We are now on our seventh and final installment of our attempt to unravel the confusing temporal anomalies in the film Primer. Our progress is catalogued in the author's Examiner profile and on the Temporal Anomalies web site. We have reached the end of the movie.
Since this is the final chapter, we should try to tie up a loose end: Aaron's ear bleeds, and they never explain this. It's not that difficult to explain, though. We know that gravity inside the time machine drops slightly; atmospheric pressure is dependent in part on gravity, and so that would also drop. Normally the body compensates for changes in atmospheric pressure, as the eustachian tubes connecting the middle ear to the pharynx in the throat equalize the pressure--but because the chamber is flooded with inert argon gas, Aaron is breathing from a pressurized oxygen tank through a mask. This will at least reduce his ability to adapt to the exterior change in pressure, causing blood vessels in his ears to break. That would explain that.
The movie ends, but it ends badly.
That Abe built a failsafe machine is not surprising, nor is the fact that Aaron discovered and used it and replaced it with another. The idea of the failsafe is that if something goes seriously wrong, they can travel back to the day before Aaron's first trip and undo everything that was done. The only part they cannot undo at this point is that Abe has conducted the experiments and started the failsafe machine. However, Abe believes he can prevent himself from making that first successful trip, by sabotaging the time machine before it is used. He will continue to sabotage the machines until Abe and Aaron abandon the effort and do something else.
Again different theories of time will predict different results with such an act. Following the replacement theory, though, their plan is a recipe for disaster.
As it was with the wrong Aaron, Abe and Aaron somehow have the notion that they can temporarily disable their younger selves and preserve history by playing the parts; but it is precisely because their younger selves lived those lives that they are here now. They are undoing their own past; without that past, they cannot reach this present.
That puts the end of the story into an infinity loop. They traveled back four days, changed the history of the party, and then prevented themselves from making that trip. When the fourth day arrives, they will not depart from the future; not departing from the future, they will not arrive in the past, and so will not prevent themselves from doing all that we saw in the movie. It is a classic mistake, the sort that takes a very smart person to make. It is also disastrous.
Thus as intriguing as Primer has been, in the end it brings the world to an end. Our narrator must have called before the end of the fourth day, because after that no one will ever call anyone at all.
Over the next few weeks The Examiner is running a series entitled Info 101. As part of that, this column will be explaining time travel theory and the various approaches used in time travel stories. After that, we will return to answer a few questions that have been raised by readers particularly about Primer, and then move to another film. Feel free to address your questions to the author by e-mail or through the comments sections of the articles. When we return to Primer, we will resume with a question from a reader concerning what he calls the disappearing Abe.
Comments
Can I mention my answer at:
(theprimeruniverse(dot)blogspot(dot)com/)
'The Amazing Houdini' is one page to consider.
Thanks.
I will be posting the link to that page when I address that problem in a few weeks, as part of the answers to questions on Primer. I have not looked at your solutions to this point, although as mentioned in our private correspondence I do not see a coherent theory of time behind the events in the film.
--M. J. Young
There's one problem with all these Primer Articles: they assume that some version of the classic rules to time travel still apply. I think it's fairly clear from the beginning that the movie is attempting to create a new version of time travel rules.
The gist of it that I got is as such: There really is no such thing as causality. Once the traveler arrives in the past, he is there, and nothing can or will prevent that from happening, regardless of if attempts to create a closed time loop succeed or not. If the attempts at a closing the time loop fail, and the past traveler does not go back in time the same way that the future traveler does, there ends up being a duplicate.
So, for example, if a traveler travels back an hour, exits the machine, waits a minute, then shuts off the running machine, he will then have a duplicate, causality be d*mned. This can be repeated ad infinitum.
Remember, time travel is, and always will be, fiction. What matters in a story is internal consis
Thank you for your comments, Soliloquy. I would love to be able to see a new theory of time in Primer, but I do not. I note that you say you will duplicate yourself if you shut off the machine, and Sham says the opposite. One significant problem, though, is that there is no evidence in the film that the boys ever do shut off the machine after making a trip--they never do so on screen, and never say they did. Thus your arguments both come to that you think this would have happened if the machine was shut off--and since you reach opposite conclusions, it is more likely your theory than Primer's that is defining the outcome.
Parallel or divergent dimension theories would work something like you describe, but there would be problems in Primer under most of them as well. I hope to address those eventually.
Thanks again.
--M. J. Young
The explanation / communication of the machine details is not necessarily critical to the story because theoretically the guy with the defective machine could figure out the problem alone. He would then calculate the trip modifications necessary to arrive at the original computed timeframe.
Also, if the other scientist at the company jumps back into their timeline, the timeloops of the duo are interdependent, so he could go into a paradoxical state so that they could continue (sacrifice? himself logically).
It is also possible that while attempting to solve the improper wiring problems / defects introduced by the interfering version that one of the other guys could also come to a more fundamental understanding of the machine which could somehow allow him to supercede what the other guy understands (a type of technological escalation).
Funny how I am getting to these conversations so long after the fact, thanks for taking the time. Your blog has inspired me to make a movie - - I will have to read your 101 articles and learn something substantial first...
RicardoM
"...theoretically the guy with the defective machine could figure out the problem alone," except that his doppelganger is actively sabotaging him, so it will never work.
"He would then calculate the trip modifications necessary to arrive at the original computed timeframe." There are two problems here. The first is that his equipment can only take him to the moment it is activated, and thus if he is delayed he cannot travel to the right past moment. The second is that he has no way of knowing that there is such a correct past moment--that is, he does not know that the machine worked in the original timeline or that he needs to reach that moment in the past.
"...if the other scientist at the company jumps back into their timeline"--he can't, because once the infinity loop is created there is no moment "after" it from which someone can come and no reason for anyone within it to be aware of it.
The possibility of technological escalation is interesting, but there's a very short time in which that has to happen.
Thanks for the comments. They are thought-provoking.
--M. J. Young
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!