Re: Member Announcements Thread
Man lives life, goes back into past and kills someone. So then, because that someone is dead, the man doesn't have to go back in time, so he doesn't, so the someone lives?
That's mixing.
Personal time effects. Universal time effects.
Two main important points in time. I could throw in others for frames of reference (like man's birth, or "someone"s birth) to make things less confusing, but they don't have to necessarily be in that chronological order, so I don't want the idea that things
must occur the way I'd list them
If our character, Rob, wishes to go back into some point in time to kill Terry, the two major points in time that happen chronologically are
Point A: The time at which he would arrive in the past (or, the time at which he kills Terry, either of these could be the time catalyst, so let's treat it as one single event). And
Point B: The time at which Rob physically starts his travel into the past.
Let's say Terry has made Rob's life a complete living hell. If time is universal, then the time that
Point A occurs, a future Rob will show up to kill Terry, or he won't. This is the reverse of cause and effect. Based on whether or not Rob shows up, later on at
Point B, Rob will or won't go into the past. If Rob did show up at
Point A, then he invariably must have gone through at
Point B. This is cause and effect as you were suggesting. If he doesn't show up at
Point A, then he doesn't go through at
Point B. Regardless of reason or care, the event at
B is predetermined because it's results have already been documented at
A
At a personal timeline, I feel the need to throw in the arbitrary events, in order to illustrate a more comprehensive guide through time. But the major points still remain.
For a clearer description on this one, let's say that
Point A occurs before a point in time that would be Rob's birth. Rob kills Terry at
Point A. Now if we assume Rob never meant to return once this happened, but to live his life on from
Point A. The Rob at this very time right after Terry's death is from what was the "default" time. He is now referred to as
Rob. Because time is personal, all differences between
default time and
effected time do not automatically apply themselves to
Rob because he already lived
his timeline. Although
his timeline is technically not the current existence, he has already lived, and wouldn't cease to exist because he's running on
personal timeline. He would continue to live on
after Terry's death in this effected timeline. In this
effected timeline, at some point
Rob is born.
Rob has no experience with Terry because Terry is already dead. Because of this,
Rob has no reason to go back in time. But
Rob not going back in time doesn't invalidate Terry's death, because he's still already been killed by
Rob. It is important to suggest that these two exist on
different personal timelines, so they are technically two different people. Even if
Point A to
Point B are almost the exact same as
Point A to
Point B, with the exception of Terry being dead, even if
Rob and
Rob are every bit genetically the same, down to the very last molecule, the events that happened to
Rob throughout
his timeline aren't the same that happened to
Rob. Meaning they are separate entities. Because of this, if events start to change, and at one point down the line past
Point B (keep in mind, because time has been altered, nothing has happened after that point) where an existence of Terry would have stopped
Rob from being hit by a bus, and he now is handicapped for life,
Rob has not changed because it is not an event that occurs in
his timeline.
So to recap at a random point in time. We are now in
effected timeline between
Point A and
Point B. There is a
Rob and a
Rob, and Terry has been killed. He died at the hands of
Rob whose life consisted of
Point A (the exact moment Terry
doesn't die,
Point A goes onto
previously default time), which leads to
Rob's birth, Rob's life of hell at the hands of Terry, then Point B. At
Point B, he goes back into time to
Point A and then kills Terry, at which point his
personal timeline runs through the now
effected timeline. Think of him as the only red person in a world of blue because his personal timeline ran in the red universe.
Rob on the other hand, only knows his life in the
effected timeline and has no involvement with Terry and only real importance to my description is to illustrate that he and
Rob are not the same product and are only effected personally, which means that "universal timeline changes" don't force the experiences of one onto the other.
**I don't mean to sound declarative as if this is "what is," but this is how I'd see anything happening in the possibility of reason. The only thing I'm "declaring" is how the details would work in either theory. I don't think this advancement will ever be reached, so arguing the hypothetical is worthless, especially if we never touch on
specifically how one travels through time. We usually run on the assumption they can either go forward and backwards like it is a road, not taking them horizontally between choices of how timelines can be different.
It's a point of fatalism, which has grown new strength. Some scientists are arguing that nothing is done with purpose or reason. It's
far from being legally implemented, but the suggestion is that our brain is made up the way it is and although we are given some idea of choice, "likelihood" is just what will end up happening. Because events in the past are concrete, the result is clear, meaning beforehand, the result could have been predicted because there has to be some event, sorta twisting reality into fate. It's used as a sort of defense, and not sort of that far out there in thinking, considering we have brain disorders and compulsions that people can't help, that even though they might try to fight it, they either will succeed or won't and all that is measurable after the fact. It's along the lines of "Laplaces demon" which is (I believe) the idea that if you knew the location and momentum and characteristics of every single conceivable object in existence at this point in time and every point in time before it, then one would without fail be able to predict all future events based on that knowledge.**
