"Membership in the family of God is neither inconsequential or something to be casually ignored. The church is God's agenda for the world. Jesus said, "I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it." The church is indestructable and will exist for eternity. It will outlive this universe, and so will your role in it."
- Rick Warren
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Spoiler Alert - If you haven't seen the Season 5 Premiere, then go watch it, then come back in time and read this...
Having been a Sci-Fi junky for more years than I can count I have read and watched more time travel stories than... (a comparison fails me here. Suggestions?)
Here's what I've noticed. There are two basic theories/philosophies of time travel.
Theory 1- "The Timeline is changeable." According to this theory, you can go back in time and change the past, which in turn affects the future. In other words, if you go back and do something different than what happened the first time, then a new reality is created. Most time travel stories follow this theory. Back to the Future is probably the best-known illustration of this theory. Star Trek uses this one a lot too. To put it another way, if you went back in time and killed person A's grandfather, then when you returned to your own time you would find that person A "never existed".
Theory 2 - "The Timeline is unchangeable" According to this theory, you can't go back in time and change the past. Because if you go back to do something you will find that you were a part of it all along, or circumstances will thwart you. In other words, you can't go back and do something different, because if it happened a certain way, it happened a certain way period. There is only one timeline... the one you move back and forth on. Anything you do will turn out to be the way it happened in the first place. Some stories that follow this theory are "12 Monkeys" and H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" and Christopher Reeve's "Somewhere in Time" and "Kate and Leopold". To use my previous illustration, according to this theory, if you went back in time to kill Person A's grandfather you would be thwarted and you might very well find yourself being the catalyst of what actually did happen, say causing Person A's grandfather to fall in love with Person A's grandmother.
I subscribe to theory 2. It's my favorite for two reasons.
First, I think it makes for good drama, though sometimes depressing, when someone tries to change something in the past only to find that they and their time travel was the original catalyst all along.
Second, if time travel is ever possible, I believe that theory 2 will be reality. Think about it. If you can move back and forth on a timeline, that would mean that the events in time would have to be constant (i.e. static) in order for time travel to even be possible. If events on the timeline were dynamic, you couldn't move back and forth. It would be like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle which states that shining light to look at the smallest known particles moves them, so you can never know where the object is, only where it was. You couldn't land on the timeline anywhere if it kept changing.
Still I like Time Travel stories no matter the theory it subscribes to as long as it is consistent and follows its own rules! It really bugs me when a Time Travel story tries to use both theories one and two, which are mutually exclusive, depending on what is convienient. I attribute that to intellectual laziness on the part of the writer. It's ridiculous. You can't have it both ways!
So which theory do you think Lost subscribes to? It's beginning to look a lot like theory 2. As Daniel puts it, "If it already hasn't happened, it can't happen." I wonder if LOST will stick to this rule. If the writers get inconsistent and make it so that there can be multiple timelines, I will be hacked.
I really like how a friend of mine put it once: "You can't go back in time and meet yourself, because you would remember having met yourself before."
I think that's true. What do you think?
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Comments on "LOST And Time Travel":
2. Shrode
- 01/22/2009 10:56 am CST
Andrew,
I thought about that. I think it depends on what "that day" is. I thought that Ethan was shooting Locke on the day that the drug plane first crashed on the island. How do we know Ethan didn't shoot a man on that day? That was before the Lostaways ever got to the island...
As Locke was climbing the vines, I knew he wouldn't make the plane fall, because it didn't fall until later...with Boone in it. It didn't happen, so it couldn't happen.
3. Crossbow
- 01/22/2009 11:02 am CST
If you could go back in time and change something, then you would cease to remember that event right? If you go back to kill person A's grandfather, then person A would cease to exist. Meaning you would never have met them and would have no idea who to go back and kill. But that would mean you never went back and killed them, right? So you would know them, so you could go back and kill them. But that means...
Being able to change the past would actually make no sense, if you think about it. That is why SciFi shows come up with things like temporal anomalies that allow time travelers to keep their original memories. Makes for interesting stories, but pretty unrealistic.
I can't remember the exact story, but C.S. Lewis talks about a SciFi story based on time travel that influenced The Great Divorce. In the story, you can go back but can't change a single thing. Even if you try to lift a a single pebble you can't at all. If you step on a blade of grass, it goes straight through your foot - because you can't even change the history of that plant. And getting caught in a rainstorm is fatal. I need to go back and read that story he was referring to - sounds interesting.
4. Shrode
- 01/22/2009 11:03 am CST
This website promoting the author's own theory about Lost is worth looking at. He's been saying this for quite some time, and it's starting to look like he was right all along.
6. Chestertonian Rambler
- 01/22/2009 3:34 pm CST
There are actually two versions of option 1.
One version involves a single "real" timeline and a multiplicity of potential timelines. This is the type of story which creates the paradox of killing one's grandfather. This is also, for instance, the Terminator timeline in which things are able to spontaneously create themselves out of nothing. (I.e. the Terminator goes back in time, gets crushed, and its surviving pieces lead to the creation of Skynet and hence the Terminator.)
Then there's the more realistic sort of "change the past" time travel, seen in (for instance) Primer. That sort of time travel posits an infinitude of alternate universes; by traveling in time you actually essentially transport yourself into a new time continuum. Since the process is basically one of motion, you can then stop yourself from traveling back in time. Then there are two of you.
Such theories of time travel are theologically (and narratively) problematic, since you're basically saying that everything happens, and we just experience one part of that everything. One solution is to privelege "real" experience, so that while "alternate universes" exist they are not as "solid" or "real" as our own. But it does eliminate the problem of requiring some sort of self-policing timestream or universe-destroying time paradoxes.
7. Andrew
- 01/22/2009 3:51 pm CST
I thought that Ethan was shooting Locke on the day that the drug plane first crashed on the island. How do we know Ethan didn't shoot a man on that day? That was before the Lostaways ever got to the island...
Well if he shot someone, what about that person? Are they now un-shot? If he killed him like he was going to kill Locke, are they now un-dead?
8. Shrode
- 01/22/2009 3:57 pm CST
Andrew,
I am SO not following you. When you said, "He didn't shoot a man that day." what were you talking about? How would you know that?
When I said "How do we know Ethan didn't shoot a man that day?" I was referring to Locke. So he shot Locke, who was time traveling, who shifts away. No he's not unshot. He heals. The timeline is unchanging. It happened that way in the first place.
I don't think the timeline is changing...at least not yet. Everything that we see happening, happened the first time through the timeline too. I think the timeline is static. so Ethan shot Locke really, not in timeline 2 or in an alternate reality?
Are we talking past each other? I'm so confused. 
9. Brandon Milan
- 01/22/2009 4:09 pm CST
So I tried watching Lost once and was mostly confused. I guess I'll have to start at the beginning. For now, however, I'll just stick with Heroes.
But I felt the need to point out that Futurama is also a good example of the second theory of time travel... I can't remember the exact storyline, but at one point Fry went back in time and killed his grandfather and wound up becoming his own grandfather.
10. Shrode
- 01/22/2009 4:17 pm CST
Chestertonian Rambler,
I think you are right about variations of theory 1. However I disagree about Terminator.
I think your Terminator example is an example of theory 2.
To put it the way Crossbow does in his opening paragraph, theory one creates a regressive spiral that makes no sense. He's right.
But theory 2 creates an actual loop that comes back on itself. But it's closed. In other words, in theory 2, someone from the future can go back and "affect the past" only to find that what they did is what caused them to go back in the first place.
This idea is well represented by the "gold watch" in "Somewhere in Time" by Christopher Reeve. The old woman in the "present" gives Reeve a watch. He travels back in time with it and gives it to her as a young woman as a love gift. She hangs on to it for 60 years and then gives it to him again, and then he takes it back to the past... and on and on...it's a circular loop. Where did the watch really originate?
Perhaps the microchip in Terminator is similar?
The storyline of "The 4400" had a similar loop. The Father of Promicin actually gets promicin from the future, even though he "invented" it. So where did it really originate?
Of course, in the 4400 the timeline can be changed. I think the writers use both theories in that show depending on what's convienient. I'd have to go re-watch the terminator movies to see if they flit back and forth, but if memory serves, I think they actually stick with "the timeline is constant". Because the dude going back to protect Sarah Connor is actually what causes John Connor's conception in the first place. It's a weird loop. But I think the future robot's attempts to change the past, actually cause the past.
11. Andrew
- 01/22/2009 4:18 pm CST
Are we talking past each other? I'm so confused.
I think I've got you now. I didn't know you were referring to Locke. When you said ""a man," I thought you just meant ANY man. I think I know what you're saying though. If the past is stuck, as Daniel said, it would follow that the future is stuck as well. Locke will have always time traveled back to that place.
We're on the same page. Like I said, I stopped thinking about LOST a long time ago. :-)
12. Shrode
- 01/22/2009 4:23 pm CST
Andrew,
EXACTLY!!!
Maybe you should start thinking about LOST again? :) J/K
How about this for starters?
How does the contrast between my two theories parallel fate/destiny/Locke vs. free will/Jack as a theme on LOST?
If the writers subscribe to theory 1, then they are leaning towards free will as the ultimate victor.
If the writers subscribe to theory 2, then they are leaning towards fate as the ultimate victor.
I think they'll choose theory 2 and fate/destiny. :)
15. Quaid
- 01/27/2009 8:52 am CST
So the island is time/space-travelling, right? And, somehow, it manages to keep all things within a certain radius of its existence with it wherever it goes - but all of those people on the island stay within their own understanding of time at the point that it begins travel back and forth. Incidentally, their clothes and belongings that they have ON THEIR PERSON stay with them (such as shirts and knives and compasses), but their belongings that they do not have on their person "belong" to the island as it travels. Is this an adequate description?
I think they clearly pointed out that it's theory 2 with the quote you mentioned. Notice that whenever someone wants something changed/controlled, they compel a person to act in the future, such as Faraday encouraging Desmond to find Faraday's mother or Alpert encouraging Locke to give "past"-Alpert the compass (which then begins to stay with Locke's understanding of time instead of Alpert's).
I suppose if you can't answer all the questions about what is happening, confusing the crap out of the audience is a good way to proceed. (I say this as a devoted, but mentally humbled, LOST fan)
16. Huma
- 03/23/2009 12:50 pm CDT
My husband and I love TV series lost and Heroes and like the time travelling aspect to it.
i think theory 2 is used in both lost and heroes..
In HEROES, both theory 2 and theory 1 are used. THeory 1 is used when time travelling occurs in future time period implying your actions today can change future. However theory 2 is applied when time travelling in past as in you can't change the past with your actions.
My husband was searching for any new/recent story books novels which are kind of like "LOST" tv series.. any suggestions?
Leave a Comment:
So which theory do you think Lost subscribes to? It's beginning to look a lot like theory 2. As Daniel puts it, "If it already hasn't happened, it can't happen." I wonder if LOST will stick to this rule. If the writers get inconsistent and make it so that there can be multiple timelines, I will be hacked.
I don't know yet. Ethan shooting Locke seems to violate the rule that Daniel set up, in that Ethan never shot a man on that day. I don't think about LOST as much anymore, because all my theories are dead wrong (I still like Purgatory), but my first thought when Daniel gave his spiel was, "What about Ethan and Locke?" I could be missing something.