Last week, we talked about a paradox of time travel: The Grandfather Paradox. Today, we will be looking into yet another paradox. Don't worry, because this one won't be as mind boggling and confusing as the last paradox. This paradox basically follows a constant loop through time: The Ontological Paradox - more commonly known as the "Bootstrap" Paradox.
Looking through the internet, I did not find a website, but I found a book excerpt. The excerpt gives basic information and examples of how the bootstrap paradox works. Unlike the Grandfather Paradox, I didn't have to read this 10 times just to have a basic understanding. The book I found was called Eating The Dinosaur and the short excerpt talking about the paradox can be found on page 60.
The Ontological Paradox states that effect eliminates the original cause of the effect and itself becomes the cause. . . . Perhaps an example would be a lot clearer.
Imagine yourself as a time traveler (obviously) and you just finished reading The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (a marvelous book I might add). You loved the book, you adored it, and you with your compulsive nature, wants to make sure that H.G. Wells writes it so it can be published. So, you get in your time machine with your copy of The Time Machine, travel to 1894, about one year before the book was published, and leave it at Wells's door. Then, Wells takes the copy, claims it as his own, and publishes it the next year for it to be copied once again for you to read in the future.
That is the Bootstrap Paradox in the nutshell. Most of the time, in stories, the Bootstrap paradox becomes an essential part of the principles of cause and effect. This means that if you disrupt the loop, like if you didn't bring the book back to H.G. Wells in the past, the effect couldn't happen thus making the cause impossible. This either disrupts space time and reality, or just can't happen and the paradox occurs anyway.
Thinking about it now, this paradox will probably be something I will run into continually if I ever do time travel, whether accidentally or intentionally.
If you'd like to learn more about the Bootstrap Paradox, I'd suggest you watch a couple of episodes from Doctor Who again. The one episode I would greatly recommend is Blink, and yes, it is the one with the weeping angels unfortunately. I'm sorry, but if you want to learn more about "Bootstrap", you're going to have to suck it up, deal with the angels, and watch that episode again.
Thank you everyone for again partaking in the discussion of time travel and the TARDIS. I hope this discussion wasn't as head pounding as the last.
On a last note, I am fabulous and you should be too! Goodbye!
I would like to travel in tardis with doctor who because it will fun
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