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(Date Posted:04/25/2009 22:55:54)
Let me try to explain -
What if this morning you woke up and there was a knock on your front door - and it was you and you told yourself that tonight you would flash back to this morning where you would knock on your door. You could spend the day with your older self but then tonight - you would flash back to this morning and knock on your door and tell yourself that tonight the younger you would flash back to this morning.
At the end of the day, the younger you would flash back and the older you would continue on with your life having spent the day with yourself from 2 different perspectives - as the younger you meeting the older you and as the older you meeting the younger you.
Now the tricky part - if during your day together, there was a terrible car accident, the older you could die (because it is the older you's present) but the younger you knows that they can't die, because they had to be alive in order for the older you to go back in time one day. The older you would know what happened to the younger you (because you witnessed it when it happened to the younger you), but the older you wouldn't know what happend to the older you after you flashed back to the morning, because the older you hasn't lived past today yet. Now if the older you died during the day, then the younger you would know that during the day after you flash back, you would die. If the older you didn't die while the two of you were together, than neither one of you would know what is in store for you tomorrow.
There is only 2 copies of you during that one day that you spend together because the older you continues on with your life when the younger you flashes back. This isn't a continuous loop, it only happens 1 time to you, but some people trying to map out your life seem to get caught up in the fact that you are going around in circles. There is not ever a time where you didn't flash back today, and nothing the older you does can change what happened to the younger you because the older you remembers it happening. If you tried to not knock on your door, you would fail and end up there knocking anyway.
Hope that makes some kind of sense.
(Message edited by abraxas1954 On
04/26/2009 00:58:38)
Rank:none
Score:10258 Posts:2737
From: USA
Registered:05/28/2005
Time spent: 13864 hours
RE:Simple Time Travel Analogy
(Date Posted:04/26/2009 01:00:03)
JumpingGeronimo said... abraxas1954 said... Now if the older you died during the day, then the younger you would know that during the day after you flash back, you would die. _____________________________________________________________________________ Hey Brax. Sounds like a paradox in the making: If there’s an accident and the older you dies during the day, wouldn’t the younger you do everything possible to stop that from happening – like opting not to come back to spend the day with yourself? At least that’s what the current me would do if I were the younger you. In Lost, none of the characters have interacted with their younger selves (except Miles with himself as a baby who obviously doesn’t remember it happening), so there is no knowledge of their time traveling twin to affect their actions, which by WHH always happened that way. But I have to believe that anyone who meets their future self and sees their death wouldn’t repeat the future past.
You are 100% correct, you would try to prevent yourself from being killed, but everything you do would lead to you being killed. In this example you aren't traveling back a day by your own design - it happens to you - nothing you do will stop it. Like in Lost, something could happen to you that would keep you from remembering your death, like maybe the accident that killed the older you messed up your memory or something (like Ben not remembering being shot by Sayid). Things would always work just the 1 way that it worked out. At least, this is according to the Lost mythology on time travel.
Rank:none
Score:10258 Posts:2737
From: USA
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Time spent: 13864 hours
RE:Simple Time Travel Analogy
(Date Posted:04/26/2009 08:18:22)
zky7 said... Thank you, Brax, for the explanation. I accept everything you've said. It brought up this question for me:
Doesn't this mean that everyone who TT'ed to the past MUST return to their own timeline AFTER the point at which they TT'ed?
I say this because of the time loop problem. If we look at this from the POV of the older you:
At 12:00 pm on Jan 15, 2009, you travel back to 12:00 pm Jan. 1, 2009. You hang out with your younger self for the day, then flash forward to 12:01 pm on Jan 15. Everything is fine. But what if you flash forward to 11:59? Then, at 12:00 you will again flash back to Jan 1. It will create a never-ending time loop, and you will never move beyond Jan 15 12:00pm, right?
Or what if you never flash forward at all? You will live together with your younger self for 15 days. Then at 12:00pm on Jan 15, someone (your older self?) will flash back to Jan 1. I can't figure out, though, what would happen to your younger self (arrggh!).
Anyway, am I wrong about this? In order to avoid a time loop, don't the losties have to flash forward to a time after they first flashed back?
Thanks.
Not necessarily - I will explain more below.
It is the younger you that flashs (i.e. vanished before the older you's eyes). The older you would continue on in time and would be the only one left the next day.
So, since the older versions of the losties are not the ones that will be flashing back in the future (remember it is the younger versions that will) they can pass the time that their younger you disappears. Someone used the rollercoaster analogy on this board and it's pretty good. Imagine yourself on a rollercoaster going through a loop - you go through the loop one time and continue on down the track. When you are upside down and looking at the track as you loop back around - you can see the past part of the track - but you are still in your present - once you pass the part of the track that took you on your ride on the loop, you are in the future.
