From: Colin Watson (watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk)
Date: Tue 07 Dec 1993 - 16:59:46 EET
>It made the whole concept of time travel consistant just
>by imposing this one simple rule: If you change the past,
>you spawn a new thread in history, branching off from the
>point in time where the change was introduced.
Does the traveller create the new thread; or is it already there & he just "chooses" to travel down it? I'd say the latter was more likely, in which case we can imagine that there would be an infinite number of such branches. Curiously, such a tree, with an infinite number of one-dimensional branches would fill out a two-dimensional space (or time;).
>Paradox? What paradox? The two realities co-exist, although
>the time traveller will not be able to return to that
>reality he came from.
It seems sensible because the system stays deterministic.
Normally we assume that we are restricted to moving "forwards" in time.
The model you describe above says we can move forwards or backwards in
time but we're restricted to moving upwards (in a second temporal dimension)
never downwards.
ie. so the past we travel to when we move backwards is not the same past that
we came from when we were moving forwards originally.
It frees up movement in the first temporal dimension because it adds the
restriction of one-way travel in the second temporal dimension. The flow
of events seems more complicated but it's still deterministic. You can't
change the future with this system; all possible futures are already mapped
out; you just pick one by your actions (and I'd question whether this
involves a free-choice).
>And indeed do I see a parallel with heroquesting.
>If we take the model of the bundle of fibers, a
>time traveler will travel back along the fiber he
>currently is on, making a change which results in
>that particular fiber splitting. He then travels
>back to the future along that new fiber to his
>era of origin, which may or may be not recognisable.
At the moment I'm more of the opinion that the HeroQuester *really* changes the past/present/future. I think each point in Gloranthan time has its own individual past and future independent from every other point in time. Usually today's past and tomorrow's past will be more or less the same (except for the extra day); but if some major HeroQuesting occurs then tomorrow's past can be genuinely altered to be radically different from today's past. The apparent continuity of events from second to second, day to day, year to year (which gives the impression of travelling from the past into the future) is, in fact, a grande illusion. The Gods required this (apparent) order to fend off Chaos. Such is the nature of Time.
>Well, we all agree :-) that time travel is not possible
>in Glorantha
That's what I've been arguing all along. (Hang about. Has someone been messing with my past? ;-)
> so I will not continue this thread.
It was fun while it lasted.
___
CW.
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