First off, anyone and everyone would love to be able to time travel. There are so many options and possibilities that we have all missed out on that if we knew the answer to we might change them. I agree with Lewis when he says, "that a possible world where time travel took place would be a most strange world, different in fundamental ways from the world we think is ours." (492) This strange world is pictured perfectly by the bizarre world that skynet takes over in the Terminator movie.
James Cameron builds The Terminator much like the movie Looper is seen. There are irrefutable fact that come into the equation that make you overthink the movie because of the impossibilities. In The Terminator Officer Kyle Reese is sent back to protect Sarah Connors because is going to be killed by that terminator sent back before him. This seems all fine an dandy, until we consider the whole picture. The only reason that Kyle is sent back is because the future leader, Connors, told him to protect his mom, but in turn, ends up having sex with Sarah Connors causing her to have her child who eventually sends Kyle back to save his mom again. The only way that we can justify this is with the multiple times and universe theory, which means there are identical worlds out there with just very minor differences. If we take this into consideration then it is possible to change the past because the past for you is another persons present. David also states that, "the past is impossible to change because it is logically impossible."
Another issue that time travel has is the formation of matter that was not originally there. The laws of physics that matter cannot be either created or destroyed. This would be the in the instant like Looper where there are both two loopers present who are the same person. This would be impossible for two of the same person to exist in the same time and space. Time travel to the past has my aspects that can be questions and proved wrong unless the whole world that the movie is built in stays true to its own boundaries. The future has no boundaries though. The actions of the future are not decided yet and therefor have no implications that would hold the time traveler bound to his/her previous time.
The time machine problem is a perfect illustration for this movie. If i stole a time machine only to donate it to a museum so my early version could steal it again and donate it once more, then there is a never ending cycle. The only way for this to end is by the person dying before his time frame, loop has been reached again.
Time travel is one of those issues that people would never be able to contemplate and is only attainable in the movies. This is why we cant logically come to a conclusion for the questions that we ask because we do not know of the right answer and this time. Maybe a future version of us will tell present us the answer.
I really enjoyed reading this blog. Parts of it reminded me of the conversation you and I had after class last week. I think the theory of a multiverse is pretty interesting, and it has gain a lot of attention from a number of physicist in the theoretical science committee. A multiverse is the only logical explanation that I have come across that explains the paradoxes of time travel. It basically operates by diluting paradoxes with the multiple layers of multiple universes, which collectively map out every possibility and variability that the matter our universe can generate. However, the multiverse is theoretical, because we do not currently have a way to observe the actions or inner workings of an alternative universe. It is easy to assume that our perception of space and time is the "true" or "only" perception, because we have nothing to compare it to. Regardless of our ability to observe it, the possibility of a multiverse still exists.
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