MikeKardec
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,157
- Location
- Los Angeles
I find it hard to believe in one linear, locked in, timeline. If I had to create a theory of "time travel" it would be one of "side time;" absolutely everything, from the atomic level on up occupies multiple frames of existence one for each of it's "possibilities," or possible locations. The past or the future are inaccessible but places where certain changes have occurred (possibly futuristic) or haven't occurred (similar to the past) might be available. Of course most of "side time" would be full of slightly alternative physics and vaguely different chemistry and unhealthy stuff of that sort. In many more (an near infinite number really) the only difference would be the slightest difference in your toothpaste formula or how often four leafed clovers occur.
A theory I like is that we all transition between highly similar worlds all the time, our consciousness inhabiting "our" body in each of them. Perhaps they only become inaccessible as the differences pile up and the energy it takes to stick around in that slightly altered consciousness pushes us back to the center of the reality envelope. I'm just making this stuff up based on my favorite SF scenarios but I was once very good at going into a deep (we're talking yogi-like) trance. There was always a fantastic sense of pressure pushing me out of trance that could only be fought for so long. The experience was a lot like people's descriptions of do LSD!
Some fun SF stories: Larry Niven's "All the Myriad Ways" (see a version of the above theories). He also wrote a series about a future civilization using a time travel device to populate a zoo with extinct animals ... except every time the time traveler goes back before the first conception of time traveling technology (HG Wells) he goes into fiction; attempting to bring back a whale nabs Moby Dick, a horse ends up being a unicorn, a dog is a werewolf. It's played nicely for laughs. A lot of Niven's stuff had a great sense of humor.
On a more dour note: "A Great Work of Time" by John Crowley. Cecile Rhodes founds a secret society to use time travel to maintain the British Empire in as static and unending a form as can be managed. The constant adjustments to the time stream create a worn out future that will do nearly anything just to end it all.
For absolute freakout time loop wackiness try "Dinosaur Beach" by Keith Laumer. In the climax the hero gets stuck in a "closed causative loop," basically a Ground Hog Day-like experience where multiple time-line adjustments keep leading back to the same spot (almost) no matter what he does.
Now that I have revealed the inner 14 year old SciFi geek, I'll have to stuff him back in the box he escaped from!
A theory I like is that we all transition between highly similar worlds all the time, our consciousness inhabiting "our" body in each of them. Perhaps they only become inaccessible as the differences pile up and the energy it takes to stick around in that slightly altered consciousness pushes us back to the center of the reality envelope. I'm just making this stuff up based on my favorite SF scenarios but I was once very good at going into a deep (we're talking yogi-like) trance. There was always a fantastic sense of pressure pushing me out of trance that could only be fought for so long. The experience was a lot like people's descriptions of do LSD!
Some fun SF stories: Larry Niven's "All the Myriad Ways" (see a version of the above theories). He also wrote a series about a future civilization using a time travel device to populate a zoo with extinct animals ... except every time the time traveler goes back before the first conception of time traveling technology (HG Wells) he goes into fiction; attempting to bring back a whale nabs Moby Dick, a horse ends up being a unicorn, a dog is a werewolf. It's played nicely for laughs. A lot of Niven's stuff had a great sense of humor.
On a more dour note: "A Great Work of Time" by John Crowley. Cecile Rhodes founds a secret society to use time travel to maintain the British Empire in as static and unending a form as can be managed. The constant adjustments to the time stream create a worn out future that will do nearly anything just to end it all.
For absolute freakout time loop wackiness try "Dinosaur Beach" by Keith Laumer. In the climax the hero gets stuck in a "closed causative loop," basically a Ground Hog Day-like experience where multiple time-line adjustments keep leading back to the same spot (almost) no matter what he does.
Now that I have revealed the inner 14 year old SciFi geek, I'll have to stuff him back in the box he escaped from!