[HPforGrownups] Re: Paradox of Time Travel in PoA

[heather the buzzard]

No: HPFGUIDX 132023

davenclaw wrote:

>This still doesn't make sense. Let's think of it this way.  Harry 
>and Hermione experience the same three hour block of time in three 
>different ways:
>
>- the original way, before time was changed
>- the altered way
>- as time-travelers
>
>Reading through it again, I realize that WE NEVER SEE THE ORIGINAL 
>EVENTS.  We only see the events as they were changed, and the events 
>from the perspective of the time-travlers.
>
>Here is the problem: In order for Harry to end up in the hospital 
>and use the time-turner, he had to have been saved from the 
>Dementors.  In order for him to have been saved from the Dementors, 
>he had to have gone back in time.  But the moment when Dumbledore 
>tells Harry and Hermione to use the time-turner is a discrete 
>event.  We only see this event from the perspective of a Harry and 
>Hermione whose memory now only reflects the altered past - thus 
>Harry now only remembers seeing his own Patronus, even though he 
>hasn't actually created it yet.
>
>I understand what everyone is saying about how once events are 
>changed, they are changed.  But this ignores the basic fact that 
>there were events that took place prior to Harry and Hermione going 
>back in time - otherwise, what were they changing? 
>

heather now:

There was nothing to change, because it always happened that way.  This
is the hard part to wrap your brain around, I know.  But the idea is,
there was no *first time* and *second time*.  Time only happens once,
there can not be 2 different 'time-streams' in this theorem.  I'll say
it again, you have to step 'outside of time' and look at the whole
picture of past, present, future, as one entity, rather than a one-way
moving stream.

It does create a paradox of sorts, but that's the way it works.  Any
time travel involves paradoxes, this is just one of them.

There is no 'altered past', there is only one history, one time, that
was always changed.

Ever read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?  You have to make
reservations at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe (the end of
time).  But you don't have to make them before you go.  You just go
(forward in time), the reservations will be there already because you'll
make them after you go back to your 'normal' time.  It's a similar
concept to what JKR is using -- things will be there even though from
YOUR perspective, you haven't done them yet, but from the perspective of
time in the greater scheme of things, they HAVE been done.

davenclaw:

> And remember 
>when Dumbledore says they can save two innocent lives?  Clearly he 
>is speaking as though Buckbeak had been executed.  But when we re-
>read the events as they were written, we see that maybe the dropping 
>of the ax was when he threw it at a fence.  The idea seems to be 
>that we are lead to believe he has been executed, but we are 
>actually seeing the altered events, which we don't understand until 
>we read that part.  But I think it is JKR's intention that the FIRST 
>TIME we read through the events, we are seeing them as they were 
>altered.  And yet, Dumbledore implies that Buckbeak had been 
>executed.  This is a huge problem - if everyone's memory is of 
>events as they were altered, how can Harry remember his Patronus 
>while Dumbledore still thinks that Buckbeak has been executed?  The 
>easy explanation is that he KNOWS that Buckbeak escaped - his only 
>memory is of the altered events - but he also knows that he escaped 
>BECAUSE of the actions of the kids, which he now has to instigate.
>  
>
heather now:

I disagree that we are seeing an 'original' set of events where buckbeak
was indeed executed.  You say that DD seems to be implying that BB was
executed, but he never comes out and says so directly.  He does NOT
think that BB has been executed because he wasn't -- but this isn't yet
common knowledge.  Now there is a legitimate question in here -- does DD
know, at the time of the scheduled execution, what is going to happen?
He seems to, in the way that he detains the fellows inside the shack
long enough for H&H to get BB away.  This implies a certain
foreknowledge of events.

There are many theories already out there about this.  To sum up, either
1) DD somehow knew what he was going to do and acted thusly, or 2) DD
saw what happened, and figured out what he must have done to effect it,
and so does it (a logical paradox indeed, but there you go).  In any
case, *how* or *if* DD knew  is a separate issue from whether or not
there was an 'original' time that needed to be altered.  DD's ambiguous,
subtle comment to H&H is still totally consistent with a 1-time-only theory.

davenclaw:

>It's all quite confusing, but my overall point is that there is a 
>sequence of events that occurred before the moment when they went 
>back in time, which we never see, and no one in the story knows 
>anything about.
>

heather:

Nobody knows about them, because they never happened.  :)

heather the buzzard