tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post8569588182313846166..comments2024-02-04T05:13:04.501-05:00Comments on Nik at Nite: Whatever Happened, Happened... This One's For HurleyNikki Staffordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04463618183850438914noreply@blogger.comBlogger79125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-89943152726556127362009-04-10T15:21:00.000-04:002009-04-10T15:21:00.000-04:00adrian said: Hurley's subjective timeline is alway...adrian said: <I>Hurley's subjective timeline is always continuous (and I think that's where you're having the largest issue with all of this)</I><BR/><BR/>Nothing in my most recent longish post suggested I was having a hard time with this. I was simply asking about how the WHH framework answers certain metaphysical questions that need answers. I fail to see how questions about numerical identity are answered in the WHH framework. Maybe that means the framework entails that those questions don't make sense. But I fail to see how that is the case as well.leftynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-2600246208213222802009-04-10T06:59:00.000-04:002009-04-10T06:59:00.000-04:00Adrian: Blam: I was with you for a while there, bu...<I><B>Adrian:</B> Blam: I was with you for a while there, but then you went back to the mutable side. If we are to have a static timeline (i.e. immutable), then the timeline cannot change, regardless of the time travel that is happening with our Losties. In order for the timeline to change, then the timeline would have to also experience time...I guess meta-time. If the Losties can change the past, then that means the timeline has a past and a future, which seems impossible if we're talking about a one and only timeline. What you're suggesting then is a multi-verse theory.</I><BR/><BR/>I did refer to <I>über</I>-time ("meta-time" is better) and you're right about how, in a way, yet another dimension of perspective would be added. <BR/><BR/>The concept may be freaky, but -- and I'm not saying this is case -- if the timeline's big picture <I>is</I> inviolate but details can be changed, then you would have the situation I described: One snapshot we took of the entirety of spacetime would look one way, and then after some anomaly occurred some details throughout the timeline would instantly change and our snapshot would look a bit different. My analogy for <I>this</I> would be a word-processing document that is static in length, whose general subject can't be altered and to which you can't actually add any paragraphs, but you <I>could</I> do find-and-replace on a word with a synonymous equivalent, <I>only</I> by clicking the "change all" option, so that the word replacement would happen simultaneously, changing that detail but not the overall gist of the document.<BR/><BR/>I tend to favor the multiverse theory and branching dimensions where time travel is concerned, but we're not the ones creating the model here; we're just trying to complete the blueprint from what's been given to us.Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-57145350173554728422009-04-09T14:43:00.000-04:002009-04-09T14:43:00.000-04:00Blam: I was with you for a while there, but then y...<B>Blam</B>: I was with you for a while there, but then you went back to the mutable side. If we are to have a static timeline (i.e. immutable), then the timeline cannot change, regardless of the time travel that is happening with our Losties. In order for the timeline to change, then the timeline would have to also <I>experience</I> time...I guess <I>meta</I>-time. If the Losties can change the past, then that means the timeline has a past and a future, which seems impossible if we're talking about a one and only timeline. What you're suggesting then is a multi-verse theory.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17581641500818448023noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-16918409466080175672009-04-09T09:20:00.000-04:002009-04-09T09:20:00.000-04:00Don't worry, I was just confirming and certainly n...Don't worry, I was just confirming and certainly not calling you out on it!Bennyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16036549649615941601noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-464729277100386262009-04-09T03:12:00.000-04:002009-04-09T03:12:00.000-04:00I wasn't doubting it, Benny -- or suggesting that ...I wasn't doubting it, Benny -- or suggesting that if I didn't hear it it didn't happen -- but the confirmation is appreciated. Really it was just a cover-my-ass aside because I didn't know the wording but wanted to acknowledge that I knew the proclamation had occurred.Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-44922914551396467202009-04-09T01:43:00.000-04:002009-04-09T01:43:00.000-04:00Blam: I heard them say it. They can still come aro...Blam: I heard them say it. They can still come around and find a caveat in their proposition. But to the extent of who's heard them say there was only one timeline, I did.Bennyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16036549649615941601noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-85906120311745792132009-04-09T01:36:00.000-04:002009-04-09T01:36:00.000-04:00One more thing: I'm not actually convinced that th...One more thing: <BR/><BR/>I'm not actually convinced that the characters who jumped into the past were "always" there, by the way. The explanation I gave above would describe how, even if they weren't there in the <I>über</I>-past of the all-of-a-piece timeline -- a snapshot of the whole timeline that we as a godlike being took a few weeks ago -- their arrival in 1977 would instantly trip all relevant future points, like a circuitbreaker, to positions (realities) that reflected their arrival. And by definition their arrival and whatever it did to the right side of the timeline beyond 1977 wouldn't bend the timeline beyond recognition, but rather be absorbed somehow.<BR/><BR/>Even beyond what I describe or defend above, however, I'm not sure that the past is really immutable beyond the constraints of "course correction". I still think it's possible that Mrs. Hawking was lying or incorrect, that Alex's death wasn't supposed to happen, that even if the Oceanic bunch's arrival in 1977 is acceptable reality-shifting we may yet see actions that break the timeline as it "should" be, or even that their arrival in 1977 itself screwed with things. We really don't have anything beyond Darlton's pronouncement of one inviolate timeline to go on, and I didn't even hear that myself, so we could yet see branching alternate timelines or the sort of past-changing paradox that Hurley was worried would have him vanish like Marty McFly.Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-46589741771066606602009-04-09T01:14:00.000-04:002009-04-09T01:14:00.000-04:00I think that Miranda's explanation is the best yet...I think that Miranda's explanation is the best yet: "Let's say Sawyer was 35 in 2004. He got on the plane, lived on the island, etc. as a 35 year old. He went back in time and lived as a 36, 37, 38 year old in 1974, 1975, 1976. Of course a 35 year old doesn't remember what he did when he's 38. ..."<BR/><BR/>Go back and read the whole thing if you missed it. Everybody forget my analogy and listen to her. I brought up character's ages when trying to explain things to a friend, but I was tired and it didn't come off nearly as elegantly and simply as this.<BR/><BR/>What seems to be the final hurdle for some folks, Lefty most vocally, who can't quite understand or "accept" the way that time and time travel appear to be set up on <I>Lost</I> — and no offense; that's just for lack of better words — is that <B>while time is linear, in that it's a line, it's not <I>progressively</I> linear</B>, as it would be if the "right" side, a.k.a. the future, were actually dependent on the "left" side, a.k.a. the past, the way most of us read or draw number lines.<BR/><BR/>The events of 2007 follow the events of 1977 on <I>Lost </I> for most people, just as they do for us, on both conceptual and physical levels. Indeed, thinking and moving bodily <I>backwards</I> through time — or even forward at any rate other than that at which we live — in our 3D world is as impossible to us as moving up and down through the height dimension would be for people in a 2D world who can only move forward and back through length on their world of a flat sheet of paper. <BR/><BR/>[Let me interject that the moving backwards part isn't like rewinding or walking backwards. It's actually blipping out and blipping in years before — or ahead, as happens when exiting the FDW chamber, which has been largely ignored in this discussion — and moving forward again. <I>Memento</I> isn't really told "backwards"; we just use that as a shorthand, because it skips to scenes set progressively earlier.]<BR/><BR/>For <I>Lost</I>, or so it would appear, this line was called into existence all at once. It's not like a line of dominoes or railroad tracks where the "future" is predicated on the past being built. (Okay, I know railroads were actually built to meet in the middle so work could be done on both halves simultaneously. And I realize that when playing dominoes you can shoot out from the side, but it's useful to think of what we normally imagine when thinking of the timeline as relying on causality like dominoes, where the next piece depends on having a number matching the previous piece.) The timeline of <I>Lost</I>'s universe was created by God or the Cosmic Whatever all of a piece. Hurley did have to be born like everybody else, but all that matters for agreement in this absolute equation is that there's a birth point, a death point, and, for the few people who are shunted from one point in time to another abnormally, that you can connect the dots.<BR/><BR/>Even if time can somehow be changed in small ways and thus "course correction" exists as some kind of universal self-defense mechanism like Eloise Hawking suggested, the very same moment that a disturbance occurred at one point, little bits of the line further down would be changed so that everything was in agreement, as if, to mix some metaphors, the whole line was a voodoo doll that reacted to itself instantaneously. You could say that it's not so much "Whatever happened, happened," as "Whatever is happening, is happening," and that any action is correct or will be corrected faster than nerves shoot through you so that your brain realizes immediately that you just stubbed your toe.<BR/><BR/>This could even work in terms of memory, so that if Daniel told Desmond something "new" in the past, Desmond would suddenly "remember" it in the future at some equivalent point that would make sense if we knew the underlying cosmic mechanism or the writers didn't screw up. (What makes the most sense to me is that equivalent subjective time is involved, although we all wondered why Desmond recalled it three years after he left the island when Daniel had only seen him in the Hatch in the past a day or so after Daniel experienced Desmond leaving. Maybe the time-displacement field around the Island messed with that.) <BR/><BR/>I tend to believe that the universe nudges us in the right direction, but not that our fates are utterly preordained. While it's comforting to believe that whatever happened was supposed to happen in the natural and cosmic order of things, somehow I can hold that belief simultaneously with the belief that we possess free will and can make choices that are not forced upon us, just as I believe in science and observed truths as well as a higher power and planes of existence beyond those we can measure.<BR/><BR/>I hope that this pops up naturally in the Comments section of Nikki's post on the new episode too, Lefty, or if that feels inorganic that we continue to talk about this here. Nikki's post just went up because I took so long banging this out, in fact, so let me post a pointer there and leave it up to her to issue an edict either way.Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-10700313126542672852009-04-08T21:07:00.000-04:002009-04-08T21:07:00.000-04:00Sorry if it's a little be chaotic, I was in a hurr...Sorry if it's a little be chaotic, I was in a hurry before the airing.Bennyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16036549649615941601noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-82349904916648121552009-04-08T21:00:00.000-04:002009-04-08T21:00:00.000-04:00@lefty: to further adrian's explanation of point 1...@lefty: to further adrian's explanation of point 1, you have to stop thinking of time as actually progressing. In the WHH scenario, time does not exist, let alone time travel. The name of <I>'time'</I> comes from explaining how we, as humans, perceive existence. So time travel is neither time nor travel, it is the natural existence of the whole, one's existence spans those seemingly disjoint [<I>temporal</I>] spaces.<BR/><BR/>When you travel from New York to London, your existence in NY stops randomly and you disappear. In London, you just seem to appear. In this case your travel (plane ride over the Atlantic) is visible as people from NY see you take off and those in London see you land.<BR/><BR/>In the case of time traveling, the same is true, replace the name of the cities with timestamps and the Atlantic (void of land) represents the period b/w the two stamps.<BR/><BR/>The numerical identity of an individual is not created at one specific point in time, it is created at all points in time at the creation of the universe. From year 0, the universe/god has decided that Hurley will have the num. id. X and his presence will span 'birth'-2007/1977-'death' (assuming he dies in the <I>past</I>). The 2007/1977 physical existences will be linked by a singularity which will be perceived by said individual as time traveling.<BR/><BR/>From Kripke's perspective, <I>time</I> is thought of as moving in one direction and causality as being significant. Cause=sperm+egg, effect=someone's existence. But the entire history should be perceived as a block. Think of a word you write in cursive, starting with the first letter and chaining every other letter consecutively. When you write a sentence, you write a set of joined words. But if you have a stamp of that word, you can't tell which art came first, the word just appeared on the page. That stamp is existence as it is and human life in time is tracing over it. You do it from beginning to end but in fact you're only following what's been determined.<BR/><BR/>As for point 2, the idea is that even if you thought your intentions were to kill yourself as 10 yr. old, you wouldn't be able to, it was determined that you weren't successful, since whatever hapenned when you were 10, you didn't die.Bennyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16036549649615941601noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-75798164414079750072009-04-08T17:30:00.000-04:002009-04-08T17:30:00.000-04:00Lefty: For point 1: I can't add anything else to t...<B>Lefty</B>: <BR/><BR/>For point 1: I can't add anything else to this question except: this is the essence of time travel. To the folks in 1977, Hurley did, in fact, inexplicably pop into existence from nowhere. Does that make him essentially different from the Hurley that existed in 2007? No. Hurley's subjective timeline is always continuous (and I think that's where you're having the largest issue with all of this) even though his objective timeline isn't. All Benny and I are trying to say is that, because Hurley always existed in 1974, he always has to travel back in time 2007. Without one, you can't have the other. Everything is interconnected even though it seems discontinuous on the an objective, linear timeline. <BR/><BR/>For point 2: No, it's still assumed that causality is an essential part of this time travel scenario. Killing yourself as a child will form a paradox. This is why I believe the writers set up this show's form of time travel the way they did. No one in the story is in control of when they pop up. They have no conscious decision to ever time travel. They're simply dragged along through time. This sets up a simple yet very important constraint on the time travelers' actions. If someone were given the control over time travel and were able to do it whenever they wanted, all of these paradoxes would come into play. However, since the Losties' time travel is set up in a way where they have no control when they time travel and when they end up, we can have slightly more confidence that the immutable timeline theory holds well in this mythology. This obviously means that these paradoxes can still happen. Faraday may have tip-toed on the paradox side by prematurely talking to Desmond when he was still holed up in the Swan station (it's still arguable that this is the way it always was), but now there is really no opportunity for the Losties to interact with their younger selves (or even parents, grandparents, etc.) given the time of their time travel and their relatively secluded location.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17581641500818448023noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-53501543687509991652009-04-08T16:20:00.000-04:002009-04-08T16:20:00.000-04:00OK, I've been trying--in between work tasks--to wr...OK, I've been trying--in between work tasks--to wrap my head around some of the implications of the view WHH framework. Let me see if I can articulate some of things that still puzzle me.<BR/><BR/>I have two main sets of questions. The first concern numerical identity (i.e. what makes an entity the same entity over time, or what makes two putative entities actually one in the same entity [e.g. "the morning star" = "the evening star" = venus, to use Frege's example]). The second concerns the paradox of self-infanticide.<BR/><BR/>Let's start with numerical identity. One of my main concerns was that if we go with the WHH/All-times-Are-Ontologically-Real framework, we would--if we allow time travel--lose our ability to individuate objects. For example, although I can change my hair-color (or my body build or the shape of my nose, etc.) and still be me, this is because who I am <I>essentially</I> turns not on those accidental features of me, but rather on the fact that I am the product of THAT sperm and THAT egg joining all those years ago. If a different sperm had joined with the same egg (or the same egg with a different sperm, or two different sperm and egg), the entity that would have resulted would not have been me--it would have been someone else (just as my brother is not me, but rather someone else). (This is the most commonly used conception of numerical idenity used in academic philosophy today. See Kripke's _Naming and Necessity_)<BR/><BR/>OK. Now. I was worried that if this is the way we go about individuating humans (i.e. by treating some HISTORICAL fact setting the conditions for numerical idenity), then we face difficulties if we allow time-travel within a WHH framework. For if Hurley successfully time-travels to 1974, he has ALWAYS been in 1974. But his parents have not (let's assume) gotten together before then, and so cannot have produced Hurley before 1974. The WHH framework seems to lead to the view that he just--POOF!--pops into existence in 1974 and out of existence in 2004.<BR/><BR/>Now, I guess I'm fine with that in general. But I'm consumed by the following questions: So where does Hurley come from? What makes Hurley Hurley (in 1974)? What are the criteria of numerical identity in the WHH framework? Unless we can answer these question--and I really hope you guys have some cool answers--then I have a hard time seeing why we have reason to treat Hurley-2004 and Hurley-1974 as THE SAME person? The connection between those two entities seems so tenuous and bizarrely linked that it drives me toward wondering if there is any reason to think Hurley-2004 is more linked to Hurley-1974 than he is to (e.g.) Me-2009. Here's why: imagine that Hurley's hair had changed color during the trip from 2004 to 1794. We would not treat this change as implying that the identity of the underlying person has changed. And this is for the Kripke's reason that we rightly trace underlying identity back to the event of sperm-egg unification. But in the WHH framework, the idea of "tracing back" seems utterly misplaced. In what way, within that framework, does it make sense to trace the identity of Hurley-1974--a Hurley who has, it is claimed, ALWAYS existed in 1974--"back" to an event that occurs nine months before his birth in <I>1977</I>? But if the WHH framework does not allow this form of "tracing back," it is unclear what criteria of identity we are using. And if we have no firm criteria, it is unclear why we are entitled to say that Hurley-2004 and Hurley-1974 are THE SAME PERSON. It seems equally valid to say that Jack-2004 and Hurley-1974 are the same person. Yet that is obviously absurd.<BR/><BR/>***<BR/><BR/>Finally, a question about self-infanticide. It has been claimed that the WHH framework requires the truth of the self-consistency principle. This entails (it is claimed) that you cannot travel back in time and kill yourself as a baby. You can't do this because if you die as a baby, you won't be alive later and so cannot later go back in time at all. But now note that in traveling back in time, you are essentially popping out of existence in 2009 and popping into existence in (say) 1977. So now my question: in the WHH framework (assume it can answer my first set of questions), the idea of "ceasing to exist"--which we typically associate with death--is quite slippery. Could we therefore hold onto our idea of death as ceasing to exist <I>here and now</I>, and allow the possibility self-infanticide <I>as long as</I> the person who is killed eventually pops back into existence (i.e., is "born again") at some point between being killed and going back in time to do the killing?<BR/><BR/>(i realize that a new episode is upon us; but I hope we don't lose the thread of this discussion. if these questions are still relevant after tonight's episode, and if attention turns to Niki's new thread for that episode, I may repost this in that new thread.)leftynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-78049784612081735752009-04-08T13:40:00.000-04:002009-04-08T13:40:00.000-04:00@Anonymous: I don't think it would. I think there ...<B>@Anonymous:</B> I don't think it would. I think there are more than just two opposing views in here and I don't think that being a fan of time travel science fiction would help a lot.<BR/><BR/>The debate has gone beyond the realm of 'context' and has taken a turn for the more philosophical implications and physical possibilities (and probabilities). I think it might be worth it to write a simplification of the various points of views, and graphical representations, being discussed here. I certainly wouldn't mind doing so.<BR/><BR/><B>@Jazzgirl/Nikki/others...:</B> I feel that the embers analogy is somewhat apt. I don't think anyone was going to resort to name-calling, we're all smart enough to avoid it. But this is evolving into an interesting and passionate debate topic and is likely not going to be resolved by any of our arguments.<BR/><BR/>The truth is, we don't know which way the writers are taking it, and if they want to stick to the realm of current physical possibilities and proof, the WHH route may be best. If they want to take it to a different, more philosophical/metaphysical direction, than that the past can be changed would be one possibilities.<BR/>There are certainly other versions of each (the one lefty presents being one). And whichever way they take it should be fine by us if explained, after all it is a fictional TV show, as Jazzgirl said.Bennyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16036549649615941601noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-90247390956536855872009-04-08T13:19:00.000-04:002009-04-08T13:19:00.000-04:00ok so I have read through these comments twice and...ok so I have read through these comments twice and would it make me a total idiot to actually say that I still dont get it??? SIGH :-(Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-3679421576815802192009-04-08T12:48:00.000-04:002009-04-08T12:48:00.000-04:00Nikki, I agree completely. And I don't think anyon...Nikki, I agree completely. And I don't think anyone was attacking anyone else. Perhaps it's the teacher in me, but I just wanted to throw water on the smoldering embers before they erupted into a fire. :) And I thought that was a Buffy reference (sorry, I never watched) but it was appropriate to use. LOL! <BR/>Can't wait for tonight!Jazzygirlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08451286913250300082noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-40809229818942774952009-04-07T22:24:00.000-04:002009-04-07T22:24:00.000-04:00@Brian Douglas: Interestingly enough, I was just t...@Brian Douglas: <BR/>Interestingly enough, I was just thinking about the possibility of more than one universe. Call it parallel universes if you will.<BR/>I remember reading about a theory that suggests that "similar beginnings lead to similar results," and assumes there are several other Earths in the universe, all going forward in time, and maybe with the same people. Only slight differences can be found here or there. For example, on Earth 36, Germany actually developed a nuclear bomb before America and bombed, say, London, Washington, and Moscow and won the war. On Earth 4, Nikki is South African not Canadian, and I am Italian not Egyptian. You get the picture.<BR/>I find it very interesting that you suggest that the Losties traveled back in time "to a different universe," which is a cool way to explain a lot of things. I once read an Arabic sci-fi novel where that exactly happens. <BR/>Ms. Hawking said that the Island was always moving. It can't be moving around the world with a tour guide of course, so it is moving in time. This suggests that the Island itself can't exist twice in the same time; there can't be two Islands. So what if the Island (a unique creating of God or a self-created place or whatever) is the only "thing" that can travel back and forth between universes? <BR/>I hope I'm making sense and I'd like to know your thoughts.Hisham Fahmyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11988963046927955555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-24486087719045509932009-04-07T11:38:00.000-04:002009-04-07T11:38:00.000-04:00Nikki: I think it's because we all realise that it...Nikki: I think it's because we all realise that it is a tricky concept to wrap your head around. As lefty said, it is counterintuitive. Learning to go against your intutition is what I think the hardest part of physics. As a little green man once said, you must unlearn what you have learned.Brian Douglashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17850766773943226299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-46006204876122539392009-04-07T09:44:00.000-04:002009-04-07T09:44:00.000-04:00Anonymous: Well said!!Anonymous: Well said!!Nikki Staffordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04463618183850438914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-27986098410931077082009-04-07T08:18:00.000-04:002009-04-07T08:18:00.000-04:00Jazzy: LOL! Actually, I was referring to Buffy whe...Jazzy: LOL! Actually, I was referring to Buffy when a concept has gone over her head or when her mind has gone numb, and she says all she can think is Fire bad, tree pretty to try to get her head back on track. :) <BR/><BR/>But yes, this is definitely a nice place to visit, and I like it staying that way.<BR/><BR/>That said, I think this conversation has been pretty respectful so far. There's some frustration, but no one has resorted to name-calling or sounds exasperated with another person. We've had some of those commentators on here before, and this thread isn't anything like that. So bravo, everyone, for discussing a frustrating and difficult (and dividing) concept without flaming each other. <BR/><BR/>I think it was adrian up above who brought up the Slaughterhouse-Five concept, and to that I say EXACTLY. Ever since I read that book in the context of The Constant I think it's pivotal to understand this show. The protagonist is unstuck in time and keeps blooping around to various points in his life (unlike the jumping on the island, he never jumps to a time outside of his life) and there's no other version of himself, it's just him. The difference is, when he goes back 10 years, he's 10 years younger; his subjective timeline and objective timeline are one and the same (sort of... while his body is younger, his mind still knows what's happening and remembers seeing this before, so his mind is older than it was before), he just keeps visiting them. But he KNOWS what's going to happen, and has decided there's nothing he can do to stop it. Stepping onto a plane that's going to crash into a mountain, he steps on it anyway, figuring it's going to happen, it's always happened, so why try to stop it?Nikki Staffordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04463618183850438914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-9879193836096349472009-04-07T07:54:00.000-04:002009-04-07T07:54:00.000-04:00Now if you assume that time travel is possible, th...<I>Now if you assume that time travel is possible, then by extension all points in time must exist. You wouldn't be able to travel to the past if it no longer exists. You wouldn't be able to travel to the future if it doesn't exist yet. You can't travel someplace that doesn't exist.</I><BR/><BR/>Exactly. I think this theory would be cool to explain the idea of ghosts - people don't see the spirits of the dead, they see glimpses into another time. <BR/><BR/>I think the important thing for Lost is that they remain consistent to the time travel theory they embrace, whether it be whatever happened, happened, or parallel universes splintering off when time is changed etc.<BR/><BR/>In any case, I'm enjoying the ride. Even if they don't have a Tardis (or even if the Island is a big Tardis). :)Colleen/redeem147https://www.blogger.com/profile/17125457976511333341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-39820520151486281382009-04-07T02:49:00.000-04:002009-04-07T02:49:00.000-04:00@Benny The analogy of a book is simplified but wor...@Benny <I>The analogy of a book is simplified but works. Once you get a book in your hand, the story has been written; it has a beginning, middle and end. Human experience would compare to reading it from start to finish. That is, you don't know what will happen and you only have knowledge of what you have read. But one could decide to read chapter 7 first, then skip to the end, only to leave the beginning for last. God wrote the book.</I><BR/><BR/>I love your book analogy, Benny - and it's particularly appropriate to Lost.Remember the Book of Laws Richard presented to Locke as part of that test when he was a child? I've always thought that had some significance - maybe suggesting that the Others have always known what has happened and what is going to happen.(although that seems to have been disproved with Richard Alpert's surprise at Sawyer's appearance in LaFleur)Ali Bagsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-85343571775738350232009-04-07T00:25:00.000-04:002009-04-07T00:25:00.000-04:00Benny: I was using the word "objective" in the sen...Benny: I was using the word "objective" in the sense that there is a single, universal time.<BR/><BR/>lefty: The Novikov self-consistency principle is the generally accepted by the scientific community. The closest thing to the alternate theory your suggesting is the many-worlds interpretation. In this case, there would be two universes, which I'll call Universe A and Universe B. In Universe A, let's say Hurley did not travel back to 1977. In Universe B, let's say he did. However, in Universe B, there always is a Hurley in 1977, just as discussed above. Even in the many-worlds interpretation, the Novikov self-consistence principle will still hold. But what if Hurley traveled from 2007 in Universe A to 1977 in Universe B? Well, that's not really time travel. He's not traveling to his past.<BR/><BR/>This may or may not be the case, but it is what some very smart people who have spent a lot of time thinking about time have to say about the issue, and is there best guess as to the way things are.Brian Douglashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17850766773943226299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-48547218495155328972009-04-06T23:07:00.000-04:002009-04-06T23:07:00.000-04:00On a lighter note, I just checked Jorge Garcia's b...On a lighter note, I just checked Jorge Garcia's blog and they finished shooting the finale last week. Very exciting!Jazzygirlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08451286913250300082noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-21895937650176352002009-04-06T22:57:00.000-04:002009-04-06T22:57:00.000-04:00I'm with you Nikki...I just read through all these...I'm with you Nikki...I just read through all these recent comments and I think everyone needs to take a deep breath. You're on the verge of personal attack and I would HATE to see that on here. One of the reasons I come here is because it doesn't happen on this blog. <BR/>Everyone has a right to defend their own beliefs. I have always liked how people on here amicably discuss things. This is getting dangerously close to fighting. Let's play nice, kids. <BR/>After all, it's a TV show. :) <BR/>I have enjoyed everyone's explanations and I do wholeheartedly thank everyone who has offered their best explanation of time travel stuff. After reading all this, I know who's ideas make the most sense to me, especially in the scheme of this show...but I'm not going to say because I don't want to add fuel to the fire that's burning. As Nikki said, Fire bad.<BR/>P.S. The funny thing is that I'm watchin Star Trek NG and it's an episode about time travel! LOL!Jazzygirlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08451286913250300082noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-32420415046207062482009-04-06T21:29:00.000-04:002009-04-06T21:29:00.000-04:00:::sniffle::: Just when I thought I was starting t...:::sniffle::: Just when I thought I was starting to get all of it, I just plowed through this list of comments, and... gulp. <BR/><BR/>To quote Buffy: "Fire bad. Tree pretty."Nikki Staffordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04463618183850438914noreply@blogger.com