I ran across a helpful comment about time travel on a LOST blog I read regularly.
(Yes, I read a blog about a TV show. Regularly. Actually, I don't know how anyone can watch LOST without some sort of viewer's guide to keep up. It's like playing the original Legend of Zelda without Nintendo Power. No thanks.)
It was a nice summation of why we cannot change the past, even if we could go back in time:
"Say that you went back in time to stop John Wilkes Boothe from killing Lincoln. The whole point of you going back to this time period would be to stop the murder. However, once you stop it you would not have a reason to go back in time. Therefore the murder would still occur since you would not have gone back in time to stop it."
It made my brain hurt, but it actually seemed to make sense. I'm sure a bunch of 12 year-olds are like, "duh, we figured that one out in third grade." Well, I didn't, so back off.
7 comments:
Brian,
Please watch the Back to the Future trilogy . . . and maybe Austin Powers. That should straighten everything out.
-Jeff
Now that I've thought about it, discussed it with Janelle, and watched both BTTF and AP trilogies in a Red Bull-induced all-nighter, I don't know that I buy this theory.
If I stop John Wilkes Booth in 18-whatever, the course of history is changed. So when I come back to 2009, it's not the same 2009 that I left.
Still confused...
I read this yesterday, thought about it, came back to comment but you now said what I had semi-concluded. You saved Lincoln and now that's "what happened."
However, even with Lincoln saved from THAT disaster, the world will still be a degenerate place and many equally disastrous things will still occur. That's what irritates me about Jack's present position on LOST. He says, "this has been awful, we can stop this from ever happening." I just think, but brand new things, just as awful (and just as many good things) will STILL happen! So let it go.
Not to mention that Jack is seemingly OK with attempting to change the future so he'll never have met Kate.
But even if he were to succeed, would the "current Jack" (whatever the even means now) still have memories of the whole ordeal.
I just had a crazy thought, what if John Wilkes Boothe WAS from the future?! Maybe whatever Lincoln did after the Civil War dramatically altered history (for better or worse) and someone from the future sent JWB back to kill Lincoln?! Whoa...
Very nice.
I wonder what other major historical events could've occurred by someone going back in time. Or what events did not happen? Close calls?
Here's another scientific question for you:
If you are traveling 60 mph and are 60 miles from your destination and for every mile traveled you reduce your speed by 1 mph, will you always be 1 hour from your destination?
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