Thursday 12 September 2019

On The Other Hand... II

I said here that the way to avoid arriving back in an altered timeline is to remain in your present but does someone who merely remains in his present risk being deleted by an earlier causality violation? Well, from the point of view of a time traveler who prevents World War I, he thereby deletes our version of history 1914-2019 etc. However, from our point of view here and now in this version of history, either we exist or we do not exist. Since we currently experience existence, it is not the case that we do not exist. The universe of 4N dimensions mentioned in Time Patrol training is vast enough to incorporate both a time traveler who has prevented us from existing in his timeline and us existing here and now in our timeline.

It makes no sense to say, as Patrol agents sometimes do, that, although I exist here and now, it might nevertheless turn out to be the case that I do not exist here and now. Of course, there can be another "here and now," exactly identical with this one except for my absence from it and that other here and now might exist after this one in the experience of a time traveler who has gone through the process of preventing my parents from meeting. But I exist here and now.

I have made these points before but will re-make them now and again as long as they continue to feel fresh. I am trying to pin down every implication of the Time Patrol series, an impossible task.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And Frank Tipler discussed the issue of alternate universes in THE PHYSICS OF CHRISTIANITY, from the POV of how quantum mechanics says there HAS to be parallel or alternate worlds.

Ad astra! Sean