Time travel in PoA

[sharana.geo <sharana.geo@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 48972

Pip!Squeak,    I like that name :-)

First of all I wish to tell you that I am still thinking, I 
understood what you said but I am still in the process of accepting 
it. I'll post some random thoughts I've had about it. Maybe your 
answers will help me in my thinking process. 

The one thing I have realized is why it is so difficult for me to 
accept it. I've known how to program software since I was 13 (or 
something) and the process of it has always been easy for me. When 
you are programming loops, you always need to establish a starting 
point, set initial variables. To program loops is easy for me too. 
This is why I understand easily Theory 3 (and time loops), but it is 
the same reason why it is hard for me to believe how a loop can 
exist without an initial state to set it off.

One thing that is bothering me, which I haven't mentioned before, is 
that when Harry goes to the lake and casts the Patronus, we are 
seeing things from his perspective, but we never get to recheck 
about-to-be-kissed Harry to corroborate that he is seeing things 
(his perspective) the same way as we saw before. 

Pip!Squeak
> What created the time loop? The availability of a machine to
> create a time loop. But when did you decide to hit the switch? You
> never did. There never was a point where you originally decided to
> hit the switch. Hitting the switch was always an accident, caused
> by the result of your experiment.


If I understand correctly, the time loop exists because Time Turners 
exist. Then isn't the mere existence of the TT extremely dangerous? 
What's the point in having them around? They should all be 
destroyed, because probably by accident, a time loop occurs, and it 
would be out of control. 

What if when the machine throws the billiard ball out, the ball 
smashes in your face killing you, and then the ball bounces off and 
hits the other ball which is the one that hits the switch? (Sorry 
about being so drastic). But then just the existence of the TT is 
too dangerous to keep one around, better destroy them all.

Pip!Squeak wrote:
> Events happen the way they do, because that is the way the two
> Harrys and Hermione's ended up interacting. The time traveling
> billiard ball is only in the time machine in the first place
> because it got hit by its time travelled self. Harry only travels
> through time because his time traveled self saved his life.

It seems to me that you imply that while you are in a loop, you can 
not change the outcome of events, the loop is at it is. I find this 
really hard to believe. More than that, why does McGonagall tell 
Hermione:

"awful things have happened when wizards have meddled with 
time...Loads of them ended up killing their past or future selves by 
mistake!"

This reminds me of the "Back to the Future" Trilogy, where they 
screwed up several times through the 3 films, and each time they go 
back to the present, they see how their time traveling actions 
affected it. I tend to believe that this is the perspective with 
which JKR wrote time loop in PoA. (Something like it is your choices 
and not your abilities who make you who you are).

And as Scheherazade (although confused, had a very brilliant 
thought) put it, although I will change it a bit:

But what if you had the billiard ball in a clamp or something, then 
it would not be able to go into the machine by its own, so it could 
never come out and hit itself. And then you turn on the machine 
(which is a time loop machine)?

I'm curious to know if you have ever tried to explain this theory to 
a kid, and how did he understand it. I mean, we don't have time 
travel devices (nor the experience), time is an abstraction, it 
really doesn't exist, but we are used to thinking in a linear mode 
(not in parallel universes mode), and this is how we live our daily 
lives. (I never plan on what I am going to do yesterday). It is a 
structured kind of thought (one step at a time and time only goes 
forward). This is why time travels is considered Sci-Fi, it is not 
part of our daily lives.

My difficulty in accepting your theory isn't new, not even recent. 
These are things I have questioned myself ever since I have memory. 
I do not believe I am the only one who deals with this specific 
problem.

I repeat, I am still thinking, and thinking, and thinking...


Sharana...