face of US history? Or, for that matter, Nixon, Reagan, or Grandma Bush?

Even artists and scientists would fear to take credit for their work, should they fear that some unforseen notoriety or ramifications would, in the future make them the targets of future time-assassins. And forget any political groups emerging that might seek to regulate this new industry or interrupt the timeline: they would not exist if there were an infinity of dedicated time-hoppers gunning for them.

And as for hiding in a dust cloud, no time-criminal would need to discover a series of inhospitable times to evade his pursuers, only to go to a time with very little history of any note. Also, the idea of lying low and biding one's time in a time travel setting... Not really necessary.

 

[J Riff]

NO. There are ten ways that time can be messed with, but actual physical time travel will never, ever happen. So there.
Geez...dint you read EC comics? By the fifties they ran through every possible twist.
You can leave Earth for a week, and a year will have passed when you return. Is that time travel? You can experience actual stored memories from thousands of years ago. Time travel? Technically, yes, physically, no.
You can't travel through a concept, which is all time is.

 

[Harpo]

You can't travel through a concept

*Harpo travels through the Chrons to this thread, and replies*

I'm travelling through time right now - Fell asleep last night, got up this morning, and later I'll travel through lunchtime

 

[Darth Angelus]

*Harpo travels through the Chrons to this thread, and replies*

I'm travelling through time right now - Fell asleep last night, got up this morning, and later I'll travel through lunchtime

I am fairly sure that is not what he means, though.

While time is sometimes described as a fourth dimension of space, and it certainly has an intricate relationship with the three physical dimensions of space, the fact remains that it is little more than a concept for us to separate events. Whether or not the past and the future even exist is a philosophial discussion mostly, and depending on viewpoint, either yes or no could be correct. The point is that time is not tangible in the physical world (even to the extent of this forum, which does exist on a physical server somewhere). There is a level of abstraction needed to accept the past and the future as real.

Can you travel through an abstract concept for the separation of events?