The Grandmother Paradox

Phoenix

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The Grandmother Paradox

fabiano
Posted: Apr 28 2003, 01:10 PM

This is the most common example of the Time Travel Paradox.
It describes how a Time Travellers action when travelling back in time alters the Time Travellers future creating a paradox.

Firstly the Time Traveller returns to a time before the birth of the Time Traveller ?s mother and therefore the Time Traveller. An action caused by the Time Traveller results in the death of the Time Traveller?s grandmother. There is now a paradox.

....if you kill your grandmother then you would not be born, therefore you cannot travel to the past and kill your grandmother, so you would be born, so you could travel to the past and kill your grandmother....

External link:
http://www.cix.co.uk/~antcom/gp.html
 

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The Grandmother Paradox

Cygnus_X
Posted: Jul 16 2003, 01:16 PM

Hi yes this is the most common paradox about time travel, what I think about this is that paradox does not existe at all you can't fire at your grand mother to kill her cause you know that nobody tried to before, it's like trying to change the end of a movie you can rewind it but the film will always be the same. If someone know this and want to try for some reson to kill his father or is grand mother, the shoot will simply miss, back in the present ask to your father if someone try to kill him when he was young he will positively respond :\"yes a man looking like you try to kill me when I was young\"











Les trous noir son la clef...
 

Phoenix

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The Grandmother Paradox

Phoenix
Posted: Jul 19 2003, 03:04 PM

Actually, you can kill your grandmother. And not just you, but anyone else in the time line that contains you going into the past. Which is a different time line then you would have come from, where you did not go in the past.

A good way to visualize this is with a game. Imagine a game in which you could save your place. When you load the game from that point, you have traveled back in time. It will not be the same time line you have played before, but a different one.

However this new past will in no way invalidate your old past, because it is a new present.Thus there is no theoretical difficulty.

In practice, the time travelers I knew seemed to go unconscious then die when their time line invalidated there existence. Specifically I refer to Tylor, Jason, Alex, and Shawn of the down website

http://www.islandnet.com/~rhb/Future_Page.html
 

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The Grandmother Paradox

Cygnus_X
Posted: Jul 19 2003, 05:34 PM

Phoenix What you talking about is true only if time alowed parallel universe cause if it's not you can'T kill you grand mother it will be call a paradoxe, cause that's impossible.

You can kill your mother in paralelle univers yes and the future of this new univers will be very different than the one your from. That is pretty easy to understand but if it's not paralelle univers... that mean everything in past is unchangeble event if you go back in time and think you've change something your not it's a loop in time if you go in past and \"CHANGE\" something it mean it always been like this you alway go back in time and do that action so you change nothing.

I don't know if my idea were understandable cause I am not use to express myself in english so if you have any questions or if any part is unclear don't be shy to ask me
 

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The Grandmother Paradox

Phoenix
Posted: Jul 19 2003, 05:59 PM

Your condition of \"if? makes your position clear.

I have seen such a one-time-line travel happen in an article about telepathic communication with an alien craft crashing into earth.

The first time the event was \"viewed\" was from an external perspective where it was observed, from channeling, that an alien craft was having difficulties and eventual wound up crashing. Then the channeling experience switched to one of being able to directly communicate with the aliens prior to the crash. The people channeling the aliens tried to suggest things to help the aliens, but none of the suggestions helped, and the craft wound up crashing and killing the aliens. Exactly as they had seen before. But the second time the people felt personally involved and actively sought to help, even forgetting, temporarily, that they had already seen the craft crash.

The thing with a one-time-line theory coupled with time travel is the invalidation of free will. If time travel is nothing more then a rewind on a VCR then time itself is nothing more then one big real of tape, including all of the future. We can aspire, hope, participate, and feel we are having an effect in our lives, but in reality we are as powerless as a reader of a book.

I had a theory in my youth that all of our life, from start to finish is nothing more then a flash in the pan instance. What we are experiencing now is our mind trying to go over it more slowly and figure out what just happened.
 

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The Grandmother Paradox

Cygnus_X
Posted: Jul 19 2003, 09:46 PM

I will start this reply by saying I realy apreciate your answer Phoenix
I am pleased that other people have the same interest has me


I want to maybe make something more clear I don't have any fix position on time travel I beleived in two major theorie Paralle universes and only one time line (VHS tape) I don't prefer one to the other it's 50% 50% cause every one of theme is logical and physicly acceptable. And that is realy wierd cause physicaly both can be reel...

If I travel trought time as a scientist I will have to chek this out which one is good by tryng to kill my earlier self or just cut him so deeply than I will have a scraf. If for some reason I can't, it's realy realy sad and boring but I will know that I just read the long book or (VHS tape) of the universe and I can't change it. It's not because it sad that is not true, proof we will have to die one day or an other, sad,boring, yes but that is true...

In and other hand if I kill my self and my young me die I will have the other answer Paralelle universe existe. If I go back in the future from that action I will discover something I have never seen before.

Something I don't beleived in is if there only one time line and you change something in the past and the future is updating that doesn't make any sens cause if you change something in the past the effect will not result only in the future but from when the action is made. So if we chek this one of the best movie (and i have it) back to the future cannot be reel, the picture will not disapear cause it's from and other parallele universe an in this universe every thing is ok his brother and his sister was born in that universe, maybe not in the one he his(cause he change things) but in the original one every things fine and the picture belongs to that universe...


I waiting for your new comments thanks
 

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The Grandmother Paradox

Phoenix
Posted: Jul 20 2003, 12:27 AM

In terms of the slow update theory, I completely agree with you. I often wondered what would have happened had Marty went forward in time to his headless brother. Wouldn't people recognize something was so stupidly wrong that the brother did not have a head? Or what about when his brother was just a pair of feet, would he be like thing in Adam's family?

Your point is well made. The picture should not have been affected. The other line from which the picture was taken is unaffected in a parallel universe.

Now in terms of your self experiment. Aren't you concerned about the moral implications of killing and scarring a younger you? What about something less vicious like a tattoo? Or some other method of testing the parallel verses singular time line.

Here is an effective experiment that does not involve killing or scarring anyone. Pick a point in time and space to travel to. Go there and stay like 30 minutes. Go back to the time you came from, then go back to that same time and place. If you meet a past you, and you did not previously meet a future you. You will have proven parallel worlds. If there was a furture you the first time you went, and when you go the second time you can not do anything but what the future guy did the first time, you will have proven you have no free will.

There is an intresting third model of time to consider that is represented in the 2000 movie \"The Time Machine.\" In it the time traveler goes back in time and tries to save his love from getting run over by a car. He is able to get them to different places, but no matter what he does, the same key events still occur, and she still winds up dieing by being run over by the car. This is not a VCR model of time, because no variation would be possible in a VCR single time line. Nor is it one only of free will, elements of the inevitable exist in it. It is more like the Parker Brothers game of life, where everyone has to get married regardless.

The board game has caused me to think of yet another theory of time. In board games things are not set, you roll dice and land on squares. But the squares don't change and were that way from begining to end. Infact in board games that rely only on dice, will is not involved, even if it is not the VCR single story line. So just because parallel universes are proved, if and when they are proved, is not a proof of free will. It could mean that time lines are just probabilities and permutations of possibilities that have always existed the way they do and that ultimately only chance, not free will, alters time.

A proof against this would involve repeated intentionality that is statistically improbable. But such would not be an absolute proof only a statistical probability.
 

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The Grandmother Paradox

Cygnus_X
Posted: Jul 21 2003, 08:11 AM

I totaly agree with you on all point you've made, We should made a parodie of back to the future staring the feets of Marty's brother and M. headless body . I don't know what the producers tought when they alowed it (maybe they don't push there theorie far enough) or maybe they just tough the average audience will not take care of it...

Now in terms of myself experient I agree again with you, I will never kill someone in my life or do anything violent. I just wanted to image the situation just to be more descriptive, but yes I will do other things than kill myself like just you said or just talk to him will be enough to know.

About the time machine movie, it's a realy interesting concept but I will put that theorie in third place and the two other one will be equal. Time machine is the one time line theorie (VCR) but there just mojor things you can't change... The evil will die at the end whatever you change in the movie. Now if it's one time line theorie, if she die differently every time that is ok but that will cause a subtile diffenrence in is reaction and He will not re-live every day the same way until he build the time machine, that will be differents but what happen to those \"lose\" though They don't event existe cause he replace the past by and other event. If we were in paralel universes that's ok and if we are in paralel universe he can save her cause that in and other time line maybe the other him will not construct the time machine in this universe but that doesn't matter.

And in board game I think that everything is set that not (Idon't know how you call it in english but it's hazard in french) every thing is set if you enter in a mathematical formula for every details you will know were the dice will land (that is some chaos theorie). You will chek the force witch you trow the dice the bump of the board, wind, gravity etc .... you will have to put maybe millions of detail event the butterfly disturbing the air in australia will affect your game... but I beleive if we put everything in the formula you will know.

Always a pleasure to talk with you
 

Phoenix

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The Grandmother Paradox

Phoenix
Posted: Jul 21 2003, 07:00 PM

In essense the time machine scenario assumes parallel universes. She died by a car crash the first time. He builds a time machine to save her, he takes her to a different part of the park. But the car still kills her. He then goes back again and tries to meet her before the meeting, he takes he all the way out to the city, there the car still kills her. Each time back is a new time line but each time line a key event keeps happening.

This is some what like in video games where there are many different paths but at the end of each level you still have to kill the boss of the level.

Actually that is a little less restrictive then the time machine movie scenario. In the time machine scenario she does die each time. In the boss at the end of the level scenario, though you wind up in the same circumstance, the outcome is not guaranteed. But it is still more restrictive then letting you go anywhere you want at that point in time.

To clarify your \"hazard\" theory. You sugest chance does not exist, everything is based on causuality (the English word). If that were true, so long as fine enough instruments were made, horse races and base ball games could be predicted. Or in anyway they could not be predicted was a result of will. I for one take the possition that chance does exist. And such math is imposible. Partly because so many centuries have gone by and such math calculations to predict games has not been created, even though trips to marz have been calculated. The other reason is that in real life chance of getting a basket ball seems to play a role.
 

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The Grandmother Paradox

Cygnus_X
Posted: Jul 29 2003, 10:02 AM

Hi Phoenix.

I will start directly by saying yes I don't think chance existe, everything is mathematic. That is what I beleived but has you said mankind are far from being able to calculate base ball game, there is to much factor to considerate.

There is the simple thing to chek before being able to calculate ex: the width of the feild, the wind factor, the weater, the temperature, how gravity act on that feild, how gravity act on each position of that feild, how gravity act when one persone on the feild, how it act when that person is moving, how it act when there is 2,3,4,5 or one team, what is the degree of friction of that grass, what material as been use for the bat, what is the pollution degree etc...

Now the fun part humain interaction you will have to calculate every brain of every player, witch mean every tough they had since they was born will influence that match. Maybe one player will play differently if is mother's dead last week, or as simple as it can be like the color of his new car will influence is performance, every action he have with every person in is life will influence that match. He will not even being conscient of that but that will affect.

Now analyse the million of information of that player and put it in your formula to see how he will play, after with every other player enter each of them in the formula how they will interact with each other, you will have an other result put that with every phisical element of that feild and you will have your answer.

A basse ball game is so complexe to calculate cause there is millions an millions informations to consider an they all interact with each other. Far but far but realy far away from sending someone to mars. Sending someone to mars is a piece of cake insted of calculation the result of a basse ball game. That's not cause it's unusual that it's complicated.

One good student will be able to calculate by a simple linear math to calculate this tripe, rotation of earth around the sun, rotation of mars, see the shorter distance calculate that distance he will see by a simple calcule that it will take 8 month to go when mars is at is nearess and 4 years to return if they stay one month. now calculate if you have enought fuel and here we go .

A basseball game is non-linear math (chaos theorie) With comlpex patern, you will have to chek every patern of everything how do they affect each other and you will be very close to your answer.
 

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