Post by Hec Scrivener on May 11, 2007 0:07:00 GMT -5
Suppose a man, let us call him H.G., invented a time machine. Let us consider the powers at his disposal. If anything at all is technologically possible, he has it; it isn't even required that anything like, say, the elixir of life actually be invented, only that it be possible, because if he'll just have received the recipe from himself, to give to himself. He can avoid any mistake or risk of injury or death by forewarning himself. He has all the time in the universe to think up clever solutions to problems, but he doesn't actually need to do it, because he just receives all the answers from himself.
I submit furthermore that it is quite likely that he is the only time traveler in the history of the universe. For if HG is malevolent, then surely he would seek to prevent all potential competitors from gaining such immense power - and, armed with the foreknowledge of all other attempts to construct a time machine, brought to him by his future self, he certainly has the power to effect this. And if he was benevolent, then just as surely he would seek to prevent all potential malefactors from gaining such immense power - and, for the same reason, he can do so. And if he is somewhere in the middle, then he has something of both reasons to keep this monopoly. The technology spreading is contingent on his being neither especially benevolent or malevolent but simply foolish: foolish enough to let his guard down, when he has all the time in the world to get it right, or more foolish still to share.
Now, we don't have a supreme immortal and all-powerful overlord, so HG, if he exists, is not malevolent. Nor is he foolish, for we don't have a war between several supreme all-powerful overlords. But is he benevolent or neutral? Some might say he cannot be benevolent, for if we don't have a supreme all-powerful overlord, neither do we have a supreme omnibenevolent being. But as it is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide that, despite a total lack of evidence, we do have such, I don't think we can rule HG's benevolence out. At any rate, he doesn't wish us harm, and he's bouncing around the timeline preventing anyone who does wish us harm from gaining the power to do so, so that's not so bad.
It would be an odd life, to be sure. He certainly wouldn't be omniscient; on the contrary, he might be the most befuddled man in the universe. "Go to April 4, 66,768,129 BC," the note says, in his own handwriting, no less, "and squash the rodentlike creature you find coming out of a hole at about nine in the morning at the place that will eventually become Four Corners. Mind the T. rex coming over the hill to your south about three minutes before the squashing; she won't see you if you hide behind the shortest, thickest tree." And he would go, and he would do this, and he would write the note and send it to himself, and unbeknownst to him at any time during this endeavor he killed the creature who would otherwise eat the egg of the bird who would make off with a certain offspring of another rodentlike creature that will just happen to be the ancestor of all primates and, therefore, humans. Or perhaps the note might explain all this; it would work the same either way. But can he really capture all the strands of causality in his still-mortal mind? No. He would display the practical benefits of omniscience without actual omniscience.
Now let us consider that favorite doozy of metaphysics, the problem of ultimate causes. For HG, at least in theory, this isn't a problem at all; we are already dealing with oodles of causality loops caused by time travel. While practically speaking sparking the Big Bang might be a little bit tricky, a nice, thick, and accurate instruction book entitled How to Create a Universe could well appear in his lap at any time; and remember, he has trillions of years and all the technology that could ever exist to work on the problem. And the universe being one big causality loop would answer a whole lot of questions.
But it would raise some more. There's the one I'm sure you're all expecting by now:
Is HG God?
Or is God the one who's really writing the notes?
Is there a difference?
I submit furthermore that it is quite likely that he is the only time traveler in the history of the universe. For if HG is malevolent, then surely he would seek to prevent all potential competitors from gaining such immense power - and, armed with the foreknowledge of all other attempts to construct a time machine, brought to him by his future self, he certainly has the power to effect this. And if he was benevolent, then just as surely he would seek to prevent all potential malefactors from gaining such immense power - and, for the same reason, he can do so. And if he is somewhere in the middle, then he has something of both reasons to keep this monopoly. The technology spreading is contingent on his being neither especially benevolent or malevolent but simply foolish: foolish enough to let his guard down, when he has all the time in the world to get it right, or more foolish still to share.
Now, we don't have a supreme immortal and all-powerful overlord, so HG, if he exists, is not malevolent. Nor is he foolish, for we don't have a war between several supreme all-powerful overlords. But is he benevolent or neutral? Some might say he cannot be benevolent, for if we don't have a supreme all-powerful overlord, neither do we have a supreme omnibenevolent being. But as it is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide that, despite a total lack of evidence, we do have such, I don't think we can rule HG's benevolence out. At any rate, he doesn't wish us harm, and he's bouncing around the timeline preventing anyone who does wish us harm from gaining the power to do so, so that's not so bad.
It would be an odd life, to be sure. He certainly wouldn't be omniscient; on the contrary, he might be the most befuddled man in the universe. "Go to April 4, 66,768,129 BC," the note says, in his own handwriting, no less, "and squash the rodentlike creature you find coming out of a hole at about nine in the morning at the place that will eventually become Four Corners. Mind the T. rex coming over the hill to your south about three minutes before the squashing; she won't see you if you hide behind the shortest, thickest tree." And he would go, and he would do this, and he would write the note and send it to himself, and unbeknownst to him at any time during this endeavor he killed the creature who would otherwise eat the egg of the bird who would make off with a certain offspring of another rodentlike creature that will just happen to be the ancestor of all primates and, therefore, humans. Or perhaps the note might explain all this; it would work the same either way. But can he really capture all the strands of causality in his still-mortal mind? No. He would display the practical benefits of omniscience without actual omniscience.
Now let us consider that favorite doozy of metaphysics, the problem of ultimate causes. For HG, at least in theory, this isn't a problem at all; we are already dealing with oodles of causality loops caused by time travel. While practically speaking sparking the Big Bang might be a little bit tricky, a nice, thick, and accurate instruction book entitled How to Create a Universe could well appear in his lap at any time; and remember, he has trillions of years and all the technology that could ever exist to work on the problem. And the universe being one big causality loop would answer a whole lot of questions.
But it would raise some more. There's the one I'm sure you're all expecting by now:
Is HG God?
Or is God the one who's really writing the notes?
Is there a difference?