http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/treknology/timetravel-tos.htm
T'Pol in "Enterprise" often claimed that Vulcans knew that time travel was impossible. But then she witnessed a few incidents.
So you CAN change time? (spoiler)
- Thread starter RobertScorpio
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http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/treknology/timetravel-tos.htm
T'Pol in "Enterprise" often claimed that Vulcans knew that time travel was impossible. But then she witnessed a few incidents.
"Science Vulcan Directorate has determined that time travel is... not fair."
One my favorite lines from that series. Still not really seeing anything approaching a mantra from Spock, though. Indeed, the effects of time travel appear to be variable in a direct relation to what is required by the particular story at hand, as is Spock's take on time travel in any given episode, and as are the mechanics involved.
To quote the Tenth Doctor,
"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect... but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly.... timey-wimey.... stuff."
"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect... but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly.... timey-wimey.... stuff."
Exactly. In my humble opinion, the multiple worlds theory is lazy thinking created by people who cannot deal with the paradoxes of the Copenhagen interpretation of the results of quantum physics experiments.
I don't think that's correct.
In the traditional Grandfather Paradox, a single time universe is assumed. You are born. You go back in time. You kill your grandfather thus making it impossible for you to be born - you blink out of existence because you were never born. The question here is, since you blink out of existence, is it impossible to kill your grandfather, or can you kill him and only then blink out of existence?
Even in a fictional context the multiple universes theory is problematic, and here's why. You are born. You go back in time. Now, does this action create a new universe? One would assume yes since time travel should probably be "unexpected" and not a part of the natural timeline - unless that time travel was "meant" to happen thus maintaining a single universe through this point. But what determines what events are "natural" to a timeline? That's basically an unanswerable question.
Say the universe does not diverge at this point, but only at the point at which you actually change what had previously occurred - killing your grandfather. The minute your grandfather's heart stops beating, the universe diverges. Does the you who just killed his grandfather remain in the first universe, or does it continue on into the second? Do you suddenly split as well - in the original universe blinking out of existence and in the second going on? If you go on in the second universe - where did you come from within that universe? You weren't born there, so how can you exist there? Stories tend to assume it's easy to skip from one universe to the next, much like they assume that we could ever communicate with aliens - but its purely a story conceit. Every atom in your body would be foreign to the newly created universe in which you have no history. Where did the atoms in it even come from? How could they possibly exist within that universe?
Star Trek has, as usual, not been at all consistent on whether or not there's a single timeline universe, or a multi-verse affected by time travel. Several times the timeline has been put "right", implying a single universe. Several times we've seen alternate universes affected by time divergence. We've even seen a time travel branch of Starfleet bopping around. Do we want to presume they're splitting off new universes every time they act - even though there is never the slightest bit of discussion of this among the characters? Even though every single bit of dialogue, except perhaps in the episode "Parallels" has the characters assuming a single universe?
You're asking a question which really can't be answered because Star Trek is inconsistent on this score, and the actual logical consequences of either a single universe or multi-verse are never dealt with in fiction.
I don't know about lazy... Really, a paradox is simply just conflicting events. No sci-fi movies or shows that I've seen really do a paradox because it would just be too confusing and time travel might be impossible. That kind of ruins the whole point of doing a fictional story about time travel, doesn't it?
Well, that's the idea of the whole paradox. If causality works in such a way that killing your grandfather makes you disappear, then that same causality demands that you never could have traveled back in time in the first place to kill him. It's basically just a reset button. Portraying something like that would probably be futile.
My original point was that a multiverse solves the problem of the paradox. If I go back and kill my Grandpa, there is no reason for me to disappear.
Yeah, stories should make stuff up. As long as it is consistent within the story and their own defined rules, everything works. The problem with this is that Orci was trying to say that the time travel in this movie is based upon the multiple worlds theory. With that logic, it may not make sense for Nero to go back and change things, or for Spock to try and preserve things.
I don't think my question had to do with any of Star Trek's previous consistency, but just this movie as a standalone. There are only a handful of stories from Trek where someone actively tried to change the past, and the implication was always that there was one main timeline in those stories. And that's fairly logical. Here's an example:
Janeway traveled back in time to save Seven from dying. She didn't care about herself, her life, or her future. She did it purely for others. Wouldn't her sacrifice mean nothing if her future still existed? Wouldn't it be pointless if another world (or infinite other worlds) already existed where Seven didn't die? The whole point is that a willful time travel to change something major in the past has little or no purpose if there is a multiverse, and especially so if someone tries to stop those changes.
Spock said it in Spectre of the Gun.
Kirk: "If this IS a reply of history..."
Spock: "History can not be changed."
Now, you could look at it as a "should not" rather than as a "could not" phrase.
"History can not be changed...without destroying our timeline."
Or
"Jim, the events MUST unfold as they happened. History can not be changed. You must not allow it."
I dunno, just trying to help. :-)
Multiple Universes (Quantum Theory) solves a multitude of problems with traveling in time, the tricky part is discovering & understanding what they are and how they displace all the potential for paradoxes found within the traditional time travel theory's. The answer, boiled down to its base is; there are no paradoxes in QT because time travel is never to the time travelers own past.
If a time traveler appeared beside you right now, (lets say its name is Doe) Doe w/could not ever be from your current time line future. Now, Doe is a future grandchild of yours with plans of killing itself by killing you. It won't work. After Doe kills you s/he will still be alive in this timeline and facing murder charges to boot.
The consequence to your family's future will be, your future grandchild named Doe will never exist in your timeline because you died. The consequence to Doe's original time line will be, Doe just disappeared. Simple as that and no paradoxes nor reset buttons in sight.
For this movie to work under QT, both Nero and Spock have to know they will not be traveling to their respective pasts & both must have, from our current perspective, some as yet unrealized reasons for taking their chase into different timelines. Perhaps for Spock that reason is simply, the needs of the many...
If a time traveler appeared beside you right now, (lets say its name is Doe) Doe w/could not ever be from your current time line future. Now, Doe is a future grandchild of yours with plans of killing itself by killing you. It won't work. After Doe kills you s/he will still be alive in this timeline and facing murder charges to boot.
The consequence to your family's future will be, your future grandchild named Doe will never exist in your timeline because you died. The consequence to Doe's original time line will be, Doe just disappeared. Simple as that and no paradoxes nor reset buttons in sight.
For this movie to work under QT, both Nero and Spock have to know they will not be traveling to their respective pasts & both must have, from our current perspective, some as yet unrealized reasons for taking their chase into different timelines. Perhaps for Spock that reason is simply, the needs of the many...
Not in quantum physics. The paradox is that particles are waves. These are not conflicting, they just challenge our perception of existence being linear, causal and discrete.
Not at all. Some of the best time travel stories deal with paradox. Primer, Ripples in the Duric Sea, The Terminator.
That depends on what story you're telling.
It violates basic scientific laws, which even the cheesiest SF ought to respect if it wants to qualify as SF. The big problem with the multi-verse theory is where does all the matter and energy that forms the divergent universe come from? The problem with a divergent universe being created by the actions of an individual who then exists in that universe is that it violates the law od conservation of energy. The divergent universe would have a significant amount of matter and energy added to it by the existence of a "foreign body" so to speak. All the atoms and electrochemical energy of that body would not have a source in the divergent universe (where there was no grandfather and therefore no mother and therefore no person) but would simply "blink into existence".
I'm all for stories making things up, but I'm tired of time travel being used with all the gravity of taking a trip from here to there. What's the point of using a device as interesting as time travel if you don't deal with any of the paradoxical consequences?
As for this case, we don't know Nero's motivations, nor which conventions of Star Trek time travel storytelling are going to be used. They can basically make up whatever rules they want because that's exactly what they have always done.
That solves the "mantra" question raised by Robert Scorpio, then.
There, Spock is simply completing a logical IF/THEN statement:
Of course, a few scenes later, Chekov's Billy Clanton (known to have survived the historical OK Corral shootout) gets shot and is presumed killed, showing that this is NOT a replay of history and that Kirk and Co. are therefore free to alter the outcome.
It has nothing to do with changing time, but with whether they were allowed to change the rules of the game.
Lost has its time travel rules (and I'm pleased to see some sort of rules articulated and perhaps even adhered to). Doesn't mean all other fictional universes need to follow the same rules, even if there are some similarities in the behind the scenes personnel.
Star Trek's time travel rules are anybody's guess. They've probably dabbled in every possible rule and broken those rules ten times over by now.
Whereas in Lost, you can't create that new timeline - the universe doesn't let you - so you cannot change anything at all. The universe fights you and always wins.
Unless you happen to be a traveller from an already existing parallel reality so close to the one you've been transported to, that you don't realize you've jumped realities. And since it isn't your reality, you can frak with it all you want. Which would explain another one of Lost's little rules...
Why don't we just sit and enjoy the movie? No one know about the real time travel technology and Star Trek is not supposely represent the actual science. Although some of it proofed true, but Star Trek is not created to represent the actual time travel theory / technology. It just supposely for enjoyment.
If you want to know about the actual time travel, then just study in the university and get your doctorate. Or if you have it, then research it yourself.
If you want to know about the actual time travel, then just study in the university and get your doctorate. Or if you have it, then research it yourself.
Relax, dude. We're just having a fun little conversation. Besides I'm relatively uninterested in the movie.
Primer is one of the best? Ugh, I didn't care for that movie because it focused too much on rules and "science" instead of telling a good story.
Terminator is a pre-destination paradox, which isn't quite the same as the grandfather paradox, which is mostly what I was referring to. There is nothing about a pre-destination paradox that precludes it from existing, unlike the grandfather paradox. A movie about the actual grandfather paradox would be dull.
Isn't this a critique of time travel in general? Traveling in time would essentially be destroying energy from the present and creating it in the past. For the multiverse, one might assume that its matter always existed, and looking at it that way, matter is simply being moved around in the universe.
It could simply be used as a device to examine the past or to start a new life. There doesn't always have to be some paradox. In fact, a lot of fictional paradoxes with time travel can seem really forced and lame. Just how this Star Trek movie has the potential of the time travel being a lame plot device that has no logic.
Actually, Orci said the method was going to be the multiverse.
We don't know the specifics, as Nero could just be crazy, but we know Spock is trying to counter Nero's efforts, which is the point where it stops making sense if it is indeed a multiverse. We'll have to see how it truly plays out, but with the facts we have now, it doesn't make sense.
RobertScorpio
Pariah
RobertScorpio
Pariah
***
Uh, what's the topic?
Lets try this. I don't remember Spock saying that but...
I've been kind of hoping Rob would come back and explain what he meant there, to be honest. I can't think of where Spock said that, either -- or, if he did, it certainly wasn't said so many times or so often that it could be considered a mantra.
You know, i can't actually remember him saying it now either (unless I am now existing in a universe where he didn't and I came from what that did)....
In fact, his entire reason for being in CITY, to me at least, is to keep warning kirk that they have to do this so they can repair the time line that McCoy messed up...
So...I have to admit that I am not sure where I heard Spock say this...maybe he didn't say it at all and I just assumed he did....If I could turn back time i would go back and create a causality loop and stop this thread at #2....
Rob
As it turned out, ssosmcin spotted the line (or something close to it) as having come from "Spectre of the Gun", where it seems to refer to something other than the changeability of time. See here.
Eh, Primer was one of the best until the third act, where it went off track, but since so many time travel stories don't even get that far, I give it credit.
As for Terminator and predestination paradoxes, I think it's more of a mind twister than the grandfather paradox. A predestination loop has no beginning. It is inherently nonlinear. The grandfather paradox is just following linear thinking to say - hey, you can't do this. A predestination loop story says you can do this, even though it's impossible to the linear mind.
I don't know, but I don't think it's a critique of time travel in general. Thermodynamic law doesn't have anything to do with time - that is, a universe presumably has the same amount of energy in it from the Big Bang onward, so to move some of that energy from one point in time to another shouldn't create problems.
I still have issues with how the matter and energy of multiple universes could be being created, and how anyone could jump universes unless (as with the original Mirror, Mirror) their coutnerparts jumped at the same moment, keeping the energy constant in each universe.
(Wow, this is getting almost too nerdy even for me...)
Boy, does it ever! I'll admit I'm reluctant to give them any leeway because the entire use of time travel in the movie seems purely a lame attempt to change everything while wasting time placating the canonistas with a stupid plot device. Just freaking tell a good original crew story already, will ya?
I doubt they're even going to try to make it make sense. It's just a plot contrivance so they can reboot while telling the fanboys that they're not rebooting. I'd have a lot more confidence in this flick if the creators had the balls to just come out and say - We're starting over. Deal with it.
I woudn't get too hung up on conservation of energy. The law applies only within the confines of a particular universe. Of course, this means that the ultimate power source would be tapping some other universe for power. It was good enough for Heinlein in "Waldo."
But it's pretty clear that Trek generally assumes one timeline. The MU, for instance, doesn't seem to diverge from any particular decision point. It's a parallel universe, but not a branch.
And rightly so. It's hard to make drama out of a parallel world setup.
But it's pretty clear that Trek generally assumes one timeline. The MU, for instance, doesn't seem to diverge from any particular decision point. It's a parallel universe, but not a branch.
And rightly so. It's hard to make drama out of a parallel world setup.
Haha, yeah. Sometimes I get too into this stuff. I think AlanC9 might be onto something, or if anything conservation of energy only applies to our own world where time travel doesn't exist. Maybe the rules will change, or maybe things simply are being displaced instead of created or destroyed. At any rate, I'm not sure I really care so much about the nitty gritty of the science, but of the logic of the situation.
Yeah, this is how it seems, but I'll reserve judgment until I see the movie. Hopefully, like Terminator, time travel is simply the device to set the story in motion, and you don't really need to focus on it to enjoy the bulk of the movie.
I don't really mind their explanation for deviation, but story-wise it just doesn't seem to make sense.
