Terminator Paradox, but what type

Randall_Flagg

New Member
Messages
3
Hi, Have been puzzling over this a bit however I give up and have come to ask the masters!

In the original Terminator movie, a Terminator is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor and fails.

These events make Sarah Connor aware of her sons future importance, and she, with the help of others, train her son in weapons and tactics in order for him to become an effective military leader.

So effective that he becomes a pain in Skynet's butt, and Skynet sends a Terminator back in time to kill his mother.

So the only reason that Skynet sends a Terminator back is because he is an effective military leader, and the only reason that he is an effective military leaded is because Skynet sends a Terminator back to kill his mother.

Would this be considered a Bootstrap Paradox? I though that initially, however I am unsure on which information exactly has no point of origin in this causal loop.

Any suggestions appreciated.
 

dimension-1hacker

Active Member
Messages
834
Hi, Have been puzzling over this a bit however I give up and have come to ask the masters!

In the original Terminator movie, a Terminator is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor and fails.

These events make Sarah Connor aware of her sons future importance, and she, with the help of others, train her son in weapons and tactics in order for him to become an effective military leader.

So effective that he becomes a pain in Skynet's butt, and Skynet sends a Terminator back in time to kill his mother.

So the only reason that Skynet sends a Terminator back is because he is an effective military leader, and the only reason that he is an effective military leaded is because Skynet sends a Terminator back to kill his mother.

Would this be considered a Bootstrap Paradox? I though that initially, however I am unsure on which information exactly has no point of origin in this causal loop.

Any suggestions appreciated.
a skynet from a different timeline sent a terminator back to kill john conner's mother in a different timeline.
 

Randall_Flagg

New Member
Messages
3
Thanks for the reply.
It doesn’t answer the question but raises others.
How does Skynet manage to traverse timelines? A time travel device would only send you back or forward on your own time line. Your arrival may cause a new time line but how would you skip to different time lines?
 

start at edge

Active Member
Messages
717
Thanks for the reply.
It doesn’t answer the question but raises others.
How does Skynet manage to traverse timelines? A time travel device would only send you back or forward on your own time line. Your arrival may cause a new time line but how would you skip to different time lines?
Here is what I think:
Whoever came up with the grandfather paradox has gone too far, because in this case it would have been proper to title it “the 4 (or all) grandparents paradox”. It is safe to assume that the “you” is the product of only one of your parents (not necessarily both), that is – if someone would have had another father or another mother, would he (or she) have been a different person after birth? .. I think not .. so, to trick around this paradox, it would be solely sufficient to eliminate yourself by going to the past. If you eliminate only one of the 4 grandparents (in our case one of the 2 grandfathers), the person to be born is still you. In order to have no “you”, you would have to eliminate all 4 grandparents, so the most efficient way to be no “you” at some point in time, is to eliminate yourself (in your own past) .. it is useless to sacrifice 4 people (all 4 being most likely innocent).
In conclusion, if someone wants to travel back in time messing things up as little as possible (maybe even not at all), the safest way is to travel back BEFORE your birth, maybe even before your grandparents birth.
As an example, in the sketch below, you were born at the time A, some split did occur at time B (creating another timeline) and you are currently living in time C (the red line represents your life from birth to today). The safest way is to go back somewhere between A and Z, even before Z (the blue line represents your originating timeline, before you were born), preferably at least before the first split counting backwards in time.
It is possible to traverse timelines, yet extremely difficult, only by going back prior to some previous split point and then choosing very carefully any action of yours in order to change track when the next split(s) occur (which is the actual difficult part, as it is almost impossible to know when exactly a split will occur, because the split is not determined by the final effect, but by the initial cause of it, within what we call an “event” – an event consists of multiple causes, one of which is the initial cause .. and a final effect).
So, this is what I think on this subject.
As for “Terminator”, it is just a movie .. and a very good one I might say. I like in general movies that handle time travel, but I see them simply as movies, as entertainment, as having a good time for a few satisfying hours. If you seek slipups, I suggest “Back To The Future” – there are plenty of them there, yet it is a great movie, in fact it is one of my most favorite movies.
8728
 

Randall_Flagg

New Member
Messages
3
Well again thanks for the reply. Again doesn’t address the question asked at all.
This isn’t a grandfather paradox. This is a bootstrap paradox.

The grandfather paradox in The Terminator is that the Terminator goes back in time to shoot Sarah Connor. If he had been successful, John Connor wouldn’t have been born, the resistance wouldn’t have been so effective, and Skynet wouldn’t have sent a terminator back to kill Sarah Connor.

What I am asking about is the bootstrap paradox of terminator goes back because John Connor is good military leader. John becomes good military leader because terminator goes back.

I have had another think about this.

it is a causal loop in the form of a bootstrap paradox.

the information with no point of origin is the information that the Terminator holds about John Connor being a good military leader.

John is only a good military leader because a terminator comes back to 1984.

a terminator only comes back to 1984 because John is a good military leader.
 

Kairos

Senior Member
Messages
1,103
You can't fix shitty science fiction written by Hollywood, really. The best you can do is to somehow slip in a spoof past the Soviet-Harvard censors, like Galaxy Quest or Ice Pirates.


 

NIXIE

Member
Messages
214
A time travel device would only send you back or forward on your own time line. Your arrival may cause a new time line but how would you skip to different time lines?

wrong... a time machine always sends you to an alternate timeline if you go back, but not if you go forward.
Although, there are anomalies that may arise since large scale changes may lead to permanent changes across multiple timelines if there are enough reactive causations or witnesses to said changes. It works like a sort of quantum effect.

Also, I know from experience that if you go back far enough in time, a version of you may be witnessed or actualized across multiple dimensions/timelines... which could end up being your own timeline of the future. I do not claim to understand this or know it all or why though, I have just witnessed that factualization, and been told about it by the best rogue time traveler I ever knew and I do remember seeing him when I was young at the roller skating rink that I guess I told him about one time we were supposed to meet last summer(he told me about the meeting around 10 years before it happened/was supposed to happen), but the satanic(going to burn in hell FOR REAL)freemasons that control the secret of time travel in the dimension I am from prevented that meeting from even happening... So who did he meet anyway? I have to continue to wonder.. because he really did meet me, but that never happened for me since it was prevented by them... I guess there are some dimensions in the past that will never occur in prevented futures...
 
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Angelface239

Active Member
Messages
723
Well again thanks for the reply. Again doesn’t address the question asked at all.
This isn’t a grandfather paradox. This is a bootstrap paradox.

The grandfather paradox in The Terminator is that the Terminator goes back in time to shoot Sarah Connor. If he had been successful, John Connor wouldn’t have been born, the resistance wouldn’t have been so effective, and Skynet wouldn’t have sent a terminator back to kill Sarah Connor.

What I am asking about is the bootstrap paradox of terminator goes back because John Connor is good military leader. John becomes good military leader because terminator goes back.

I have had another think about this.

it is a causal loop in the form of a bootstrap paradox.

the information with no point of origin is the information that the Terminator holds about John Connor being a good military leader.

John is only a good military leader because a terminator comes back to 1984.

a terminator only comes back to 1984 because John is a good military leader.
Okay.
 

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