Time Travel

[Stacy Forsythe]

No: HPFGUIDX 79020

Saith Carolina:

>Of course I don't mean it, but the phrase is correct, 9:00 PM only
>happens once, I'm using more or less the same theory that Asimov
>describes in 'End of Eternity', what I say is, if you write a
>straight line as the timeline, there is only one point that can be
>labeled as 9:00 PM, so it onlu happens twice. There is only
>containment for a set of events. The set can be changed. The set of
>events include "Harry and Hermione experience 9-12 PM twice that
>night". It's common in time travel to have people overstepping
>themselves. Multiple instances of individuals, isn't it?

I would still consider your version to be an example of 9:00 happening 
twice.  Not that there are two points on the clock that are both "9 PM," 
but that you seem to be assuming a "first" set of events without the time 
travel and a "second" set of events with the time travel.  I see no need 
for the first set.  It *could* have happened, but is essentially 
meaningless for the purposes of the story, since no one actually 
experiences it and we (as you agree) only read about the "with time travel' 
set of events.  You have to make up the entire "without time travel" 
sequence of events from whole cloth, with no evidence.


>I understand a linear, one timeline,  as time being a dimension that
>can be represented in the x axis, so there is only one 9:00 PM.
>Nothing prevents you from going twice though the axis, or for
>changing the function to adapt to reality if events in the single
>timeline have changed.

All right.  But when *we* (single-timeline theorists) say "a single 
timeline," we mean a single sequence of events that does *not* change.  No 
rewriting, no adapting, just the events that do occur, as they occur.  Time 
travel is just that -- traveling in time.  Even though the event that puts 
a second Harry and Hermione at 9PM doesn't occur until 12AM, they're still 
*there* at 9PM.  There's no need for a "first time" in which the time 
travel does not take place "yet."


><<True.  Fortunately, he was not dementorized.  Do we at any time
>see a dementorized Harry?  Nope.  We see him saved from the
>dementors just in time.  >>
>
>Of course. Because we only read the second set of facts.

If that's the only set of facts we read, why postulate another set that 
nobody ever experiences?  The events as they stand are internally 
consistent -- there's a second Harry present at 9PM to cast a patronus, 
thus the younger Harry survives the dementor attack and is able to use the 
time turner later to become that second Harry.  There's no need to bring in 
another set of events that was overwritten.


Stacy Forsythe
deadstop at wombatzone.com