Let's Talk Time Travel

Some of you probably watch LOST. It's a great show, so you should be watching if you aren't already. Some spoilers ahead for those who haven't been watching this season, but intend to do so later.

Also, this is bound to be boring even to those who watch LOST. I just need to get my thoughts straight.

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So, one group of Losties traveled back in time to the 1970s. Specifically, they traveled back to 1974ish and lived there 3 years. Then, the ones who got off the island traveled back to 1977 and met up with them. Where everybody else has gone is unknown at this point. But there is a lot of discussion as to the nature of time travel (in the fictional LOST universe, of course) because now they have the opportunity to change their futures.

A lot of this centers around the main Big Bad, Ben. He's there in 1977 but he's only like, 12 or something. So the Losties are confronted with that age old question, "What would you do if you could go back to 1905 and kill Hitler as a boy?"

There is much hand-wringing as to the nature of time travel. Can you do that? The obvious problem is, if you go back and kill Hitler/Ben, then Hitler/Ben won't torment you later and you won't go back in time to kill him. So he WILL grow up to torment you, and you WILL go back in time, etc. etc. ad infinitum. It's a paradox and seems to make time travel impossible, or universe-breaking.

Unless you look at it this way: everything that happens, happens once. It happens one way, one time, because that's how time works. It's linear. You can slow it (so says Einstein) but you can't reverse it, stop it entirely, or otherwise change that slow forward motion. Therefore, you can't go back in time to kill Hitler as a child because you know what? That didn't happen. You can go ahead an invent a time machine, and travel back, and shoot him, but something else will happen because Hitler didn't die. You can't change that.

Some feel that this is an attack on the concept of free will. Like, what if it was you shooting and wounding Hitler that made him go nuts and become his historically crazy self? Then, you say, what happened the first time, before I went back and shot him? The same thing happened, there was no "first time". You can't go back a second time and stop yourself from shooting Hitler because that's exactly what happened. Congrats, you caused the holocaust. Jerk.

Anyway, this theory both puts my mind at ease and makes me sad. The sad comes from thinking that I probably won't go back in time to see dinosaurs or Starland Vocal Band or something. But the relief comes from the fact that also, nobody will destroy reality by creating a temporal paradox. So, that's a bonus.

Note: This is mostly based on watching LOST and having a healthy dose of other sci-fi based education with regard to temporal physics. I don't claim to actually know anything about this stuff. I'm just sayin'.

Other Note: Theoretically, even though you can't go back in time, you should be able to go forward in time. Time keeps marching on, so all you have to do is slow your own perception of it somehow. Special relativity and time dilation would let that happen. Right on.