Talk:Predestination paradox

message: The first paradox I learnt about when viewing the article is the grandfather paradox. Surely the first paradox to be explained should be the predestination paradox? --82.152.248.87 (talk) 14:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Grandfather paradox

message: If a man discover that he will die (in the future!!!) from heart attack and then (in the present!!) travel to the past and say to himself to get fit, and then he overexerts himself, killing herself of a heart attack, how he will travel to the past now?? (since he is doing exercises, because he think the if he do the exercises he will not die from heart attack) And if he not traveled in time, how did he suffered a heart attack?? [since he discovered that he will suffer a heart attack on the future (after the traveling back in time)] 201.58.117.54
The way I understood it: Let's say his friend, after seeing him die of a heart attack, travels to the past and tells him: "Watch out, you'll die of a heart attack!" He exercises to prevent this, dies of a heart attack, and then his friend travels back in time to warn him. The text doesn't clearly state it went like this, but I'm guessing it must have been something along those lines. --Mithcoriel (talk) 12:35, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's why it's a paradox.  If you try to make all the cause/effect scenarios fit together, they don't. LarryJeff (talk) 17:50, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  about the heart attack paradox

message: I wonder if the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan scenario ("...the antique eyeglasses Captain Kirk receives from Doctor McCoy in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which Kirk leaves in the 20th Century in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home so it can be eventually bought by McCoy") might be complicated by the fact that the glasses are intact when McCoy gives them to Kirk in the 23rd century, but one of the lenses is cracked when Kirk later pawns them in the 20th century. Assuming they're the same glasses, then they must be repaired sometime before McCoy buys them for Kirk, and with each repetition of this loop they age by another 300 years. Most of the other examples given involve the origins of information or genetic code (i.e. people), both of which can be reproduced easily. --Arteitle 05:45, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)
:To be frank, there is no reason to believe that the glasses will be the ones that McCoy buys in future aside from Kirk's remark. It's one of those things that should not be examined too closely lest it falls apart. -khaosworks 07:59, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Wrath of Khan scenario

message: I fail not to see how Back to the Future falls in this category, since the 1985 Marty returns to is definately not the 1985 he left. -_- ckape (talk) 07:22, 2005 Jan 19 (UTC)
:I agree that it's a "pure" predestination paradox, cuz Marty's time trip is predestined to happen, but that he creates a grandfather paradox which he then has to correct by not substituting a predestination paradox for it, thereby ensuring his own history, the end result is the same. I've rewritten the paragraph slightly not to account for this. -khaosworks 15:23, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Back to the Future

message: This hardly qualifies as a predestination paradox, because it is constantly made clear that the past can be changed, therefore the movies are set in a mutable, not fixed timeline. Therefore, the timeline in which Skynet is built by Cyberdyne using parts of the first Terminator follows a timeline in which Skynet is built by some other company, later, and Judgment Day therefore occurs later than 1997. This company presumably builds Skynet in the timeline shown in T3, when Cyberdyne is destroyed.
The assumption that the movies take place in altered timelines, and the original timeline is never shown, not only follows the plot more accurately (allowing the past to change), but also resolves most, if not all, predestination paradoxes. For example, John Connor was Kyle Reese's son in the T1 timeline and all the subsequent timelines, but he was born from a different father in the original timeline where Reese had yet to be sent into the past.
The message is said to be memorized, so John must forcefully learn it and make sure it reaches the future unchanged. I believe this is done to make sure the message is delivered the same way as it was in the original timeline. To clarify: in the original timeline, John creates the message (here we have its necessary original source) and passes it to Reese, who alters the past by his very presence (let alone replacing John's original father with himself), and if John does not memorize the message the way it was, the message he creates himself may be different from the one he created in the original timeline, which would result in a different Reese arriving into the past (as long as Reese remembers a different message), a different past, a different future etc. - an incredibly dangerous loop that will most probably terminate with a variation of the grandfather paradox. However, as John remembers the original message, he may pass it to Reese unchanged.
That's it. Ideas shamelessly taken from http://mjyoung.net . I post it here because I can imagine no way to weave it into the article - explanation of the basic principles would be worthy of a separate article itself, which would be immediately deleted as original research. - Sikon 09:51, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terminator 

message: I don't think Night Watch is a predestination paradox. Lu-Tze clearly states that the Vimes who goes back in time was trained by the real John Keel. Things happen much as he remembered them (although not exactly), but that's because he's trying not to change things too much. In other words, it's a "branching universe" type of time travel, but the protaganist is being careful that a future similar to the one he left will result.Daibhid C 21:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Night Watch

message: This article seems to be turning into a library of pop-culture references. The section dedicated to the original concept is now only a tiny portion of this article. I feel there should be more about the subject itself (which still seems utterly illogical to me) and a lot less references - perhaps the references could be moved to a new article about time travel references in fiction (or something similar) and just a small list of the most notable, predestination paradox specific references included. Opinions? Richard001 08:10, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've seen this happen to lots of other articles on subjects like this, and usually what happens is that the enormous list gets split out into a "List of"-style article as you suggest. That way every editor with a personal favourite example still has a place to put it while allowing the main page to be kept clean with without major fuss or constant supervision. For example, see Dyson sphere and Dyson spheres in fiction. For this particular page, how about predestination paradoxes in fiction? (I like to avoid a literal "List of" title if I can help it, especially in a case like this where each entry has a few sentences to a paragraph of descriptive text to go along with it) Bryan 08:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case, let's add the list from Ontological paradox to it as well, since it's similar and overlaps almost all the time. Wait, I'll mention it in the discussion section of the list article. --Mithcoriel (talk) 13:56, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

text: Yes, but the first law of time is an artifical construct created to prevent Time Lords (who live outside of the normal boundaries of time) from changing their own pasts. Even so, there is one Time Lord who is KNOWN to have done this: The Great Rashelon (misspelled perhaps). He is known to have gone back in time and changed his past to make it so he wouldn't become immortal, but he messed up things, so he stopped himself from keeping himself from becoming immortal.Christopher1000 06:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Too many fiction references

message: Someone (or more than one) seems to be confused about the meaning of predestination paradoxes. Going back in time and changing the future is not a predestination paradox, unless you change the future in a way that makes it inevitable that you would have gone back in time. Some of the examples given are in fact the exact opposite, the extended version of the grandfather paradox, changing the future in such a way that it's impossible for you to have gone back in time.
*There is a Simpsons segment titled Time and Punishment (episode 109, 1994) which parodies Ray Bradbury's 'A Sound of Thunder', another classic in the time travel genre.
**This is not a predestination paradox; it's just changing the future.
*In Futurama, the video game based on the series, revolves around several paradoxes revolving around Hubert Farnsworth selling Planet Express to Mom, including the trashing of the Planet Express Ship, the death of Leela, Fry and Bender, and Farnsworth's Mexican sombrero.
**There's not enough information here to be sure, but from what I understand, the game actually features a grandfather paradox.
*In the 3D animated television show Beast Wars (which is related to the Original G1 Transformers story line), the descendants of the original Transformers, Maximals (Autobots) & Predacons (Decepticons), travel back in time to prehistoric Earth, when their ancestors were still in stasis in the Ark. They almost cause the destruction of the Autobot leader Optimus Prime & therefore jeopardize their own existence. Even though they manage to save their ancestors & eventually return home to their own time, their actions in the past still alter their own future. It’s later revealed that their actions in the past were foretold by a powerful Oracle as well, which is also arguably a self-fulfilling prophecy (see below).
**This would have been a grandfather paradox; since they avert it, there's no paradox at all.
*In the Video Game TimeSplitters Future Perfect, the main character co-operates with his future and past-selfs multiple times.
**Cooperating with your future and past selves doesn't make a predestination paradox. There might be one in the game; I don't know (forcing you to go along with what you saw your future self do when you become that future self and travel into the past might qualify), but I doubt it.
Many of the other examples are questionable at best, or better described otherwise (e.g., as ontological paradoxes), but I didn't take them out.
Also, while the first few examples are clearly notable (Futurama, Star Wars, Terminator, Planet of the Apes), does anyone other than a rabid fan think that Mucha Lucha, Time Warp Trio, or TimeSplitters really makes an good encyclopedic example? But again, I didn't take these out. --76.200.102.133 15:48, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Various fictional predestination paradoxes that aren't... 

message: I just watched the movie and the wikipedia article kinda sent me into this article. Anyway. The idea that Donnie choose to stay in his room and die when the engine fell based on what he new from the former time line could be a beginning of a causality. That's why I figure put the reference here since it is quite confusing and would require a great deal of deliberation on interpretations of the plot. Sukima 07:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Donnie Darko 

message: Chris Marker's La_Jetée is probably an instance of the Predestination Paradox. The protagonist is chosen for his mission in part because of his clear and sharp memory of the incident from his childhood in which he saw a man killed in the airport. That man, of course, is his future self on the time-travel mission.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.250.111 (talk) 20:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  La Jetee 

message: Should it go into Examples from fiction section? I'm not absolutely sure if it's plot consists of a predestination paradox or not... Goomba Smackdown!! (talk) 17:56, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox

message: The solution to this "paradox" seems quite simple. I'll use this as an example: Person R hears Song X, created by Musician Z. R then time travels to before Z made X and shows X to Z. Z then creates X, which inspires R to time travel back..... but I think that Z would have created X anyways because of events that would have happened regardless of R time traveling. 99.2.196.205 (talk) 03:14, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: What?  Dude, can you try rephrasing that, using real names and actual hypothetical scenarios?  All these X's, R's, and Z's make it hard to follow your logic.70.178.75.61 (talk) 19:36, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this really a Paradox? 

message: I deleted the paragraph about the Twilight Zone episode where Hitler was assassinated because it doesn't technically qualify as a predestination paradox.  See, the paradox lies in the notion that cause and effect are one in the same, and how one action directly caused someone else to go back and try to stop it, but ultimately causes it.  I don't see how a botched Hitler assassination would fall into this category.  Feel free to explain it to me, but please remember Wikipedia's policy on Wikipedia:Edit warring while you do so.70.178.75.61 (talk) 19:36, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hitler was a person who did a lot of horrible things.  This causes someone to travel back in time to assassinate him and stop all those awful things.  The assassinated (and innocent) child gets replaced by another child who eventually grows up to be Hitler who does a lot of horrible things.  This causes someone...etc. DonQuixote (talk) 03:19, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Hitler assassination

message: Could a more proficient/known wikipedist with knowledge of the Misfits series (current) ending edit the Misfits section accordingly? Unless there was a serious retconning involved, the paradox described in the section went quite differently.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.207.232.227 (talk) 21:00, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misfits section wrong 

message: The first example (Oedipus), as suggested in one of the discussions above, is a good example of a "self-fulfilling prophecy," but closer to an edge case for a "predestination paradox."  The plot would unfold as is if we include the Soothsayer being bribed to say what he does without any knowledge of the future.  If we are providing examples, they should be a bit clearer:  the "-All You Zombies-" examples should at least lead the list?  --John (User:Jwy/talk) 16:57, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clear Examples