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Closed loop

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    #32
    ShowMeTheCash
    Registered Users Posts: 2,651 ✭✭✭ShowMeTheCash


    The Mustard wrote: »
    I'm not sure why you say that we have our wires crossed. I am simply stating my belief, based upon what I wrote above, that the closed loop scenario appears impossible.

    OK, I was not really getting what you where saying.
    Well that's the definition of what a paradox is "something that appears impossible."
    The Mustard wrote: »
    I think that the argument is relevant. However, it isn't possible to argue about whether there could be some approach which is beyond our current understanding. You are saying that it could be one of the 'unknown unknowns', which are not possible to debate:

    Again you have lost me...

    I am not arguing over "what actually happens" as already stated we don't know.

    I am looking at the merits and flaws of the current theories as stated.

    Muti-verse vrs Uni-verse.
    Each have their own paradoxical elements if time travel was possible.


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    #33
    The Corinthian
    Closed Accounts Posts: 19,777 ✭✭✭✭The Corinthian


    ShowMeTheCash wrote: »
    I am now beginning to question your basic math skills, you suggest that each loop can have a different baby... Hmmmm really? The creation of a "new" baby does not undo the creation of the last so now instead of having one baby we now have an infinite number.
    OK, I should have followed my advice in my original post given that you've decided to condensed based on your presumption that it is others that don't understand.

    You are making lots of presumptions, the first of which is that it really is a closed loop rather than looks like one from the single iteration we've seen. And yes, the above scenario does imply an infinite number of 'forks' in the timeline, and an infinite number of babies. After all, how do you know that every iteration of the loop they are identical or that differences would even be perceptible from one iteration to the next?
    No, we are trying to explain a paradox, you are trying to come up with a completely different scenario which isn't even a paradox, you don't even need time travel to test your theory.
    Sometimes the explanation to a paradox is that it's not a paradox. You don't seem to want to accept that possibility - and it is at this point that my earlier observation about wasting one's time on fiction reminds me to stop.


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    #34
    Pat Mustard
    Registered Users Posts: 9,554 ✭✭✭Pat Mustard


    ShowMeTheCash wrote: »
    Again you have lost me...
    Okay, you referred to options beyond our understanding.
    ShowMeTheCash wrote: »
    Whether this argument is even relevant and there are options beyond our understanding is probably more plausible but I think these questions are worth thinking about and not a waste of time.
    In response, I said that was not possible to debate these matters which are beyond our understanding, drawing a parallel with Rumsfeld's 'unknown unknowns' speech.

    ShowMeTheCash wrote: »
    I am not arguing over "what actually happens" as already stated we don't know.

    I am looking at the merits and flaws of the current theories as stated.

    Muti-verse vrs Uni-verse.
    I see. Fair enough.

    ShowMeTheCash wrote: »
    Each have their own paradoxical elements if time travel was possible.
    Agreed.


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    #35
    ShowMeTheCash
    Registered Users Posts: 2,651 ✭✭✭ShowMeTheCash


    The Corinthian wrote: »
    OK, I should have followed my advice in my original post given that you've decided to condensed based on your presumption that it is others that don't understand.

    You are making lots of presumptions, the first of which is that it really is a closed loop rather than looks like one from the single iteration we've seen. And yes, the above scenario does imply an infinite number of 'forks' in the timeline, and an infinite number of babies. After all, how do you know that every iteration of the loop they are identical or that differences would even be perceptible from one iteration to the next?

    Sometimes the explanation to a paradox is that it's not a paradox. You don't seem to want to accept that possibility - and it is at this point that my earlier observation about wasting one's time on fiction reminds me to stop.

    I apologies I do not mean to condensed.

    And you are correct
    The Corinthian wrote: »
    Sometimes the explanation to a paradox is that it's not a paradox

    As a friend of mine pointed out with the chicken and egg paradox "A fish climbed up into the sand one day and layed an chicken egg"..

    That being said this paradox is interesting and I am not talking about from the movies point of view.

    There are a few interesting ones that have been documented.

    For example:
    Your future self comes back in time with a book your wrote:
    He tells you that a future him gave the book to him and in turn he is giving the book to you.
    You read the book and have it published.

    Who wrote the book?

    The idea is that there has to be an origin, someone had to write the book correct?
    Wrong time-travel presents a number of seeming impossibilities.


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    #36
    The Corinthian
    Closed Accounts Posts: 19,777 ✭✭✭✭The Corinthian


    ShowMeTheCash wrote: »
    That being said this paradox is interesting and I am not talking about from the movies point of view.
    Well I was talking about the film, so we're talking about cross purposes.

    Yes, there are interesting paradoxes associated with time travel, although I believe that they're only paradoxes because we don't really have the full picture, or the picture we've been given is contrived to begin with.

    For example, a man is found in a locked room hanging and under him a pool of water. There was no one who could have entered the room to hang him as all the doors were bolted from the inside. He could not have hanged himself because he would not have been able to reach the noose and no one else could have hanged him as they could not get into the room.

    It seems an impossible scenario, until you learn that the pool of water was an ice block that the man stood on to commit suicide and this naturally melted after he did so. And so the impossible becomes possible once we have the full picture, which we naturally do not have in the film or time travel in general.

    Hence we get paradoxes.


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