MovieChat Forums > Predestination (2015) Discussion > This movie is based on an implausibility

This movie is based on an implausibility

posted 9 years ago by registers-944-48791
9 replies | jump to latest

It's just for fun, a joke. Don't take it as if it could happen. This implausibility is called Bootstrap Paradox I think.

I will make an example. I apologize for the size of the post. Please draw the sequence of actions to help understand it.

Say I take a paper, draw 3 circles on it, and number these circles from 1 to 3. I glue the paper on a ground I know is secure and won't be messed.

Now I go around and grap a rock. I put the rock over the circle 1, and leave to do my things. This is year 1.

3 years later, on year 4, I come back to the paper. No matter what I find, if the rock is over circle 1, I take it. I go back 2 years.

Now I'm on year 2. I go back to the paper. I see the rock on circle 1. I leave the rock there and place the rock on my hand over circle 2. And go 5 years to the future.

Now I'm on year 7. I go back to the paper. No mattter what I find, if there's a rock on circle 2, I take it. I go back 4 years.

Now I'm on year 3. I go back to the paper. I place the rock on circle 3. Then I go 7 years to the future.

Now I'm on year 10. I go back to the paper. If there's a rock on circle 3, I grab it and leave.

This is a non-conflicting time travel. The same rock meets itself most of time, there were times that 3 rocks were together, but they never affect each other. Let's review how it was, now following the normal world chronology. These are the circles that had rocks for each year:

year 1: the rock is "born" on circle 1
year 2: circles 1,2
year 3: circles 1,2,3
year 4: circles 2,3
year 7: circle 3
year 10: the rock "dies" on circle 3

This example is perfectly fine and doable, considering that time travel is a reality.

But now, let's get back to me when I arrive on year 4. Say I see the 3 circles each with its rock. If I follow the plan I created, I'll just ignore the rocks on circles 2 and 3 and grab the rock on circle 1.

But what if I break my plan, and grab the rock on circle 2?

See, the plan is perfect and should work, if followed. And I was following it up till now. Using logic, if all 3 circles are filled, I know that *I WILL* arrive on years 2 and 3 and put the rock on those circles. Otherwise, they'd not be there.

But still by knowing that, I'm still a normal person, in my current time, totally capable of making choices and acting over the choices I make. So, considering the 3 circles are filled with rocks, I can just choose to disregard my original plan and grab the rock on circle 2.

Then I return to my original plan. I go back 2 years to year 2. Circle 1 is filled because I filled it on year 1, and the other 2 circles are empty. I just place the rock on circle 2 and continue my job. I go to year 7, to grab the rock that would be on circle 2. But now I face circle 2 empty.

I filled (did I?) on year 2, but I emptied it (did I?) on year 4. And now, on year 7, circle 1 should be empty by my original plan, but no it's filled. Because I didn't empty it on year 4!

In the original plan, I was traveling the rock thru time. Yes, the rock met itself and there were 2 and even 3 rocks living together, but it was still a unique rock, traveling in a linear way.

But I *CHOSE* to disobey my plan, and now I have a huge issue here. I'm on year 7 and the rock I placed on circle 1 is still there, it never left its place, it never traveled thru time! And the rock I grabbed (did I?) on year 4 from circle 2 and placed (did I?) on circle 2 on year 2 is... *another* rock! A rock that never existed! I grabbed it before I placed it, I "killed" it before it could be "born"!

My point is, even if time travel exists, everything must have an origin, and in that object's own timeline, its origin *must* happen before its destruction.

See Back to the Future 3. Doc would die around 40 years before he was born. In the world's timeline, he'd die before he was born. But in his own timeline, he *still* was born before he died: he was born in 1925, in 1955 he was 30yo, in 1985 being 60yo he went back to 1885, then died.

In my example, on year 4, I can't grab the rock on circle 2. Because, in my and in its timeline, the rock on circle 2 still *doesn't* exist. I can't take before putting it.

I either:

1) follow the plan, see rocks on the 3 circles, grab the rock on circle 1 and continue, or
2) disobey my plan, not grab the rock on circle 1, the rock *never* travels thru time, and *that's it*!

If I disobey my plan, on year 4 there will be rock only on circle 1. The other circles will be empty. I *can* choose what to do, I *"can"* travel thru and fold time, but I *can't* use time travel and folding to create things over nothing. And if I try to do so, that thing will just not exist to begin with. I'll imagine it existing, but it won't.

We can start talking about alternating timelines, so that I arrive on a timeline that I follow the plan and grab the circle 2 rock, then this action breaks the plan on a second timeline where the rock never travels, then I arrive on that second timeline and find only the rock on circle 1 and decide to grab it, this fullfills the plan on the first timeline where I then arrive and find the 3 rocks, and so on.

But this is a theory where parapell worlds exist. This means that there's not only 1 rock, there are infinite rocks on infinite paralell worlds. And I'm not time traveling, I'm actually traveling thru dimensions and moving rocks not thru time but thru dimensions.

Back to my point, our brains are able to imagine what happens in Predestination, but even if time travel was possible, what we see on the movie would *still* be impossible. As, in the movie Inception, we can dream of folding space and change the direction of gravity, and even live that on our imagination (and watch it on a movie), but that can't happen in reality.

Our brain is just able to imagine things that don't exist on reality.

John Jane can't exist, he can't give birth to himself. There *must* be a parent *before* the child is born. The child *can't* exist before the parent and become it. As we can have non-chicken eggs before chicken existed, and we can have an egg that gives birth to a chicken who puts many other eggs, but we can't have a chicken put an egg and be born from it. As a rock can't appear and vanish in loop on circle 2.

And, if we suppose that somebody, anybody, gives birth to a "Prime John Jane", then the loop continues impossible. John Jane can travel thru time as many times as he wants, he'll still have an origin and a history outside of the loop. And he can make as many babies as he wants with himself, these babies will *never* be him.

We can have centuries worth of generations of hermafrodites having time traveling babies, and this generation will still have its serial (if not linear) timeline.

If we try to replace a person for his son, this attempt just destroys the timeline and nobody else starting from that moment will be born. The person we try to grab won't be there when we arrive. As on year 4 the rock will either be on circle 1 or on circle 2 (and 1 and 3). We either find a rock on circle 1 and have the plan broken, or we find a rock on circle 2 (and 1 and 3) and have it fulfilled.

We *can* choose, but the result of our choice will either be the plan working or not working, it *can't* be the rock remaining on circle 1 and a rock "born from itself" existing on its own on circle 2.

Another interesting brain puzzle is the irreal numbers. We can't have the square root of a negative number. That's because any number multiplied by itself will always be a positive number, regardless of the number being multiplied by itself being positive or negative.

Still, there were math operations that people were making, where a negative number was coming inside a square root, when made reversely. Those operations don't exist in reality, but exist on math operations.
Still, there were math operations that people were making, where a negative number was coming inside a square root, when made reversely. Those operations don't exist in reality, but exist on math equations.

[–] carl_johnson-1 9 years ago

You may want to look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle

The example they use is a billiard ball coming out of a wormhole at just such and angle that it knocks its past self into the other end of the wormhole at the appropriate angle for it to exit at the previous angle. It's a self-consistent loop, and mathematically, they found there were an infinite number of such self-consistent solutions.

So Predestination just shows one (fictionalized) solution to a self-consistent time travel event. In these cases, effects can precede causes, babies can precede their parents, etc.

These sorts of paradoxes aren't found when you consider time-travel to parallel or divergent timelines. Those are different people and things. Novikov's principle addresses a thing actually interacting with its past self. It's strictly single-timeline, and, yes, a fixed timeline with no changes possible.

Likening it to the "Sum over Histories" interpretation of quantum mechanics is actually pretty neat. Conflicting outcomes cancel each other out, while self-consistent outcomes would be reinforced. Reality then just has to roll the dice to see which self-consistent outcome is selected.

[–] registers-944-48791 9 years ago

Thanks, I'm gonna read it.

I'm not expert in relativity or quantum areas, I just used logic to try to understand.

In this example, how could the ball throw itself into a wormhole end, if it first needs to be thrown in it?

If it was never thrown, then it will never come out of it to throw itself in. But, in this case, we could say that a very skilled player could send a ball in the right angle, and then let the loop go.

But even so, the loop wouldn't persist. Every time the ball hits itself, part of the cinetic energy would be used to push the ball in entering the wormhole, while part of it would remain on the ball that leaves it. If there wasn't some outside event adding energy to the ball, it would keep losing energy until not be able to throw itself, and also every time would have a different push and the angle would be different.

It's be possible for it to happen once and the ball hit itself and travel on the wormhole twice, or maybe 3 times, but not keep an infinite loop.

Tricky theories also may involve ideas or information. Jack comes from future and teaches something to Alex that nobody knew about, then Alex spreads that original information which in the future will be taught to Jack. Where did it come from, who discovered it?

In the end, when we imagine such things, what I see is that the idea/object has its origin on the person who imagine the situation. Once our imagination creates the thing (be it a rock, or a person born from himself, or a clock), it's just a matter of imagining the story. But, in reality, even if time travel was available, such paradoxes wouldn't exist, because these things simply wouldn't. Any object or idea sent to the past would already exist somehow, and any attempt to trick the loop (as my example) would just break the loop instead of creating a paradox.

As in my example, if the person would try to grab the wrong rock, it would just not be there to be taken. We are used to understand the consequences of our choices as events in the future, but with time travel we may consider these consequences as happening in the past.

In my own timeline, I'd first grab the rock to later place it in the proper place. But in the rock's timeline, it's still grabbed first to then be placed. If, in its timeline, it's not grabbed, then it's never placed, therefore it will never be there for me.

Therefore, if I get there and see the rock in 2 places, I'd have the chance to choose which one to get. But, in this time folding, I had already chose to keep the plan, so I can't really change that anymore, and I'll just keep the plan as is.

[–] registers-944-48791 9 years ago

His principle is interesting. But it's boring, it seems to propose that there are multiple paralel universes, and time travel is in fact universe travel.

So, one could travel to other universe and change it, but would go back to his universe and it would be ok.

But, if that would be possible, and somebody could travel to other universe and do whatever he wants without consequence in his own universe... this would be troubling lol!

[–] carl_johnson-1 9 years ago

Novikov's principle is only about how time-travel would work in a single timeline. No parallel timelines or alternate universes.

As for the billiard ball in the wormhole example, I understand your skepticism about it not being sustainable after a few trips. However, it only happens one time. There's only one trip. Much like the movie, Jane is only born once, only get her face burned once, only shots the Fizzle Bomber once, etc. etc. etc.

[–] registers-944-48791 9 years ago

Ah ok. I understood the ball would keep being hit by itself and sent into the wormhole.

But, if it doesn't keep happening, then there's no loop. Even if a ball hits itself before it's hit to be sent into the wormhole, a skilled player can still send it there.

[–] carl_johnson-1 9 years ago

Right, there's no loop. Just like the movie. Everything only happens once.

[–] vtastek 9 years ago

I don't like self-consistency paradox, I mean, maybe with physical objects, you can force it but with intelligent agents it is very hard.

One timeline, temporal clones that can be orphaned. No logical problems. Why the insist on Novikov movies, I never understand?

Another thing is there are movies which start at the nth loop, making people believe there was no original timeline and nothing can be changed. Then they change things and since people are so fixated at Novikov movies, they get confused.

Loops are naturally occurring things with the time travel process. If no new information is propagated, the events will occur similarly, and similarly till they are exactly the same.

Here comes Terminator spoilers.

There must be an original father.

In my time-canon, Sarah Connor is pregnant from some dude(possibly the guy mentioned in the movie), this baby becomes John Connor the first. JC sends Kyle back, this upsets Sarah's life and now Sarah is pregnant for another JC completely. This JC directs the events purposely but it is pretty much the same for Kyle. Another loop, another loop where loops become similar and similar to the point JC is stabilized to be seeded from this one unique sperm and what we see as Terminator 1 is 24th loop. Or any number. Pretty much any time travel movie, I see it as nth loop so I can see why predestination is seemingly a thing but at the same time it isn't.

Now, can this be applied to Predestination too? An original timeline with another baby(Jane the original like John's father the original(Jill?)) and another couple(Jack?) which then their baby kidnapped by the original time traveler(not the bartender, another agent) which then replaces the baby Jill with Jane which then becomes a time traveler which then replaces both Jack and original time traveler which then starts to loop which then 3(nth) loops later, movie starts... I just saw the movie, I am not very familiar with all the details yet, I could be wrong. It can be build.

For future time-travelers:

Build the machine so it can be signaled by the success from the past to prevent the time travel.

So when I get into the machine and go back in time, I also signal a signal that would reach future and prevent the time machine from activation. So future time travelers will know the travel already happened. This doesn't mean there was no travel. There is always an original travel that creates a temporal clone. But you don't have to get into the machine twice as it is a clone. The signal process is a must because it is possible to create an infinite loop and I believe that's as bad as it sounds, we would get stuck in this loop forever, the whole universe!

Because I think the time travel must be just like a tape recorder. There can't be more than one time travel machine. The present is one instant, the time travel process affects this one instant and going back is essentially erasing everything to that moment. That's why loops are dangerous, it would be like a vinyl looping forever.

[–] registers-944-48791 9 years ago

In my time-canon, Sarah Connor is pregnant from some dude(possibly the guy mentioned in the movie), this baby becomes John Connor the first. JC sends Kyle back, this upsets Sarah's life and now Sarah is pregnant for another JC completely. This JC directs the events purposely but it is pretty much the same for Kyle. Another loop, another loop where loops become similar and similar to the point JC is stabilized to be seeded from this one unique sperm and what we see as Terminator 1 is 24th loop. Or any number. Pretty much any time travel movie, I see it as nth loop so I can see why predestination is seemingly a thing but at the same time it isn't.

This example is complex. In Terminator 1, it's a stable loop. Skynet fails to terminate John Connor and is losing, it was developing a time travel machine for some time, then sends a TX-500 to terminate John Connor's mother. He sends his father. They meet, destroy the terminator and have a baby.

I don't see a paradox there, it's just that the father was born after the son in the main timeline, but everybody'd timeline is correct. John Connor knew he was sending his father, he just didn't tell anybody. Skynet on the other hand didn't know that and believed TX-500 would succeed. It didn't, Skynet's last try failed and the war was over.

In Terminator 2 it's another story. It's told that what created Skynet's technology was the TX-500's chip. Now we got a loop. A technology that didn't exist created itself. They ignored this paradox. Until now, even with the paradox, we still have a stable timeline. TX-500 and Kyle go back in time, TX-500 provides tech for creating Skynet and Kyle becomes John's father. Skynet revolts, John Connor leads the resistance. Skynet sends TX-500, John Connor sends his father.

But then they decide that, if the chip created Skynet, they can just destroy the chip and Skynet will never exist. And then the loop breaks. Skynet is the reason for the whole time travel, time travel provides the means for Skynet never existing, without Skynet there's no time travel, no chip, nothing, so Skynet can't exist, and therefore there's no time travel... wait?!

Then we have Terminator 3. It says that no, Skynet wasn't created thanks to the chip, the chip just quickened its creation. Even without the chip it's still created. And the Judgement Day can't be avoided, because it had already happened and can't be changed.

Now, can this be applied to Predestination too? An original timeline with another baby(Jane the original like John's father the original(Jill?)) and another couple(Jack?) which then their baby kidnapped by the original time traveler(not the bartender, another agent) which then replaces the baby Jill with Jane which then becomes a time traveler which then replaces both Jack and original time traveler which then starts to loop which then 3(nth) loops later, movie starts... I just saw the movie, I am not very familiar with all the details yet, I could be wrong. It can be build.

I don't see how that can be possible. We don't need original parents. We can consider we have a primordial hermafrodite person. This person travels in time and have sex with himself. His child won't be him, he'll be another, second person. If he does the same his father did, his child won't be either of them, he'll be a third person.

They aren't overlapping/replacing their father, they are just living in parallel, in the same time. If one person can give birth to another person by himself, and he gives birth to his child on the same day he's born, and his child does the same on the same day, we'll have an overpopulation, but we can't even establish a loop. Being different persons, they aren't bound to do the same thing their fathers did.

[–] vtastek 9 years ago

Firstly, my whole argument is loop similarity(contrary to chaos theory I suppose) is being mistaken for predestination(self-consistency) by the limited viewpoint of movie characters(and audience) where writers already composed a dozen loops and picked a middle one for their story.

This example is complex. In Terminator 1, it's a stable loop. Skynet fails to terminate John Connor and is losing, it was developing a time travel machine for some time, then sends a TX-500 to terminate John Connor's mother. He sends his father. They meet, destroy the terminator and have a baby.

It is very hard for me to be convinced on the fact that an adult JC can just exist before the baby version of himself. The baby needs to be there first! The events in our universe follows a linear deterministic path, as far as we know. Babies first. Now off course, the idea of the time travel is doing something about this determinism. But as we accept the possibility of such a machine, we should also accept that its influence must be at the point of entry, the "appearing out of thin air". The rest still should follow the deterministic path of universe. (The problem comes from following closed timelike curves idea which has ever existing wormholes and unintelligent entities physically colliding in a way that, they guarantee(predestination) their entry to the wormhole. Which is possible in a very convenient setup logically but doesn't lend itself to intelligent entities who can remember, predict and change course. So to make this logically possible, we envision an existence where people's choices would create parallel universes or the universe, like an intelligent agent, would stop things from happening. This is too much for me to believe. Luckily, CTCs aren't the only type of time travel.)

Skynet on the other hand didn't know that and believed TX-500 would succeed. It didn't, Skynet's last try failed and the war was over.

You are talking like the future and past exist at the same time. We didn't follow the events all the way to the future in Terminator 1.

In Terminator 2 it's another story. It's told that what created Skynet's technology was the TX-500's chip. Now we got a loop. A technology that didn't exist created itself. They ignored this paradox. Until now, even with the paradox, we still have a stable timeline. TX-500 and Kyle go back in time, TX-500 provides tech for creating Skynet and Kyle becomes John's father. Skynet revolts, John Connor leads the resistance. Skynet sends TX-500, John Connor sends his father.

Why another story? Why not a new timeline?

You have to follow the timeline all the way to future, to the time machine, and only after that you can go back in time. You can't ignore the time travelers POV and past, you can erase/prevent it however. The idea is an orphaned time traveler. From their entry point, they are no longer tied to a future, which especially didn't even happened at that point. So skynet disappearing doesn't make it a problem at all. Occam's razor, suspension of disbelief, we have to accept an axiom, one as straight as possible. Novikov is too much. New orphaned timelines are much more logical and easier to accept.

But then they decide that, if the chip created Skynet, they can just destroy the chip and Skynet will never exist. And then the loop breaks. Skynet is the reason for the whole time travel, time travel provides the means for Skynet never existing, without Skynet there's no time travel, no chip, nothing, so Skynet can't exist, and therefore there's no time travel... wait?!

As you described, I see now we didn't know about the second Skynet at all. Events in T1 must have altered the Skynet.

Again, the existence of something now(past) doesn't have to be tied to the future. Time travel is for changing past after all and that can't happen without changing the future. There is no "wait!?", more like "BIG SUCCESS". This was in Deja Vu, my favorite time travel movie. Val Kilmer's character wished to vanish completely so their mission was a success. Deja Vu also had my other points, like limited POV and similar loops being mistaken for predestination.

Then we have Terminator 3. It says that no, Skynet wasn't created thanks to the chip, the chip just quickened its creation. Even without the chip it's still created. And the Judgement Day can't be avoided, because it had already happened and can't be changed.

That's just dramatic dialog line, it is not like predestination. All three movies shows things can be changed but creation of AI is a force of nature of science which a dude and a dudette couldn't stop.(with enough planning it can be stopped. See Sarah Connor Chronicles.)

So I don't see 3 Terminator movies as 3 different stories because new timelines theory can cover all of them just fine. It is the limited POV of movie characters(and the movie) that confuses people.

I don't see how that can be possible. We don't need original parents. We can consider we have a primordial hermafrodite person. This person travels in time and have sex with himself. His child won't be him, he'll be another, second person. If he does the same his father did, his child won't be either of them, he'll be a third person.

They aren't overlapping/replacing their father, they are just living in parallel, in the same time. If one person can give birth to another person by himself, and he gives birth to his child on the same day he's born, and his child does the same on the same day, we'll have an overpopulation, but we can't even establish a loop. Being different persons, they aren't bound to do the same thing their fathers did.

After some thinking I realized that she must be genetically enhanced.

I think the key point in the movie is the story: Time, Love and an Unmarried Mother. Now, my theory is the book was actually the precursor to the story.

The guy who invented time travel reads this story which is not written as a biography but merely as fiction. The inventor becomes obsessed and thinks it like a wish on writer's part! With some genetic engineering tech, helps make it happen. It is funny since, it is tempting to turn Heinlein to a hermaphrodite and replace his parents with his clones, if I ever invent a time machine. So the chicken and the egg? Fiction is the rooster!

It is possible, Robertson was the inventor and decided to replace his grand/father with himself and then grand/mother too. Or picked the writer Jane for the experiment.

I am still planning on seeing the movie again to pick up more clues. I don't really remember why the bartender kidnaps the baby and then sends her back to be Jane. Having two clones give birth to a child is no problem, if you can clone the two(in this case temporal cloning). With some genetic engineering, you can make it certain for the offspring to be a clone too. Figuring out the motivations behind the switcheroo is the problem at the moment for me so I can put it to a place in the original timeline.