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Monday, 16 November 2009 08:23 |
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The Consistent Histories approach to the grandparent paradox is the most simplistic and probably hardest to defend. It allows time travel back along the timeline in which the traveler exists, into the actual past of the person. This alone is in conflict with the Multiverse and Alternative Histories theories. The functional part of the theory simply says that the traveler is prevented from taking any action which affects the past. If you try to kill yourself in the past, something will stop you.
This is a painfully deterministic theory and is unpleasant from the perspective that the future of the time traveler is mapped out for as long as he remains in the past. This theory is hard to substantiate due to lack of mechanism. There is a supportable argument for the existence of the Multiverse and hence the Alternative Histories theory. However, there is no proposal for how this theory will stop one from changing history. Will one find that anything one tries to change is immobile and cannot be moved by the time traveler, or will the traveler's hand pass straight through it? These minor questions lead to the question of whether or not one can change anything at all in the past. The simple presence of a time traveler in the past would be enough to make the Vikings freak. This change may be enough to cause a major change to the present and thus raises the question of whether or not light will be scattered off the person. If not, the traveler will not be visible to the people from the past. If one cannot be seen, heard or felt by the past, does one actually exist in the past? This sort of philosophical problem demonstrates that the theory leaves too much open to question to be taken as a rational explanation or excuse.
Another possible mechanism for the operation of this theory is that any action a time traveler takes in the past has already been accounted for and become part of history. This means that the actions of the traveler have happened and taken effect before the time traveler has even traveled. This sounds predeterministic, but it allows the traveler to take any action he/she pleases and not affect his/her present, because every action has already been accommodated in the past.
None of these explanations can offer a full solution, and better explanations must be found for the Consistent Histories theory to gain respect. It has potential but as yet cannot explain anything like all the problems which emerge.
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