Time paradox

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Okay, so you're a scientist, working on a device that will allow you to travel back in time. You have an outline of the mechanics, but the finer details currently elude you.
Then, suddenly, there's a flash of light, and standing there is...you, who claims to be from 2 months in the future, where you perfected the device. He greets you, and gives you the plans to let you complete the device. Future You then mentions that you have to go back in time once you complete the device to give Past You the plans. Future You also got the plans in this fashion.
So. Where did the plans originate from?

 

This is the fundimental paradox with time travel, in this answer the only available answer is that you got the plans from yourself.

Much like what happend in the Harry Potter book Prizoner of Azkaban, when he saves himself and Black from the dementors. The only reason he was alive to save himself, was that he already had.

 

"Some people wonder about things that are. Some people wonder about things that aren't. Some people have a job and no time to worry about such cr*p." paraphrasing George Carlin.

If I believed I have the mathematical smarts to make a time machine, I would also be smart enough to avoid paradoxes.

 

Such a thing could not occur, since the timeline defends itself from arbitrary changes. The machine simply would not work if he tried to travel into the past.

 

My brain just comes up with this stuff to give me a headache.
Of course, time travel is fundamentally impossible, so such a situation could not occur, so there's not really any point in thinking about such stuff.

 

Heh, yeah. Time's an artificial creation, much like categories of, oh, race.

Put simply, time doesn't pass; we do.

 

Nah, it would just be like Bill and Ted. Whenever they wanted anything to happen in the 'present' they just told themselves that 'in the future' they would remember to go back to 'the past' and leave whatever they needed (like a hammer or a gun) in the place they were going to be in the 'present'. Brilliant!

 

Time is relative, so if you move 3000 years ahead, you're not so really 3000 years old. In a certain way you are, in some others you don't, so for example, your manners and education are 3000 years old but your body is still 20, 30, 60 years old per internal clock (which may be different from the astronomical time), although you can't deny it originated 3000 years before the time in the future moment in which you are. Only "ago" or "before" becomes relative, ambiguous.

Cf. flight across timezones, especially from East to West. With enough speed, you could arrive at an earlier hour of the day than you had left, but of a different timezone. At the same time, you will still have spent N hours flying and you will be N hours older.

 

How about divergent time streams? When Future You traveled back in time and gave you the plans, you started traveling on a different (or actually the same as the case may be) timestream, like a fork in the road. The original plans came from a you who took the original path and made it himself. Every other you took the other path where a future you gave you the plans.

 

Ah, I can help with that one as well. As it becomes more apparent that your mother and father won't conceive you, you start fading from photographs, then your hand starts disappearing and you can't play the guitar any more.

 

The only two somewhat plausable explanations have been given already: that time (or the universe or whatever) would not allow the paradox the occur, in order to save itself from destruction, or that the Future You would travel into a different timestream/dimension. Other than these two explanations, the only answer to the question would be that its a paradox, and paradoxes by definition are impossibleto concieve an answer for (like the famous liar's paradox).

 

I don't care what popular quantum physics says, there are no such things. There is and can only be one true timestream, and we are living it. (And if you have a problem with that statement, then God's a girl.)

 

@HB

What a concept! Write a screenplay!

I think the fundamental problem with a time travel scenario where a single person confronts a past self with a future self is creation of matter. It would be impossible. Even time travel can't create matter, and if you invision two of you in the same place at the same time you've created an impossibility. I far more favor the scenario where you invent time travel and decide to travel into the past to give the invention to yourself to save precious research time...only to find that you're no longer where you used to be in the past because you've changed things from the future, you can't exist as two same-persons in the same time-space...and since you're no longer there, trying to create a time travel device in the past you're now left with plans that seem incomprehensible, trapping you forever in the past to create an entirely new time-reality.

Then again, I've always found all time travel fiction to be flawed in some way like that...

...except for "Back to the Future", of course .

 

I don't think that matter creation is an issue. After all, you're bringing the matter that is yourself back in time with you, so its not as if any new matter has to be created.

 

Time is a construct of the human mind created in order to describe three relative states of being, these are Was, Is and Will Be; time is constantly moving forwards because we decided that was the way it went (logical if you think about it).
Further we can demonstrate that time is relative because it is affected by the fundamental forces of the universe, most notably gravity.
In order for time-travel to work backwards not only do you have to where something was, you have to know when something was and we don't know that except that it was back there somewhere, it's even worse going forwards because you have to know where something will be as well when it will. So time-travel is Heisenberg's principle in its most demonstrative form, looking backwards or forwards would be very difficult since in order to know where something was/will be you have to know where everything else was/will be and we make assumptions based on probablities to do this one sun unexpectedly going nova or being born would throw those assumptions out. The past is easier because we are always looking into the past with starlight etc.

 

What? No, no, no. Time is very real. It is a dimension just like lengt, width, height, etc. Ok, maybe not JUST like them, but close enough. There are indiscrete, continuous changes in reality as we travel through time. Your right that 'back' and 'forwards' are as arbitrary for time as they are for space, but time is real nontheless.
And where do you get the idea that we can demostrate time being affected by fundamental forces? This is nonsense. And don't quote Einstein to me, he really didn't know what he was talking about in a lot of his theories. He's kind of like Freud, his greatest genius and breakthrough was in getting us to look at things in a different way, but a lot of his theories have been shown to be false since then.
The biggest problem I see with time travel is that, if you are really travelling through time and not skipping across it, you still have to cross through all the intervening time. Sure you can do it faster or slower, but if someone rams their car into your living room, where you conveniently parked your time machine, you're dead!

 

Compare having to wait for one minute to use the toilet, with having only one minute to use said toilet. Which one lasts longer?

 

A leads to B leads to C leads to A

A you recieve plans from yourself

B you complete the time travel device

C you go back in time with the plans

A you recieve the plans from yourself

B you complete the time travel device

C you go back in time with the plans

A you recieve the plans from yourself

B you complete the time travel device

C you go back in time with the plans

A you recieve the plans from yourself

B you complete the time travel device

C you go back in time with the plans

A you recieve the plans from yourself


i beleive its called a quasality loop the plans never originated, its a continuous loop