Topic 1: My Thoughts on Time Paradoxes and Alternate Universes
As a young colt my mother would often tell me stories that I was interested in, she would speak of knights and heroes, legends of honour and villains of despicable intent. But as I got to the age of three or so and took an interest in science I asked her to tell me about a very interesting topic at the time: Time Travel. She agreed with me and then told me to retire to bed while she thought of a puzzling story. You see, my mother would often work in complex outcomes or problems into the stories she told me as a way of keeping my wit sharp and strong, this seemed to have worked in my honest opinion, and this time she said she would come up with a very puzzling test for a three year old. I waited eagerly in my bed, trembling with excitement as I began to theorize all of the different stories my mother could tell me that night. I thought of dragons with moral challenges, knights with heart-breaking issues that challenged their sense of justice against their duty. But what she told me upon sitting down was a story of a stallion who was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit and how he was saved by himself, seeming younger than he did when he was on the chopping block. After my mother finished the story I began to question her on how this was possible and she then explained to me the simplistic version of the concept of time travel. When I first heard this theory it took me a few moments to wrap my head around it but once I had, my brain thought up an important question, one which I asked her post-haste. I said to her, 'Mother... if the man was to be executed that day with no to travel back in time to save himself, how did he do so?'. My mother then sat down and began to detail what a time paradox was. She told me that it was a loophole found in the concept of time travel that would set a series of events in motion that would not have begun without the person travelling back in time to start them.
It was at this point that my fascination with time travel, paradoxes and the theories behind them began. I'm going to explain to you, or myself rather, what my knowledge and grasp of a time paradox really is. Are you/I ready to discuss it? Good, then we shall begin.
To my knowledge, as I've said earlier, a time paradox is an event or series of events set in motion by a person or even that would only be possible through that person coming back through time and setting it off. So, say a man is about to fall to his death from the top of a mountain and he has no one to save him. But then suddenly he himself appears before him and grabs the hand of the present-day man hanging from the cliff. Now this example of a paradox can be an extremely simple or complex one depending on how simple or complex you wish to take it. The simple version is that this paradox has always existed and is nothing more than a loophole in the universe, something that has been repeated so many times that it's origins are lost to the knowledge of anyone. Yo simply accept this simple theory and do not allow your feeble mind to fry. But the much more complex, and definitely more interesting theory links into another one known as the Alternate Universe Theory, which, in turn, has it's own branches and conundrums that link it into time paradoxes.
I shall briefly explain the alternate universe theory as to not confuse others of a lesser intelligence so they can follow along easily enough. An alternate universe is one that mirrors our own but exists in another completely different plain of existence. These different universes, if they do indeed exist, can range from something barely noticeable in difference to something to drastically changed from our own universe that it lives and exists a completely different way. These differences of a more meagre kind include someone preferring a different kind of chocolate from the version in our universe or their ideal relaxant being a cup of tea with two sugars instead of one, something else along those lines. A much more extreme version would be something like our beautiful ruler, Princess Celestia, losing the battle against Nightmare Moon and having an eternal night reign over us forever, or even the two Princesses never coming to power in the first place. It is these theories that capture the minds of thousands of intellectual people across the world who love to ask questions such as what or how.
But back onto the crossover of time paradoxes and alternate universes, we turn to the theory that the man saving himself is not himself at all, but instead another version of himself from an alternate universe that survived the fall or never experienced it in the first place. But there is another angle to this area of surviving the fall or never going through it which requires a brief explanation once more, if you don't mind.
The area I speak of is also known as the Many Worlds Theory, which by now you probably know the basics thanks to my explanation. But this theory does not involve alternate realities so much as parallel ones. Now this may seem to be an example of six and two threes to many of you but allow me to explain. While an alternate universe is one that does indeed mirror our own, they are theorized to have existed since the beginning of our own. A parallel universe has been theorized to be a universe that only comes into creation after a choice is made or an event occurs. The theory states that upon someone making a choice, whether it be choosing one type of breakfast cereal over another, or a war leader deciding to surrender instead of making a final charge, these decisions always have two outcomes. The first outcome comes from the decision that continues in our universe while the second one creates another universe entirely that begins to exist alongside our own where that second decision may change the world a little or may cause a revolution.
Now that we are a little more well versed I shall continue with my conversation, yes? Good.
With the many worlds theory coming into effect there could have been an infinite number of universes created by the fall or maybe as little as one. This could be from wherever the man was able to grab the ground deciding on whether he fell to his death or hauled himself up, creating two. or the belief that every millimetre of ground he gained or lost decided on the outcome, creating an infinite number of universes. The man saving him could be himself from ten minutes in the future saving himself from dying in another universe, which combines the two theories together. Or it could be a man from a universe where he survived just barely going back in time to make sure he definitely survives. The latter of these two encounters also helps to add to the number of parallel universes by making another universe where the man did not decide to go back, feeling that a close call was safe enough for him.
I hope I have succeeded in making your head spin slightly during this exchange or if I did not then I applaud you and wish you to continue reading these little exchanges between myself and I as you may enjoy them. I have a lot I wish to get down from my brain and onto paper quickly so these conversations may occur more and more frequently depending on if I wish to discuss a little tid-bit of information that I have transformed into a theory.
Yours Truly,
Cialon.
