It Was A [Regular] Day in April...

I just finished reading George Orwell's dystopic novel 1984.  Now, I know what you're thinking, but I promise: I'm not a high school junior.  I just never read it when I was in high school, so I figured I might as well do it now and see what our future was like 28 years ago.  It's a shame though - after having read it, I really want to write a 5 page essay comparing Orwell's vision of the future to that of Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness.  (Double-spaced with at least three references, of course.)  Unfortunately, I doubt anyone would want to read that.  (Perhaps I should narrow my dating pool to naught but English teachers.)

Big Brother is watching you.

If you're unfamiliar with the novel, then I recommend you go back to school and get your GED because come on, serioulsy?

Kidding.  Just check the Wikipedia.  In essence: dystopian future, freedom of all kinds is suppressed, the ruling class ["the Party"] knows and controls all.  (But seriously, read the book, it's plusgood.)

Obviously our society has not (yet) fallen into such a dystopic state as predicted warned by the novel.  The validity of Orwell's concerns is not really what I want to discuss, though - again, I'm sure you had enough of that in your English classes.  What I want to discuss (-ish) is the new diction/language in the novel's society called Newspeak.  It is basically the Party's attempt to be more in control by actually limiting the vocabulary, making every word have one specific meaning and eliminating "unnecessary" words.  Also, using combinations of the fewer words to replace "eliminated" words, such as good is "good" and ungood is "bad" and plusgood is "great/excellent/superb/awesome".  By eliminating words (or changing their meaning), concepts such as freedom and liberty and anything anti-Party eventually will disappear from the lexicon and thus from ideology/thought in general.  Everyone will be a goodthinker.  (It would be very helpful if you read this appendix on Newspeak that Orwell included in the novel.) 

One such word I really like is doublethink, and it basically means to hold two contradictory ideas in your head, but accept them both as true.

I never knew there was a word for this concept, but it's something I'm sure we all do in one instance or another.  Personally, I've been doing it in one very specific case for quite some time; a necessity to my happiness and positive outlook on the world.  I'm, of course, referring to the ultimate Jurassic Park gaffe.  You know the one: at first, the T-Rex paddock has a ground that is level with the car-path outside.  However, the T-Rex bursts through the fencing, stepping from one ground to the other, and yet a mere minute later when he flips the car off the track and into the paddock...suddenly the paddock floor is a hundred feet down, as seen by the car free-falling down into a tree, and Grant/Lexi scaling down the wall on a long cable.

When I first was made aware to this rather large mistake, I had two reactions.  One: I'm an idiot for not noticing this earlier since it's one of my favorite movies that I've seen a thousand times.  And two: damn you interwebz for destroying my happiness at the glory that is Jurassic Park!  My world was marred for while and I felt jilted.  However, I soon resolved to not let that alter my perception of the movie, so I started actively accepting the contradictory ideas - not creating excuses/reasons for the faux-pas, but simply believing one or the other when it was necessary/convenient.  Doublethink.

[Pro-tip: this movie, along with many of your other favorites, is rife with mistakes - if you want to remain innocent and happy with the films, please do not seek out their mistakes.  It will make you doubleplusungood.  Ignorance is bliss.]

Real quick: another interesting concept from the novel, somewhat akin to doublethink, is the fact that the Party literally rewrites the past to make it fit with the current state of events/ideas/etc of the present.  (Another means of control, showing the Party is always right and painting them in a good light at all times.)  They perpetrate this via the doublethink-ly titled "Ministry of Truth."

Now I'm not saying that our government does this or anything.  It's simply that I just recently saw an article about how unemployment was at a low, when I swear I had just seen one that said it was at a high.  Same with new job creation.  Pretty much anything to do with economics or politics.  Again, I don't think our government is perpetrating any grand-scale hoodwink on us - I'm just admitting that I am woefully ignorant with certain current event topics.  Maybe I wouldn't mind a Party doing all my thinking for me.



Fun facts!:

-The title of this post references 1984's infamous opening line, "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."  But today was just a regular April day.

-The basic purpose and ideology behind Newspeak are somewhat akin to the Esperanto language.  They just differ in vocabulary and that pesky "we're doing this to control you" vibe that Newspeak has.  (Gratuloj, vi povas legi esperanto!)

-The Bad Religion song "Boot Stamping on a Human Face Forever" gets it title from a line in 1984: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."  Powerful imagery.

-If you're feeling pretentious and/or rebellious, there's this fun poster.

When is a Family Guy Joke Canon?

I've always been interested in the the field of canon as a part of a story or series that has an ongoing development schedule. I think the easiest way to think of this is a seasons-long TV series where each episode tells an individual, generally unrelated story, while overall maintaining some semblance of linearity in the characters' development. Another area where this is highly visible is in video game series' where the user is given some level of choice in outcomes from event to event. If the exploits of that character are referred to in subsequent games, the developers must either stick only to events that they required the player to complete (hence, canon), or else risk the possibility of creating canon out of something that didn't necessarily happen to a particular player in a particular game.

Focusing on the development of canon in a TV series, this concern occurs most often, as far as I can tell, in comedies, particularly animated ones (I'm looking at shows like Family Guy, Futurama, and I suppose non-animated shows such as Seinfeld). Each of these shows has a general character development timeline throughout the series. In essence, there is a linear backstory to the character that develops on each character both through revelations made during various episodes and through certain events within episodes that the writers decide will become part of the character's, and hence the series', canon. Here arises the distinction between canon and non-canon within episodes.

As a small example, I will use Family Guy situations because it's a great example of the seemingly arbitrary distinction between what becomes canon and what is ignored. Because Family Guy consists of both "cut away" jokes and plot-based, situational jokes, each provides an opportunity to either create or ignore canon. As a rough rule, "cut away" jokes tend to not become canon, and often can ignore past canon in making the joke. A good example is where Peter is shown in Vietnam during the Vietnam war, dressed as a clown. Peter is somewhere between 43 and 44 years old, and so would have been too young to serve during the time of the Vietnam War.

This age discrepancy is actually a running issue throughout the series, as well as with many other animated shows that don't show characters aging (an example of the rare story where animated characters do age is the comic strip, For Better or For Worse). In Family Guy, the lack of aging becomes an issue that requires the suspension of disbelief as the series progresses. Two of the most egregious examples consist of Stewie being perpetually one year old, and Bonnie Swanson being pregnant "for like six years." Both situations are referenced by other characters at some point in the series--Stewie, when Brian asks him why he still has a stuffed animal and is surprised to hear Stewie is still one, and Bonnie when Peter calls her out for having a six-year pregnancy. However, these age impossibilities are still canonical, as each is an element that transcends individual episodes and becomes part of the show's fabric. I wonder, though, how they can fit together, as Bonnie having a child who becomes a functioning baby would seem to conflict with Stewie never aging (though he does at one point have his first birthday). This concern is better left for another post, however.

Returning to the distinction between plot-based jokes and cut away jokes, even when a plot-based joke appears to be believable and likely to transcend the specific episode in which it occurs, often it is not later referenced in any way, leaving it up to the viewer to guess whether it was indeed made canon or not. To contrast, often cutaways are easy to spot when they are non-canonical because they involve an outrageous situation that is impossible to reconcile with an ongoing story (such as when a main character dies in the scene). However, when something that occurs in a cutaway is plausible, but very unlikely to occur, it is more questionable.

A few things that occur in episodes and become canon later on are, for example, Kevin Swanon's presumed death in Iraq (which is later made into a plotline in an episode, where Kevin miraculously returns unharmed). His participation in the Iraq War was only briefly noted in an single episode, but is cemented as Family Guy canon when he returns. Another is the death of several secondary (but recurring) characters in the episode, And Then There Were Fewer, which are later confirmed (mostly through the simple fact that they are no longer in the show). As a further tidbit, James Woods, who was one of the victims in the episode, later returns in another episode, attributing his apparent resurrection to medical science and his status as a famous actor. This canonical fact in itself illustrates the distinction I'm trying to make. Had the deaths in And Then There Were Fewer not been canon, no reference would have been made in the later appearance, because non-canon events don't need to be referenced, and often aren't allowed to be, by definition. The simple fact of an explanation for James Woods' return in a subsequent episode stamps the events in the earlier episode as "canon" in the Family Guy story.

Tracking the differences between jokes that produce canon and those that don't is difficult without explicit references later on. Are we to believe that Peter has had dozens of jobs in recent years outside of the few that are certainly canonical (Happy-Go-Lucky Toys, Pawtucket Patriot brewery, even freelance fisherman for a period)? Did Stewie and Brian really fight in the Iraq War?

I think that because a lot of the situations are far-fetched and seemingly disjointed, it makes the determination of what is canon and what is not all the more interesting. Peter probably has not actually been addicted to the various hard drugs that we see him face throughout the series, but we are to believe he has repeatedly destroyed the front of Cleveland's house, as well as many other structures (as his propensity for mayhem was referenced in an episode where a contractor asks Lois whether she had any house repair needs in a given week). The suspension of disbelief and the distinction between what is "real" and what is simply for extended comedic effect are difficult concepts to reconcile, but they make shows of this type more interesting to piece together beyond the simple entertainment of an episode.

In essence, the problem with canon vs. non-canon helps this kind of show. On one hand, those who have never seen it can pick it up in a given episode and follow along with near-full entertainment (in contrast to heavily storied shows where a new viewer must be clued in to every relationship and scenario in order to understand much of anything); and on the other, a seasoned viewer can pick up on nuances and subtle character-background developments that are referenced, left up to that viewer to determine whether it is canonical or else used simply for entertainment value at that moment, to make a joke work.

I'm going to leave this discussion here, with TV shows, rather than carry on into the video game series examples. Long posts can get tedious, and I would likely double the length of this one if I continued. Perhaps I'll address it in a later post.

The Time Travel Fallacy, part 3

This is the third article in a mini-series on time travel. To read the first two articles click here and here.


Issue 3: What happens to a person who time travels?

There are two main questions I want to look at with regard to a time traveler's person. First, how does one's body time travel? This is much like the question of how one can teleport, as bodies are broken up into pieces of matter or energy and reassembled upon arrival--is the person who arrives the same as the one who embarked? And second, assuming the person remains the same after travel, what does the differing passage of time do to the traveler? Not only does time pass more slowly the faster one is traveling, but the process of time travel would mean that one who spends significant time in the past would return to the present measurably older than he left.

Now this is starting to get ridiculous...

Starting with bodily effects of time travel, the result would depend on what manner of travel is used. There are two main methods I can think of: travel by vehicle that moves beyond the speed of light and travel by "teleporting through time" in a stationary (or sometimes rotating) machine. While I can feasibly see the vehicle method resulting no physical changes in the traveler, I am more skeptical about the results of travel by teleportation.

As I understand it, such time travel involves the traveler being teleported from a particular place and time to another. I'm not sure how such a machine would accomplish the "time" portion of the teleportation, because it seems most theories of time travel require massive physical velocities to accomplish the slowing and reversal of time. Nevertheless, let's assume it's possible to be instantaneously zapped from one time to another. Even so, how does that work? Because such teleportation requires the disassembling and reassembling of matter at the molecular level, it would seem reasonable that--even if the same human form emerges on the other side, it would not be the same body of consciousness. In other words, outside observers would see the same person (and for all intents and purposes it would be the same person), but the consciousness and awareness that exists in that body would be different.

To break it down further, think of a person as an "original." When the atoms that make up that original are teleported, they must, theoretically, be broken down into energy (or at least to the smallest atomic structures possible). The thinking is that you can't pass a 160 lb. person through time and space in its entirety. Then, the body is reassembled on the other side (this would be the work of a retrieval machine that has scanned and stored the structural data of the traveler, e.g. the Transporter in Star Trek). In essence, the time traveler is scanned in the copy machine at the take-off point and printed out at the destination in another time and place.

Here we come across the troubling question: who is this "printed" person? I have to believe that consciousness can't travel across time in the form of atoms or energy in the way that a body can. If this is true, the person arriving would have the mental knowledge, wherewithal, and capabilities of the original, but it would not be the original in the true sense. This is of little consequence to the outside world, because your friend Dave would still be Dave--he remembers your trip to Vancouver, can still recite the Shakespeare he learned in college, and has the same character and personality traits as Dave has always had. But the original  "consciousness of Dave" is now gone. This may not matter to the larger world, but to the original Dave it's a pretty big deal!

Putting aside this concern, let's look briefly at the effect of the passage of time on the time traveler. We already know that time passes more slowly the faster something is traveling--at least, relative to its slower-moving counterparts. This has been observed in astronauts who spend large amounts of time aboard the International Space Station, who are a few seconds younger than they would have been on Earth during that span. Consequently, it seems reasonable to believe that a time traveler would age significantly slower during his travel, relative to time's passage on Earth. Because time travel theoretically requires movement beyond the speed of light, it would exhibit the ISS effect to the extreme.

However, what about one who spends time in another era? Presumably they would age at the normal rate of a being at rest in that time (that is, they would age at a 1:1 ratio with what is standard on Earth, if that's where they are). However, their age upon return depends entirely on (1) how long they were in that other era, and (2) what time they choose to return to, relative to their departure time. This second point means that  a person who spends a few years in another time and then returns to his contemporary time at even the exact moment he left will suddenly appear much older. Taken to the extreme, someone who chooses to return sometime before he left will compound the effect and age before he left.

As far as I can imagine, this aging phenomenon will only go one direction--forward. So time travel for long periods of time would become an "at your own risk" scenario, where one would essentially choose to live his live at normal speed and time in his contemporary age, or spend time traveling throughout the years. The more time travel a person undergoes, the less time he will have to spend in his contemporary time due to the ongoing aging. This doesn't account for the time slowing effects of extremely fast travel in a time machine that actually moves. However, even in such a case, the person will age once he reaches his time destination. That aging can't be undone, no matter when he chooses to return to the present.

In sum, it seems that time travel is a risky proposition for the one doing the traveling, even if all of the possible kinks are worked out. I'm not sure that I would volunteer for such a trip.

Selective Memory

The other day I was doing some long-distance driving for a job interview, and so I plugged in my iPod as I always do during extensive drives to pass the time.  Eventually my shuffling playlist played a few songs by the Moody Blues, and I was instantly transported back to my childhood summers.  I remembered my dad playing those songs on the stereo during warm summer days, all the windows in the house thrown open to invite a cross-breeze, the music mixing with the sounds of neighborhood lawn mowers and weed whackers as the background ambiance for my brother's and my Pokemon battles and plans to explore the neighborhood creek.

I snapped out of my nostalgic trance just in time to keep from rear-ending the driver in front of me, but the fibers of that memory remained at the forefront of my mind, and I started to wonder: Why would my brain conjure that particular set of memories when listening to those songs?  Especially considering that I've listened to those same songs so many other times, and in so many different settings.  Obviously, hearing these songs in warm weather (such as yesterday) would evoke flashbacks of similar warm weather events of my childhood, but what about the other seasons of the year?  I had listened to the same songs in the cold weather during my childhood, but when listening to them as an adult, even in the dead of winter, I continue to reminisce about the summers I grew up with.  Admittedly, my memories of childhood summers trump just about all others, but how could that association be so strong as to convince my senses that I am not driving or cleaning or shovelling snow, but rather playing games with my brother on a warm, breezy summer afternoon.

Everyone has a favorite memory or memories, and to an objective listener, the events may not seem like anything worth remembering.  But for the person to whom these memories belong, there are indescribable and subtle nuances that comprise its entirety, and the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts.  To you, reader, the memory I've recounted here may appear to be simply that of boring, uneventful summer days.  But I remember it as days of bonding with my brother, sharing in the musical tastes of my father, and most of all, enjoying the freedom represented by all the sights, sounds, and smells of summer.  That association is strong enough to bring those summer memories flooding back with only the slightest of stimuli (i.e. listening to the Moody Blues).  Now that I have a nine-to-five job and no longer enjoy such freedom in the summertime, I can recall memories like this as a constant reminder of the childhood, and more generally, the life that I have been blessed with.

Please feel free to post your own associative memories in the comments below, we'd love to hear from our readers!

The Time Travel Fallacy, part 2

This is the second part of a multi-part series on time travel, posted weekly on Tuesdays. For part 1, click here.

A sequel? Well, all right...

Now that we've discussed the problem with time travel's effects on reality and events, I'd like to move on to the issue of why no one has ever been outed as a time traveler. (I think the closest we've come is Nicolas Cage, the immortal / time-traveler).  Are time travelers that stealthy? What's the deal? Without further ado, let's dive in.

Issue 2: If time travel were possible, we would have already encountered travelers at some point in history.

This one is pretty easy to wrap your head around, even if its implications are pretty far-reaching. If, at some future time, humans gain the ability to time travel, why have there been no confirmed (or as far as I know, officially reported) instances of encounters with time travelers? One could easily imagine a situation where someone heads back in time and is unable to hide their identity as a future-person, thus tipping off those of us in the past. For instance, if future time travel becomes a new recreational activity (like the time vacations that are so common in the future in Family Guy), it would seem inevitable that someone would slip up and let the cat out of the bag. Because this has never happened, it leads to one of three possible results:

     (1) time travelers have been unfailingly diligent in covering their tracks,
     (2) time travelers have rarely to never visited a time in which humans exist, or
     (3) time travel simply is not possible.

I would argue that possibility (3) is the most likely on this list. The chances that no one will ever slip up while time traveling is all but impossible, even if authorities are somehow able to restrict its use to "official, non-commercial use only," like the military tries to do with a lot of groundbreaking new technologies today. Only an outright ban on all time travel (before it even begins to be used) will prevent a foul up in traveling to the past. Possibility (2) is also very unlikely, because the thought of traveling to times in which past, historically recorded events have occurred is essentially the main draw to the ability to time travel. There is very limited utility in only traveling to times in which trilobites roamed free and humans were millions of years in the future.

This list of possibilities ignores the possibility that is always looming in the margins of such things: that the answer is "we can't comprehend it with current understandings." I'm willing to accept that as a possibility, it just doesn't make for a very interesting discussion. Perhaps there is some future technology that renders it impossible to unmask a time traveler, or perhaps there is some aspect of the time travel process that perfectly disguises the fact of travel. But while that is possible, remember that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. And in our case, the simplest explanation is that, given the concerns above, time travel is not possible.

I recognize that an argument could be made that relates the fact that no one has verifiably encountered aliens. The gist would be that, the above scenario, when applied to alien encounters would essentially mean that there are no intelligent life forms on other planets. That is a logic leap I am less willing to make for a few reasons. First, there is a difference between the two subjects because aliens would travel (presumably) in their contemporary time, so there's nothing that says we would have to have already encountered them if they are out there. Think: if they are progressing technologically at the same rate as humans (from the same starting point), we would not have encountered them at this point because we have not been able to travel intergalactically ourselves.

If he can become a flaming skeleton, time travel's a cinch.

The other key difference is the application of Occam's Razor. In the time travel situation, it is indeed simpler to say we have not encountered time travelers because time travel is not possible. But with regard to aliens, the unimaginable vastness of space tilts the scale, leading me to believe that the simplest explanation (which is usually the right one) is that we haven't encountered visitors because (1) we haven't expanded our own universal footprint enough to find them ourselves and (2) there is simply a lot of empty space out there.


To summarize: if time travel is possible, where are the travelers? Is Nicolas Cage the only one who has been allowed access to time travel? Or is he the only one who (may have) slipped up? I suppose we just don't know (yet).

St. Procrastination's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody!  Of all the holidays out there, this is definitely one of them.  So instead of boring you with a Wikipedia-rewrite of today's history, I'm going to talk about something more interesting.  And that topic is: procrastination!

I know you're expecting me to say, "So let's talk about procrastination...some other day."  And then ending the article.  I, too, had that initial thought.  However, I did not want to rob you of this fascinating, hopefully-educational post.  (Also, I've already been working on it staring at it for a few weeks now, so, self-fulfilling prophecy or something.)

Caption, to be determined

If you're wondering what procrastination means, but don't feel like looking it up...well, there you go.

Procrastination is putting off something until later.  "Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?" is how the (twisted) saying goes.  The word is generally meant to have a negative connotation: it's being lazy, not taking initiative/action, dilly-dallying, avoiding responsibility, etc, etc.  However, for you cockeyed optimists, consider it a biological mechanism that allows us to truly prioritize our lives, and see what's really important to us - like video games and Pawn Stars reruns, as opposed to homework and job applications.

Of course, those aren't really what's most important, but we still choose to do these menial things over other, more truly important tasks.  There's a thousand reasons / excuses why we procrastinate.  Perhaps it's an internal fear of failure for that important task, or truly not knowing what to do / where to start, thus forcing yourself at a later date to make a decision because you have no time left.  No time to weigh this option versus that one, just choose.  Putting yourself in desperation / survival mode.  Or perhaps it's true laziness.

Sometimes it turns out alright, sometimes it doesn't.  And I'm not condoning procrastination, but I'm not going to castigate you for it either.  It's something we all do.  Just, some more so than others.  However, everyone who does procrastinate always realizes  - after the fact - that perhaps it wasn't the best decision that could've been made.  But hindsight is 20/20.  You want to learn from your mistakes.  You want to do better.  But you can't quite overcome that mental barrier, despite all your past failures and disappointments.

So are you doomed to procrastinate forever?

No!  Fear not, friends!  Over the years I have found a way to combat procrastination, and it doesn't require you to be any less lazy!  I know, at first it sounds akin to the diets/pills that allow you to (healthily) lose weight with no exercise, no nutritional guidelines, eating what you want / when you want, and no surgery.  But it's not, I promise.  I see it as something more similar to "the bigger they are, the harder they fall," or using your opponent's size against him.  Un/willingly forcing yourself to be more responsible.  Yes, ladies and gentleman, I'm talking about battling your procrastination...with more procrastination.

[Whoa, did you just feel that?  That was me rocking your world.]

Yes, the best way I've found to force myself to do something is to come up with another task I want to do even less.  Procrastinate something so much, that you actually have to do something to keep up the procrastination.  At first glance that may just sound like a quip, or a "surface-level" solution that actually holds no water upon further scrutiny.  However, it is a tried-and-true method for me.  For example, back in college, if I had to do laundry, I wouldn't be motivated to do so by the overflowing dirty clothes basket - simply pick that which smells less pungent.  Rather, I'd remind myself that I have a paper due in 3 days, and I should really be working on that.  I need to do research, type up an outline...nah...I really need to do laundry, I'll work on that paper later.  Boom!  Two hours later, laundry is done.

Now I know you're thinking, "OK, I guess that works for small tasks.  But eventually you'll run out of larger / more imposing tasks to put off as time goes on."  Well, that's the beauty of this system: it actually works "circularly" and not linearly.  You don't need a more daunting task to make you do a (relatively) smaller task - you can get the larger task done by procrastinating the smaller task(s).  It may take multiple smaller tasks combined to be imposing enough to force you to do the larger task, but it will work: "Gah, I really need to do laundry, but I really don't want to.  And I should finish that book and return it to the library.  And vacuum my room.  Oh yeah, I have that paper due in a few days that I could be working on..."  Bam!  Two days later, you finish your paper!  Admittedly, it was awkward going to the library to print it while wearing a Christmas sweater, swim trunks and your girlfriend's pink toe socks.  But the paper got done, and that's what's important here.

So there you are.  A method to help battle procrastination using the ammunition you already have.  So please, use this system to your advantage.  If there's something you really should be doing, but can't un-procrastinate quick enough, just start procrastinating a thousand other things, and somehow that first task will get done.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Congratulations!  You've made it to the end of the article - you are not a (complete) procrastinator!  To bring this post full-circle, seeing as how it is St. Patrick's Day, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you, "Who all seen da leprechaun, say yeeeaahhh."

The Time Travel Fallacy, part 1

This is the first in a multi-part mini-series on time travel. I plan to release three segments--one per week--over the next several Tuesdays. However, that's not a concrete situation, and I may add more if more aspects of interest arise.

Time travel, as I see it, has a few problems. I'm not going to wade into any physics issues, or the concern about the ability to surpass the speed of light, but rather simply discuss a few issues that I perceive in a metaphysical manner. There are two specific issues, possibly mutually exclusive, with time travel in general. Because of the length of discussion that can go with each, I've chosen to break this post up into three parts. The first will concern how any changes that are made via time travel would have already occurred in the present from which the time traveler came. The second part will discuss the argument that, if time travel were possible, how come we've never exposed anyone in history to be a time traveler? The final segment is slightly different, briefly examining the implications of time travel for the person doing the traveling. Without further ado, let's dive into the first issue.

Issue 1: Changes made in the past would already be perceived in the future as "normal," and hence no changes could subsequently be made.

Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.

There are dozens of movies, books, and TV shows that use time travel as a main plot tool (and, as it turns out, many more TV shows that use time travel as a device in at least one episode). The most common situation has the protagonists going back in time to interact with characters that are presumably baffled by the appearance and existence of the time travelers. However, under the theory of time travel to which I subscribe, none of these stories would go quite as they're depicted for one key reason: time travel that changes a past reality in any way will be reflected in the future from which the time traveler came, and thus whatever changes he or she may make in the past would have already happened in the reality as it exists in their contemporary time. 

This doesn't mean that one can't necessarily change something through time travel. I think it's silly to say that, if time travel is possible, one cannot actually perform any action in the past that would have a future effect. But you can't have the present exist in one form, go back in time, and return to a completely different present--at least, not in the "universe" that the previous present exists in.

What does this mean? Stay with me, because I fear I'm losing you, if not myself. Let's look at an example in order to try and hash it out. If I'm disappointed that I'm not financially well-off in the present (2012), but I inexplicably also have access to a time travel device, I may decide to go back in time and set myself up with some great investment. I could go back to 1980 and buy into the Apple IPO, reaping huge rewards when I return to 2012. Sounds good, right? Well I don't think it's quite that simple.

First of all, from a purely economic perspective, if this could be done, people would flood back in time to invest in things that turn out to be big, and as we see, not many people actually have the foresight to start early on with a big winning investment (i.e. we would probably see many more people win big in great investments). Similarly, people would pull this trick with Powerball by learning the numbers and going back in time to buy the winning ticket. Not only would this ruin the value of such lottery games, it would have been noticed by now (to be discussed in segment two).

Now, to examine the example from a time travel perspective. Let's say I have a time machine and use it to go back in time and buy into Apple. I also have a friend who agrees to run the machine and wait in my basement, manning the controls while I'm gone (although if performed correctly, I should return to the present at the same time I left, or even before, which could open up a whole different can of worms). How does that friend perceive this supposed shift in the "truth?" It's easy for one to picture the change from the traveler's perspective, because the time travel event functions as the change point, where on one side I don't have the money and on the other I do.

But for people who are in the present, how do they see it? Do I return from my trip (imperceptibly, as I said) and he suddenly knows I have several million in my bank account? Where does the trigger event happen where he goes from "knowing" I'm broke in 2012 to "knowing" I'm rich in 2012? Nothing will have changed for anyone who didn't make the trip, right? Perception of events as they exist (or passed before) are pretty black and white. My friend, who knew about the time travel mission beforehand, will not be able to perceive the difference between "before I left" and "after I got back." No time will have passed in his perception, and there will be no triggering event for him.

It is partially for the above reason, a paradox of sorts, that I have trouble conceiving of time travel. To people who did not make the trip (if indeed such a trip is possible), there is never a trigger moment at which reality changes. Assuming, arguendo, I succeed with my Apple IPO mission, from my friend's perspective (as well as everyone else's), I have always had the fortune I gained in 1980--just as Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

I suppose this isn't to say that changing events isn't possible. All it says is that events that are changed will have always been changed, and hence no change will be made. This subtle distinction may in fact be self-defeating, because if any time travel changes will have always been "reality," how will I know to go back and change them? In a circular way, if I go back in time to change something, it will never have existed in any other way upon my return, but if it never existed, how can I need to change something, hence what purpose would time travel serve?

To avoid tying my brain in any knots, I'll end here. But after parsing all of this out, it appears to me that time travel--at least for the purpose of changing past events--is not plausible. If changes made through travel are imperceptible in the "new" present, and have always been as they become after the trip, how can one time travel to make those changes in the first place? I also avoided getting into the "multiple universes" theory of time travel and teleportation, because that will make heads explode.

The post is best read with this song playing in the background.

The Shrinking Generation

The generations are shrinking.  Obviously, the people who comprise each successive generation aren't physically diminishing in stature; that much is made clear whenever I watch any sports program.  The 'shrinking' I am referring to is the shortening timeframe which houses each generation.  Let me clarify.

"Why should I have to turn pages to read a book?"

The "baby boomer" generation generally includes those born between the years 1946 and 1964, an eighteen year span.  By contrast, I consider myself to be of the "'90s generation," a generation that grew up with the delicate balance of outdoor activity and blooming video game technology (see Nintendo 64).  I (roughly and subjectively) include into this generation those who were born between the years 1986 and 1993, a seven year span.  And I continue to observe the younger whippersnappers forming even narrower generational "cliques".  What is the reason for these smaller and smaller time constraints?  I have a couple of theories.


Theory 1: The increasing frequency of technological advances

This one is pretty self-explanatory; the generational groupings mimic the groupings of technological advances.  The time period between World War II and the Vietnam War saw many technological achievements, but they were relatively slow and stepped, giving time for the various age groups to adjust and adapt.  Even the most stubborn old codgers had time to be convinced of the superiority of newer technology and subsequently begin using it.

However, since the invention of the personal computer and mobile phone, technology has upgraded at an exponential pace, to the point where new iPads are introduced every year and people upgrade their cell phones almost more frequently than they change their underwear.  In these fast-paced conditions, even just a five year age difference can be a huge disparity in cultural upbringing.

Television is also a technology that has greatly evolved over the years.  Households once had only a single small TV with a meager 3 channels, but with today's cable and satellite packages including hundreds of channels and thousands of shows that are constantly changing, our popular culture-driven society reflects those changes and, as stated above, creates a cultural disparity in just a few short years.

Theory 2: Joule's Second Law of Generational Grouping

Kepler's second law of Planetary Motion states that a line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time.  This explains why a planet moves faster when closer to the Sun and slower when further away.  Similarly, my Second Law of Generational Grouping states that the timeframes which define generational groups must be set such that each generation contains an equal number of people.  So as the population continues to explode, each generational time constraint must continue to shrink in order to keep the number of people in each grouping roughly the same.

Looking towards the future, I can't help but wonder how extreme this generational shrink will become.  Will it eventually come to the point where everyone born on a single particular day is labeled as their own generation?  We'll see...