You're up before dawn on a Saturday when the doorbell rings. You haven't brewed your coffee so you wonder if you imagined the sound. Plonking the half-filled carafe in the sink, you go to the front door and cautiously swing it open. No one there. As you cast your eyes to the ground, you see a parcel addressed to you ... from you.
You scoop it up and haul it inside, sensing something legitimate despite the extreme oddness of the situation. Carefully, you pry it open. Inside is a shoebox -- sent from ten years in the future -- and it's filled with items you have sent yourself.
What's in it?
The Truth About Time Travel
When it comes to time travel I adhere to some strict laws of logic and ethics. Well, ethics don't have all that much to do with the time travel laws since for me those laws are like unchanging laws of physics. The way I see it, you cannot change time--past, present, or future. Whatever happens or is going to happen is the way it is and nothing can change it.
This is what I hold against movies like Back to the Future and Looper. Since B2F is a comedy I can let that one pass. But even though I like Looper, it has broken the cardinal rule of time travel and therefore cannot be taken seriously. You can not come from the future to change something in the past so it will change a future outcome. Can't do it, it's against the laws of time physics. What's set in time cannot be changed. Anyone care to dispute that?
You can argue that there could be multiple alternate time dimensions with an infinite number of outcomes, but I find that theory somewhat difficult to accept. I suppose split time tracks could be possible, but I prefer the single time thread theory.
What's in the Box?
To establish the parameters of my Back from the Future fictional scenario, I will first presume that I will be very rich in ten years. If time transport were actually possible in ten years, it would more than likely be restrictive to most people other than the very wealthy or influential. Since I am not on track to become politically influential or powerful in any other ways of achievement, then wealth would be the way I would be able to get in on time transport.
How would I become hugely wealthy? In the box I would send a number of winning lotto combinations which I would play over the years in order to accumulate huge sums of money. I would also include some stock market outcomes and other finance information that I could use to make investments that would give me lucrative payouts. I would also send an assortment of popular candies just to treat myself with sweets of tomorrow.
This would all make sense since I would not be changing an outcome, but enabling what was going to happen. Everything that would happen between now and ten years from now would be totally logical, would adhere to the laws of time physics, and would be as it was meant to be with the appropriate outcome.
What do think? Is my time loop neatly constructed? Why would this not work--assuming that time transport were possible?
M Pax, Suze, and Nicki are hosting the Back From the
Future Blogfest on March 1. Visit their sites for the LInky
list so you can read what others wrote about.
