Rambling 222: Problematic Time Travel
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Can time paradoxes be fixed? How would they be fixed? And would solving the paradoxes then suggest time travel is possible? The duo ramble on about time travel and attempt to patch the holes in time travel paradoxes.
+Episode Details
Topics Discussed:
- Time Travel
- Paradoxes
- Grandfather Paradox
- How to Solve a Paradox
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+Transcript
Cristina: Warning. This program contains strong themes meant for a mature audience. Discretion is advised.
Jack: Going live in 5, 4.
Cristina: What does live mean?
Jack: welcome to the Rambling Podcast, the show where we ground humanity's most absurd and baffling ideas. I am your host, Jack, and I.
Cristina: Am your host, Christina.
Jack: And I truly, absolutely do believe, in fact, that we can solve the time travel paradoxes.
Cristina: All of them?
Jack: All of them. All of them. I am sure I can solve all of them. There has to be. How many paradoxes could time travel possibly lead to? We just build. We build obvious rules around them, around all the paradoxes, and solve crossing the problem. Right. That's the. That's the logical conclusion here. So I believe. I believe with nothing but reason, we can craft rules and avoid certain behaviors that, while doing time travel, would allow us to effectively navigate the future or past without messing up. I think it's possible.
Cristina: I don't know. Because what if it's, like, the version that you don't actually change anything in your time? Like, what's the point?
Jack: Like, in, like, Trunks.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: Like Dragon Ball Z. Like, there's no real purpose. He's like, affecting a whole other universe.
Cristina: Yeah. Unless that's an interesting way to test things out in that other universe. You don't have to do anything. Anything. Like things you want to do here, but you wouldn't, because maybe it's illegal. You do over there, and then you just jump back here.
Jack: That's. That's totally fair. That's absolutely fair. But you can also 100% just go and change that universe for your benefit and then just stay there.
Cristina: How would you do that?
Jack: Well, you're. If you're not affecting your universe.
Cristina: Yeah. How would you be affecting a whole other universe? It would be like, what type of technology do you have kind of influence?
Jack: I think I'm thinking, like. Like you said, Dragon Ball Z Trunks, the history of Trunks events. He jumps into the past, but it's not really his past. It's just a past. In that scenario, you can at least affect it in the direction you want, knowing what's coming up ahead, at least to some degree. If it's so bad that it's at least catastrophic. That's a perfect scenario of time travel used effectively. Like, hit the fan so hard it Use time travel. Who cares about a paradox?
Cristina: You know, I don't know. If he's like, okay, you fact. How will you affect anything? I don't.
Jack: You would just alter. Like, he jumps back in time.
Cristina: Right.
Jack: And he tells the Z Fighters, there's gonna Be some androids.
Cristina: Yeah, but he's someone who knows them in the present. Like, how would a normal change anything? Like you'd have to be someone that knows people that knows, you know. Like you have to be up there already.
Jack: No, you could just go to people you know. Unless you're trying to make giant. I see. Like Giant Global. Exactly, I see. I see. Like you're going into the same world.
Cristina: Like he wasn't just some random dude who went to talk to them.
Jack: Yeah, cuz we're. We're basically. Yeah, yeah. We're basically talking like if Steve came off the street, get went in the time machine and he's like, how would he know who the h*** the Z Fighters are? Basically is the question.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: You know, Yes, I see where you're coming from.
Cristina: Like you can't go talk to Elon Musk or the President or.
Jack: Yeah, like how the h*** would I do it?
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: I would still have every barrier that a normal person would. This is not even a paradox. This is a legit problem. Let's say I'm an amazing scientist, but one nobody knows who the h*** I am.
Cristina: No.
Jack: So I go ahead and I make a time machine. Because you have to be that weird scientist. Nobody believes. If you believe time travel is real. And then you make a functional time machine. Holy s***. You somehow violated all the rules of everything. But whatever you prove, you proved physics wrong. Good job, bro. We suck. But it works. So we applaud you. The future will be based on your machine. All of science will. Great, so now you go ahead and you jump in your time machine and you travel back in time. You are still just some random m***********. Like who the h*** you can't get to the President. Like bro, you couldn't even. You couldn't put this on the Internet for the world to see. And anybody actually even see it, they wouldn't give a s***. They think you're joking.
Cristina: Your other time traveling buddies. But then you still wouldn't change anything. You just wouldn't change anything. You just hang out in your machine.
Jack: See, I guess it's just lead to a paradox. There's a paradox that suggests that nothing can change.
Jack: You can never change the past. It's impossible.
Cristina: Even someone else's past because it's a different reality.
Jack: Oh, I guess in the case that it's a different reality, it's not your past exactly.
Cristina: They could change like your mom. You could, I guess someone close to you if you knew something was gonna happen to them. But that's still not Your person. Like, it doesn't even matter if you did. Unless you were just curious to see what would this change be like.
Jack: Yeah. And, like, what would you be changing? I guess it's like your parent gets hit by car. Your kid gets hit by car.
Cristina: Yeah, I don't know.
Jack: And then you're like, okay, I know when and where, so I'm gonna go right before that and stop the situation. Yeah, like, I guess, but like, what a.
Cristina: And then you live in that reality, but I guess.
Jack: Right.
Cristina: That's weird. Did all this work for that? This is very the Flash because you.
Jack: Haven'T lived in the time. Like, if. How to put it. You saved your kid here, but you haven't lived with your kid in your own reality since whenever the accident was to the moment you jumped back in time. So when you get your kid back, that kid's gonna have some. Some gap of time missing. That's crazy. It's probably. You're not gonna figure out the time machine a couple of days after he died. We're gonna start this mission right after he died, and you're gonna be working at it.
Cristina: Why would he notice?
Jack: Why would who notice?
Cristina: Your kid notice. Your kid's gonna notice you saved him, but he died.
Jack: The kid is going to be like. Everybody would have age except the kid. This is what I mean. Like, if you were to somehow save the child, like, the kid wasn't even there. He wasn't in reality. He wasn't in. In. In a. In a version of your reality, there was a point between where the accident happened to your kid. There was a long period of time, and then you finally did the time travel could have been 10, 20 years. You began this mission, let's just say by some miracle, on the day he died.
Cristina: I don't understand how that affects the kid. Well, the kid is taking him back to your time.
Jack: Well, no, I'm saying in. In the. In the scenario that somehow you jumped back to your time in your time was altered back to a universe in which your kid didn't die. You yourself didn't experience. Whatever version of the universe moved forward until the moment you left because you weren't there with your kid. That that kid lived still those 20 years. He aged into adulthood. You went back in time and you changed it from your point of view. You're still back in time. It changed into future. You're now gonna jump back to the future if somehow a linear thing, right, of this.
Cristina: Of this reality.
Jack: Yeah, yeah. The same reality, one straight line ahead. You somehow jumped back in your own, in your own universe.
Cristina: No, but he would be dead in your own universe. Because the point is that.
Jack: Well, no, listen, you jump back in time and you save him, right?
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: So the universe that you're in, somehow it's the same universe. So then you jump back forward to the moment that you jumped back to the past. Let's say it has a timer. Oh, I gotta save him in the next hour and then get back inside the time machine, so. Because it's gonna go right back to the moment that I left from. Okay, so you go ahead and you jump in your time machine, go back in time. I got the hour. I gotta save him in the hour and get back inside machine. So you go ahead. It was a car accident. You know when and where, whatever. You put it down to rocket science. You literally made a time machine. So this is easy peasy. You get there, you solve it to the T, and you stop the moment you saved your child. And the universe moves forward. Now you're somehow. This is your linear situation, which is only one non branching universe. So you, it's really your universe. You jumped back in like in a scenario where you can really affect it. So he goes ahead, jumps in the time machine before the hour is over and poof. Goes right back to the moment that he jumped out of. Mission accomplished. I saved my kid. But this was like 20 years ago that the accident happened. How weird. Because now you get there and you don't know this man who shows up, this man who's like, hey, dad, you've never met this person. This is a stranger who has memories of you because you still left from that point in time.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: So there was a version of you there that something happened and, or what happens there? That's another paradox because you were physically there, but you did leave from the future. So what happens to that chunk of time after you save them? But you left. You went back to the future. So who the f*** raised this guy?
Cristina: Your other half, like what?
Jack: With a woman? He's just, but so he's just missing?
Cristina: Yeah, he's fatherless until you come back. And then he's like, wait, dad, what?
Jack: Yeah, but it doesn't make sense, right?
Cristina: Why?
Jack: Because in the first before you altered time, you jumped in the time machine. You, you already experienced. You actually lived those 20 years since your kid died.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: You were, you were physically there.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: Then you exited at the end, went back in time, made a change. Why does that mean that you weren't there? What did it change what you did? But that doesn't make sense because you weren't there.
Cristina: Because then. Yeah. If it's to save your child, like, because then you wouldn't have saved your child. It's one of those. When you don't do time travel, time.
Jack: Travel is an issue.
Cristina: But you said you're gonna solve things. Why are you poking. You did not solve anything. You said you're gonna solve.
Jack: Well, I gotta find the holes in order to patch them, right?
Cristina: Mm.
Jack: That's the logic here. I gotta find the holes in order to patch them. Okay, so the fact that this is a problem. Well, it's not even the only problem. Right. We also have the issue of not being able to change anything at all. That's just two issues, right? The fact that we're. One, changing an entirely different universe, maybe.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: To the fact that we would literally just be missing gaps in time that are completely unexplainable. That's a whole paradox of its own. That's an issue. But three, the fact that maybe no matter what we do, we couldn't change the past. We'd just be passive observers with zero influence in the universe. Like, we could literally talk to somebody and it wouldn't affect any series of events that would happen.
Cristina: We could talk, but what if we.
Jack: Like, warned somebody of Hitler? What if I went.
Cristina: Who would listen to you?
Jack: Who would listen to me, Right?
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: But if I told enough people, would nobody ever be convinced?
Cristina: No. People go around now saying crazy things to everyone they meet and doesn't mean anything. They're just a crazy person who's talking about we're going to h*** or whatever it is that they're.
Jack: Yeah.
Cristina: Okay. The aliens are coming.
Jack: What I'm saying is, if I could convince them, would they be convinced?
Cristina: Would it be possible?
Jack: Or with the universe, make it inherently impossible?
Cristina: I think it would be impossible.
Jack: Like, the. The laws of physics prevent it.
Cristina: Yeah. It just. It doesn't. It wouldn't make sense to them. Like, if they couldn't figure it out beforehand. Why would they just know now? Just because you're telling them. Because that doesn't make sense now.
Jack: I don't get it. What do you mean?
Cristina: Like, they don't know anything about him. Anything you're saying about him could be lies. Why would they trust you? Or anything you're saying? Why are you not just some crazy dude.
Jack: Yeah.
Cristina: Who's predicting the future. Like, so many crazy dudes who are always predicting the future.
Jack: Plethora of crazy. Plethora of crazy dudes.
Cristina: We're always like, the end of the World is coming. The ninth planet is gonna hit us. That type of crazy. What makes you different?
Jack: To be fair, the ninth planet was going to hit us at some point. That is a fact. The ninth planet was gonna hit us. We solved that problem. But it was occurring.
Cristina: That's not important though. That's not important because if no one knows, no one's gonna just believe you.
Jack: Yeah, yeah, it's fair. So, but, but that does. What does that have to do. It's not even about that, right? The reality of the matter is if I could somehow convince them, if I could be like, this is footage of you in the future. Look, you don't remember you doing this stuff? That's because this is from the future. This is videos of things in the future. Now, if, if the universe couldn't be altered, I would ask and they would say, what? Nothing. I guess it wouldn't even be able to respond. It wouldn't make sense. It wouldn't register. But if the universe could be altered, and it's just in your scenario, I'm just not convincing enough because for whatever reason, but in this scenario, if I could, in like, for a fact, prove to you that I'm from the future, would you be like, oh, whoa, that's crazy, the fact that you have videos of me from T shirt, or would that just whoosh right over your head? Because it could never register because the universe is preventing you from registering this information. Because there's some, some barrier.
Cristina: There has to be, because it doesn't happen. Like, if it's possible, then we would know already.
Jack: And there's the other problem of, whoa. Is time travel even in a realistic sense, possible? Because there's the issue of, like, we've never seen somebody come back from, from, from the future. You know, like, nobody in history has been, like, somebody from the future has visited me and they have proof about it?
Cristina: No, I mean, maybe there's someone that says that, but no one believes them with, with proof.
Jack: Maybe they do have proof.
Cristina: Well, they say they have proof, Baron. No, it's never believable.
Jack: But here's the. No, no, no. Somebody from the future would definitely have way better proof than like, we do. They're from the freaking future. It would be so easy for them.
Cristina: Oh yeah, well, when people have proof, they don't share. I guess it's kind of like the guy with the gold tablets that only he can see, and if anyone looks at it, I don't know, it's unreadable. Is that what happens? I don't remember.
Jack: Yeah, they can't read it. Yeah, only he can read it.
Cristina: So like if this guy has something from the future and we saw it, we wouldn't understand because it's from the future. It's too advanced for us to get.
Jack: Yeah. Anything from the future is like that does the same. It's weird, right? It doesn't even have to be from the future really. That's how we ended up on the subject of the sea. People who just happen to exist in our same time, but started to develop so long ago that by the time we are now they are so astoundingly futuristic that they look like nature. That's crazy. That's absurd.
Cristina: But. Exactly. We can't even figure it out. That's old stuff. Old tech.
Jack: No, and that's just present. So what do we do with future tech then? Again, we could just be really lame in the future and because how much into the future are we talking? Right. Let's say. Oh yeah, we're going to in a hun. Let's give us a thousand years. Right. In a thousand years could we take the sea people in a fight, but.
Cristina: Can we time travel?
Jack: In a thousand years?
Cristina: Yeah, yeah, we could time travel in a thousand years. We can time travel. Do you think maybe.
Jack: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Depends. Depends. Time travel being absolutely possible is problematic. We have a broken machine that allows us to do anything. But that's not realistic. No, it's bending the rules. What do you do with out sort of abusing the rules of the universe?
Cristina: Space. Time travel.
Jack: Bending space.
Cristina: Yeah. Traveling so fast in space, you need a space to do it because then you destroy everything around you. If you did it here.
Jack: Why? Why would you destroy everything around you?
Cristina: Because the tech is too much for time travel. Yeah.
Jack: It would require a crap ton of energy.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: And yeah, because ultimately. No, it would. If you do it efficiently. Like if you can make a time.
Cristina: Machine, then you're just a little box that you go in.
Jack: My point is it would be sufficiently advanced enough that I doubt it would be a giant building type of structure. You know, because it's already a futuristic society. They would probably begin really small in a lab and work their way up in scale.
Cristina: But I think it needs to be a ship.
Jack: It probably. Yeah. Just so that it doesn't take the chunks of land it's on, if anything else.
Cristina: Yeah. And also you don't know where it's gonna land. Like you can't make it land where you want it. Exactly. Like you might be off a little Bit and then everyone dies.
Jack: But you're from the future, so you can get your ship to calculate where in space everything is gonna be at around a certain point.
Cristina: That's why it's easier to travel like that. It was a lot safer. Yeah, just a little bit off. You're not gonna crash into the Earth. But if you did it on Earth, you might just end up in a building.
Jack: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, a computer would make sure it wouldn't happen. The computer would be able to calculate it, so. Exactly. But it would still be more effective to be in space anyways. Yeah, but I think a computer could work those kinks out because the computer would be able to have the smallest margins of data, you know, I guess large amounts of data on the smallest margins effect.
Cristina: But where is it getting this energy to run this machine?
Jack: What, the time machine?
Cristina: Yeah. How much energy? The sun? What kind of tech? There can't be. It can't be small. It can't be small.
Jack: No, the problem is you need infinite energy, and the sun isn't infinite energy.
Jack: That's really the issue. Like, how do you. That's the biggest flaw with time machine. How the h***. How. What are you supposed to do to solve that problem?
Cristina: You're supposed to solve one of these problems, though. Do you have the solutions for this one?
Jack: Well, first we need a perpetual motion machine. That means infinite energy.
Cristina: And how big is that machine?
Jack: Well, perpetual motion as of now seems impossible.
Cristina: Yes. But if you made something humongous.
Jack: No, I don't think that would change it because it would still be subject to the laws of physics. And everything follows a logic of entropy, which means it will stop.
Cristina: It will stop eventually, yeah. Then how do you make it work?
Jack: I don't know. There has to be some rule within physics that makes it possible. Somebody has to have put this argument forward. Right. Because the issues with time machine aren't the going backwards thing. It's how we would interact with the past. Because nothing in physics tells us that time does move only forward. We just happen to perceive it that way and for whatever reason, in a linear fashion. But science does suggest. It doesn't suggest. It just doesn't barrier time motion in any way. You could, in theory just move backwards at any given moment. We would never notice. It would be impossible. So the biggest issues are definitely just interacting with the past and how, like, either the past is preventing us from doing it, or we do something and it erases us from the situation because we had no motivation to come back and do it, which means Then it happened anyways because we never came back to stop it. Which is another version of the universe just stopping us from doing it because of laws.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: Of the universe. So how will we move past those situations? Right. You would always need that. I think that's an easy one to fix. That's why I say that one. Because I believe in order to fix a situation in which the motivation for you to go back in time is removed. I guess I don't understand. You would have to, in theory, be able to solve a different issue unrelated to why you jumped back and you.
Cristina: Become Barry from the Flash. You change something, and then you got to go back to change something. So you got to go back to change something.
Jack: Yes.
Cristina: You always need a reason to go back and change something, and then you're always in a loop of you got to go back and change something.
Jack: Yeah. Going back through his house, primarily. Which is a freaking nightmare.
Cristina: But that's what you're saying. The only way to keep the time machine and have that motivation to build that time machine is to have a problem to solve with the time machine.
Jack: Yes.
Cristina: And that would only mean that whatever you solved didn't really solve anything, because you just made a new reason to use the time.
Jack: No, you didn't make a new reason. You. This splits off into two things. You either go back in time, solve the issue you went back to solve, which then removes the reason for you having gone back in time in the first place. Which means it happened because you didn't go back in time to stop it. So then you go back in time to stop it. And because it happened. So that just creates a closed loop.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: The other alternative is you go back in time to stop it, but you somehow go and affect a different situation, not what you went back to stop. So the thing you went back in time to stop never got fixed. So you still went back in time. You just never managed to fix it. And then you just go forward in time. So the easiest way to solve this issue would be. No. My theory was I want the issue solved, so I give somebody else the time machine and instruct them on what to do. They would go thinking it's for one thing, then go and do a different thing that I would switch on them. So I make them study for one case, but really they were going to do the other thing. So that motivation never gets satisfied. The reason they went back in time is never affected, which is like, I'm sending you back in time to kill Hitler. You can kill him. He's like, yes, I'm gonna go kill Hitler. Okay, so he goes back in time, but then he doesn't really go kill Hitler, he has to go kill Steve.
Cristina: So he goes and he kills him to kill Steve.
Jack: Yeah. So somehow he got a note, a briefcase with all the instructions, and the last one is actually, don't pull the trigger on Hitler. Shoot Stevenson.
Cristina: Okay.
Jack: And he's like, what? But he does it.
Cristina: Why?
Jack: So does he then disappear?
Cristina: Who?
Jack: The guy who I sent back in time. He doesn't disappear because his motivation was killing Hitler, and Hitler never got killed.
Cristina: This feels really pointless.
Jack: Well, no, because I had alternative motives, which is to kill Steve for whatever reason. So then I managed to go back in time and change something. But the problem is then me in the future, you don't.
Cristina: You see? Yeah, no, that doesn't work out.
Jack: Yeah. Cuz the same problem occurs. It still leads to the same issue.
Cristina: Yeah, unless he built the time machine, you give him the reason, but it's not the real reason.
Jack: No, there's no way around this. No, around it.
Cristina: Because if you made him, if he made it, and you were like, you can use this to kill Hitler. And he goes, and then you change his mind or tell him some other thing to kill Steve. And then he kills Steve instead. Hitler is still alive, which was his main goal of making the time machine. Is that what you're saying? That still makes no sense. Because why would he kill some random dude? I don't know. This doesn't make sense.
Jack: It doesn't make sense. But look, if he were to kill Steve, then my point is solved in the future and I have no reason to tell him to go kill Steve. Like it still cancels itself out. There's no way around.
Cristina: He still has his reason of making the time machine, which.
Jack: Well, no, because the. The moment could never happen in which I sent him back in time.
Cristina: What if he was already going back in time but his reason changed? No. I don't know.
Jack: No, I could never affect the moment because it involves time travel. Yeah, I could never affect it. It's pretty. Yeah, I think it's true. We simply can't affect it. It's gonna keep canceling itself out.
Jack: Every possible direction just goes back to an impossible paradox. It.
Cristina: I don't know.
Jack: Yeah, I stopped it. So it happened.
Cristina: Mm, yeah. It's still gonna happen. There's nothing you can do.
Jack: Time travel is complicated, man.
Cristina: But you said you're gonna break it. You're gonna figure it out.
Jack: We're gonna figure it out. There must be a way There must be a way to figure it out. Around this issue of time travel. How do we unparadox us? You can be able to alter the past successfully without. The only solution is it's a different universe. That's the only way. Really? Really. It has to be a different universe. You have to be going to parallel universes past so that it's almost identical. I guess.
Cristina: I don't know. But it doesn't make sense. Like, okay, so, so you, so you go there and save your child, but if you go back to your time, your child's still dead. But in this new reality. Do you just live in this reality where your child is alive and what happened to the version of you that's in that reality?
Jack: That's another problem, because you would in theory have a version of you in that reality.
Cristina: You would murder that person and take over their life so you can live with your child. Does that solve it?
Jack: But hey, you're older though, I think. Just be there and don't kill the other. You just be too. It's cool.
Cristina: That's cool. I don't know. That's very odd. It is pretty strange because how do you explain that?
Jack: You. Who to who. Who cares?
Cristina: I feel like you're breaking other people's realities at that point.
Jack: Yeah, but what problem? Who cares? Who cares? They're gonna be like, oh, I didn't know he had a twin.
Cristina: And then your child gets mentally ill because reality of having you and the older version of you where you. He knows he's dead in. Because you're there for a reason.
Jack: Well, that's the question. Do you tell your. Do you tell your kid? Do you have to come clean about.
Cristina: I guess you don't, but like, it's kind of suspicious that you're there to watch over this child.
Jack: You could be his uncle. You would literally be his uncle, his dad. Yeah, but look, you. Oh, I guess you. I guess you didn't stop him from dying when he was born. You stopped him from dying at some point 20 years later, right? Yeah, no, it's been 20 years.
Cristina: It's been 20 years.
Jack: You don't know how old he was. Oh, yeah. He could have just been a little kid.
Cristina: So. And then now he's 27 and you're like, I guess what were you when you were. When he was 7.
Jack: You're 37, I guess, which would then make you 57.
Cristina: Yes. And then your version of you that's younger is like very confused because you're obviously them, but older.
Jack: Yeah.
Cristina: You'll Be like, I'm your father. What kind of lie?
Jack: Yeah, it wouldn't make any sense.
Cristina: It wouldn't make any sense.
Jack: But also. Yeah, I don't know. Would you. That's so messing with me. Would you not have been there? You traveled forward in time. You changed the path. I mean, you traveled back in time.
Cristina: You're not traveling back. You're not traveling forward. Actually, you're. What if you just save him and then you stay there?
Jack: Save him and stay there. I think that solves a lot.
Cristina: No, but it still doesn't. Because everyone's confused. Because there's still this other version of you.
Jack: Because you entered a different universe.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: You just got.
Cristina: But you're still older.
Jack: Yes. You just gotta explain that. Came from a different future. A different universe's future. To save this child.
Cristina: No, you're not supposed. Because that messes with the child. Unless you think it's possible for someone to find this out and not have some kind of mental something happening in which they know. They're like, it doesn't make sense for you to care that much. But we saw in the Flash where Cisco is obsessed because the Flash killed his brother who he never met. It happened. Okay, that's the show, too, but still.
Jack: Brother from a different.
Cristina: Exactly. This is the exact thing that show is talking about. People are weird. They get attached to these weird things. That child, even though he's alive, he knows there's a version of him who's dead. And he's gonna freak out. Even though he's alive.
Jack: Interesting. Interesting. We gotta consider people's stupid emotions.
Cristina: Exactly. That's the problem. It's so weird. It's a weird one, because it's not really time travel related now. It's just.
Jack: Leftism.
Cristina: I don't know. Mental health.
Jack: Mental health.
Cristina: People around you are gonna freak out. Everyone that knows that you're from the future.
Jack: Yeah. They're gonna. It's gonna be really weird. And, like, there's gonna be a lot of skeptics. They're gonna say, dude, pulling a prank or some. Something like that, you know?
Cristina: Yeah. Like, I don't think a lot of people will believe it if you have no proof. Like, maybe you. You're. You got a time machine. You hide it, right? Like, you're. It's not out in the open. You just look like an older version of that other version of you. Then that's the only hint to anyone who believes it. That's the only thing they got to say. Like, your time travel is, hey, you look like that guy but older man. I don't. Maybe if they do a blood test that would also prove it.
Jack: Now, thinking about it, I don't think it would be safe. I don't think it would be safe to tell anybody you have a time machine. Just think of humans just straight up. We were being real ignorant right now.
Cristina: Yes. But I'm thinking the technology is so advanced, no one could do anything with it.
Jack: Okay. So only the driver.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: Got you. It was just.
Cristina: They can't even find it.
Jack: Interesting.
Cristina: It's out in the open and no.
Jack: One like it's straight up invisible and you could phase through it.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: Interesting. Okay.
Cristina: There's nothing you can do to him to get to it. He'll die with his technology.
Jack: Yeah. Like his hand opens it or something, you know?
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: Not even he is. He is beating hand. It has. He has to be alive.
Cristina: Oh, but how would you know that? Like you could still not believe him and kill him.
Jack: Yeah, but you wouldn't know that. Exactly. Exactly. Nobody would ever be able to use it.
Cristina: Okay.
Jack: It would then just be. It would just be irrelevant to tell him to tell. Not for to tell him, but for him to tell anybody because they would never be able to find it. He would always be unbelievable. Although they might torture him to get to it.
Cristina: Exactly.
Jack: So I guess it would still be dangerous if somebody believed you.
Cristina: So you can't tell anyone because if.
Jack: Somebody believes you, they might kill you to find something that they can never find.
Cristina: Yeah. But the people around you would definitely know something's up. You'd have to tell them at least.
Jack: Yes. And they would definitely believe you if there were suddenly two of you.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: And if one of you was older.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: That's where it becomes a real problem. Right. Unless if it's like, is this your real dad situation? Everybody's gonna believe that in sudden.
Cristina: That you're telling people that you're the father.
Jack: That they just assume that and believe that's the truth. Regardless of what they tell you. They believe that they're just like, oh, he looks way older, but almost the same. That must be his dad. Like that's secretly their background thought. Regardless of this. Oh yeah, sure, whatever.
Cristina: Even if you're right next to the other guy.
Jack: Yeah. That you look so identical. They think he's your. The dude from the future is the father of the child of the guy he looks identical from.
Cristina: Oh, okay. I guess because you're 20 year old.
Jack: You're 20 years older than him. This is a 20 year old older you now. And the 20.
Cristina: Would you want this version of you to be in your child's life. If that version of you isn't really you, it's a stranger who's claiming to be this child. I mean, I guess you'd believe him, but still, he's kind of obsessed, and you don't know him.
Jack: Yes. And now your kid's safe, so you're never gonna have that obsession.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: This is a stranger who thinks in a way that you'll never.
Cristina: Yeah, he'll.
Jack: You'll never have the trauma of your kid dying because of this car accident. Because he saved your child. You don't even believe your kid was ever even gonna be hurt.
Cristina: Yeah, like, you're just trying. Like, do you automatically believe him?
Jack: No, I think he would have to convince you. But what could you bring from the future that could be believed? Right, because you would have changed the future with the photo. Change. You know, I bring you a photo, will the photo change because the future changed? But that's a photo from a different universe.
Cristina: I don't know if that would matter.
Jack: So you would just be like, no, this is clearly you. Look. And I'd be like, oh, yeah, that is me. And I remember that day and everything. And like, yeah, this is. Oh, no, you can't remember the day because it's in the future. Yeah, see, that's definitely me. And he's doing something that only I would know, or blah, blah, blah. Or I guess you could do that. Tell him all your deepest target secrets because you know them all.
Cristina: Okay, he knows that you're him. But why does he want you to be in his child's life?
Jack: Because you're him.
Cristina: So you.
Jack: Your kid is only around because he saved your kid.
Cristina: That's. But why do you believe him?
Jack: Because he can prove he's you.
Cristina: But he could be a crazy you from the future who's obsessed with your child.
Jack: Oh, s***. Okay. I wasn't thinking about that. I wasn't thinking that he would be deceptive. I was mainly thinking, like, no, he could prove it. A hundred percent.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: Without a doubt.
Cristina: And then you find him raping your child one day. Then what?
Jack: But then that means you have that.
Cristina: Potential in you, but you don't, I guess, at this moment, because your child.
Jack: Is alive, you think raping your child is a byproduct of the obsession he.
Cristina: Got for making this machine.
Jack: Oh, you think it's like a Jesus, like obsession?
Cristina: Yes. I don't know.
Jack: People wanting to be with Jesus.
Cristina: He just got so obsessed with a child while making this machine that it Became more.
Jack: It became more than the.
Cristina: Than just wanting him to live. No, let's not say he wants to do that. He just wants to raise a child with you.
Jack: Yeah, but I'm trying to, man. The biggest issue is really affecting the past, and there are a couple of barriers to do that. And so if you enter a different universe, you're affecting something else entirely. And the real question becomes, if you tell people it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
Cristina: But also, how do you live a normal life?
Jack: How do you live a normal. You can. You can't live the normal life. That's easy.
Cristina: You just gotta leave.
Jack: There are many people who are illegal.
Cristina: Okay. So you gotta live an illegal life.
Jack: Yeah, just go chill by the border, you know, like, there's. That. That part is easy. You could definitely just blend in if you're stuck on this end. Okay. I guess the question is, is it worth saving your son if you'll never be able to see him again? You truly have to love your son and then go back in time to save him from the car accident, knowing he would have a life and you'll never get to spend another moment with him.
Cristina: Why would you not get to spend that moment with him?
Jack: Because you're gonna go live somewhere where there are few people and not be bothered. Because.
Cristina: Oh, because you're gonna live that illegal immigrant life.
Jack: Yeah. You're gonna go live that immigrant life.
Cristina: That's complicated. Because you can't just hide in his house to raise a child. You have to hide and spy. I don't know. Or you gotta go back home.
Jack: Hide, inspire. Go back home. What do you mean?
Cristina: Hide somewhere else and spy on your child through the Internet or whatever.
Jack: Oh, like stalk em. Yeah, I guess you get Internet. Stalk your child.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: But I guess if ultimately, if the mission is effectively saving your child, then mission accomplished.
Cristina: Well, it's not just about saving it. You want to raise this child that's not your child.
Jack: That is your child.
Cristina: Well, it's not technically. I mean, this reality is not. It's this other version of you's child.
Jack: Yeah, but, like, universes are almost identical.
Cristina: But do you want to raise your child with you? Like, that's so weird. Imagine if an older version of you came right now and wanted to raise your child with you. How weird is that? You're just gonna be accepting of it because he's from the future. I mean, even what's the proof? Isn't that weird?
Jack: But he knows better because he's from the future.
Cristina: He doesn't Know better on raising children.
Jack: Because he has had the same amount of experience. No, he was seven.
Cristina: Yeah. And that's it.
Jack: So that's seven more years than I have. Bam.
Cristina: No, it's not. It's the exact same. Because your child's seven.
Jack: Well, because he jumped back to the. Yeah. No, you're right. It's the same amount of parenting. So what? A better parent than somebody who's at your exact level.
Cristina: But still, like, do you want to agree on everything? Do you wanna.
Jack: I guess they could do an odd couple scenario where they're like a.
Cristina: And if you're with a girl. And, like, what if he's with that girl, too, but in the future?
Jack: Oh, I guess it doesn't matter because.
Cristina: What if they become in a relationship, but you're with her right now and.
Jack: Well, it's in the future.
Cristina: No, but what if. But he's now here. What if she falls in love with this older version of you and wants to leave you for you?
Jack: Interesting. Interesting.
Cristina: And then what if you realize your child actually starts to fall in love with this version, this older version of you more than you? Like, how much?
Jack: What if everything slowly migrates in his favor?
Cristina: Yeah, like, he's so much better than you. I mean, he built a time machine. He made me super cool.
Jack: He's 20 years cooler than you.
Cristina: Exactly. He's 20 years cooler.
Jack: There's no way to even compete with that. He's 20 years cooler than you'll ever be.
Cristina: Yeah. So.
Jack: Well, that is what it is. What are you gonna do? It doesn't even make sense to be like, no, me from the future. You're not gonna help me raise my kid. You make something crazy happen, and he knows better.
Cristina: But, like, he can't do anything. I don't know. Because you're feeding him and you're living him leaving. Live in your house and he has your woman you gotta do.
Jack: Freeload and then, like, making you a cuck.
Cristina: Exactly. He's got everything of yours, but he doesn't have to work because he can't work. And you have to feed him.
Jack: He could work.
Cristina: He's gonna work illegally, I guess.
Jack: He's gonna bring that cash payout.
Cristina: Okay.
Jack: Every day.
Cristina: All right.
Jack: At the end of the week. I doubt that one, though. Under the table is probably every day.
Cristina: Every day.
Jack: Yeah. Maybe they get paid every day.
Cristina: I don't know. Okay, so he can at least contribute somehow.
Jack: He will. Maybe he makes a lot of money illegally. Although that Southwest is probably milked.
Cristina: Why? Because, like, he can do some weird Illegal hacking job or something. I don't know. He's got the technology to time travel. He could do some online.
Jack: That's fair. He could probably just make himself rich. Yeah, like realistically, just hack into the bank, change numbers, make himself legal paperwork. He'd do all of it. That would be so easy. It's from the future. I don't know why any of this would even be a slight problem.
Cristina: This is weird, because then if he gets noticed, questions are asked, he gets found out, he gets kidnapped and tortured to tell them about his machine.
Jack: It's so difficult to kidnap and torture him because of his text. It would be so astoundingly and amazingly complicated. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I believe there's nothing anybody could do to stop him. If he came from a future with a time machine. Oh, it's only 20 minutes. D***. I'm thinking it's so far in the future, it's only 20 years. So I guess it's close scientifically that like. Yeah, you could still get shot and die if.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: Like, you know, like your tech is on par to some degree. Only 20 years difference. And you didn't make an upgrade, you just went back in time. Unless you came strapped with crazy future guns.
Cristina: No, like 20 year older guns. No, I don't think so.
Jack: Won't be like crazy leaps and bounds. You're more or less in the same ballpark. So you jump back in time, change this thing.
Cristina: I don't know if it'll work out.
Jack: It wouldn't. It wouldn't. It wouldn't be able. You wouldn't be able to. You wouldn't be able to. It's one. It's a different universe. Then there's the problem of the two you's.
Cristina: That is just an awkward thing.
Jack: Yeah, I mean, you could do it awkward. It's not a problem. Socially, that might be an issue. The government might like, put a hit on one of you. This can't be. You can't let people know there's time machines. That's problematic. So like, if anybody finds out that could anybody of significance that could make this problem go away. They will.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: So that's another problem. Letting people know it all.
Cristina: But you need to let someone know.
Jack: Why?
Cristina: Because then how do you live with this family?
Jack: Which means you got to tell at least the family.
Cristina: Yeah. So.
Jack: But what the. Who cares? What do. What's the point?
Cristina: Because someone is gonna find out, right?
Jack: You're gonna tell the family.
Cristina: Yeah, but like someone you don't want to know will eventually find out if you're.
Jack: I mean, I guess it's not a sure thing, but a likely thing. With the more time goes by, the more likely it becomes.
Cristina: Mm.
Jack: But it doesn't mean it's gonna happen.
Cristina: No.
Jack: So there's still the possibility it goes pretty smoothly.
Cristina: Mm I don't know. It's just a weird situation.
Jack: That's mainly because it's time travel.
Cristina: Yes. But also you're living with yourself. It's very weird.
Jack: Yeah. And time travel led to how weird that is.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: You went back in time and you're living with yourself in a different universe. It's really just universe changing in a different time.
Cristina: Mm.
Jack: It's the weird line you draw from one bubble to another and then down that bubble's linearity into the past. But somehow you didn't just enter it. You landed specifically outside of your bubble in the other bubble in the past.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: Weird.
Cristina: Mm. So does it work out?
Jack: I don't know. You. You still wouldn't be able to interact with anything and change it without killing the motivation for you to go back in the first place. If you accomplished your mission. Yeah, it's the biggest. If you accomplished your mission, you never needed to go back and solve it. You know, like whatever it is you're doing would immediately see if it's a.
Cristina: Different reality, I guess.
Jack: Not really. If it's a different reality, but then you're also aware that it's a different reality, and that's a different issue entirely. Right. Because it's more about you integrating into this new world. There's nothing about it being the past. It's significant other than the. At least to you, you saved your child. So it's more about integrating into whatever world you're in because it's not the world you came from originally and everybody but you belongs there. So everybody's fully aware of this. You're sticking out feature that you come with.
Cristina: Yes. And knowing you feel that too. Like you'd feel like the odd fallout.
Jack: Yeah. Because you come from the future.
Cristina: Yeah. Or you come from a different reality, whether it's the future or not.
Jack: Fair enough. Yeah. You come literally from a different place outside the common space.
Cristina: You're an alien in a way.
Jack: Yeah. But I think that's something everybody would have to get used in the future anyways, being an alien. Because any new place you visit, you're the foreign one too. Yeah.
Cristina: So you. What if you save your son and then he grows up to be Hitler?
Jack: That would be nuts.
Cristina: Do you go back in time and kill your son.
Jack: You couldn't. It would be impossible. It would be impossible to go back in time and stop Hitler.
Cristina: Because then you gotta go to a different reality anyway.
Jack: Yeah, you. Oh yeah.
Cristina: Because you can never go back to your original. That's the point.
Jack: Yeah. So Hitler would just have happened.
Cristina: Yes. I guess you would then jump back. No. Yeah, I guess you go to another reality where you don't save your son. But then you're still living with you. But you don't have to tell you anything. You could just live your own life without telling you what you. But then that version of you makes a time machine to save your son.
Jack: Goes infinitely.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: Ah.
Cristina: It's a. Yeah.
Jack: It's always gonna cancel itself out.
Cristina: What? I thought we got it.
Jack: No, it's a closed loop. It's always a closed loop. There's absolutely nothing could be done. Really?
Cristina: Really.
Jack: The. The problem we have to solve before we can jump into any other problem is finding out how we can go back in time and change anything without changing the need for us to go back in time.
Cristina: Mm.
Jack: That's hard.
Cristina: That's hard. So hard.
Jack: Because our purpose has to be there.
Cristina: But even in this way that we figured it out, like you could just jump somewhere else, but then there's still a version of you who's stuck in this reality even though it's not you. You're still living a normal life even though you know that there's a version of you that's gonna create Hitler. There's nothing you can do about that version of you. You could just continue living life.
Jack: Yeah. And it's also not gonna affect you.
Cristina: Yeah. Yeah. That's that other version of you's problem.
Jack: Yeah. It'll never, as long as you live, come across your radar.
Cristina: Exactly. So it kind of works out sort of.
Jack: Yeah. It kind of makes everything meaningless essentially. Because nothing matters. Like there's a million other universes. And he's gonna go out there and make a million Hitlers. Who cares? He didn't make it here. Yay.
Cristina: Yeah, I guess. Cuz you're always gonna jump to a version where he's not. Where you didn't kill. I mean, save your son. That's.
Jack: Yes.
Cristina: So that helps. So then when you made that time machine to go to save your son, there was a version of you that just popped up into your reality that you just left behind because he was running away from his reality where he accidentally made Hitler.
Jack: That's fascinating. If you do this long enough, eventually in the future, like if you're going to the same place throughout time. Eventually in the future, you're gonna come across this guy.
Cristina: No, you always jump. You'll be you. You guys will always be jumping to the next. You'll never be in the same with the other person. I think.
Jack: Why, if there's many versions of you throughout time.
Cristina: I guess because it's really.
Jack: Especially if you develop a habit and go through the same place over and.
Cristina: Over in the same place.
Jack: Yeah. Like you. You always teleport to the same house or the same part of space or wherever the case might be.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: That throughout time you do that. So every version of you will slowly start meeting other versions of you and having casual small talk with other versions of me as you walk hallways and stuff of this place.
Cristina: This is very strange.
Jack: Yeah.
Cristina: Reality is broken. Okay.
Jack: Yeah, for sure. Anyways, anyways, anyways. Anyways. I didn't get anywhere.
Cristina: No.
Jack: I managed to solve nothing. And I actually uncovered more issues that are unsolvable. But I tried my best and got nowhere. So what I have to do is really find all the different time travel related paradoxes and see what proposed solutions for these problems exist and see if I can improve on those solutions and make them viable things.
Cristina: Okay, yes, let's do that.
Jack: That's what matters. Doing that and accomplishing that is in fact the most important part.
Cristina: Why?
Jack: I don't know. Maybe we could apply that to Jesus.
Cristina: Okay, that sounds good. Yes.
Jack: And you guys can tell us about any version of a time travel paradox solution that you may have on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Facebook.
Cristina: Remember to subscribe, rate and review the show.
Jack: Yes. And word of mouth, tell people, talk to people, mention the show. Tell them that we're trying to figure out how to kink out the problems with time travel. We're gonna figure it out.
Cristina: Mm.
Jack: It's gonna be figured out.
Cristina: Of course we're gonna do it.
Jack: Yes. We're gonna be ones.
Cristina: Yes. This has been the Rambling podcast. Take nothing personal and thanks for listening. What?
Jack: What?
Cristina: Some other location.
Jack: I think. Think so too. Look, all jokes aside, it's not that far from the Bermuda Triangle. Like, it isn't in the Bermuda Triangle, but it's like next door neighbors to it. That's crazy. I didn't know that. I could have sworn Costa Rica was an island.
Cristina: I don't know, maybe I confused it with.
Jack: That's nuts. So Costa Rica is Central America.
Cristina: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know the connection though.
Jack: That makes it weirder. Had it been in the Triangle, there's also a bunch of crap about Atlantis in the Triangle we know.
Cristina: Good morning. Good morning. The podcast is hosted by Christina Collazo and Jack Thomas, produced by Lynn Taylor and published by greatthoughts.in fox, art by 0lupo and logo by Seth McAllister. With social media managed by Amber Black.