Post by Hec Scrivener on May 12, 2007 19:31:24 GMT -5
Plus it makes more sense; forking and otherwise mutable timelines require a fifth dimension at right angles to time - call it "super-time" - along which the whole timeline moves. Only then can we speak coherently about what a timeline looks like "before" or "after" a time traveler has messed with it.
Of course, an immutable timeline does do nasty things to free will. Why can't HG kill his grandfather? Because he did not/will not choose to. This is a strange issue, as it doesn't seem difficult for us to choose differently than we did "the first time around" given foreknowledge of our actions. In the case of the grandfather, perhaps HG is restrained out of fear. But there's a purer test of free will that he could do: imagine he receives a note from himself that says "Don't send yourself this note!" How could the universe conspire to get him to send that note when he has resolved not to? And if he doesn't, where did that note come from? (Though I suppose this is no more puzzling a question than where any of his other information came from.) A forking timeline may, after all, be unavoidable - and, in a score for libertarianism, it seems to be made unavoidable because of free will.
But I digress. I think Padre's argument might better be stated in terms of personal agency than free will. Whether or not HG can freely choose to cause things, he can still cause things.
Of course, an immutable timeline does do nasty things to free will. Why can't HG kill his grandfather? Because he did not/will not choose to. This is a strange issue, as it doesn't seem difficult for us to choose differently than we did "the first time around" given foreknowledge of our actions. In the case of the grandfather, perhaps HG is restrained out of fear. But there's a purer test of free will that he could do: imagine he receives a note from himself that says "Don't send yourself this note!" How could the universe conspire to get him to send that note when he has resolved not to? And if he doesn't, where did that note come from? (Though I suppose this is no more puzzling a question than where any of his other information came from.) A forking timeline may, after all, be unavoidable - and, in a score for libertarianism, it seems to be made unavoidable because of free will.
But I digress. I think Padre's argument might better be stated in terms of personal agency than free will. Whether or not HG can freely choose to cause things, he can still cause things.