Rewritten, or Why Time Travel With the Intent to Change is Impossible

[Ursa major]

So is FTL, materials stronger than chemical bonds, uploading minds, etc, etc. SF isn't about science, it is about possibility.

If you want to assign more or less the same degree of implausibility to everything that's implausible, that's entirely up to you...

...but in the absence of evidence (and/or without a full understanding** of how our universe works), we have no idea which of them is or isn't possible (in some way, at least, or in certain circumstances)... which is why, though I don't think time travel is at all possible (and so see it as fantasy), I didn't say that it was conclusively impossible because I, like everyone else, don't know that for sure.


** - To go off at a tangent, we have no idea how existence... er... exists. It doesn't really matter whether it's meant to be via physics or (more or less) divine intervention, because the question then becomes one or more*** out of:

• from where did whatever the laws of nature that allowed our universe (with its physics) to come into existence come?
• from where did the God or gods who created our universe come?
• from where did those creating the simulation in which we might be "living" come?

Frankly, our existence, and that of everything around us, looks less plausible than anything in SFF... and yet here we all are (unless it's just me...).

*** - For all we know, it isn't turtles all the way down, but layers of turtles, elephants, etc., all the way down....

 

[Ursa major]

Fantasy is not anything that is impossible. Fantasy is a much narrower genre than that - it deals largely in what we already have long accepted are outmoded ideas of the arcane.

That's your view... which seems to depend on no one having come up with (and/or no one who might come up with) fantasies that have not been "long accepted".

Were the imaginations of people in the past somehow superior to ours (or those who come after us)?

 

[Swank]

If you want to assign more or less the same degree of implausibility to everything that's implausible, that's entirely up to you...

...but in the absence of evidence (and/or without a full understanding** of how our universe works), we have no idea which of them is or isn't possible (in some way, at least, or in certain circumstances)... which is why, though I don't think time travel is at all possible (and so see it as fantasy), I didn't say that it was conclusively impossible because I, like everyone else, don't know that for sure.


** - To go off at a tangent, we have no idea how existence... er... exists. It doesn't really matter whether it's meant to be via physics or (more or less) divine intervention, because the question then becomes one or more*** out of:

• from where did whatever the laws of nature that allowed our universe (with its physics) to come into existence come?
• from where did the God or gods who created our universe come?
• from where did those creating the simulation in which we might be "living" come?

Frankly, our existence, and that of everything around us, looks less plausible than anything in SFF... and yet here we all are (unless it's just me...).

*** - For all we know, it isn't turtles all the way down, but layers of turtles, elephants, etc., all the way down....

I read more articles about the nature of time and the possibility of changing it than I ever read about the possibility of FTL or impossibly strong materials, so I would say your assessment of what is more impossible or not is an exact match to the advanced research degrees you hold on those subjects.

 

[Swank]

That's your view... which seems to depend on no one having come up with (and/or no one who might come up with) fantasies that have not been "long accepted".

Were the imaginations of people in the past somehow superior to ours (or those who come after us)?

No, they depend on a cluster of concepts that we define as fantastic because we have totally discarded the possibility that they exist. Specifically: magic. Along with wizards, dragons, witches, prophecy and enchantment. That is what the 'fantasy' is - to get to read a story that functions something like the old myths.

There are plenty of speculative fiction books that don't name why impossible things are a fact of the story, which is why we reserve that classification. For books that name a mechanism attached to real physics, we have another name.

 

[Elckerlyc]

In that case, magic, unicorns, sentient luggage and time-traveling dragons may be all plausible... on other planets. We simply haven't encountered them yet.

 

[Swank]

In that case, magic, unicorns, sentient luggage and time-traveling dragons may be all plausible... on other planets. We simply haven't encountered them yet.

They are, which is why Pern is SF. The point isn't that there is a sword or a single horned ungulate, but why they exist in the framework of the story.

There's a reason fantasy books don't use words like 'telekinesis'.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Personally I find that when the element of time travel is added to an established story, it devalues it, opening up questions that have no reasonable answer.

BTTF is fine, because it's all about the subject. Cars and trains turned into time machines, photos that start fading out, other generations of relatives that look, sound and act in a similar way. It's silly, it's fun, it's fine.

Superman spinning the Earth in reverse was a bit silly, and why not do that every time a problem occurs?

Star Trek is one of the worst culprits. Need to go back to when whales were on Earth? No problem, just fly round the sun fast enough. So why not do the same at Wolf 359?

 

[Ursa major]

I read more articles about the nature of time and the possibility of changing it

So you do read fantasy, then....

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[Ursa major]

No, they depend on a cluster of concepts that we define as fantastic because we have totally discarded the possibility that they exist.

Good of you to set a whole genre in stone (or is it aspic**)?


** - I suppose it depends on how long ago the "fantasy has been defined and this can't be changed" rule was adopted, and whether that rule is itself set in stone.

 

[Swank]

Good of you to set a whole genre in stone (or is it aspic**)?


** - I suppose it depends on how long ago the "fantasy has been defined and this can't be changed" rule was adopted, and whether that rule is itself set in stone.

That'a a great counterexample. Food for thought.

 

[Harpo]

If there’s a problem due to “the rules of fantasy have long been defined”, simply create new rules for a new type of fantasy, maybe call it a different thing like “fictasy” or “mythtery” or whatever.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Star Trek is one of the worst culprits. Need to go back to when whales were on Earth? No problem, just fly round the sun fast enough. So why not do the same at Wolf 359?

Star Trek is horrifyingly bad and inconsistent when it comes to time travel and its implications.

Every Star Trek series has included time travel and the producers' and writers' treatment is inconsistent both within and across series.

As a simple example, during the series Star Trek: Voyager Captain Janeway met and was chastised by the Starfleet Department of Temporal Investigations. Many years later in the series Star Trek: Prodigy, Admiral Janeway is involved in a convoluted plot to save the entire universe due to a time paradox. What happened to the Department of Temporal Investigations??? Couldn't be bothered to show up.

 

[Matteo]

There was a New Outer Limits episode with Amanda Plummer who managed to go back in time to safe a friend from being killed. So, time travel where the past can be altered.

When she returned to the present her brain had to accommodate new "memories" (i.e., a new history). She failed and so tried several times but the accumulated changes meant her brain was unable to cope with it and she died.

I may have the details slightly wrong, but it was one of the better episodes.

 

[Harpo]

Star Trek is horrifyingly bad and inconsistent when it comes to time travel and its implications.

Every Star Trek series has included time travel and the producers' and writers' treatment is inconsistent both within and across series.

As a simple example, during the series Star Trek: Voyager Captain Janeway met and was chastised by the Starfleet Department of Temporal Investigations. Many years later in the series Star Trek: Prodigy, Admiral Janeway is involved in a convoluted plot to save the entire universe due to a time paradox. What happened to the Department of Temporal Investigations??? Couldn't be bothered to show up.

Easily resolved - just do a future series in which they invent Paradox Drive, or The Continuity Nexus or Quadlithium Crystals or whatever, and say that makes all previous examples fine and dandy