Time Travel and Paradox

I really cannot help it I think about time travel quite often. I like the idea of time travel, but I love the complexity of paradoxes, and the inherent problems of time travel itself. I suspect that if anyone is actually reading this blog I do not have to elaborate, I could just end it here, perhaps with a little joke of, hey you know when a clock is hungry it goes back for seconds... and that would be it. I think I should however lay down my working hypothesis of time travel, because as you know what you might think to be a standard of time travel might not be what I think, and frankly I have read and watched a lot of time travel media that just seems to go away from my own thoughts. So here it goes.

Wikipedia defines a paradox as a statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which (if true) defies logic or reason. The most know and used paradox would be the grandfather paradox, simply put if I went back in time and killed my grandfather before he met my grandmother, logic would dictate that my parents would not have been born, thus I would not have been born. So you see the problem with that, if I was not born then how did I go back in time and kill my grandfather?

My own thoughts (and many others I am sure) on this, a solution to the paradox, would be right now, right this second is the master time. What has happen in the past and what will happen is second place to the moment of "now". If I go back in time that master moment goes with me, I become the keeper of time or if you will the master of time. So by killing my grandfather that fact becomes well fact. My grandfather would be dead, my parents never born, yet as I control time I still exist. It is my belief that on my first trip back or forth in time, however that can be done, I step outside the bubble of reality and become something more that what I was. So technically who I was is indeed becomes nonexistent.

That is a bit to wrap your head around, but think of it like this. Let us say minesweeper (that little windows program) somehow becomes self aware and decides to uninstall itself. The moment it changes from minesweeper to this unknown artificial intelligence it no longer is what it was. It cuts its connection to that program and starts new. Granted I have taken myself back one generation vs. minesweeper just taking out its former self, so let's look at the what I would call a time ripple.

So here I am the master of time, just killed my grandfather and decide to go back to my time of origin. , truly something writers can generate a good story out of, but what do you suppose the changes would be? My thoughts are on a global scale, not much. Sure some of you are thinking butterfly effect but really it has only been a few generations, and my family and I had no influence it world affairs directly. The problem is as time goes on that might not be the case.

On a local level things have changed. Everything my grandfather, parents, and myself might have interacted did not happen, that would be nearly 100 years worth potential changes, that ripple into other changes for the rest of time. Seemingly small things like a job my grandfather got actually went to another that changed that persons professional life. To lager things like perhaps my stopping to talk to a friend on the way to work, prevented him from having a piano falling on his head down the street.

I as master of time would be exempt from losing the memories of what was and what is, I would recognize the changes, but no one else would. It is a raw deal for my friend for sure, but if you think about it all of you non-master of time right now influence what happens later by your actions of today. It is just you do not have the full ability to see what might be, just a feeling based on what has happen in the past.

There is of course one a problem with this time traveler scenario. Let us say I do not kill anyone I simply go back in time one day and talk to myself. I have become master of time, I know all, yet I know I did not meet myself a day ago, but yet here I am. Do you suppose that the moment I become master of time I remember all that has been and will be as far as interactions with myself, and if so what If during my travel to one day back in time I remember now I meet (met? Verbs have no meaning to the mater of time, that's a job perk) myself, but decided to not meet before I do? Would I then forget? If so would I not wonder what I am doing one day back in time?

I have a second hypothesis on that, related to alternate realities, it sure would take care of most common paradoxes and supply some answers, but as always opens up other questions you would not think of until you talk it out. Perhaps I will write another blog on the topic when I work it out..

I would be interested in your own ideas on this topic, and welcome any discussion on any media you may have come across that attempted to spin a story on time travel good or bad.