Time Travel and Paradox

When one reads Science Fiction there is hardly anything so fascinating and
yet so frustrating as the 'Time Travel' story. Fascinating, because it often
explores the question 'what would things have been like if...?" or "if one
could change a small thing like the position of a grain of sand would that
have large effects in the future?". These questions are at the heart of
personal or historical regret. Suppose Hitler were never born. Would this be
a better or worse world today? Would it be a different world 100 years from
now or would the forces of history push towards a singular result?

The stories are often frustrating due in part to a vaguely spelled out theory
of time which often allows events that are confusing, contradictory and
paradoxical. A science fiction story should not leave us with more questions
than it resolves. For a reader of Fantasy, this may be acceptable, for Fantasy
is not supposed to be taken as explanatory, prophetic or possibly realistic.
But a good science fiction story should have explanations that are not
incoherent and if in the story there is something which is claimed to be
impossible, then there should be an explanation for that also.

At the heart of the problem is the 'Time Travel paradox' which goes
something like this. Suppose a person travels to a time before she was born
and breaks a causal chain that led to the traveler's birth. This problem has
been commonly explored by asking 'What if you killed your own
grandmother before she first conceived?' (Curiously the problem is never
expressed in terms of killing your own mother). The apparent paradox is
then of a logical sort: P entails NOT P and NOT P entails P. If you kill your
grandmother then you would not be born, which in turn would bring it about
that you not travel into the past, thus you would not kill your grandmother,
thus you would be born causing you to again travel into the past to kill your
grandmother.... ad infinitum.

The presupposition of almost all time travel stories is that each point along a
time line is in some sense existent now, even the future points. This
provides a conceptual basis for allowing us to visit a time point in the same
way that we might visit a space point in ordinary experience. Einstein may
have reinforced our comfort with this view by taking seriously the notion of
time as another dimension very much like the spatial dimensions we are
already familiar with.

There are several different standard attempts to resolve or avoid the

paradox. The most standard is to ignore it. By sending someone far enough
into the past, we do not know what influence that person will have and thus
for all we know the person caused the world as we know it today. Another
way to avoid the paradox is to state up front that we cannot change the past.
There are different versions of this thesis. One is that we can go back and
participate in a past causal chain but only in the way that already happened
and the other way is to go back merely as an observer.

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 object was at b. This is an
impossibility if we take any standard linear view of time. The most minimal
means to accommodate this contradiction is to allow a timeline where the
statement that the object exists at b is true and another timeline where the
statement that the object exists there is false (the 'original' timeline.). In
other words a timeline branching event has occurred. Any story that holds
that the object was not on the timeline and now it is, is minimally committed
to this branching universe concept. See Figure A...

Figure A

This does not mean that a story must subscribe to the view that there are two
existent timelines or Universes. The story may hold that the "original" time
line b-c-d no longer exists, if it ever did and so even though we may
conceptually represent the time travel event as above, some may claim that
b-c-d no longer exists.
This way of talking about the time travel event makes it look as if 'first' the
universe was linear, and then as soon as time point c arrived the universe
became more complicated. But this way of describing it makes it sound as if
there is a time when the object was not at b and then there is a time when the
object was at b. What kind of time is this? It seems that we may express the
same concept by noting that the object at c is the cause of the branching of
timelines at b.

My position is that any coherent time travel story may be accommodated

with the above diagram. There are various positions one could take
regarding the existent or non existence of these time line segments that will
provide the accommodation. We may even find it important to relativize
existence to each point. For instance, we may imagine a story that claims
that from the viewpoint of a person at point e timeline b-c-d does not exist.
We can also image that there might be 4 possible stories about a person at
time point a. The story may claim that for that person b-c-d exists but not b-
e-f, or vice versa, or that both exist. One might even claim that time-travel
has rendered neither existent, although this story might not be the common
one. (There was a Fredric Brown story that had this as a punchline)

Although relativation of existence to positions on the timelines is not my

favorite way of displaying these notions it at least allows for the description
by a person at e that b-c-d used to be existent but now it isn't. This might
only mean that for a person at a, bcd is existent but for a person at e, bcd is
not existent.

This branching universe notion even accommodates the time traveler who
cannot change the past, for such a view can be expressed by saying that bcd
is always identical with bef. But such a story must in order not to be self
contradictory only send objects to places where they already were, otherwise
we risk having it be true that an object was there and at the same time be
false. A writer cannot have it both ways. She cannot make a change in the
time line and then insist that there is and always was only one timeline. A
contradiction is not to be tolerated in a science fiction story since it breaks
down the credibility that a science fiction story needs to not be merely
fantasy.

The Paradox

The first thing we should note is that there is no paradox within the above
understanding of time. If a traveler from point c returns to space-time point
b where she did not exist before and causes a branching she then proceeds to
travel down the new branch bef (unless another time travel event occurs).
She is now free to bring about the non-existence of her analogous self on
time line bef. If she does succeed in interrupting the causal chain that as
analogous to the one that happened on line bcd that brought about her own
existence and if this results in the non existence of her analogous self then of
course her analogous self will not journey into the past causing another split
in time. This in no way affects the existence of the traveler who left time
point c, only the possible development of her analogous self.

In fact, it may be conceptually messier if she allows her new self to take a
similar trip, for if this continues, we might see an infinite number of
branchings at point b each caused by an analogous self traveling into the
past. This is not a serious problem, its just messy. There are other
conceptual problems in time travel stories that should be addressed, namely
the problems of associated with rewriting history.

Time Traveler, Destroyer of worlds.

In so many stories, the traveler goes to a place in the past so as to change

some event that will alter the future. This was the job of the terminator in
Terminator 1. His task was to kill the mother of his enemy before she
conceived. But now let us ask "what would this accomplish" According to
our model, the terminator, if successful, travels from c to b and kills his
enemies mother. The terminator then proceeds to lead a quiet little life on
time branch bef. But has he changed the place from whence he came? If we
hold that both timelines are equally existent then it seems that the entities
that sent the terminator at best only created an alternate universe where their
enemy doesn't exist. The original timeline will proceed as it would without
change except for the loss of one terminator who has left to occupy an
alternate time line. It is hard to imagine the motivation of these entities in
the future to create such branching events since from their viewpoint all they
have accomplished is getting rid of a well trained killing machine that was
on their side.

To increase the stakes in such a story we somehow must conjecture that

there is only room for one timeline, which is to say that timeline bcd or
some portion of it becomes non existent and is replaced by the new timeline
with the analogous beings.

So we have the view that first time proceeds down path abcd and then it
later gets replaced with path abef. So in terms of figure A, the time between
a to b is always existent. The time between b and c exists earlier but
becomes non existent, and the time between b and f becomes existent.
Something like this view seems to be present in most of these stories.

It may be that the viewpoint of the author is that bc stays existent and what
disappears is the time line cd. Either of these views gives the beings on
timeline bcd something to worry about because either their whole existence
will be replaced with analogous beings or their world after the traveler
leaves from c will be erased, in which case their future has been eliminated.

The primary problem with asserting that the time between b and c becomes
non existent is that from the viewpoint of someone on the timeline bef, a
possibly crucial change in history was made by an entity which was created
by things that never existed and never will exist. So some existent things are
causally brought about by non existent things. If a story is committed to this
view, then reality becomes filled with possibly existent objects that under
certain circumstances enter into causal chains and affect the actual world.
This view does damage to what we usually think of as existence. That is, we
would usually subscribe to the notion that anything that enters into a causal
chain with the real world is part of the real world, i.e. existent. I would wish
to reject this view and would propose that we grant the existence of any
world or timeline that causally affects our world.

Some may object that sometimes non existent things do affect existent ones.
My vision of a freer society in the future may affect the future. But it
important to note that my vision of a freer society is not caused by the freer
society but by my vision and my vision is existent.

But let us overlook this problem of causality associated with this non
existence for a moment and ask a few more questions. If time travel is
understood by those with the time travel device, what is their motivation for
wanting to eliminate their own timeline and replace it with another one with
analogous beings on it? They might believe that the other world is a better
world and thus they are willing to be destroyed to have the world replaced.
In this case their altruism is to be commended.

Or maybe they believe that by destroying this world, their essence of being
is transferred to those analogous beings, except for the time traveler of
course, for there could be two of her on the new timeline. The time traveler
and her counterpart should be regarded as similar but not the same being.
Furthermore, beings that exist in the first timeline but not in the second
would not be transferred. But I think we should realize that this breaks again
with the notion of science fiction and enters into fantasy unless the writer is
willing to supply us with scientific reasons why such a "soul transfer"
happens.

Another question we may ask within this view of one timeline being
replaced by another is at what point does it happen. The standard view,
which seems totally incoherent, is that it happens when the traveler makes
the important change. But we have seen that an important change is made
when the traveler first arrives at b. This is the first moment when the world
is different than it once was. This is the moment where the timeline splits. If
the view of those trying to change the past is that the world as they know it
becomes non existent, then there is only one time that should mark the
termination of their timeline, the moment that the traveler leaves on her trip,
time c. Thus it makes no sense for another traveler after time point c to go
back and "prevent the change", since all the time on timeline bcd has
become non-existent when c occurred. This unfortunately happens in too
many stories, i.e. Timecop, terminator, etc.

Sometimes I think the writers of such stories are deliberately unclear on

their theory so that they can get away with more. But maybe in many cases
the writer hasn't thought the idea out clearly enough to understand it herself.
I am not asking that the writer build a time machine but only that they have
some clear idea of what it is supposed to do.

If we take my view, that if time travel is possible and changing the past is
possible then both timelines are equally exist, we have lost many of the
standard motivations for going into the past, but not all. For instance,
suppose you believed that this world is much worse off than it would have
been if, say, the atomic bomb were not invented. Suppose you believe that
with a time machine you would have the ability to change a sequence that
led to the development of the atomic bomb. You could then go back and
make the change, and after such change proceed into the future along
timeline bef. This would be the world without the bomb, if you had done
your work correctly. You could now live there, although it might be a little
crowded with the two of you, unless you can convince the other of you to
build a time machine and leave.

The people that you knew would still be back on the other time line. Maybe
similar ones would be on your new timeline, maybe they wouldn't, but you
couldn't go home again. Or could you?
What conceptually would prevent the development of a inter-timeline travel
device? Nothing really. So, for instance, after your work is done you may
decide to move back to a time right after you left. See figure B
 Figure B

A semantical problem becomes apparent. You tell your friends about your
time travel venture and how you changed the past. Should they believe you?
No. Nothing has changed. The past is still as it was. The atomic bomb still
exists. But the problem is in the language. In a sense you did not visit your
own past, but instead a past similar in every respect except for one thing,
you were there. From that point the universes diverge and you are in a place
even less like your own past. So, should we call this time travel or is it more
appropriate to call it timeline creation or alternate timeline visitation?

It does have some resemblance to time travel as we usually think of it,

though. For instance, if you didn't affect things too much you could go back
and confirm or disconfirm historical records. The extent to which you did
affect events would be the extent to which you couldn't be sure that that is
really the way it happened on your original timeline. For my part, it seems
to be enough like visiting another time so that it does not seem inappropriate
to call it "time travel".

All of the considerations here are equally applicable to time travel events
with mental objects instead of physical ones. For instance, suppose you
wished to correct a regrettable action. Some stories may hold that you could
transfer your mental makeup into an earlier self and do something different.
But if by doing so, things become different than they originally were then a
timeline split again is the result and the most we can say is that you have
moved to the timeline where your regrettable action did not take place. The
people on the new timeline will not blame you for your mistake, but the
people on your original timeline still do. In the writing of the story, it would
be interesting to wonder if this timeline move should be enough to get rid of
your regret, since you still remember what you did on the home timeline.

Traveling to where you were.

Most of our discussion has been about time travel events that change the
timeline, but let us for a bit consider stories where the traveler is sent to a
place and time where she originally was. These stories usually have the
traveler going into the past and then we later confirm the event by
discovering some evidence of her existence at that past time. (Somewhere in
time seemed to be such a story. I would like to argue that this is not an
example of a science fiction story but instead represents a fantasy. I have
several reasons for this position.
Suppose a traveler is sent to yesterday, to a place where it was noted that
this traveler appeared. Upon her appearance, we started taking notes of
exactly how she moved, when she stood up, when she sat down, when she
raised a hand and what she said. In this story, let us give all of this
information to the traveler before she is sent. Now let us look at the story
from the traveler's point of view.

She arrives and she knows exactly what she is going to do. She cannot move
in anyway different from what she knows she is going to do. In every
respect she is a person trapped in an uncontrollable body. What is the
explanation for this? Why can't she move contrary to what she knows will
be the case. Why can't she cause a time branching event? The story owes us
an explanation and if it is a science fiction story it cannot just be "well, that's
the way it originally happened" In science fiction we need some hint at the
force that is making it come out that way. How are we to explain the lack of
will? Is it the Gods forcing her to do it? Fantasy. Is she just a passive rider in
the body? Then who is making her body move the way it does?

Maybe, every time we send someone back, they lose their memory and thus
they do what they would naturally do with no feeling of force. If this is true,
we need an explanation for why the memory disappears, and the explanation
should not be that this solves the problem of free will. As fantasy, this
would be acceptable, but in science fiction we should receive an
independent explanation.

In many of these stories, the traveler only partially knows the future and
every attempt to change it usually ends up part of the fulfilling of the future
instead. Are we to imagine that every time travel event happens in this way?
If so, then they cannot be the result of a scientific device that makes time
travel happen.

Let me give an example. Let us with our time travel device send an object, a
marble, from 12:05 P.M. to 12 noon. First of all, we should only send this
marble after we notice that it appears, otherwise we know that such an
experiment is bound to fail. So we wait until 12 to see if it appears.
Sometimes when we do this experiment it does appear and sometimes it
doesn't. What determines when it does, some scientific principle? After we
understand this principle we should be able to make it work every time just
by being in accordance with the principle.

So it appears in front of us. Now let us suppose that at 12:01 we decide to

not send the marble. Can we do that? If not why not? Is it a scientific
principle or is it the gods again. If the latter, then we do not have a scientific
time travel device but one that is dependent upon the mystical forces of the
universe.

Another consideration is brought about by asking the question: "Is it really

the same marble?". After all, some very accurate dating device, maybe like
carbon dating, would show that the object that left was 5 minutes older than
the object that arrived. If they were the same object, then the object that
arrived would be a few moments older than the object that left. But we can
see that this is impossible. Are we to image that there is some force that
makes the marble younger as it goes back in time, just to make things work
out? Again it appears the mystical forces are at work.

Instead of deciding not to send the marble back, let me propose a different
experiment. Let us take the marble that appears at noon and make that the
object that we send back. It disappears at 12:05 as planned. Questions arise.
Where did this marble come from in the first place? This question will not
get a satisfactory scientific answer, not even a satisfactory pseudo-scientific
answer. It cannot be in terms of how the time travel device works. Again the
answer must lie with mystical forces.

So the conclusion is that time travel of the sort, where the object is sent to a
place that is identical to where it was, is not of the sort that science could
claim credit for. Thus, it could not be a main subject of a science fiction
time travel story. It might do well in a story of fantasy. And I say this
without any derogatory implications about fantasy. I enjoy a good fantasy as
much as the next person, but we should realize that in a fantasy many
questions of explanation are inappropriate, but in a science fiction story they
are quite at home and indespensible.

Dealing with Phenomena

So now let us suppose that we are conducting our life in an ordinary way
when all of a sudden a being who claims to be from the future materializes
in front of us. How should we interpret the meaning of this phenomenon?

To back up a bit, we should realize that such an experience is conceptually

possible, especially if we state the description of it in subjective terms. "It
seems that someone has suddenly appeared out of nothing. He claims to be
from the future." It is even possible that he believes he is from the future.
Now let us suppose that we believe he believes he is from the future, and
furthermore, he shows us how to create some technology that, as far as we
know, has not been invented yet. All of this experience is not conceptually
impossible, but now it is up to us to figure a reasonable interpretation for it.

Suppose furthermore, for some reason we decide that the explanation we are
willing to consider does not involve alien deception, our hallucinations, our
dreaming, some mind controlling experience implants, etc. In fact, let us say
that we are only willing to consider two explanations. First, that he is from
the future, our future, the way it is going to be and there is no way to change
it, or he is from our future the way it would have been if he hadn't come
back and caused a timeline split. If it is the second then we merrily
proceeding down the path bef of make our future. (While our counterparts,
who did not experience the appearance of the traveler are moving down the
original path bcd to bring about the beginning of the traveler's journey).

I would like to suggest that the way we decide to interpret such an event will
depend upon to what extent we believe the universe is subject to mystical
forces verses so-far-undiscovered-scientifically-explainable forces. In other
words, is this witnessed event the result of our world behaving like a fantasy
or behaving more like science fiction?

If we choose the first, we may very well think of the traveler coming from
our future and this future cannot be changed. If he furthermore tells us that
we are all going to raise our hands in 5 seconds and even though we try not
to we do anyway, then we would have confirmed that mystical forces our
governing the situation. There would be no problem of free-will since, the
fates will have rendered free-will an illusion. Furthermore, it would
probably render the notion of explanation also one of illusion.

But if we are committed to the notion of explanation, we must interpret the

apparent event as one with a scientific explanation (maybe not explicit),
leaving enough order in the universe to render explanation meaningful. Then
we can regard ourselves as free to use the information the traveler provides
us to change our future to our liking. If the world that (s)he came from is
undesirable and (s)he gives us the information necessary to change it then
there is nothing except for the natural forces already in play to prevent us
from doing so.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, I would like to recommend to any Science Fiction writer

that thinks (s)he is writing science fiction that that (s)he use the timeline
branching framework, without which the author risks contradiction and thus
incoherence. Furthermore, if the author wishes to claim that the future that
created the traveler no longer exists in order to blow the mind of the reader
with paradox, (s)he should realize that the source of the paradoxical feel of
the story is this very claim. The reader can easily dismiss the mind-boggle
feeling by noting that the author is committed to an awkward theory of
existence.

So let us write good Science Fiction Time Travel stories, make them fun and
exciting but please let's also make them understandable.

If you have any suggestions, criticisms, questions or comments, please make

them here or send me a message via E-mail. Thank you for your indulgence.