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Path: utzoo!kcarroll
From: kcarroll@utzoo.UUCP (Kieran A. Carroll)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: What's so bad about going back in time?
Message-ID: <3900@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-May-84 14:56:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.3900
Posted: Thu May 24 14:56:25 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 24-May-84 14:56:25 EDT
References: <3894@utzoo.UUCP>, <937@dciem.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 21

*

   True, the ability to go backwards in time seems to create
the possibility for paradoxical situations being generated. However,
this doesn't give the death-blow to time-travel. I mean, science-fiction
writers have been coming up with dodges around that problem
for the last 40 or 50 years!
One possibility: the "structure" of all events in space-time cannot
be changed, and that includes all actions taken by time travellers.
ie. if you go back in time to kill your grandfather, either your
gun wil jam, you'll end up deciding not to, etc., or you'll succeed,
only to find out that your father was a bastard (you killed the wrong guy!)
Or, maybe the Time Patrol will come and stop you...
2) Alternate realities split off whenever the universe reaches a
decision nexus; if you kil your grandfather, then when you return to the 
future, it'll indeed be one in which you weren't born. However,
the other time track still exists, in some suitably metaphysical sense.
etc.

-Kieran A. Carroll
...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll