This will be my fourth attempt at a blog in the past two months. Every time, I started off with some topic I thought was good enough, only to fizzle out after a few paragraphs.I would begin with great ideas, but sadly, they would be finished by the 2nd or 3rd para, or I would lose track of it or I would fail to give it a coherent structure. Once, I persisted with it and finished the so-called blog. Not satisfied with the end result, I posted in on my FB profile only, to avoid the scathing criticism I deserved for such a shoddy job. I have no reason to believe it would be any different this time, but if you are reading it, then I would be very happy, because that would mean I am satisfied enough to post it here in the first place!
The only change I resolved to bring into this blog was not to try too hard. I would not try to make it very structured. This blog would simply be a bunch of my ideas, a hastily configured superstructure, which is as likely to crash down as a house of cards. It wouldn't be rambling, let me assure you. It would be centered around a topic that has fascinated me since childhood- time travel. A note of caution: part of my ideas have stemmed from some philosophical concepts related to time travel I have read in books and on internet. I would be explaining them in simple words in between, but Wikipedia-ing it would clear it out better, in case you don't know about them already.
Mankind, with his huge leaps and bounds in the field of science is now virtually a master of his environment. Time, however, has remained elusive from his grasp even till this day. Maybe we will develop a way to go back and forward in time, maybe we will not. We have no means of knowing that. But what bothers me is the possibility of this. You see, this idea originated in my mind a few years ago, but Olaf Stapledon's "Last and First Men" allowed me to give it a clearer picture. Time travel, essentially, consists of going back in the past and going into the future. Now, think about this. Isn't the past what has happened? If it has happened, then how can we 'go' back into the past? Is the past actually a series of events still playing out, as we move ahead? If it is, who are the players? The players have moved ahead in time, so there should be nobody left to play out that event. To make it simpler, I will give an example. Suppose, a time machine has been developed. Yesterday, I was beaten up by 2 guys and I didn't hit them back, because I thought they had the backing of some big goons behind them. Today, I realize they were bluffing, and they had no more power in hand than I had. I decide to back in time and hit them. Now, if I do, what will I find there? According to movies and other time travel novels, I would find myself being beaten up, yet with a clear understanding of what I could do, I would simply correct my mistake and hit them back. BUT, if that is so, then WHO is beating me in the first place? Those two guys have moved ahead in time, so I should find myself alone, right? It DOES seem slightly ridiculous, to think that as we move ahead, we are leaving duplicate copies of us behind to do exactly as we did!
Similarly, think of future travel. This scores slightly better than the past, but still worth pondering over.If the future is what is yet to happen, then shouldn't we find nothing but emptiness there? The time traveler has surged ahead of everyone, but others are yet to catch up with him. We make the future. You are reading this blog now, you may get irritated and shut down the computer and go out with friends. If you travel ahead in time, will you find yourselves having fun with your friends? How can you, since what you did was at the spur of the moment and when your friends haven't traveled ahead with you in time?
Such doubts made me realize the importance of the words 'time and space'. Time travel isn't restricted to traveling in time ONLY. It involves the travel of space too, i.e. traveling with the 'events' of time, instead of purely time, which should only lead to emptiness! Obviously, I am not any kind of scientist, nor a philosophy scholar. When the time comes for time travelling, these things would have been thought through and through (they may already have been, for all we know) and I'll be left feeling like a champion oaf for trying to be over-smart!
Moving on to simpler things, suppose we assume the fact that the past and the future are playing out on their own, while we are in the present. In such a scenario, a lot of interesting possibilities come up. One is called the predestination paradox. This is related to travelling to the past. Here, time travelers attempt to influence the past through their actions, only to end up influencing it in the very manner it had happened. For e.g. I go back in time to help my 'past self' with his examination which he failed. I go and whisper all the answers, confusing him and eventually causing him to fail, to correct which I go back in time in the first place! A similar, but more confusing concept is the ontological paradox. It involves the transfer of objects or ideas to the past, thereby creating a loop. Wikipedia quotes the best example to explain this. A man, who wants to build a time machine, is visited by his future version, who gives him the blueprint of the machine. He builds it over the years and when he finishes it, he is the one who goes back in time to help his past self! These paradoxes though, have been massively simplified and I need to understand them much more before I can discuss them any further.
My 3rd set of ideas relate to some unexplainable phenomenon we come across daily. Maybe they are the products of time travel! The alien spaceships people that people purportedly witness. Maybe they are flying vehicles developed by our future selves, who have come back in time to see us! [THE NEXT LINE MAY DEEPLY OFFEND GOD BELIEVERS, I ADVISE THEM NOT TO READ IT, AND IF THEY DO, THEN PLEASE DON'T GET OFFENDED. THESE ARE MY IDEAS AND MY "IDEAS" ONLY. I HAVE NO MALICIOUS INTENTIONS] Maybe, our future selves grow in stature (evolution), become 'God-like', develop a way of time traveling and then decide to visit OUR distance past. Thus, our ancestors may have seen our future selves, became awed and started worshiping them which we continue to do till this day.
Thus, presented in as little a nutshell as possible, are my ideas on time travel. It is a mysterious and fascinating field, to say the least and I sincerely hope that mankind makes some kind of progress in this. Maybe, my future self deciphers all these riddles and will be coming back in time to tell me. Another blog then, for sure! Till then, respect the past, stay in the present and plan the future!
