When Homer Simpson traveled back in time he wisely remembered back to the advice his father game him on his wedding day: “If you ever travel back in time, don’t step on anything.” But the fact of the matter is, Grandpa was wrong. If you travel back in time you can do anything you want and nothing would change.
Here’s the thing, time is linear, which means that there is only one time-line for which said time-traveler to travel. So if he wants to go back and stop the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, any interference he would cause wouldn’t be interference at all but rather the exact reason the event happened in the first place. Because we know the assassination has already taken place, this proves that any attempt to stop it would not only be futile, but could actually be the reason for its existence. So since we know that Lincoln was assassinated, it’s best to just let time be so not to have the kind of guilt that comes with the assisted murder of our greatest president. The only way changing history through time travel would make sense is if we’re talking about multi-dimensional time travel which, pft, come on, is quite silly.
And movies screw this up all the time. Marty McFly almost ceases to be when he accidentally gets in the middle of his own parents meeting (and the idea that him and his siblings would slowly fade away is ridiculous. If it were possible to screw up the past and if Marty really did jeopardize his existence, then he would disappear the moment he got in the way! Jeez!). Luckily for Marty, he is able to get his parents back together and save himself despite screwing a few things up in the process. As a result, some things do change. But how come Marty is the only one who remembers? When he gets back from the past, he remembers how crappy everything was, but how come his parents don’t? Why aren’t the McFly’s curious as to why they’re loaded all of a sudden? And how come Biff isn’t confused at his newfound lack of self-worth and dignity? The answer is because you can’t change the past.
So this also means that time travel will never exist. It will never exist because we would have heard about it by now. Someone, somewhere would have traveled back in time and let him or herself be known by now. Unless Van Damme is on the job, time-copping it.
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2 comments:
But the person traveling back in time can't tell you that's what they're doing- that would blow the whole mission!
Being a huge fan of Back to the Future, I pretty much have to defend it.
So, you're saying that time is linear, thus can't be changed. Ever.
What back to the future is saying is that there exists millions upon billions of lines of existence. Kind of a choose your own adventure book. If this happens, go to this page. If this doesn't happen, go to different page. Every single one of the worlds decisions effects this line jumping, so constantly we are changing the future. Like I could not have responded to this post, slightly altering the future. Either way, when Marty goes back and changes some things, he begins to jump linear paths to the future.
As far as his own personal existence in the past, well this is a toughie. If he did stop his parents from that initial meet and greet, then yes, he should disappear. But the fact he is still around alludes to that he is not altering the right situations to "right the wrong". Essentially, there are lots of linear paths that lead to his birth, and he wasn't executing any of them fast enough. In my personal opinion, I think he should have disappeared FIRST being the youngest child, thus last conceived. They could have optioned out of a third child in their family.
My best explanation is to not overthink it. Its a movie.
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