A Theoretical Framework

The following is my best attempt to make theoretical sense of the experiences and events that are described in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series. One problem is that my theoretical framework does not fit with the way that the issues are presented and discussed within the series. However, I cannot think of a more appropriate framework.

Imagine that a horizontal straight line near the bottom of a page represents Timeline 1. Parallel straight lines higher up the page represent Timelines 2, 3 etc. The horizontal is a first temporal dimension. The vertical is a second temporal dimension. (The three spatial dimensions do not fit in the diagram. One of them is at right angles to the page.)

Usually, within a timeline, a time traveller disappears from one point on the straight line and (re)appears at another point on the same line but, in some circumstances, he disappears from a point on Timeline 1 and appears at a point on Timeline 2. (Or disappears from 2 and appears on 3 etc.)

Timeline 2 succeeds Timeline 1 in the vertical second temporal dimension. However, this vertical succession does not cause Timeline 1 to cease to exist at any point along its own horizontal extension. Still less is it true to say that Timeline 1 never existed within the second temporal dimension.

I exist - am born, live and die - in Timeline 1. If someone from Timeline 1 travels to Timeline 2 and prevents my birth in Timeline 2, then it is true to say that I have never existed in Timeline 2. In the second temporal dimension, Timeline 1, with me in it, has ceased to exist.

Thus, there is a context in which I exist (Timeline 1), a context in which I have never existed (Timeline 2) and a context in which I have ceased to exist (the second temporal dimension). Failure to differentiate between these contexts generates contradictions. (I think.)