Time Travel movies and shows that are PC* by chrisisall

"Demon With A Glass Hand" ep of Outer Limits- now THAT was cool!!

Chrisisall

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Thursday, September 13, 2007 11:34 AM

The more interesting questions are what are the common mistakes that Hollywood makes in dealing with the issue of time travel? The first mistake is the assumption that time travel is a form of movement. Actually movement is a spatial phenomenon. Time changes at a rate related to our spatial movement relative to the velocity of light. The time at which we observe an event to occur is dependent upon the speed at which the signals that carry that information reach us. If we travel close to the speed of light we “move” through time faster than someone not moving, but we travel through time, even if we do not move. So there is a distinction between moving and traveling through time.

Secondly, and most obviously, is the problem with causality, which Hollywood seems to understand is a problem, but not always in what way. There is what is called the grandfather paradox. Can you go back in time and kill your grandfather? But in doing so, you could not have been born to go back in time to kill your grandfather, so your grandfather is still alive and so are you. But this problem is even larger than that. Can you go back in time and see yourself? On one hand, that is precisely what one would expect, but since you’re you how are seeing yourself as someone else when you’re not someone else, but you? On the surface it may make sense, but you can’t resolve the paradox. So if you go back in time, you can’t be there, which means you can’t have gone back in time. In other words, time travel backward through time is NOT possible unless you are not unique. An electron can travel back in time, because an electron is not unique. It can’t be distinguished from any other electron, nor can it be even exactly specified in space. So we don’t know where an electron is, nor do we know whether it is different from any other electron. As long as you are you, you cannot go back in time.

So only time travel forward in time is possible.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

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Thursday, September 13, 2007 11:39 AM

STILLSHINY

Gotta chime in on this one.

One of the latest Dr. Who episodes he said the following.

"People think of time as a straight line. Time is a big ball of wibbly wobbly stuff"

couldn't help but love it.

It was one of the best eps of Dr. Who or any show on time travel. It was called "Blink."

Hands down one of the best episodes of television I'd seen ever.

One of the worst...the future flash in the season finale of LOST.

peace spoken

"We had ties that could not be broken, except by the passing of time. Like a rock. A broken time rock. And you're very special to me, my broken time rock people." - Nathan Fillion

a little shameless self promotion
www.myspace.com/therightguyiii
www.myspace.com/jesusfishmovie

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Thursday, September 13, 2007 11:46 AM

REGINAROADIE

HEROES is actually pretty good with dealing with time travel and paradoxes. And it actually simplifies string theory (which was the original title for "Five Years Gone") very well and uses it as a dramatic device.

And I actually like the flash forward on the season finale of LOST. Personally, I was thinking what would it be like for the characters on LOST to actually get off the island and what life would be like for them after a traumatic event like that. That's the shit I'm more interested in than metaphysical navel-gazing. So when I saw that they did get off, but that some wanted to go back, it actually made me do something I've never done before with LOST. It actually got me excited for it.

**************************************************
"And it starts with a sentence that might last a lifetime, or it all might just go down in flames. If I let you know me, then why would you want me? Each day I don't is a shame. Each day I don't is a great shame."

Loudon Wainwright III - "Strange Weirdos" off the "Knocked Up" soundtrack

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Thursday, September 13, 2007 11:52 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:

Can you go back in time and see yourself? On one hand, that is precisely what one would expect, but since you’re you how are seeing yourself as someone else when you’re not someone else, but you?

The mistake here is the "We" go thru time, as if we're swimming down a river or driving down a road. We exist in all moments, like a googleplex of slices of time that you pick from, and yet we are unique in any one of them, so when Marty saw himself in 1955, it was the self of THOSE moments- the soul exists thru all of them...across time itself.

Deep Chrisisall

Chrisisall

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Thursday, September 13, 2007 1:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
The mistake here is the "We" go thru time, as if we're swimming down a river or driving down a road. We exist in all moments, like a googleplex of slices of time that you pick from, and yet we are unique in any one of them, so when Marty saw himself in 1955, it was the self of THOSE moments- the soul exists thru all of them...across time itself.

Yeah, well, there is speculation that an infinite number of timelines exist, each containing the outcomes of all possible consequences. So Marty might have gone back in time in another universe and the Marty that Marty saw was the Marty of a different universe so that both Marties were unique with regard their respective universes. The problem here is that if Marty went back in time in a universe that was not his own, but some other Marty's, as he would have had to, then the events in that universe that he changed as result of his being in that universe would not have affected the events in his own timeline, which would have remained unchanged. You see the problem here that Hollywood doesn’t get, is that you can’t have it both ways. You can’t attempt to resolve the grandfather paradox by evoking the multiple universe concept and then argue that you’ll have any influence on your own universe, if you’re not even in it.

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Thursday, September 13, 2007 1:52 PM

CRUITHNE3753

In The Butterfly Effect, the main protagonist finds that changing small things in the past leads on to all sorts of unexpected knock-on changes in the present.

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Thursday, September 13, 2007 2:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Cruithne3753:
In The Butterfly Effect, the main protagonist finds that changing small things in the past leads on to all sorts of unexpected knock-on changes in the present.

That’s a good one. Someone really put some thought into that movie. Evan doesn’t actually go back in time to see himself, which is clearly impossible, but rather goes back to his self. Evan of the past experiences these events as blackouts, because clearly he can’t know them if they haven’t happened yet. I think the paradox still exists, but because you never actually see what Evan is doing during his blackouts until he goes back in time, you don’t have a reference to claim any violations of causality. It’s really very well done.

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Thursday, September 13, 2007 2:15 PM

DEEPGIRL187

I was going to mention, Doctor Who, but StillShiny beat me to it.

DW has probably done the best job of being "paradoxically correct" (but then again, having been on forty years it's probably written some of the rules about that sort of thing).

I'm glad you brought up The Butterfly Effect, Cruithne3753. That film often gets panned, but I always thought it was very well done.

******************************************************

"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only truth."

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Thursday, September 13, 2007 3:42 PM

If it hadn't been mentioned, I certainly would have said The Butterfly Effect. I absolutely love that movie still today. When it came out at the theater, I went and saw 4 times. Then I had to d/l a bootleg to watch it again and again, until finally the DVD came out.

I kept finding little details that I missed before and I always had fun trying to wrap my head around each situation in the timeline.

Even the alternate ending, however gruesome, haeld alot of validity in properly correcting the timeline to protect Kayleigh. Albeit a very narrow concept seeing as at any time she could have walked in front of a bus because Evan was never there to stop it.

While not exceptionally proud of it, I was just about obcessed with that movie. Now I just enjoy it a whole hell of a lot. This is the one movie that broke my rules of a likable/loveable story. That which allows me to escape into the story and place myself within the events. Never able to conceive of it with this one.

BE2, however, sucked much balzack.

And while not meaning to interject this, as it was discussed in another thread I feel the need to say: No, I did not like The Butterfly Effect more than Serenity. Apples and Oranges to me.

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Thursday, September 13, 2007 5:58 PM

TRAVELER

In "Somewhere in Time" where did the watch originate from?

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler

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Thursday, September 13, 2007 7:08 PM

REGINAROADIE

The watch is a sort of mobius strip in the movie. She got it from him when he went back to 1912 or whenever, she held onto it for 50 odd years, then gave it to him when he graduated. So it doesn't really have an origin per se, it just keeps looping.

Oh, one time travel movie that really ticked me off that completely disregards the rules of time travel is DEJA VU. Complete waste of time.

**************************************************
"And it starts with a sentence that might last a lifetime, or it all might just go down in flames. If I let you know me, then why would you want me? Each day I don't is a shame. Each day I don't is a great shame."

Loudon Wainwright III - "Strange Weirdos" off the "Knocked Up" soundtrack

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Saturday, September 15, 2007 2:44 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by reginaroadie:
Oh, one time travel movie that really ticked me off that completely disregards the rules of time travel is DEJA VU. Complete waste of time.

I liked Déjà Vu because it had Denzel Washington, one of my favorite actors, in it, but yeah, the premise of it was a bit hooey.

In Déjà Vu, the FBI investigates a crime by examining events that occurred four and half days earlier through technology that creates a wormhole. Their first problem is that they over specified the techno-babble. They referred to the wormhole as an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, which is a real solution to the General Theory – in fact, if I’m not mistaken it was the first wormhole found to be a solution to the General Theory. But it is also unstable; it doesn’t exist long enough for even light to travel through it, and if light can’t travel through it, then no information at all can, and it doesn’t exist. It may be a solution to the General Theory, but it’s a trivial solution, like 0=0.

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 10:01 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
An electron can travel back in time, because an electron is not unique. It can’t be distinguished from any other electron, nor can it be even exactly specified in space. So we don’t know where an electron is, nor do we know whether it is different from any other electron. As long as you are you, you cannot go back in time.

Not that I'm arguing that backwards time travel is physically possible, but I'm not sure the above quote is reasoning enough to disallow it! Surely non-uniqueness applies to every elementary particle in the body? I don't think "seeing yourself" is enough to constitute a paradox, obviously assuming the fictional universe we're talking about is based on one of the theoretical side-steps such as the already mentioned 'many worlds' idea.

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 10:19 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by reginaroadie:

Oh, one time travel movie that really ticked me off that completely disregards the rules of time travel is DEJA VU. Complete waste of time.

And Timeline.
Not so much that it disregarded paradoxes- I got that they were part of what had always happened- I disliked it because the last 20 minutes turned into a bad remake of the last 20 minutes of Army Of Darkness (a glorious film, that!).

Ashisall

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 12:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Grounded:
I don't think "seeing yourself" is enough to constitute a paradox, obviously assuming the fictional universe we're talking about is based on one of the theoretical side-steps such as the already mentioned 'many worlds' idea.

How do you influences events in history if you’re not even in your own history? If you go back in time in some other universe and kill Hitler, then you can’t expect that Hitler would have been killed when you return to your time. In fact, wouldn’t you return to a completely unchanged timeline?

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 1:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
In fact, wouldn’t you return to a completely unchanged timeline?

You might not return at all, lost forever in an endless slice of looping reality.

Careful calculations and tracing family history might help you survive timeline changes, but then again, you might also be part of what had always happened...
"God, a person could go crazy thinking about this..."

But you couldn't HOPE to alter something so grand and come out of it alive/existing/unchanged.

Marty got lucky Chrisisall

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 1:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Not so much that it disregarded paradoxes- I got that they were part of what had always happened- I disliked it because the last 20 minutes turned into a bad remake of the last 20 minutes of Army Of Darkness (a glorious film, that!).

If you only watched the movie, it probably wasn’t very evident, but the book goes into an explanation for the time travel, basically dealing with the same issues I’ve discussed here, but not in a very convincing way. Crichton argues the multiverse concept. He explains that the crew wasn’t being sent back in time, which is impossible, but copies of themselves are sent into an alternative universe (Note he avoids the paradox of being in two places at once, by calling the people sent “back in time” as “copies,” which doesn’t seem really necessary because he’s invoking the multiverse argument anyway.) There are an infinite number of alternative universes each with all possible outcomes. Crichton gets around the obvious problem, by claiming that the act of sending a copy of a person into this alternative timeframe entangles the two universes so that any influence the copies have in the alternate universe is represented by alternate copies of you in your universe. Now where these alternate copies of you come from, I don’t remember if that was addressed, but it probably wasn’t. It made a fun story, but it still suffers from irrational time-travelling logic.

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 1:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
He explains that the crew wasn’t being sent back in time, which is impossible, but copies of themselves are sent into an alternative universe
the act of sending a copy of a person into this alternative timeframe entangles the two universes so that any influence the copies have in the alternate universe is represented by alternate copies of you in your universe.

DANGER, DANGER! THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE!

Hooey Alert Chrisisall

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 2:02 PM

NBZ

The only form of time-related stuff I have ever seen and though of as acceptable was Final Destination 1. Because it was just a setting that was almost immediately forgotten and the film itself was pretty good. (the sequels were not so much.)

Apart from that I doubt any tv show/movie will ever do time travel in a form that is really acceptable. Time travel opens up too many options, and they have to be forcibly knocked back.

That is not to say that good films will feature time travel - the first two Terminator films were rather good. The time travel aspects almost laughable.

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 2:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
In fact, wouldn’t you return to a completely unchanged timeline?

The way time travel is usually presented with respect to the multiverse theory, is that, you would be affecting a universe infinitesimally different from your own, and following suit, the 'you' from another infinitesimally different universe would be affecting yours.

So: While you are not changing your universe's past directly, there is another you, essentially the same in every respect, who is affecting your universe's past.

Fun stuff.

A book I read a while back, The Sterkarm Handshake, dealt with this a different way. They created a 'time tube', where, you walked through one end here in the 21st century, and wound up in 17th century Scotland. They didn't know enough about the physics to change the date or location, but they did know that they weren't going into the past, per se. They were traveling between universes, so they could interact with the locals, even mine the natural resources, without affecting their own slice of the multiverse. Complicated stuff, but it was more a character drama than a techno-babble driven science fiction piece.

Anyhow, the way I figure it, time is just another dimension, existing outside-of-yet-intertwined-with our known three. Whereas we could see the extent of a Flatlander's universe, and could appear to randomly pop in and out of existence anywhere in it, a being who can move in four dimensions could randomly appear, not only anywhere, but anywhen, in our universe. Only a portion of this being would be apparent to us, since we could only perceive three of its dimensions.

We, as three-dimensional beings, can't perceive the flow of time, except in one direction. We feel its effects, over time (pun intended), and our existence is limited to a finite 'length' of time. We can perceive the past, but not the future (in most cases). We can't affect the past, only the present, and we can only plan to affect the future.

*whew*

Continuing, if we somehow were able to evolve the conscious capacity to perceive and/or affect the dimension of time, we could, theoretically, travel to any point in the space/time continuum. We would see the inherent problems with a finite exsistence, and might be able to do something about it. Although, since we would still have a physical form, we might be bound to the constraints of our lifespan, not unlike Quantum Leap, where Beckett was only able to leap to times when he was alive.

Continuing further... now entering the realm of the really really unknown... IF... IF... after billions of years, humans have evolved to the point where they have abandoned their traditional physical forms, and turned, not into energy in the three-dimensional sense, but... higher dimensional energy... say... tenth/eleventh dimensional... the entirety of the universe, in ways we can't even possibly begin to imagine currently, would be at our fingertips. If we had fingertips. Which we wouldn't. Regardless, the Universe = at our 'fingertips'.

But, that's just my theory.

______________________________________
http://www.myspace.com/citrusblast

The best way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

- Oscar Wilde

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 3:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DTuck:
The way time travel is usually presented with respect to the multiverse theory, is that, you would be affecting a universe infinitesimally different from your own, and following suit, the 'you' from another infinitesimally different universe would be affecting yours.

So: While you are not changing your universe's past directly, there is another you, essentially the same in every respect, who is affecting your universe's past.

And who is this other you? Where did he come from?

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 3:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
And who is this other you? Where did he come from?

Can't say, really. If Quinn Mallory's multiverse theory is correct, then ever possibly difference that CAN occur, DOES occur, creating an infinitely branching multiverse wherein every possible combination of every possible action is taken. Not just in the human decision sense, but in the sense that every single particle in the universe has an equally probable chance of acting in an infinite number of ways, and does so, in a constantly evolving, constantly branching multiverse of infinite... infinite-ness.

So, to long-windedly answer your question, a quantum particle's difference caused a tangent universe where everything else is the same, and the 'you' of that universe goes down the same path, entering your universe in the past and affecting it in exactly the same way that you affect the past of the universe that you travel into.

______________________________________
http://www.myspace.com/citrusblast

The best way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

- Oscar Wilde

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 3:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DTuck:

a quantum particle's difference caused a tangent universe where everything else is the same, and the 'you' of that universe goes down the same path, entering your universe in the past and affecting it in exactly the same way that you affect the past of the universe that you travel into.

DTuck, did you used to write for Star Trek?

I mean that in a good way Chrisisall

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 3:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
DTuck, did you used to write for Star Trek?

I'll take that as a compliment

But nah, I'm just a huge science geek.

I was the kid (everyone knows that kid) who bugged his teacher about why string theory wasn't taught in the curriculum.

...

In sixth grade.

______________________________________
http://www.myspace.com/citrusblast

The best way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

- Oscar Wilde

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 3:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DTuck:

I was the kid (everyone knows that kid) who bugged his teacher about why string theory wasn't taught in the curriculum.

...

In sixth grade.

In sixth grade I still believed that getting bitten by a radioactive bug could give you the ability to stick to walls...

Chrisisall

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 4:08 PM

If quantum effects manifested themselves on a macroscopic level, I could tunnel into Miss Panetierre’s bedroom, now that she single and 18, and get entangled, with her consent of course, which she'd gladly give – because smart men who talk about time traveling on scifi boards are sexy!!!

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 4:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Miss Panetierre’s bedroom

You scoundrel, you.

Regeneratin' Chrisisall

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 6:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
If quantum effects manifested themselves on a macroscopic level, I could tunnel into Miss Panetierre’s bedroom...

Damned immutable laws of physics...

______________________________________
http://www.myspace.com/citrusblast

The best way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

- Oscar Wilde

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Sunday, September 16, 2007 10:15 PM

Did anyone mention A Sound of Thunder?

I will say that the movie was a piece of crap, although I can see that they tried (albeit not very hard. The CGI car scenes were just atrocious!) But the short story really captivated me when I read it
-
in the 4th grade.

So also because of that, I won't attempt to criticize whether it was accurate or not. As a matter of fact, I've already established that I'm no rocket scientist (nor quantum or theoretical physicist).

"I'm just an average joe, with an average job, I'm your average white, suburbanite slob."

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Monday, September 17, 2007 2:59 AM

JONGSSTRAW

These are some great Time Travel films & shows :

1) Stitch In Time....Outer Limits New Series...Amanda Plummer, Michelle Forbes
2) Gettysburg ....Outer Limits New Series...Meatloaf, Alex Diakun
3) Trials & Tribblations....Deep Space Nine
4) Little Green Men ...Deep Space Nine
5) Year Of Hell....Voyager
6) Yesterday's Enterprise....Next Generation
7) Time's Arrow.......Next Generation
8) Cause And Effect....Next Generation
9) City On The Edge Of Forever....ST Original
10)Millenium...Cheryl Ladd, Daniiel Travante
11)Time After Time...Malcolm McDowall, David Warner
12)Time Machine...Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux
13)Beyond The Time Barrier...Robert Clarke
14)World Without End...Hugh Marlowe, Rod Taylor
15)The Man Who Was Never Born...Outer Limits Original Series...Martin Landau, Shirley Knight

All 15 of these are very enjoyable to watch numerous times, and seem relatively logical in regards to time and time paradoxes.

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Monday, September 17, 2007 6:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Quote:
Originally posted by Grounded:
I don't think "seeing yourself" is enough to constitute a paradox, obviously assuming the fictional universe we're talking about is based on one of the theoretical side-steps such as the already mentioned 'many worlds' idea.
How do you influences events in history if you’re not even in your own history? If you go back in time in some other universe and kill Hitler, then you can’t expect that Hitler would have been killed when you return to your time. In fact, wouldn’t you return to a completely unchanged timeline?

Indeed. But take the Twelve Monkeys example where Cole travels back within his own history. The 'side-step' in this instance is that he ends up in causal loop, as evidenced by the fact that as a child he remembers seeing his future self die. The fact that the two Coles see each other doesn't produce a paradox (there may be other paradoxes in the movie, I can't remember!), because young Cole saw himself 'the first time around'. I use quotes because in the causal loop scenario there is no 'first time around'!

I guess the vague point I'm trying to make is that most fiction tends to go with a concept of time travel that produces paradoxes by the bundle i.e. a supposedly mutable timeline that can be dipped in and out of at will. Those that implement many worlds or causal loops are few and far between.

Another good TT movie is Primer, which has an insanely rigorous time travel plot (but I think even it ends up with one or two paradoxes buried in the time loops somewhere!).

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Monday, September 17, 2007 7:47 AM

MANWITHPEZ

Important people don't do field work.

You know...Donnie Darko was a time travel movies that didn't muck things up too badly, but, for a very simple reason.

Donnie has two options, and in the end, picks the better of the two. If Donnie survives the jet engine falling into his house, he sets off a chain of events that ends with his girlfriend's death (quite possibly his mother and sister's as well). He's given extraordinary abilities, but soon finds that these abilities are only granted him so that he can find a way to set things back the way they were supposed to be. The way things are supposed to be is the jet engine falls on Donnie, killing him instantly. This negates the entire film, and the audience has no idea what's going to happen next.

Granted, where the engine came from in the first place is a sore spot with me. Also, the tone of the film comes off like "weird for weird's" sake, something I don't normally cotton to. It took a couple of tries for me to get into it.

Chrisisall...we've talked about this on several occasions! There's only one way an infinity loop can start, and that's with Timeline A!

I'll be back in 1985, if anyone needs me.

Kaylee: "What's so damn important about being proper? It don't mean nothing out here in the black."
Simon: "It means more out here. It's all I have..."

http://manwithpez.livejournal.com

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Monday, September 17, 2007 8:55 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by manwithpez:
Chrisisall...we've talked about this on several occasions! There's only one way an infinity loop can start, and that's with Timeline A!

Are you sure you've discussed this on several occasions? Or have you discussed this once, several times?

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Monday, September 17, 2007 10:25 AM

I'm getting deja vu....

Glitchinthematrixisall

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Tuesday, September 18, 2007 7:16 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Grounded:
Indeed. But take the Twelve Monkeys example where Cole travels back within his own history. The 'side-step' in this instance is that he ends up in causal loop, as evidenced by the fact that as a child he remembers seeing his future self die. The fact that the two Coles see each other doesn't produce a paradox (there may be other paradoxes in the movie, I can't remember!), because young Cole saw himself 'the first time around'. I use quotes because in the causal loop scenario there is no 'first time around'!

I guess the vague point I'm trying to make is that most fiction tends to go with a concept of time travel that produces paradoxes by the bundle i.e. a supposedly mutable timeline that can be dipped in and out of at will. Those that implement many worlds or causal loops are few and far between.

That’s my point too. Hollywood’s version of time travel doesn’t make any sense, but then time travel backwards in time doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Also I want to clear up a distinction, when you say that it “doesn’t produce a paradox” I’m not sure that’s true. The paradox is probably there, it’s just being ignored.

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Wednesday, September 19, 2007 12:35 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Also I want to clear up a distinction, when you say that it “doesn’t produce a paradox” I’m not sure that’s true. The paradox is probably there, it’s just being ignored.

Well from your previous post about uniqueness, I understood that you were saying a paradox arose simply from the time traveler looking at his former self (or vice versa). In the causal loop scenario, I don't believe that's necessarily true. It seemed to me that you were arguing from a philosophical perspective (i.e. if I'm me looking at myself, which one am I?), but from a physical perspective I don't see the issue. Of course, I could very well be missing something obvious - it's hard to keep track of all these pesky time travelers... ;)

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Wednesday, September 19, 2007 8:17 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Grounded:
if I'm me looking at myself, which one am I?

Sorta makes the phrase "go @!#! yourself" more of an insult to a time-traveler.

Preevert Chrisisall

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Wednesday, September 19, 2007 8:26 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Grounded:
It seemed to me that you were arguing from a philosophical perspective (i.e. if I'm me looking at myself, which one am I?), but from a physical perspective I don't see the issue. Of course, I could very well be missing something obvious - it's hard to keep track of all these pesky time travelers... ;)

From a physical perspective, what it means is that you can be in two places at the same time. That doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

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Wednesday, September 19, 2007 10:58 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Quote:
Originally posted by Grounded:
It seemed to me that you were arguing from a philosophical perspective (i.e. if I'm me looking at myself, which one am I?), but from a physical perspective I don't see the issue. Of course, I could very well be missing something obvious - it's hard to keep track of all these pesky time travelers... ;)
From a physical perspective, what it means is that you can be in two places at the same time. That doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

But what I'm saying is you're talking about a philosophical 'you' by equating the 'you' of now to the 'you' of then. In the Twelve Monkeys case, what percentage, if any, of the particles making up young Cole's body are the same as those making up old Cole's body? And would it even matter if there was duplication between the two?

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Wednesday, September 19, 2007 1:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Grounded:
But what I'm saying is you're talking about a philosophical 'you' by equating the 'you' of now to the 'you' of then. In the Twelve Monkeys case, what percentage, if any, of the particles making up young Cole's body are the same as those making up old Cole's body? And would it even matter if there was duplication between the two?

I’m not sure that it would necessarily matter. We can’t specify the particles exactly enough to say that they are identical. This is why particles can be in a combination of multiple states.

If a person at time A travels (somehow) back in time and meets his younger self at time B, the problem that emerges concerns the nature of predetermination of time. If B recognizes A, then the system is overstrained, because the person at time B must return to B at A. But the older self knew the events that took place at time B, and so the younger person must not diverge from those known events, since it would constitute two different timelines at odds. Time is therefore predetermined, but if that is true then we should be able to determine the exact position and velocity of a particle, which means that quantum mechanics is wrong and we can now say that the two particles are unique.

So I guess it does matter if the particles are duplicated.

Though I have to admit, that this is getting a bit beyond my expertise, so there’s a really good chance, I don’t know what I’m talking about.

However, I contend that I’m going to go back in time in the future and come back and tell myself that I’m wrong. So if I show up in the next few minutes and tell myself that I’m wrong, problem solved.

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Thursday, September 20, 2007 4:43 AM

CYBERSNARK

It just occurred to me that a series I'm designing (pilot script, episode outlines, season outlines, etc) is partly a time-travel story from outside the time-traveller's perspective.

One of the supporting characters is named Phaera. She's an alien who exists in 12 dimensions (as opposed to the 4 that most corporeal beings inhabit, or the 8 that modern physics speculates), and perceives time on a quantum level (as opposed to the linear way in which we do).

(Let's say I scatter 52 cards face-down, and tell Phaera to find the Queen of Hearts. A normal human would need to check the cards one-by-one until finding the right one. Phaera will create 52 different timelines, reaching for a single card in each one. Then, she will erase all the timelines where she doesn't find the Queen. From anyone else's [linear] perspective, it'll seem like she's gotten it right on her first try --like she always does.)

She can also travel backwards and forwards along her personal timeline, to "remake" any decision she's made along the way. She's not in two places at once (well, she can be, but that has nothing to do with time-travel), she's just responding to future events to prevent them from happening (or ensure that they do happen).

She doesn't make mistakes, but there are times she deliberately chooses a certain outcome to ensure a long-term result (like letting her fighter get shot down by a rookie who needs to develop self-confidence in order to survive the surprise attack that's coming tomorrow --even if it means she can't take part in the defense because she'll be in the infirmary with a broken leg).

She's also more than 13 millennia old, so her personal timeline can go back that far, and forward to the Big Crunch.

This makes her extremely powerful but for two things:
-as much control as she has over her own "spacetime trajectory," she can't make other people do things they don't want to (except by actively begging/tricking/manipulating them). She can't save everyone. Even if they're her friends.
-she's madly in love with the man that her boyfriend (the young and insecure series lead) will eventually become; most of her decisions are designed to influence him and shape his timeline. Part of that means that there are times she has to have no influence, where he has to stand or fall on his own --she can see the different possibilities, but he (being linear) has to make his own decisions.

It's not until many years "later" (Season 3 or 4) that we learn that she's been manipulating time in his favour all along --even to the point of ensuring that his ancestors left Earth to colonize the world where he was born. Perhaps even to the point of ensuring that a few apes on a backwater world started working together to invent civilization.

(Yes, the entire history of mankind was motivated by Love. The one force that truly can alter the future of the universe.)

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Thursday, September 20, 2007 5:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
If a person at time A travels (somehow) back in time and meets his younger self at time B, the problem that emerges concerns the nature of predetermination of time. If B recognizes A, then the system is overstrained, because the person at time B must return to B at A. But the older self knew the events that took place at time B, and so the younger person must not diverge from those known events, since it would constitute two different timelines at odds. Time is therefore predetermined, but if that is true then we should be able to determine the exact position and velocity of a particle, which means that quantum mechanics is wrong and we can now say that the two particles are unique.

I guess the Twelve Monkeys example avoids this because young Cole doesn't recognise old Cole, and so derives no future knowledge from the 'meeting'. After a few pages of head-scratching, I'm liking this movie more and more ;)

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Thursday, September 20, 2007 9:26 PM

Someone else was telling me about this movie at work. I remember watching it long ago, but I didn’t pay enough attention to it to really appreciate it.

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Friday, September 21, 2007 10:56 PM

Ok, don't know how you guys will feel about it, but just watched the pilot for Journeyman (a new show on NBC this fall) as a free download from Amazon.com.

At one point, the main character sees his younger self, but has the presence of mind to hide before his younger self can see him. A very important part I think that shows that the writers are at least thinking a little when it comes to time travel.

If you get NBC, I'd recommend watching this one. Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't, but I think I will.

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Saturday, September 22, 2007 7:12 AM