From: Rannou@info.polymtl.ca (Patrick Rannou)
Subject: Re: Time-loop flaw in Time's Arrow II
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada
	<02OCT92.25572005.0060@VM1.MCGILL.CA>
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 09:24:16 GMT

In article <02OCT92.25572005.0060@VM1.MCGILL.CA> CXMP000 <CXMP@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA> writes:

   In article <1992Oct2.184234.28750@tin.monsanto.com> lesnyd@monsanto.com (Larry E. Snyder) writes:
   >In article <1992Oct2.164427.20584@nmsu.edu>, ssubrama@dante.nmsu.edu (SUBRAMANIAM) writes:
   >>
   >> Hi netters,
   >>  Has anyone noticed a flaw in Time's Arrow II.  When Samuel Clemens
   >> comes to the enterprise, he sees his watch and someone (I think Geordi) tells
   >> him that they found it in the cavern along with data's head.  That means
   >> that the watch is 500+ years old.  Clemens takes the watch goes back to the
   >> 19th century and leaves it in the cave.  That means the watch would be 1000+
   >> years old in the next loop. That cannot happen.  If everything happened as I
   >> have mentioned here in TA II, then the flaw is present.  Can someone confirm
   >> my observation or am I wrong in perceiving the events.
   >
   >No, Clemens took the 500-year-old watch back, but left his then-new watch in
   >the cavern when he realized he already had one in his pocket (the old one).
   >Hmmm - I wonder what would have happened if he decided to test "fate" and
   >take BOTH watches with him when he left the cavern...would the old one
   >disappear, since it was never there?

   I can't remember if I posted this already or not. :)

   Time travel implies causility violation which implies that one does not
   have as much free will as you might think.  The watch doesn't disappear
   because, supposedly, it is inevitable that it would find it's way in the
   cave.  Of course, if Clemens smashed his 19th century watch, the 24th
   century watch would also be smashed.

So you do it in a "Back to the Future" way. 

i.e. Time Travel ISN'T linear.
Or I should say more appropriately:

You pose that TIME isn`t linear.

If the timestream is linear, then you DON'T have free will.
Maybe you suddnely want to do an action in your past like going 2 MINUTES
in the past and look at yourself just before making the time-jump. Then if
before making the timejump you actually see yourself appearing 2 minute
before it, you can then try to NOT make the time jump. Somehow, a force
would "prevent" you from not doing it, and you make the jump. You're in the
past (2 minutes), you see your old self seeing you and not wanting to do
the jump and still doing it (remember, we assume linearity here, so events
can't be changed...). OK, but you REMEMBER what haooened when you were your
old self seing you, the future self. You remmeber what actions you did and
decide to do different things ti test causality. Somehow, even tough you
want to fight is a strongly as possible, it doesn't show up any differently
than when you were your old self. i.e. you don't have free will.

Now, if when you were the old self you DIN'T see a future self appearing,
then what happens when you make the jump? Eituher the jup doesn't work, and
thus linearity isn't compatible with time-travel, or you do jump, but you
surely don't arrive 2 minutes ago... because that would change ytheway it
all happened and you are in a linear model.

Conclusion:

*IF* you have a linear-timestream, *EITHER*:

1) Time-travel is impossbile. Free will is still undetermined.
2) exact functionning Time-travel is possible, but free-will doesn't exist.
3) Time-Travel isn't functionning correctly, and we don't know about
   freewill.
4) Sometimes time-travel works correctly abnd sometimes not. When
time-travel works correctly, it can be seen that Free-Will  does not exist.
When it doesn't work correctly, we can say nothing about freewill.

So, to be SURE that freewill exist *AND* that a correctly working
Time-Travel machine is possible, we HAVE to reject the linear timestream
model. 


Logical, as Spock/Data would say.

--
/---------------------------\
| Patrick "Paradak" Rannou. |
| Rannou@info.polymtl.ca    |
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