Kirk's Daily Schedule

[Captain Clark Terrell]

I'd always taken it to be Kirk telling a joke. I mean, just think of the odds of the glasses in 1986 wending their way through two hundred years to end up in the antique shop where McCoy could get them. (Heck, what are the odds of their even surviving two hundred years? Kirk managed to break 23rd-century prescription lenses on them in under a week.) This isn't a Somewhere In Time scenario where the time-looped object has a compelling provenance.

No, it's not. It's Star Trek, where people in entirely separate universes manage to know each other and have jobs or roles similar to those of their counterparts. Given how the entire series mucks with the laws of physics and probability, it's absolutely plausible that the glasses could have been part of a loop.

--Sran

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

I don't know if that's the case, but it would be sort of ironic given that glass is made by heating sand. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, indeed.

That's a deep thought, Sran!

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

That's a deep thought, Sran!

Thank you. In any event, another thing I've noticed that's interesting is how Spock has that painting of Adam and Eve being kicked out of Eden in his quarters. Why does a Vulcan have a picture of something depicted in the Bible? Spock isn't Christian (as far as we know). We know Spock's in-universe reason for keeping the painting--he says as much to Valeris--but why did Meyer think it was a good idea?

--Sran

 

[Lance]

The problem with that 'causality loop scenario' theory regarding Kirk's glasses (in fact, any causality loop scenario, period) is that it's got a chicken-egg-chicken problem. Namely, in order to McCoy to buy the glasses for Kirk, Kirk always has to have pawned the glasses in 1986 in every single continuum... but there must have been a time when the glasses were never in Kirk's possession in the first place, surely??? At some point there must've been a "first time" when McCoy bought them without them having ever been sold by Kirk three centuries before, and...

[austinpowers] Oh I've gone cross-eyed. [/austinpowers]

 

[Timo]

I don't see the problem there. The loop is an "attractor", a relatively stable system that can emerge from unstable origins. The glasses are manufactured, pre-1980s, in one timeline (but it only takes one, as the camera doesn't follow the others); they survive against odds through centuries so that they can be given to Kirk the first time around; they are returned to the 1980s; they again survive, but the unlikely event of the original ones also surviving is avoided this time around because it's a subtly different timeline; and from there on, the loop can be repeated without an increasingly tall pile of glasses disrupting the time continuum.

The butterfly effect will take care of every loop being subtly different. But some loops are more stable than others, and this could be among the stable ones. It could e.g. be that there is only one shop that meets Kirk's cash-chasing demands in the 1980s, and it happens to be next to where McCoy lives or where he first disembarks from the Atlanta shuttle or the Kentucky public transporter on his way to Kirk's birthday - and butterflies or no butterflies, the 1980s owner will die of an incurable disease in a few months, the glasses will be buried under the Great Junk Mail Tsunami of 1992, and will be uncovered during the Great 1980s Revival of the 2280s and put on sale.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vegastrekkie]

I always liked that display in TUC as it gave an impression of the fact that it was a "real" ship with other things going on other than battles, invasions, etc.

I found this artwork of the display screen from Spock's quarters which seems to mirror Kirk's.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/artoftrek/okudagram-st6.jpg

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

The problem with that 'causality loop scenario' theory regarding Kirk's glasses (in fact, any causality loop scenario, period) is that it's got a chicken-egg-chicken problem. Namely, in order to McCoy to buy the glasses for Kirk, Kirk always has to have pawned the glasses in 1986 in every single continuum... but there must have been a time when the glasses were never in Kirk's possession in the first place, surely??? At some point there must've been a "first time" when McCoy bought them without them having ever been sold by Kirk three centuries before, and...

By definition, a causal loop is exactly that, a loop. There is no initial event sequence where Kirk never pawns the glasses in 1986. His selling the glasses at the antique shop is what allows McCoy to later find them (with lenses restored) and give them to Kirk as a gift. Conversely, McCoy giving the glasses to Kirk for his birthday allows Kirk to take them back to 1986, to the antique shop where McCoy will presumably purchase them roughly three hundred years later.

--Sran

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

That is why my walnut-sized dinosaur brain can't follow this stuff. Wouldn't there have to be a point where the glasses were first manufactured? I don't see how that fits into the loop...

 

[Timo]

No loop is eternal, unless one assumes 100% accurate predestination - and we have seen many loops that aren't even 75% accurate, such as TNG "Cause and Effect". That one was semi-stable but certainly not eternal, and did have a distinct beginning as well.

Loops can have all sorts of entry and exit routes, leading to a number of different outcomes in different timelines. At least one entry ramp is usually a safe assumption: the glasses couldn't have just materialized out of nowhere, without somebody first designing them and manufacturing them.

On the other hand, time travel need not obey conservation laws. We can't necessarily argue that the glasses couldn't have emerged from nothing "because nothing emerges from nothing (except perhaps nothing)", because the energy seemingly needed to create the glasses into the loop could come from the mechanism of time travel itself.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nebusj]

This isn't a Somewhere In Time scenario where the time-looped object has a compelling provenance.

No, it's not. It's Star Trek, where people in entirely separate universes manage to know each other and have jobs or roles similar to those of their counterparts. Given how the entire series mucks with the laws of physics and probability, it's absolutely plausible that the glasses could have been part of a loop.

It's also a universe that has more than eight people in it, which is why I vote against the glasses being a time-looped object. Otherwise we may as well figure they're also the glasses Zephram Cochrane wore between his inventing warp drive and meeting Vulcans and his going off missing.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I always liked that display in TUC as it gave an impression of the fact that it was a "real" ship with other things going on other than battles, invasions, etc.

I found this artwork of the display screen from Spock's quarters which seems to mirror Kirk's.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/artoftrek/okudagram-st6.jpg

Vegastrekkie, EAS doesn't allow hotlinking, so we haven't seen the pic yet. Best try another way of letting us see it!

 

[trevanian]

That's a deep thought, Sran!

Thank you. In any event, another thing I've noticed that's interesting is how Spock has that painting of Adam and Eve being kicked out of Eden in his quarters. Why does a Vulcan have a picture of something depicted in the Bible? Spock isn't Christian (as far as we know). We know Spock's in-universe reason for keeping the painting--he says as much to Valeris--but why did Meyer think it was a good idea?

--Sran

ties in with it being the end of the film series, and presumably he just likes the art.

 

[trekshark]

For some reason I never thought Kirk's glasses were actually time-looped, more that he was joking that they could be.

I never did either since McCoy gave him a pair of intact glasses and when he sold them they were damaged

 

[Shat Happens]

Man, this glasses thing is deep. Let me see:

The glasses were made sometime before 2283;
MCoy gives them to Kirk as a birthday present;
They break durring the battle in the Mutara nebula;
For some reason Kirk keeps the broken glasses with him during the voyage to Earth, the interview with ADm. Morrow, the flight to Genesis, the 3 month stay on Vulcan and the trip to Earth;
Kirk travels to 1984; sell glasses; keeps money, doesn't pay for pizza;
Glasses remain.

OR

IF glasses last 3 centuries, and are the same pair bought by McCoy it will be in a closed loop and then it can be new, 300 years, 300*1 billion years or infinitely old or all simultaneously *boom* Thanks, my head exploded.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

I never did either since McCoy gave him a pair of intact glasses and when he sold them they were damaged

You do realize that glasses can be fixed? Broken lenses can be swapped out for new ones, something that seems likely given that McCoy--a physician--would most likely provide his friend a pair of glasses with the appropriate prescription. I doubt the original lenses would have fit Kirk's eyes perfectly.

--Sran

 

[T'Girl]

Why does a Vulcan have a picture of something depicted in the Bible? Spock isn't Christian (as far as we know).

Spock did occassionally quote from the Bible, if he wasn't a Christian perhaps his mother Amanda was.

The picture could have been a gift from her.

 

[Vegastrekkie]

I always liked that display in TUC as it gave an impression of the fact that it was a "real" ship with other things going on other than battles, invasions, etc.

I found this artwork of the display screen from Spock's quarters which seems to mirror Kirk's.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/artoftrek/okudagram-st6.jpg

Vegastrekkie, EAS doesn't allow hotlinking, so we haven't seen the pic yet. Best try another way of letting us see it!

Sorry about that...

 

[Timo]

Well, we all know how to get around the hotlink ban, now don't we?

But really, it might be best to just tell us where at ex-astris-scientia.org this graphic is to be found, so we can go and check it ourselves.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Redfern]

I think I may have been the schmuck to suggest that a set of infinitely temporally looping glasses (or any item composed of matter) would negate its existance because with each loop traveling "normally" forward in time, the item "ages". If the loop is perfectly balanced (violating the conservation of energy, I know), the object effectively becomes infinitely old (older than the universe) and would break down not just into "dust" but something akin to "quantum foam", or whatever next smaller level of reality we computate. Even something trivial, like a loop of 5 seconds, would create the same effect, assuming everything is perfectly balanced. That basically spells out a "perpetual motion" apparatus, which, of course, can't exist in an entropic universe.

It's just one of those absurdum thought exercises that results in a person performing one of those Warner Bros. cartoon headshakes complete with the "yadda-yadda-yadda" sound effects.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

I think I may have been the schmuck to suggest that a set of infinitely temporally looping glasses (or any item composed of matter) would negate its existance because with each loop traveling "normally" forward in time, the item "ages". If the loop is perfectly balanced (violating the conservation of energy, I know), the object effectively becomes infinitely old (older than the universe) and would break down not just into "dust" but something akin to "quantum foam", or whatever next smaller level of reality we computate. Even something trivial, like a loop of 5 seconds, would create the same effect, assuming everything is perfectly balanced. That basically spells out a "perpetual motion" apparatus, which, of course, can't exist in an entropic universe.

It's just one of those absurdum thought exercises that results in a person performing one of those Warner Bros. cartoon headshakes complete with the "yadda-yadda-yadda" sound effects.

Sincerely,

Bill

Yeah, that sounds like the language I remember reading.

If you were able to come up with that idea, then I trust you were bright enough afterwards to invest some money in Bayer, what with all the headaches you inadvertently caused!