The only Time Travel Theory that Matters! Caution, review your Physics before proceeding.
Ok so, let's draw the picture immediately. The universe contains many dimensions, string theorists go up to 10 dimensions and even beyond. If you are a visual person, imagine a pile of shoestrings. Then imagine taking them all into your hand and squishing them into a ball so small that you can no longer see it. You have "folded" three dimensions into essentially a point. This is essentially how our universe is designed.
You have from our point of view as humans, three space dimensions (length, width, and height). And a "time" dimension as you call it.
We are free to move in the 3rd dimension by our creators, that is I can walk left/right, up/down, in/out of things. However I can not walk against the flow of time. I am therefore a "3-d" being for the sake of this post.
Think of all the Richard Alpert theories out there, where he's a being that transcends time. Now, that's completely possible, being that he is a "4-d" character in the sense of astral physics. He can walk left/right, up/down, in/out of things in the physical world, and as an added bonus he can walk up and down, or with and against the the flow of what we call "time" in the third dimension. It's another physical dimension for him. Richard (if you believe) or beings like I just described are "4-d" beings.
Now on to this "whatever happened, happened" stuff. We know that tptb are not to be trusted based on how many times they mislead us in the Podcasts and interviews like this one where they mentioned there will be "no time travel."
So I do want to hope, they will not attribute or explain away time travel and paradoxes to things like fairy dust, magic symbols, aliens, and other ways to just not explain things away. The guys have promised us a solid realistic explanation for everything, and I hope they deliver it.
So if they are sticking true to physics, there is a such thing as paradox free time travel when you factor in relativity. If you don't believe me, then go read some of Einstien goodies and the subsequent amount of postulates and homework problems that paint Physics textbooks and Cosmology books.
In fact, it is even possible to go to "the past" and kill your own grandpa, and still return back to your time and you be alive! (regardless of Marty's hand disappearing while playing a not-so-beautiful version Earth Angel) And even freaker is that your grandpa can still be alive, or even dead.
When you think in terms of relativity, it kinda all makes sense.
More on that later.
What should first understood by all about "time," and needs to accompany all time travel theories, is that time is relative, always. Therefore, a) "time" as a respective element to the aging of the third dimension doesn't exist if there are no 3-d observers. And b) there is no "overall time." (b) is something I keep hearing on the forums, and it sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard to me! There is no official "time keeper" who can see all dimensions including his own! We as 3-d creatures, can only feel the effects of the 4-d on our 3-d without being able to manipulate the 4th dimension ("time"). Similar to this, any other being (lets say a creature on the 8th dimension) can always feel the effect of a dimension one higher similar to how we view "time" on his "8th dimension" If I'm not losing anyone, just say that you can always observe at least one dimension higher than your own physical dimension, to compare physical changes in your own dimension, and ! you will percieve that as a one-dimensional "aging" of your own dimension. This is the basis for things like time travel when you want to incorporate relativity via Einsten into all of this. So on with the theory
From all this, it's apparent that there is no "all knowing observer" who can escape dimensionality and relativity, because he's always a "slave" (to use Lost terminology) to one dimension higher, and can only reference it, not manipulate it. Now, if we are thinking we have ageless people such as Richard, it is truly possible that he is a 4-d being who can move left and right in what we know as the 4th dimension. Meaning that he also has a "time" per se, if you, the reader, want to percieve it as such. This "time" is how how his dimension changes aspects versus the 5th dimension. So according to us, Richard does not age against the 4th dimension, only the 5th one, and who's to say that 80 years in the 4-d is comparable to 1/10000th of a second in the 5-d because all these lower dimensions are like the shoestrings I mentioned above, squished together so tightly they are almost non-existant. Richard would seem to not age at all according to us in the 3-d, but if he was to meet ! an even higher order being, say a 5-d, richard would feel completely mortal compared to the "immortality" of a 5-d being and beyond.
A 4-d being (if we want to assume Richard for simplicity sake even if that might be wrong) knows of ALL points on the 4-d line, meaning he knows of all possibilities of futures in the 3-d. It's just like me, a 3-d being, looking at a piece of paper, I know how long it is, how wide it is, and everything in between, always, for all of eternity, that 2-d paper is what it is. All possibles "futures" of the 3-d are a sheet of paper in a 4-d Richard's hands. And our losties are just popping around on that page at different points.
With that complicated mess out of the way, here's how you can kill your own grandpa in the past. Our losties are 3-d beings. They being able to, for an instant, slip into a different plane of 3-d by moving against the 4-d "timeline" (what we call time travel). Richard, as the ageless person exists on ALL POINTS of the 4-d, where as our Losties have simply existed in a few (statue times, 1950's, 1974, etc..) From this point, they proceed to make a change in the 3-d (kill Ben as a child, become part of the DHARMA Initiative, etc..) and according to cosmological theory, these actions will change the future from their point of view
for as long as they stay locked in that 4-d point they locked into when the island stopped skipping. Time for them only exists from their point of view, and every action they experience is only a result of their actions. They kill Ben. And guess what, their future in that 4-d point has Ben being dead. If they return to another "time" they will see that Ben will only be dead in that "time" if something caused him to be dead in his past. Let's assume that nobody really killed Old Ben according to Old Ben's perception. He doesn't remember being killed, but the young Ben according to our 316'ers remembers being killed. This phenomena is related to you understanding dimensionality. You can't think of time travel as a "when" you have to think of it as a "where" in another dimension.
Each dimension in a universe stores the data from a dimension below it as a possibility of all points every instant in "time". That is our 3-d universe has a 2-d sheet of paper in it. That universe contains the record of that 2-d sheet of paper as a collection of all points within an 8 1/2" x 11" square, that can itself as a sheet have the possibility to move anywhere in the universe. This is the same when you up this all a dimension to talk about "time". The 4-d knows of every point in the 3-d universe (which is like the paper from before) and every possible point on the 4-d timeline that the 3-d universe can exist on.
To understand the simple theory, you have to soak in all of what I said previously. Killing your own grandpa is like burning a sheet of paper on that 4-d line. That's it. All there is to it. And the effects of your choices are just one point in the 4-d, you alter the universe on that single point in 4-d, however, it is not the same universe in which you came from, nor is the universe you will "return" to. The universe that you killed your grandpa in, means that he will not proceed to do the nasty with your grandma leading down the road to your birth in that universe only. Your grandpa will see a man appear before his eyes and kill him. His grandson, is NOT you, it's the "you" of another dimension. And yes, that grandson will not be born in his universe from it's relative point of view. So you return to your universe, and from their point of view, you disappeared and returned, and nothing has changed.
So what does a 4-d being like Richard see in all this dimension swapping, after all, he should by definition know of all possibilities of you killing, not killing, slow dancing, and eating cookies with your grandpa when you decide to "go back" and meet him. The difference between Richard and us, is that he can choose which universe in the 3-d he wants to freely live in and will transcend "time" at all instances in that universe. He will see you appear before his eyes , to his surprise in that universe, and watch you kill your grandpa. From his point of view that "grandpa" is dead, but you are not his grandson because that is no longer a possibility for you to be born in that universe, so you aren't. When you return to your own time, the Richard in that time is not the "Richard" that you previously met when killing your own grandpa is not the same "Richard" and will not know you either.
Starting to make sense now? This is basic science... Paradox-free time travel is easy to understand when you apply physics to this. Now, this theory supports the "whatever happened, happened" theory, however, I don't think our producers are this educated in astrophysics, then again, I could be wrong.
To put this into Lost terms, John Locke and possibly Ben (along with Christian, Richard, etc..) have detached themselves from the 3rd dimension, and are now freely able to more in the 4-d, meaning they can be alive at all moments in "time" relative to the 3-d. The whole "only fools are slaves to time and space" from the Room 23 video is aluding to this very concept of time-relativity. The Ben that Sayid shot, is not the Ben that is in 2007 with Sun and Lapidus according to this time-theory. The Ben in the point in time that Sayid is is dead, but the Ben that is older never had Sayid visit him as a child on his timeline, which is why he's still alive.
Each observer in a dimension has HIS own timeline, and only his. He can not change his own past, and neither can anyone else. He can only change his future and the futures of others in other dimensions that he can freely travel in. Our time travelling losties can only change the futures of the people they meet at any given point in their OWN timelines relative to what they observe in that time. In the D.I. in 1977, Sayid will never get to see that Ben he shot grow up. But if he returns to the point in the 4-d that has the universe he was born in in 2007, he will strangely run into Ben hanging out with Sun and Frank, and to his surprise he will wonder why. Because in that universe Ben never has Sayid kill him, Sayid wasn't even born when Ben was in the D.I., etc... And overall, according to Richard, there are an infinite amount of sheets of paper, Sayid's, and Ben's, and only one of them got killed in one universe in all of time. We are witnessing only a handful of possible u! niverses in Lost. This is the scientific explanation of "whatever happened, happened" There is only one timeline, but infinite amount of universes along that timeline.
Get out your physics books ;)
Remember, think "where," not "when"
I hope it was worth the read for you guys! Theory by Engineer Matt
Ok so, let's draw the picture immediately. The universe contains many dimensions, string theorists go up to 10 dimensions and even beyond. If you are a visual person, imagine a pile of shoestrings. Then imagine taking them all into your hand and squishing them into a ball so small that you can no longer see it. You have "folded" three dimensions into essentially a point. This is essentially how our universe is designed.
You have from our point of view as humans, three space dimensions (length, width, and height). And a "time" dimension as you call it.
We are free to move in the 3rd dimension by our creators, that is I can walk left/right, up/down, in/out of things. However I can not walk against the flow of time. I am therefore a "3-d" being for the sake of this post.
Think of all the Richard Alpert theories out there, where he's a being that transcends time. Now, that's completely possible, being that he is a "4-d" character in the sense of astral physics. He can walk left/right, up/down, in/out of things in the physical world, and as an added bonus he can walk up and down, or with and against the the flow of what we call "time" in the third dimension. It's another physical dimension for him. Richard (if you believe) or beings like I just described are "4-d" beings.
Now on to this "whatever happened, happened" stuff. We know that tptb are not to be trusted based on how many times they mislead us in the Podcasts and interviews like this one where they mentioned there will be "no time travel."
So I do want to hope, they will not attribute or explain away time travel and paradoxes to things like fairy dust, magic symbols, aliens, and other ways to just not explain things away. The guys have promised us a solid realistic explanation for everything, and I hope they deliver it.
So if they are sticking true to physics, there is a such thing as paradox free time travel when you factor in relativity. If you don't believe me, then go read some of Einstien goodies and the subsequent amount of postulates and homework problems that paint Physics textbooks and Cosmology books.
In fact, it is even possible to go to "the past" and kill your own grandpa, and still return back to your time and you be alive! (regardless of Marty's hand disappearing while playing a not-so-beautiful version Earth Angel) And even freaker is that your grandpa can still be alive, or even dead.
When you think in terms of relativity, it kinda all makes sense.
More on that later.
What should first understood by all about "time," and needs to accompany all time travel theories, is that time is relative, always. Therefore, a) "time" as a respective element to the aging of the third dimension doesn't exist if there are no 3-d observers. And b) there is no "overall time." (b) is something I keep hearing on the forums, and it sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard to me! There is no official "time keeper" who can see all dimensions including his own! We as 3-d creatures, can only feel the effects of the 4-d on our 3-d without being able to manipulate the 4th dimension ("time"). Similar to this, any other being (lets say a creature on the 8th dimension) can always feel the effect of a dimension one higher similar to how we view "time" on his "8th dimension" If I'm not losing anyone, just say that you can always observe at least one dimension higher than your own physical dimension, to compare physical changes in your own dimension, and ! you will percieve that as a one-dimensional "aging" of your own dimension. This is the basis for things like time travel when you want to incorporate relativity via Einsten into all of this. So on with the theory
From all this, it's apparent that there is no "all knowing observer" who can escape dimensionality and relativity, because he's always a "slave" (to use Lost terminology) to one dimension higher, and can only reference it, not manipulate it. Now, if we are thinking we have ageless people such as Richard, it is truly possible that he is a 4-d being who can move left and right in what we know as the 4th dimension. Meaning that he also has a "time" per se, if you, the reader, want to percieve it as such. This "time" is how how his dimension changes aspects versus the 5th dimension. So according to us, Richard does not age against the 4th dimension, only the 5th one, and who's to say that 80 years in the 4-d is comparable to 1/10000th of a second in the 5-d because all these lower dimensions are like the shoestrings I mentioned above, squished together so tightly they are almost non-existant. Richard would seem to not age at all according to us in the 3-d, but if he was to meet ! an even higher order being, say a 5-d, richard would feel completely mortal compared to the "immortality" of a 5-d being and beyond.
A 4-d being (if we want to assume Richard for simplicity sake even if that might be wrong) knows of ALL points on the 4-d line, meaning he knows of all possibilities of futures in the 3-d. It's just like me, a 3-d being, looking at a piece of paper, I know how long it is, how wide it is, and everything in between, always, for all of eternity, that 2-d paper is what it is. All possibles "futures" of the 3-d are a sheet of paper in a 4-d Richard's hands. And our losties are just popping around on that page at different points.
With that complicated mess out of the way, here's how you can kill your own grandpa in the past. Our losties are 3-d beings. They being able to, for an instant, slip into a different plane of 3-d by moving against the 4-d "timeline" (what we call time travel). Richard, as the ageless person exists on ALL POINTS of the 4-d, where as our Losties have simply existed in a few (statue times, 1950's, 1974, etc..) From this point, they proceed to make a change in the 3-d (kill Ben as a child, become part of the DHARMA Initiative, etc..) and according to cosmological theory, these actions will change the future from their point of view
for as long as they stay locked in that 4-d point they locked into when the island stopped skipping. Time for them only exists from their point of view, and every action they experience is only a result of their actions. They kill Ben. And guess what, their future in that 4-d point has Ben being dead. If they return to another "time" they will see that Ben will only be dead in that "time" if something caused him to be dead in his past. Let's assume that nobody really killed Old Ben according to Old Ben's perception. He doesn't remember being killed, but the young Ben according to our 316'ers remembers being killed. This phenomena is related to you understanding dimensionality. You can't think of time travel as a "when" you have to think of it as a "where" in another dimension.
Each dimension in a universe stores the data from a dimension below it as a possibility of all points every instant in "time". That is our 3-d universe has a 2-d sheet of paper in it. That universe contains the record of that 2-d sheet of paper as a collection of all points within an 8 1/2" x 11" square, that can itself as a sheet have the possibility to move anywhere in the universe. This is the same when you up this all a dimension to talk about "time". The 4-d knows of every point in the 3-d universe (which is like the paper from before) and every possible point on the 4-d timeline that the 3-d universe can exist on.
To understand the simple theory, you have to soak in all of what I said previously. Killing your own grandpa is like burning a sheet of paper on that 4-d line. That's it. All there is to it. And the effects of your choices are just one point in the 4-d, you alter the universe on that single point in 4-d, however, it is not the same universe in which you came from, nor is the universe you will "return" to. The universe that you killed your grandpa in, means that he will not proceed to do the nasty with your grandma leading down the road to your birth in that universe only. Your grandpa will see a man appear before his eyes and kill him. His grandson, is NOT you, it's the "you" of another dimension. And yes, that grandson will not be born in his universe from it's relative point of view. So you return to your universe, and from their point of view, you disappeared and returned, and nothing has changed.
So what does a 4-d being like Richard see in all this dimension swapping, after all, he should by definition know of all possibilities of you killing, not killing, slow dancing, and eating cookies with your grandpa when you decide to "go back" and meet him. The difference between Richard and us, is that he can choose which universe in the 3-d he wants to freely live in and will transcend "time" at all instances in that universe. He will see you appear before his eyes , to his surprise in that universe, and watch you kill your grandpa. From his point of view that "grandpa" is dead, but you are not his grandson because that is no longer a possibility for you to be born in that universe, so you aren't. When you return to your own time, the Richard in that time is not the "Richard" that you previously met when killing your own grandpa is not the same "Richard" and will not know you either.
Starting to make sense now? This is basic science... Paradox-free time travel is easy to understand when you apply physics to this. Now, this theory supports the "whatever happened, happened" theory, however, I don't think our producers are this educated in astrophysics, then again, I could be wrong.
To put this into Lost terms, John Locke and possibly Ben (along with Christian, Richard, etc..) have detached themselves from the 3rd dimension, and are now freely able to more in the 4-d, meaning they can be alive at all moments in "time" relative to the 3-d. The whole "only fools are slaves to time and space" from the Room 23 video is aluding to this very concept of time-relativity. The Ben that Sayid shot, is not the Ben that is in 2007 with Sun and Lapidus according to this time-theory. The Ben in the point in time that Sayid is is dead, but the Ben that is older never had Sayid visit him as a child on his timeline, which is why he's still alive.
Each observer in a dimension has HIS own timeline, and only his. He can not change his own past, and neither can anyone else. He can only change his future and the futures of others in other dimensions that he can freely travel in. Our time travelling losties can only change the futures of the people they meet at any given point in their OWN timelines relative to what they observe in that time. In the D.I. in 1977, Sayid will never get to see that Ben he shot grow up. But if he returns to the point in the 4-d that has the universe he was born in in 2007, he will strangely run into Ben hanging out with Sun and Frank, and to his surprise he will wonder why. Because in that universe Ben never has Sayid kill him, Sayid wasn't even born when Ben was in the D.I., etc... And overall, according to Richard, there are an infinite amount of sheets of paper, Sayid's, and Ben's, and only one of them got killed in one universe in all of time. We are witnessing only a handful of possible u! niverses in Lost. This is the scientific explanation of "whatever happened, happened" There is only one timeline, but infinite amount of universes along that timeline.
Get out your physics books ;)
Remember, think "where," not "when"
I hope it was worth the read for you guys! Theory by Engineer Matt
