Long Goodbye

[M. J. Young]

THE NOTORIOUS MOTHER PARADOX (sometimes formulated using other familial relationships) arises when people or objects can travel backward in time and alter the past. A simplified version involves billiard balls. A billiard ball passes through a wormhole time machine. Upon emerging, it hits its earlier self, thereby preventing it from ever entering the wormhole.

RESOLUTION OF THE PARADOX proceeds from a simple realization: the billiard ball cannot do something that is inconsistent with logic or with the laws of physics. It cannot pass through the wormhole in such a way that will prevent it from passing through the wormhole. But nothing stops it from passing through the wormhole in an infinity of other ways.

Which proves that scientists shouldn't attempt to do metaphysics. If you parse that down, it ultimately comes to "God would not let it happen." I'm a theologian, and I know better than that.

But I've dealt with this sort of nonsense on the http://www.geocities.com/dahkor/">Temporal Anomalies site; not that I'm not glad to discuss them with anyone interested, but I don't think this is the right forum for them. Try the Dice Club forum at Gaming Outpost (someone just asked me a time travel question there this past week) or e-mail mailto:TimeTravel@multiverser.com">TimeTravel@multiverser.com to pursue it.

That form of paradox resolution says that if an infinite number of suicidal geniuses all having functional time machines and access to nuclear weapons all independently carefully planned to undo their own existences by destroying the entire planet a hundred years before they were born, not one of them would succeed in killing a single one of his own ancestors. If that doesn't require divine intervention, I don't know what does.

It should also be noted that not only is the Fixed Time theory as espoused above by Scientific American riddled with metaphysical flaws, it is not accepted by large numbers of scientists. The Parallel Dimensions theory (which sports an entirely different collection of gaping faults) is also widely touted among the scientific community. At least they present experimental/empirical evidence in support of it, even if that support doesn't prove what they claim even if taken at full merit. The Fixed Time theorists basically present what they think is a logical argument for their position and conclude that it must therefore be right despite several unstated assumptions which cause the logic to be circular (in short, because you can't change the past, you can't change the past).

Sorry for the rant. There are no simple solutions to paradox; those who pretend there are generally make some dreadful mistakes about the nature of the solutions.

--M. J. Young

[damion]

Ideas about various things:
Ever play Chrononauts(I think that's what it's called)?
This is DARN cool idea!

0)I'd use cards instead of dice. Just shuffle at the beginning and you have an hour order. It avoids the 'trying to roll that last hour problem.'

.5)As part of charachter creation players should pick where they are 24 hours ago. The GM would have to approve these.

1)The players start in a position to save the world(i.e. the end of the 24th hour), but they don't know what to do. Then the teleporting starts. You could say the agency picked them because the were the only people in the 'right place at the right time'. :) If the pllayers want they could even have a cutscene with the agency where the learn how the game works. (random hour teleports, avoid paradox, that sorta thing.ect)

2)I'd actually say players can't die, aside from blatent stupidity, which ends the world due to paradox. (Because we already know they were alive at the end, to witness it).


3)I'd actually put it on the players to maintain temporal coherence, sorta like this. When a new hour starts, do this:
1)If players have NOT played the previous hour, each player selects where they are.
2)If they HAVE played the previous hour,  they are where they were at the end of the previous hour.

The could cause alot of fun racing around to get to where you should be, as it your not where you should be, it's a paradox.  

Players need to arrange things so that they don't invalidate stuff they do in later hours. To take the egg example. They may find the egg in hour 12
but not get to do something to it until hour 5. They can't actually smash it, since they say it in hour 12, but they can, say drill as small hole and put poisen in in, or some such. (They just didn't see this hole later, or the player patch it.)

Basicly, detail the players have observed can't be changed, detail not yet observed is fair game.


I'm basicly viewing this is as the players bodies pass through time normally, but their mind kinda jumps around.
Also this gives the GM a chance to create 'clues' for the players, by refering to events that have 'happened', but not been played yet.  Then the players can flesh these clues out. (Why am I holding a dentist drill and a rubber hose?)

(Was I the only one reminded of the Star Trek TNG finale, or am I the only
one geeky enough to admit it.)

As for coherence:I'd make each player write down a few sailent points about where they are at the beginning of each hour, then it's their job to be in that situation again.



This could be done as a Narrativist or Simist game. Either way would be fun, although the Sim version would be alot of work on the GM;

(Sorry for the core dump. I was gone from the Forge for a while do to having to write an article, so I didnt' get to do this for a while)

[thoth]

Which proves that scientists shouldn't attempt to do metaphysics. If you parse that down, it ultimately comes to "God would not let it happen." I'm a theologian, and I know better than that.

I don't see how you see it that way.
How I see it is, "it happens no matter what". If the future ball strikes the past ball, the past ball will eventually at some point in its own future become the future ball and strike the past ball. As i'm reading it, what happens between the points that the ball gets hit and the point it hits it past self is irrelevant.

I'm also wondering if it really is an attempt for physicists to become metaphsyicists.

I personally prefer the infinite dimensions idea. More fun!

[Mike Holmes]

Actually, most scientists do not believe that traveling backwards in time is possible. This is the most completely sound theory. And it's pretty much proved by Paradox.

Also, nobody from the future has come back. If they had, I'm pretty sure we'd have heard about it.

Damion, if the players solve the "problem", then it will be a paradox that they saw the end of the Earth. So, do the players lose either way? Either they fail to save the Earth, and their vision comes to pass, or they save the Earth, thus creating a paradox (why would you try to save the Earth if you didn't know it was ending?). Kerflooie, there goes Earth.

As I see it, any travel to the past would cause paradox. You weren't there, and now you were. The point is that either you allow BS theries like alternate timelines, or Blammo, no Earth (and no game).

Mike

[Paul Czege]

How did I lose track of this thread?

Worked for Asimov. I never get your tastes, Paul.

Can you name a single time travel RPG that doesn't feature some organization dedicated to protecting the timestream?

If you really want to understand my tastes relative to time travel, read Memories, by Mike McQuay.

Paul

[damion]

Damion, if the players solve the "problem", then it will be a paradox that they saw the end of the Earth. So, do the players lose either way? Either they fail to save the Earth, and their vision comes to pass, or they save the Earth, thus creating a paradox (why would you try to save the Earth if you didn't know it was ending?). Kerflooie, there goes Earth.

As I see it, any travel to the past would cause paradox. You weren't there, and now you were. The point is that either you allow BS theries like alternate timelines, or Blammo, no Earth (and no game).

Good point. Although you could do it so the players see X, then the agency tells them that it's the end of the earth, (or they figure it out.) To continue the
locoust swarm example, a fleet of helicoptors could show up and destroy the locousts AFTER the scene they saw initially, or maybe the mother was poisened so they all drop dead soon after the inital scene. You could also say the agency can only change one event, the initial scene. I sort of imagine the way it would work if you made a TV show out of it.  The initial scenen isn't wrong, per say, there is just more to it.

Yeah, you need something, somewhere so that the whole concept can work.
As for knowing, I'd say that somewhere the players have to gain mystic knowledge that what they are seeing is the end of the earth, if they don't do something about it.
There's always some outside agency, or someway for them to figure it out.
That's why I sorta favor a narrativist approach, the players can come up with an 'end' and then why they know about it. (One is a scientist or some such thing...depends on what goes wrong). Only one has to be able to predict it, the others are just 'right time/right place people)

[M. J. Young]

Thoth, Mike--

[*]This is really hijacking the thread; we've gone a long way from trying to design a time travel game to discussing the metaphysics of time travel. I suggested other forums for this.
[*]It is also probably over the line in terms of the forum purpose here; we are no longer designing a game, but discussing a theory behind a theory which might give rise to a theory which provides the concept for the setting of a game--not really Indie Game Design stuff, I think.
[*]I've answered all these questions on the aforementioned http://www.geocities.com/dahkor/">Temporal Anomalies site; it's an Event Horizon Hot Spot, a Sci-fi Magazine Site of the Week, and included in the undergraduate metaphysics curricula of schools not otherwise associated with me. That doesn't make it right, but it does give credibility to it.
[/list:u]

But since it's being discussed here, I'll dare to abuse the forum by responding.

Which proves that scientists shouldn't attempt to do metaphysics. If you parse that down, it ultimately comes to "God would not let it happen." I'm a theologian, and I know better than that.

I don't see how you see it that way.
How I see it is, "it happens no matter what". If the future ball strikes the past ball, the past ball will eventually at some point in its own future become the future ball and strike the past ball. As i'm reading it, what happens between the points that the ball gets hit and the point it hits it past self is irrelevant.

This is the uncaused effect; it is the ultimate flaw in the fixed time theory, and they fail to see it.

If the ball collides with itself such that it is knocked into the hole, and then comes out of the hole to have that collision, why did it ever go into the hole? There is no way to trace this back to its beginning; it happens because it happens. The easiest way to trace it back is by a negative statement of the facts: if the ball does not emerge from the hole, it does not collide with itself; if it does not enter the hole, it does not emerge from it; if it does not collide with itself, it does not enter the hole. There is therefore no event in the chain that will cause the ball to enter the hole and collide with itself; it's sophistry, and collapses under its own weight.

But if that doesn't convince you, consider this: this is supposed to solve the grandfather paradox, that is, a person who travels back in time and kills his own grandfather before his father was conceived, so undoing his own birth. We have here one of the biggest time travel problems around. If I kill my grandfather, I will never be born; if I am never born, I cannot kill my grandfather. But if I don't kill my grandfather, I will be born--in which case I will kill my grandfather, and won't be.

What the fixed time theory states (but can't defend) is that somehow the man who travels back in time cannot kill his own grandfather; something will prevent that from happening. The gun will jam, the police will stop him, he'll make a mistake, it will turn out that it wasn't his grandfather--some small thing will prevent him.

Now, I've italicized something because that's where they disguise God; but in this guise, he's very hard to see. So bear with me now, and He'll start to appear.

I have already thought that one of the easiest ways to end my own existence would be to travel back to the past and kill my grandfather. You see, anyone who is suicidal gets to believe that they would have been better off never having been born. Once they are born, their life matters to others. But if they could erase their own birth, that would be the best suicide of all. It's painless; it's certain; and it erases all the years of pain that lead to the decision. Apart from the fact that anyone could think of it, the idea is out there--people who wouldn't otherwise have thought of it can read it somewhere.

It is in the nature of technology that it reaches the masses eventually. That is, today everyone has a car, most people have televisions and computers, many have video cameras, quite a few have private planes, there are telephones in every home--well, this is overstating it perhaps, but the fact is that in a couple generations that which is available only to the few becomes available to the masses. If time travel is possible, eventually it will be the case that anyone can do it. A large percentage of the population is suicidal at one time or other. Over the course of centuries, probably millions would attempt to do this, each traveling back in time to kill his own grandfather (or other reasonably near ancestor) so as to prevent his own birth. They will take guns, bombs, knives, weapons as yet undreamt. The near past might become a shooting gallery, for goodness sake. But here is the point: according to the fixed time theory, every one of those people will just "happen" to fail. That is, this one's gun jams, that one is picked up by the police, the other is hit by a car. And the more people just "happen" to fail, the more absurd this becomes. Eventually, you must admit that "something" is preventing them; and that something seems to be if not omniscient, at least quite intelligent enough to recognize that if Charlie blows up all of New Jersey with his nuclear bomb, it kills his grandfather and creates a paradox; and that something seems to be if not omnipotent at least quite potent enough to interfere in millions of assassination efforts.

People have often thought that God would not allow one thing or another; most of those things (other than World War Three) have happened--we've traveled to the moon, built the A-bomb, cured many diseases, altered cellular genetics, cloned a complex life form, assassinated a beloved leader, and much more. It is not wise to think that God would prevent something; He might, but don't count on it. Too many people who thought so were mistaken.

Actually, most scientists do not believe that traveling backwards in time is possible. This is the most completely sound theory. And it's pretty much proved by Paradox.

It's actually back in the air now. Hawking is unconvinced. It revolves around a notion revived by Sagan in his efforts to write Contact; those blasted wormholes of his were a forgotten piece of Relativity until he dredged them up. It is entirely speculative at this point, but the theory claims that using a planetary sized quantity of strange matter one could create a wormhole, and then accelerate one end through space independent of the other, creating time dilation for one end but not the other, with the result that one end would experience more time than the other; it is then theorized that one end would exist in the past relative to the other, and anyone entering the future end would immediately exit in the past, anyone entering the past end would be carried to the future. Personally, my reaction was, "Time Dilation doesn't work that way;" but I'm not a physicist, and if Hawking isn't certain it doesn't work that way I'm not in a position to debate the matter.

The problem with proving something by paradox is that it only proves you don't understand what would happen. Some thought that the atomic bomb was impossible because if it were possible the universe would already have destroyed itself. It only meant that we did not at that point understand what was involved. Kant's paradox concerning the origin of the universe is instructive in this: either the time had a beginning or it has always been. If it has always been, then an infinite amount of time has passed to reach the present; but since an infinite amount of time could never pass, we cannot have reached the present. On the other hand, time is the medium in which change occurs; and if it began, there was no medium in existence before it began in which the change from the non-existence to the existence of time could occur. Clearly, time cannot have begun nor always been, because both are impossible. Just as clearly, time exists now, so one of those things must be true. It comes down that we do not understand the nature of time adequately to answer the question.

So the same is true of the problem of paradox relative to time travel. In order to create a paradox, you must first have a theory of what happens when you travel to the past. If you use the fixed time theory, then you conclude that nothing in the past can change--but this doesn't (in their view) prevent time travel, as it could be that your arrival in the past is already included in history before your departure in the future, all events being completely deterministically in place for all eternity. If you use the parallel dimensions theory, you're not in your own past; you're in another universe (either a parallel one which was just like yours until you arrived or a divergent one that split off upon your appearance). If you follow my theory, the past can be changed, but there are consequences, so great care must be taken.

Two points on the matter of whether the absence of travelers from the future proves time travel impossible:
1) the wormhole theory, the only one currently considered plausible, only allows travel between between the ends of the machine, as it were; you cannot go back to a time before the wormhole existed. Whether or not that will prove out, it is possible that whatever method for time travel might be devised has such a limit.
2) whatever your theory about time travel, it seems evident that the presence of a time traveler in the past is a hazard, and the known presence of such a person a considerably greater hazard. Time travelers would not appear too different from the rest of us (at least, not moreso than the one in Somewhere In Time) and would not advertise their presence. They could have been here without our knowledge. I believe that DS9 did an episode in which the time travelers were all running around in an original Star Trek episode, but none of the original parties were ever aware that there were time travelers in their midst. Why should they be?

However, I agree that the very concept of the game creates a paradox. If you've seen the world destroyed, and you succeed in saving it by traveling back in time, you lose your knowledge base when the world is not destroyed and so cannot save it. That's a critical problem with more time travel stories than I can count (Time Cop, anyone?). I think there may be a way around it, but at the moment I've written enough and I'll have to consider whether I'm right before I go too far with that thought.

--M. J. Young

[thoth]

Thoth, Mike--

[*]This is really hijacking the thread; we've gone a long way from trying to design a time travel game to discussing the metaphysics of time travel. I suggested other forums for this.
[*]It is also probably over the line in terms of the forum purpose here; we are no longer designing a game, but discussing a theory behind a theory which might give rise to a theory which provides the concept for the setting of a game--not really Indie Game Design stuff, I think.
[*]I've answered all these questions on the aforementioned http://www.geocities.com/dahkor/">Temporal Anomalies site; it's an Event Horizon Hot Spot, a Sci-fi Magazine Site of the Week, and included in the undergraduate metaphysics curricula of schools not otherwise associated with me. That doesn't make it right, but it does give credibility to it.
[/list:u]

But since it's being discussed here, I'll dare to abuse the forum by responding.

Noting hijacking...then continuing with it? Anyways, I this'll kill my involvement in the hijacking, and maybe make me on-topic.

The reason I posted that link was to simply provide (hopefully) some inspiration about dealing with paradoxes, with one possible resolution in one possible paradox. So my reason was to assist in Indie Game design not start a mini metaphysics conflict.
Don't know why the hell I bothered responding the first time around, and have to apologize to the thread creator for being part of a detraction instead of just explaining why I posted the link in the first place. So Gwen, sorry for detracting but I hope the link I originally posted might be of some use in some small way :)


But, on to something more specific about the idea.
When characters are transporting through time, is their whole bodies or just their consciousness that transfers?

If it's their consciousness, I can see a character being unable enter an hour after the death of their body, because there's nothing for their consciousness to attach to.

If it's their whole bodies, then I can see it being ok for a characters to exist in an hour after one which the character died in.

The reason I see this is because I see to distinct order of time, the Character Order, and the Real Order. The Real Order is hour 2,3,4,5,etc in that strict order. The Character Order can be 5,23,11,etc in whatever order is rolled.
If it's only conscious that travels through time, then the body of person is strictly bound to the Real Order, and if it dies in Hour 10, it stays dead  in Hours 11 through 24. And that can be dealt with by allowing a character's conscious to inhabit another's body. But it also presents a problem that the bodies might need to be close to each other? Or the whole concept of the character's having their own bodies can be ignored, letting them inhabit random bodies as they go through time :)
If it's the whole character, body included, that travels through time, then only the Character Order of time really matters. The character could be alive in Hours 23 and 11, die in 10, and there not really be a problem because it's all happening relative to the characters, and not the rest of the world. The reason being the character is actually fully transported to H23, then to H11, then to H10 where they die. It's as if the character doesn't even exist in Hours they have yet to visit. Or doesn't exist in a meaningful fashion.

Not sure if any of that helps. Hopefully it raises some useful questions.

[Ziriel]

A quick note:   I agree wholeheartedly with damion about using cards instead of dice.  It really would solve the having to roll a certain hour problem.  In addition it could give the GM a chance to peek at the shuffle before it iz played and make some notes and plans.  It would certainly help the GM organize the flow and keep things from becomeing to convoluted and full of paradox.  It would be especially handy if you were planning to have the game run more than one session.  That way the GM could plan ahead, and the group could always look back at the cards if they forgot which hours they had already hit.  You could use a red suit, ace through queen, for the day and a black suit for the night.  Or, you could make your own neat-o cards and include them with the game.   (Extras are always fun.)  Does this appeal to you at all?

[Mike Holmes]

MJ,

I've only argued theory to point out that the game can proceed as written. I guess my point is that any attempt to look to closely at time travel theory is going to be problematic. So the best idea is to go with the designer's notion, and just give the players a strong incentive to ignore it. Allow anything, so long as everyone seems comfortable with it.

As far as the "Fixed Time" theory, the biggest problem is that you are prevented from going back in time because, well, you weren't there, then. See, that's what eveyone misses in time travel theory. Everyone thinks that you have to kill someone to have an effect on events. Nevermind that you displace space with the mass of your body. Simply appearing in a place that you were not previously is a paradox. You don't need to go through all the convolutions that people do to get to Paradox. How could you travel to a place in time and space that you hadn't previously been?

The wormhole theory, even if correct (the more likely fact is that what we do not yet understand is what is wrong with the theory; there is more wrong with the math right now, than right), does not allow time travel as we envision it. Sure, one can go to extreme lengths to make time travel work if one wants to. But do we need that?

Like I've said, the closer you look, the more unlikely and difficult it all becomes. So just don't look very close. The idea of the game is not to discuss issues of time travel so much as to create an entertaining story about the subject, and provide a complex puzzle to solve. Which I think it will do just fine.

Mike

[Jonathan Walton]

As far as the "Fixed Time" theory, the biggest problem is that you are prevented from going back in time because, well, you weren't there, then.

Um, I disagree completely.

You guys have played "Continuum," right?  Greatest time travel game ever written, in my opinion, and it uses Fixed Time Theory as fact.

How do you know you weren't there in the past.  Maybe you were.  In Fixed Time, everything is predestined anyway, so anything you do just fulfills what was "supposed" to happen (really, you just do what you do, since you have no other choice).  As they say in Continuum, "Information is all."

Interestingly enough, Continuum's companion game, "Narcissist," uses an "infinite universes" theory alongside the Fixed Time of Continuum, showing how both can be true, from different perspectives.

But this thread has been wildly co-opted from the original topic.  Just to add somethign that might be helpful:

It might be possible to use Fixed Time and still run with Gwen's premise.  For instance, perhaps the players are shown an image of the earth's destruction, because that's what will cause them to travel back in time and prevent the destruction.  Circular causality, but in time travel games, that's often all you've got.  Take this example:

I walk down the street.  A future version of myself walks up and pushes me out of the way of oncoming traffic.  I thank him, and travel back in time, pushing my earlier self out of the way.  He thanks me and travels backwards in time.

Fun stuff :)