I'm from the future and I am here to write this piece about the time travel paradox apparent in most time travel films. Okay, this statement is false but before we prove the impossibility of the proposition that I traveled back to the past only to write this piece on the impossibility of time travel, we'll need a theoretical walkthrough (of course, we won't actually be walking) with the time travel paradox prevalent in Hollywood films - the upcoming movie Looper (2012) in particular.
Looper stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis playing the same role as Joseph Simmons just in different timelines - Gordon-Levitt from 2042 and Willis from year 2072. Aside from the two actors, Emily Blunt is also part of the cast playing as Sara. The film is set in a futuristic gang world wherein Simmons (Gordon-Levitt) is a looper. A looper is some sort of a foot soldier that is tasked to neutralize gang members from the future visiting the 2042 timeline. Gordon-Levitt happens to be a good looper "handling" Gat Men members from the future - he was always successful in neutralizing his targets. However, one target came to be a particular trouble for Simmons as he discovers that was his next victim was actually himself from the future. More conflict arises as the two Simmons try to find out the reason as to how they ended up together but that's not really what I'm interested in. What I'm interested in is the fact that taking a closer look at time travel theories would make the Looper storyline utterly impossible altogether.
Time travel plots usually meet conflict by virtue of the time travel paradox. The time travel paradox is a theoretical condition wherein the very act of going back to time would actually change precedent or following conditions depending on the perspective of the observer. To make it clear, the paradox is often told through the story of a man who goes back in time to kill his own grandmother. How does this become a paradox? It's simple, if the man is successful in killing his grandmother, then his very existence would cease altogether leaving the grandmother's murder impossible to have had happened in the first place. Consequently, if the murder did not happen because of the man's erasure from the timeline, then his inexistence would be reverted. I know it sounds confusing so here's a simplified logic that explains everything clearly:
M entails not M and not M entails M.
The same logic goes for the Looper plot - if the 2072 Simmons was to go back to his 2042 self, then he would have had knowledge of how things went during that time period thus, he would have escaped any unfortunate events that might have transpired during such timeline. However, the film shows that Willis had no recollection of a future self coming back to the past to be neutralized by his 2042 self. This entails the very impossibility of the plot - going back to the past and causing such drastic changes necessitates that the future Simmons would have knowledge of himself coming back from the future and into the past only to be targeted by his 2042 self. I might sound confusing but the bottomline here is that the conditions must be consistent in order to represent a perfect and infinite time loop of Simmons going back from the future to change the conditions of his past. However, "changing" the conditions of his past is actually a way of saying that he came back to the past to ensure his very existence in the future by setting up the same conditions he experienced during his experience of the 2042 time period.
To explain things further, let's say there is this object that we have to send back in time. Suppose there is a time line a-b-c and we are currently in point C. If the object was sent back from point C to point B, then a contradiction would occur - the successful transfer of the object back to a time wherein it did not exist would entail the proposition that the object existed in point B in relation to point C. Holding this proposition to be true would falsify the first condition that the object did not exist in point B until we sent it back from point C. The only theory that could accommodate this contradiction is the assumption that time branching occurred. Time branching entails the creation of a new time line due to the actions executed by the original timeline. In this context, sending back the object from point C to point B creates a new time line wherein the object already existed in point B thereby creating a whole new point D in the time branch.
As shown in Fig. 1, sending the object from point C to point B necessitates the creation of point D wherein the proposition that the object already existed in point B can be satisfied. Consequently, this explanation also sometimes entails that point A-B-C or the original time line will cease to exist as a newer version has already replaced it. The disappearance of the original time line is an explanation to preserve the linear time line concept and to avoid further contradictions that might arise if we consider such propositions to be true. The thing about this concept of time travel is that it has this unwarranted assumption that time is linear until an action in point C is executed. To sum it all up, the time branch theory is challenged by its self-defeating assumption that time can only be multilinear if time travel existed.
Basically, time travel movies can be divided into two categories (multiverse and unilinear timeline concepts) each of which consist its own set of rules. However, these rules are still not enough to challenge existing inconsistencies with regard to time travel paradoxes. The question is, if these movies are indeed inconsistent when it comes to adhering to time travel theories, why do people keep watching them? The answer lies in the ingenious strategy employed by James Cameron (The Terminator) and Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future). Time travel films began almost a century ago but it only became prominent with the emergence of Cameron and Zemeckis' idea of putting in just enough science and a balanced dose of entertainment that fans would not immediately discredit the film of being inconsistent. Since the inception of Cameron and Zemeckis' balanced approach to time travel films, Hollywood used the same framework to every setting possible from horror (Warlock), romantic comedy (Kate & Leopold), comedy (Click) to drama (Peggy Sue got Married).
Even though time travel films can't completely escape the scientific problems of self-consistency, relativity among other inconsistencies, fans continue watching them simply because of the endless possibilities time travel can supply our imaginations. In the end, time travel films are loved and liked by millions of fans not because it exhibits a coherent time travelling logic but because it gives them joy to explore the enigma of the future and the mysteries of the past.
P. S.
I couldn't have been some guy from the future by virtue of the theory of self-consistency. But more on that later! Stay tuned in for more crispy reviews only here on Punchdrunk Penguin! More than just movies. More than just theories.
M entails not M and not M entails M.
The same logic goes for the Looper plot - if the 2072 Simmons was to go back to his 2042 self, then he would have had knowledge of how things went during that time period thus, he would have escaped any unfortunate events that might have transpired during such timeline. However, the film shows that Willis had no recollection of a future self coming back to the past to be neutralized by his 2042 self. This entails the very impossibility of the plot - going back to the past and causing such drastic changes necessitates that the future Simmons would have knowledge of himself coming back from the future and into the past only to be targeted by his 2042 self. I might sound confusing but the bottomline here is that the conditions must be consistent in order to represent a perfect and infinite time loop of Simmons going back from the future to change the conditions of his past. However, "changing" the conditions of his past is actually a way of saying that he came back to the past to ensure his very existence in the future by setting up the same conditions he experienced during his experience of the 2042 time period.
To explain things further, let's say there is this object that we have to send back in time. Suppose there is a time line a-b-c and we are currently in point C. If the object was sent back from point C to point B, then a contradiction would occur - the successful transfer of the object back to a time wherein it did not exist would entail the proposition that the object existed in point B in relation to point C. Holding this proposition to be true would falsify the first condition that the object did not exist in point B until we sent it back from point C. The only theory that could accommodate this contradiction is the assumption that time branching occurred. Time branching entails the creation of a new time line due to the actions executed by the original timeline. In this context, sending back the object from point C to point B creates a new time line wherein the object already existed in point B thereby creating a whole new point D in the time branch.
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| Fig. 1 |
Basically, time travel movies can be divided into two categories (multiverse and unilinear timeline concepts) each of which consist its own set of rules. However, these rules are still not enough to challenge existing inconsistencies with regard to time travel paradoxes. The question is, if these movies are indeed inconsistent when it comes to adhering to time travel theories, why do people keep watching them? The answer lies in the ingenious strategy employed by James Cameron (The Terminator) and Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future). Time travel films began almost a century ago but it only became prominent with the emergence of Cameron and Zemeckis' idea of putting in just enough science and a balanced dose of entertainment that fans would not immediately discredit the film of being inconsistent. Since the inception of Cameron and Zemeckis' balanced approach to time travel films, Hollywood used the same framework to every setting possible from horror (Warlock), romantic comedy (Kate & Leopold), comedy (Click) to drama (Peggy Sue got Married).
Even though time travel films can't completely escape the scientific problems of self-consistency, relativity among other inconsistencies, fans continue watching them simply because of the endless possibilities time travel can supply our imaginations. In the end, time travel films are loved and liked by millions of fans not because it exhibits a coherent time travelling logic but because it gives them joy to explore the enigma of the future and the mysteries of the past.
P. S.
I couldn't have been some guy from the future by virtue of the theory of self-consistency. But more on that later! Stay tuned in for more crispy reviews only here on Punchdrunk Penguin! More than just movies. More than just theories.
