Getting an alternate you laid a lot, or...Timey-Wimey solved by fate?

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BLOT: (24 Sep 2010 - 10:47:01 AM)

Getting an alternate you laid a lot, or...Timey-Wimey solved by fate?

In a conversation that started with the fourth paragraph (HOW'S THAT FOR A TEMPORAL PARADOX???), it sure ended up where any conversation between two American males will end if it goes on long enough: sex. We were talking about the parallel universe theory of time travel, where its not so much popping back in time as entering into a universe where the popping back in time was assumed. It makes about as much sense as you being your own grand-pa, but there are those who swear it fixes the whole thing. I personally think "Um, it's a story, have fun" works fine enough for me—if you are an English major, you can call it allegory of desire or some such—but let's be honest, the parallel theory mostly works because we hear the word infinite and we assume that this means "EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE", even impossible things. Just think, if this is the solution, then there is a universe where you had sex with the clone of your great-grandmother. A clone made by alien technology you gave birth to. Freak-ee. Frankly, a simple "extra-dimenionality" (that time as we know isn't time as think about it, but something like a producer's cut that talks about) kind of works. John Connor sent his dad back to die because the chronology of that event coincided with the chronology of the seemingly earlier event, but only because you see it through mortal eyes. And you said it was bad plot point.

Before I get to another interpretation of that, let me go ahead and get to the sex part. The fact that parallel universe theory portrays reality splitting at decision points has some interesting outcomes. And, by the way, PU theory is often mind-ist because many suggest that decisions are conscious as opposed to, you know, one electron going down this path or that path one micron to the left. The sort of decision out of which some, what, 99.99999999...% of reality is based on on a slow day. That's right, most of the infinte are horribly boring copies of this one in which some distant, unseen planet's beach's 12432520656th piece of sand fell into the sea prior to its 12432520657th piece.

Sex. Must focus on sex. Alright. What happens, then, if you create a scenario where the universe is forced to split into a decision about whether or not you have sex? Let's picture this. You walk up to a woman at a bar, pull out a coin*, and offer her the following odds: if the coin comes up heads, she's yours, and if it comes up tails then she gets $50. Now, sure, you're calling her a half-century whore in one interpretation of that but you are also a brave parallel explorer. Because, saying you do this once a week for a year, there is one of you (probably not you-you, just another of you) that will get laid every time. He, or she, will be the happiest, most STDed version of you around. There is, of course, another you (much more likely you-you, if truth be told) that will have lost $2600 and has developed a weird giggle every time they get around a quarter. The point of this is not to get laid (it is), but it is get some perfectly lucked version of an alternate you laid. An infinite number of alternative yous, even (for every PU where every rain storm on every planet for all time had drops that fell and splattered in a slightly different order, there is another pair of lucky and luckless yous, and that's just talking about rainstorms). You are bending the rules. Using them. For science. And sex.

Now, the not-sex portion (see you later, readers, I know you tried). What this started was a question about the temporal paradox. The "if you kill some dude in the past and his death causes the future that makes you want to twelve monkey, etc" paradox. Can an event E1 both create and be created by an event E2? Science Fiction movies and TV shows would love for that answer to be "YES!" (probably due to some weird interpretation of the word "irony"). However, in the real world...well, let's assume not. BUT...I was talking to this friend how in a properly fated universe, this might not be an issue. Time is mostly an illusion in one those. The fact of some predecessor event (Ep) predicates and necessitates all of its successor events (Ess). Since all reality would then come out of an initial event, E0, then E1-4 are in motion, looked at causally if not chronologically, from that E0. Therefore, in Terminator, it was necessary for Reese to have sex with his hero's mom. That's his story and he is sticking to it.

And just think, there is an alternate version of Terminator out there where an infant Ben Affleck played the title role. Crazy, crazy world.

* For various reasons, I posited a d20 in the original scenario with 1 and 20 being the only numbers that mean anything. Somehow, I assumed that a woman would be more likely to put out on a 1 if she had 2-19 as a buffer. I am a guy, by the way, did you notice that?

TAGS: Matters Chronological

BY WEEK: 2010, Week 38
BY MONTH: September 2010


Written by Doug Bolden

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