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Re: Examples where authors messed up Timelines

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William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <ctbishop-2858AE.15355410092016@news.individual.net>,
> Charles Bishop <ctbishop@earthlink.net> said:
>
>> Don Kuenz <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
>>> William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> L. Neil Smith had a story in which the answer to the Grandfather
>>>> Paradox was "If you travel back in time and try to kill your
>>>> grandfather, you will die."  Mostly because the grandfather in this
>>>> case was way faster on the draw.
>>>>
>>>> (Going solely by Smith's (very short) short-story title list in the
>>>> ISFDB, I'm pretty sure it had to be "Grandfather Clause,"
>>>> http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?94387)
>>>
>>> Thank you. That's one way to eliminate the paradox.
>>
>> Does it add another one. Is the fact that he has killed his
>> grandchild mean the grandfather's life has been changed, flapping
>> butterflywise, so that the grandchild won't be born?
>
> As I recall, the grandfather was visiting a (mostly empty) museum or
> something with his obnoxious spoiled brat six-year-old grandson when
> the adult version of the latter appeared and tried to kill him. At
> the end of the story, the grandfather was making a promise to
> himself to try and make sure that the kid grew up into a better,
> less bitter person the second time around.
>
> So yes there's a paradox, assuming that he's successful and that
> would-be murderer incarnation of the adult version of the kid will
> now never exist.

It's a different kind of paradox. It's a grandson paradox. The grandson
paradox is potentially one order more tangled up than the grandfather
paradox. You can blame it on engrams. :0)

The grandfather paradox keeps it simple. If a time traveler kills his
grandfather before his grandfather procreates then the traveler and his
timeline cease to exist at that very moment. If a time traveler kills
his grandfather after procreation then the traveler's time line is
altered.

The grandson paradox tangles it all up with engrams. Let's say that the
kid grows up better and less bitter. Now the grandfather potentially
carries around an engram of killing a grandson in a former timeline that
never existed.

The first two Butterfly Effect (BE) movies [1][2] implant new memories
to accommodate new timelines.  It's unclear what exactly happens to the
old engrams. (Implantation of new memories causes brain hemorrhages in
the second movie.)

BE memory implants remind me of Gerrold's _The Man Who Folded Himself_.
Again it's unclear what happens to Daniel's old engrams. Perhaps
Daniel's old engrams cease to exist and that's why Uncle Jim insists
that Daniel keep a diary.

Note.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butterfly_Effect
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butterfly_Effect_2
3.

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

    The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from
the order of time and space. - Coleridge

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Re: Examples where authors messed up Timelines Charles Bishop <ctbishop@earthlink.net> - 2016-09-10 15:35 -0700
  Re: Examples where authors messed up Timelines wdstarr@panix.com (William December Starr) - 2016-09-10 22:13 -0400
    Re: Examples where authors messed up Timelines Cryptoengineer <treifamily@gmail.com> - 2016-09-10 21:47 -0500
      Re: Examples where authors messed up Timelines David Johnston <Davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> - 2016-09-10 21:59 -0600
    Re: Examples where authors messed up Timelines Don Kuenz <g@crcomp.net> - 2016-09-11 04:55 +0000
    Re: Examples where authors messed up Timelines Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2016-09-10 22:37 -0700
      Re: Examples where authors messed up Timelines David DeLaney <daviddelaney@earthlink.net> - 2016-09-11 04:26 -0500
      Re: Examples where authors messed up Timelines djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2016-09-11 21:07 +0000
      Re: Examples where authors messed up Timelines goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) - 2016-09-11 21:54 +0000
        Re: Examples where authors messed up Timelines Lawrence Watt-Evans <lwe@sff.net> - 2016-09-12 00:39 -0400
          Re: Examples where authors messed up Timelines Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2016-09-11 23:07 -0700
            Re: Examples where authors messed up Timelines Lawrence Watt-Evans <lwe@sff.net> - 2016-09-12 02:35 -0400

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