[HPforGrownups] Re: Paradox of Time Travel in PoA

[heather the buzzard]

No: HPFGUIDX 132329


>heather:
>
>htb> There was nothing to change, because it always happened that way.  This is the hard part to wrap your brain around, I know. 
>
>  
>
dave:

>Yes, it's hard for a *lot* of us, because if the future is
>predetermined, then these's no Free Will, and all the lip service
>Jo and Dumbledore give to "the choices we make" is invalidated.
>  
>

Actually, I addressed this in another post.  Free Will can still be in 
play.  An individual still 'chooses' to go back in time, and chooses 
their actions when they do so.  The difficult part is that the effect of 
their choice appears to precede -- by our linear perception -- the 
making of the choice. 

However, in the greater scheme of Time, looked at as a whole rather than 
as a forward-moving line, the choice came 'first' -- or perhaps more 
accurately, which came 'first' becomes irrelevant.  There is no 'first' 
in the greater scheme of Time; only in our perception of it.

Why did Harry, Hermione and DD instigate the TT adventures?  Because 
they chose to.  Just because they had already experienced some of the 
results of that decision before they knew they were to make it, does not 
mean they were guided by *fate* or by *predestination*.  They were 
guided by their *own choices*, their future choices.

In the greater scheme of Time, our concept of time is irrelevant.  
Everything that has and ever will happen is "already" there (our 
vocabulary, based in linear time perception, falls short of the task of 
describing a lack-of-time and leaves ambiguities unforunately).  It is 
all still determined by the choices we make along our journeys through 
Time.  It's just possible to look at it all from 'outside' of time.  
(Well, not possible for us, strictly speaking, but theoretically 
possible lol)

If you look back at your life, it is already set in stone.  You did 
this, you dated that person, you sent this letter, you didn't go into 
that restaurant, you studied that night, you didn't make that phone 
call.  Do you not have 'free will' over those years because you already 
know what happened?  Of course not.  Now you say "of course not, because 
that's the past, it's already happened.  The future is still open."

I'm just saying - that's true from our perception.  But you must imagine 
a frame of reference where there is no past or future, but it's all just 
*there*.  From that perspective, the future has 'already happened' in 
the same way the past has to our limited perception. 

Another way to perceive it, perhaps... Twenty years from now, you will 
be able to look back at choices you haven't made yet, and see them as 
'set in stone' as firmly as you see your current past.  Does this still 
mean you lack Free Will in those next twenty years?  Again, of course 
not.  But your 20-years-older self will see those 20 years as concrete, 
as unchangeable, and as irrefutable as anything, which to you right now 
are utterly unseeable and unknowable.

If someone looked into the future, assuming that was possible (and 
accurate, not this "possible future" mumbo-jumbo-copout), would that 
eliminate your Free Will?  I would argue, NO.  It is only seeing the 
results of the choices you are going to make before you've made them 
(again, by our perception).

This is all just an exercise in perception, of learning to look outside 
our one-dimensional linear approach to thinking about Time.  What it 
comes down to, is H and H made a choice of their own free will, and 
experienced the results of their choice 'before' they made it.  It's a 
paradox of cause and effect only if we remain linear about it.  :)

heather the buzzard (having fun)