Paradox of Time Travel in PoA

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 132032

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "davenclaw" <daveshardell at y...>
wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboyminn at y...> wrote:
> > Another way to look at it is, we don't have two times, we have one
> time with two Harrys.

> Davenclaw:
> 
> My issue is not with TT-Harry and the other Harry co-existing.  My 
> problem is that the sequence of events that led up to the use of the 
> time-turner are never shown.  There are actually TWO times with two 
> Harrys, but one of those times is replaced.
 
bboyminn:

It's as simple as this, as long as you are fixated on the idea that
time happened twice, then you are trapped in an intolerable and
unresolvable paradox; that which /is/, but that which /can not/ be.

If you accept that time only happens once, while you still have a
degree of paradox, which is inevitable, you at least have a tolerable
paradox. 

So, simply choose the degree of frustration you want to live with.

At 6:00pm Harry joined the timeline, and therefore he was always there
ready and waiting to save himself. There is NO one time in which he
doesn't save himself then a second time in which he does. There is ONE
TIME with two Harrys; in the only one time that time occurred, the
second Harry saved the first. We don't see TWO TIMES with or without
two Harrys.

> > bboyminn with an illustration:
> >
> > .... Since Sirius died, either the time traveler failed or the 
> > time traveler was never there.


> davenclaw:
> Ahhh, but if you take that point of view, then why use a time-turner 
> in the first place?  
> 

bboyminn:

TT!Harry didn't alter history, he created it. That's the point of the
Sirius illustration. History is written, Sirius went through the Veil,
 so either there were NO time travelers or they failed. History is
history.

The same applies to the events surrounding TT!Harry and TT!Hermione in
PoA. JKR drops hints from both normal and TT! perspectives that
indicate that nothing changed. In the second perspective, we simply
see WHY the events of the first perspective occurred the way they did.
Buckbeak was never killed, in the TT! perspective we simply find out
how and why. In the original sequence of events, Harry was saved, from
the TT! perseptive, we simply find our how he was saved.

> ...edited...

> > bboyminn: 
> > Because of time travel PEOPLE can happen twice, but time only
> > happens once.

> Davenclaw: 
> Then what are people going back into?  The past that they already 
> created?  What for, if they have already altered things as they 
> intend to alter them?
> 

bboyminn:

As I pointed out above, JKR is careful to lay VERY subtle clues that
let us know that TT!Harry didn't alter history, he created it. The
events went the way they went because TT!Harry and TT!Hermione were
there to create that history. Again, time only happens once.

> Davenclaw:
> I think that there IS a second sequence of events which lead up to 
> the decision to go back in time, but once events are changed, no one 
> has any concept of events as they originally occurred.  ...
> 
> - davenclaw

bboyminn:

Hold to that belief if you want, but I'm here to tell you, it will
bring you nothing but headaches and lots of them. It is a valid theory
and concern of time travel, but it is the most miserable and
frustrating of the lot. Like I said, simply choose the degree of
frustration you want to live with.

Steve/bboyminn