Meta-time 2

Paradox is due to the mixing of para-level (meta-level) and original level.

— Me@2012-09-29 02:22:14 PM

… including the time-travel paradoxes.

As long as you put time-travel into a story, you mix the meta-time and the original time within that story. Thus time-travel paradoxes appear.

— Me@2012-10-01 10:33:05 AM

The two typical time-travel paradoxes are the grandfather paradox and the ontological paradox.

The grandfather paradox is that time-travel would create an inconsistent story. For example, if you time-travel back to 10 years ago and kill your younger self, you present-self cannot exist. So you could not have time-travelled back to 10 years ago and kill your younger self, you present-self can exist. But your present-self have time-travelled back to 10 years ago and kill your younger self, then you present-self cannot exist.

The ontological paradox is that information can come from nowhere and events can happen with no cause. For example, your future-self goes back in time to give you the solution of a homework problem. After copying it, you go back in time to give your past-self the solution of that homework problem. The question is, where does that homework solution come from?

The meta-time is the author’s time or the readers’ time, which is the real, in a sense that it is the real causal chain. The original-time is the time within that story, which is fake, in a sense that it is not the real causal chain. As long as we distinguish the meta-time (author’s time) and the original-time (story-time) clearly, the two paradoxes can be transcended.

To avoid the grandfather paradox, only the author should be allowed to go back into an earlier story-time. For example, after finishing the 10 chapters of a story, the author goes back to the first chapter to rewrite and polish it. The characters within that story should not be able to go back into an earlier story-time.

To transcend the ontological paradox, we should realize that the “information from nowhere” is actually from the meta-time; the “event with no cause” is actually caused by the author of that story.

— Me@2012-10-03 02:21:45 PM

2012.10.03 Wednesday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK