In our consideration of The Lake House we have several times stated that when Alex writes to Kate, all of the history between his sending and her receiving that letter must pass. Someone will ask why Alex' letters cannot simply leap across time to reach Kate in the future the way Kate's do when she sends them to Alex in the past. In a sense they do. The issue is, what future?
Let us focus on the scarf as an example. Sometime early in April (2006) Kate sends a letter to Alex warning him of the imminent snow storm, and including a scarf. He undoubtedly keeps the scarf, which would come to have importance to him as he learns more about his correspondent. For our purposes, though, the issue is whether and when he has the scarf.
In one sense, it is foolish to suggest that he has the scarf before she sends it. That is, if on March 31st 2006 you were able to look at April 30th 2004, you would find that Alex did not receive the scarf because Kate had not yet sent it. The day before Kate sends it, Alex has not received it, because it has not been sent.
Yet the day after Kate sends it, Alex receives it in the past; and thus if on April 30th 2006 you looked at April 30th 2004, the scarf would have been there. That means, too, that Alex (if he were alive) would already and still have the scarf the day before Kate sent it in 2006; yet we just observed that he did not have it on that day.
This is the sort of problem replacement theory attempts to resolve. It does so by postulating that there is an original history of the universe in which nothing can arrive from the as yet undefined future. In that original history, there is no scarf. Any time travel from the future to the past alters the past at the moment of arrival, and so redefines history beginning from that moment forward.
There is a sense in which that redefinition can occur instantaneously, that the moment the scarf arrives in the past, all of history between its departure and its arrival has been altered to include the scarf. Yet it also must be redefined sequentially, which for us means temporally: the people involved must experience the changes as if in time, and thus from a certain point of view all of that history replays to form the new version.
We could make guesses concerning the impact the scarf has. Does Mona see the scarf? Does she ask about it? What does Alex tell her? Does this weaken their relationship, or strengthen it? Little changes can have major consequences--but they do not always do so. Not every flap of an Amazonian butterfly's wings creates a hurricane, but some do.
The problem for Alex, though, is that his letter has to reach the Kate who sent the scarf, and that means that whatever consequences will arise from his receipt of the scarf must have played out in history by the time his letter reaches her. His letter can leap across time to reach her, but the time across which it leaps must exist in that form which flows from the point of departure to the point of arrival, and that form must be determined by the outworking of events in time.
This is why Alex replies and never gets his answer: the answer cannot be sent until he has lived through all the events arising from the arrival of the last "time traveler", the letter he received to which he is responding. Those events include the moment at which he will ultimately receive the next letter, but just as there had to be a history in which the scarf had not arrived replaced by a history in which it did, so too there must be a history in which the next letter does not arrive replaced by one in which it does.
Comments
Kate actually causes his death by writing to him in the past. He is dead from 2-14-2006 despite the Hollywood ending. It would have been much better if he died trying to cross the street to see his beloved doctor from the future. It wouldn't be time travel if in 2004 he had to live two years before he recieved the first of the 2006 letters. This is what time travel is. The 'time' you theorise does not exist, and never did.
To original poster, you are correct. Korean film "Siworae" is much better.
So Lake House was a remake? I knew it. I only see the mailbox as being the link in time, the dog did not time travel. Sorry Mike. I guess in the remake he is dead ( or will die from his timeline)until the last letter when she realizes he died in the original timeline due to her letters mentioning where she was the day he died. If he was smart, he would have spent the day in bed, unless an airplane engine would fall through the roof. Netflix the original and skip this shabby remake.
Continued from above.
I recommend that you read some of the theory articles published earlier in this series; you can find them by following the "More About:...Temporal Theory" category link at the bottom of the article (above the ads). Give particular attention to the various theories--fixed time, parallel dimension, divergent dimension, replacement--and consider the ramifications of each. What you suggest would work under fixed time, but in that case Alex would have died and Kate could not save him, which as mentioned is not the movie as we received it.
(I would still find fault with the fixed time concept because I don't accept the predestination paradox which seems to be suggested here.)
Thanks again for your comments.
--M. J. Young
Continued from above.
As to whether it is time travel, if she did not save his life we could argue that it is fixed time; in this film she does, so the fact that she changes history means either they're following the obscure notion of Cheeseman's Emotional Energy Theory or they're using a different theory of time. We could trace the problems of multiple dimension theory here, but it seems most likely that this is replacement theory, that history is being changed with each letter sent to the past.
If that is so, then when Alex receives a letter, Kate cannot receive his answer until all of history has altered to accommodate the change caused by that letter. Thus Alex cannot receive his answer until all of the intervening history has changed and she has written her reply. Once she does, that reply also crosses time to reach him, and the history in which he never received it is erased, so to him it is as if it were immediate.
Continued in next post....
Thank you both for your comments. I can't address an original I've not seen, and although I can keep an eye out for it, unless someone sends me a copy I'm not likely to find it.
Sasha, you pack a lot into your comment; I hope I can address it all.
I can certainly see a meaningful film in which a doctor fails to save a life at an accident and does not care, then corresponds and falls in love across time with someone who turns out to be the victim, and learns from that that the lives of strangers matter. This is almost that film, but it isn't; and that film probably would not be embraced by American box office and video rental audiences (who also generally don't watch foreign films), so it is unlikely to be made in America. This film has the Hollywood ending. It makes the film much more difficult, but it, and not the Korean original, is the film we are analyzing.
More in next post....
So now I have read article and commentary and the time travel involves the dog mainly? I had assumed before it was more about mailbox than the dog. Will there be sequel to this film? At first I thought it was the sequel to Speed.
Yesterday I saw Hot Tub Time Machine and I saw it was coming to dvd. How soon can we expect review? I thought it was amazing because it had small role portrayed by George McFly.
Do you think they will ever make a time travel film where someone prevents Jesus from crucifiction?I think this would be an interesting plot. Will you film it?
Again with tomato?
Why did Ghost Rider enjoy jellybeans in the film? This was a time travel film but I have not yet seen your review.
I thought it was called Il Mare. Yep. Americans don't like sad endings, Brits do. Further the average person doesn't really think deeply about time travel, they just like novel ideas presented. However, time travel does not require multiple universes or alternate ones where all the time must passs before the next reaction. A common mistake I see here. It isn't predestination if it is time travel in the film, it is just that the future has happened already. Remember Kate is sending letters into the past. She did not travel in time herself, just her letters. When Kate changes the past and Alex survives....ia a plot flaw. See the Twelve Monkeys if you are still confused.
Thank you, Doc, and thank you, Fred, for your comments. As I mentally frame my answers, it occurs to me first that I am going to want to include links, and our comments section does not support links (for good reason) even for authors, so I'll want to answer you both in article form. Second, it occurs to me that I usually defer answers to questions until the end of the series, and since some of the answers (particularly for Doc) will be found in articles still to come, I am going to do that.
Sorry to make you wait, but I promise Lord willing that I will have answers to your posts in a future article once the series has been completed.
Thanks for your patience, and again for your comments.
--M. J. Young
I am waiting with anticipating for the article to address my concerns. I am not sure if you mean future articles as meaning will discuss future events or meaning future article to come.
I was curious lately of movies with ghosts if ghosts are spirits or from other dimensions of time travel.
I and my family will soon come to USA for holidays. Do you know of some place that allows the renting of a cave? Possibly near you?
Time travel allows for interesting stories.
What's a buckwheat?
Doc, articles yet to be published will cover some of your questions, and I am drafting another specifically to address them further.
As to ghosts, I do not know what they "really" are, and I am unaware of any movie that treats them as time travelers. It's possible, but unless someone uses that concept in a film it's not relevant here.
You can find out about buckwheat at Dictionary.com; I do not know where you can find out about cave rentals.
--M. J. Young
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