In time travel, a paradox is any combination of events caused by a time travel event which is counter-intuitive and appears on some level to be impossible. The term temporal anomaly was coined to refer to any disruption in the normal flow of time or of the sequencing of events within time. It thus includes paradoxes, but is a considerably broader term, referring to any event in which persons, objects, or information travel through time in a way that disrupts time.
There is disagreement as to whether time travel to the future creates an anomaly or not. Some maintain that travel to the future is not different from the same object or traveler being dormant or inactive for the period of time skipped, except that it does not age. Others observe that the total mass of the universe must decrease during that time, and then increase at the arrival point, and that this coupled with the aspect of the object not aging is sufficient to categorize this as an anomaly. Further, under some forms of parallel and divergent dimension theory, the traveler to the future leaves his own universe and enters another even in forward time travel, and thus an anomaly is created similar to time travel to the past. Other forms of these theories maintain that travel to the future does not entail a move to another dimension, although travel to the past always does. No one has attached a name to such an anomaly, and it does not threaten to create a paradox under any theory of time. It should be noted, however, that a return trip to the point of origin (or any point in the past of the traveler's temporal position) does create an anomaly, as any other time travel to the past would.
Image © E. R. Jones and M. Joseph Young. Used courtesy Valdron Inc
Under the replacement theory, there are three major types of anomalies, the infinity loop, the sawtooth snap, and the N-jump. These names are based on diagrams (reproduced to the right) which first appeared in Multiverser: The Game: Referee's Rules. An infinity loop describes usually two distinct histories which cause each other. A sawtooth snap refers to an unstable progression of histories each causing the next in sequence. An N-jump refers to any time travel event in which the changes to history are minimal enough that time stabilizes into a unified sequence of causes and effects. The term cycling causality is sometimes used for anomalies like infinity loops and sawtooth snaps, but its use is not consistent.
Other anomalies include the predestination paradox or uncaused cause, in which a chain of events is self-sustaining because events in the future are necessary causes for events in the past which in turn are necessary causes for those same future events; and the two grandfather paradoxes in which events in the future interfere with necessary events in the past.
Temporal doppelgangers also occur, which may also be called temporal duplicates, parallel or divergent selves, or former and future selves, depending on how they are related to the traveler under the presumed theory of time.
Each of these anomalies will be considered in separate articles in the entries yet to come, beginning next time with the infinity loop.
Comments
Very interesting. I think we are overdue for one more Theory of Relativity. We need a theory which is more intutive and less complicated.
First, shameless plug for yourself with Multiverse
Second, website not even working as linked
Thank you for your comments.
Rethin, many people are attempting to resolve the metaphysical problems of time travel, but most boil down to one of the major theories described in these recent articles. Whatever happens when causal links are placed out of temporal sequence, it is going to be complicated, because causal and temporal sequences are so closely tied to each other in our experience.
Petra Uvok, I cannot help the fact that my own exposition of replacement theory is the one most cited, nor that it was first published as a means of managing stories in a role playing game; but as far as I can tell, all the links in the article are working. The facts that I am cited on the subject of time travel combined with my experience writing in the game industry were significant factors in The Examiner's decision to assign me to time travel analysis.
--M. J. Young
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