(June 30, 2015 at 6:32 am)Alex K Wrote:(June 29, 2015 at 8:06 pm)Jenny A Wrote: Is anyone else bothered by time travel movies and books in which someone first stops their parents from meeting or marrying or some such and then gets them back together so all is well? The problem being that the particular child they had was the result of a particular egg meeting a particular sperm and just calling them up on the phone in the middle of sex would change that. And on that theory just walking into the past and saying hi to anyone would change a whole line of progeny.
No, not at all - if the reality which the time traveller produces by going back is the one that was already in his past before he went, i.e. if history is self-consistent and the same before and after the time travel episode, then I have no problem. I have this problem very much if someone changed their own past, yes. Of course, him fading on the familiy foto is just a silly plot device that makes no sense whatsoever.
Ah but that fading photograph IS the plot in a nutshell. The plots almost invariably operate on the assumption that history can be changed. Though even if history can be changed the fading photo would be silly. Our hero would disappear in a puff of changed events and never get to put things right.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
