David Lewis and Dr. J have both mentioned the grandfather
theory: if one were to go back in time, she could not kill her grandfather
because he would be incapable of having her parent who would be incapable of
giving birth to her. In one scene in Back
to the Future, Marty saves his father from an oncoming vehicle and saves his life; this is an interesting
alternative to the grandfather theory.
We never considered the possibility of saving our parent, grandparent,
or distant ancestor from death; something else would have saved them, as we
exist, yet we could have also?
One major fallacy arises as the movie concludes: the dynamic
of each of Marty’s family members has changed.
Because Marty altered his parents’ path, they became more confident and
successful. Their lives are drastically
different: considering this, Marty’s existence would be too, and he would not
exist or would exist as a different Marty, one who did not travel backward in
time and eventually return.
My time machine theory (please ignore the logical errors):
if one person had access to a time machine, travelled back in time (assume they're leaving 2015), and stayed
for more than a moment, the present (2015) would change. Someone would have stayed at a stop light one
second longer, another person would not have bumped into their future spouse,
etc. If numerous people time travelled backward, the present would begin to
change drastically. If many people travelled back in time, the present would
change constantly, every fraction of a second, you would be a different person
or cease to exist. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but one person could change
the present and future, so numerous people could radically alter it.
Richard Taylor’s description of time travel is simple,
undermines all of our classroom theories, and is a total buzzkill: “To imagine
“returning” to an earlier time is merely to imagine the recurrence of the
events of that time” (484). In other
words, it is impossible and left solely for the imagination. According to Taylor, “The future is something
necessarily lying ahead of us, and the past, behind us”…sorry Marty (486).
Sidenote: way easier
to follow than Looper.
Check out if you're bored, finished all your homework, and enjoy silly conspiracy theories and/or buzzfeed-like articles:
