Well, it's not really for you to tell people whether or not they should care, is it?
It may be that you've got it wrong and understanding what is going on there will, at some point, be vital to correctly understanding what has happened/is happening.
Again, that is your decision for your handling of the story.
If it turns out that the plot device is important it may detract from the enjoyment of a future episode because you cannot understand it because you failed to sort out the timelines.
People who have to spend ages thinking about it or who have ask others for an explanation before they can understand a denouement miss out the wonderful feeling of having everything slip into focus over a few seconds.
Sorry, it was a throwaway remark, not meant literally. I'm not telling anyone anything.
I may well have it wrong. if that becomes apparent, I will change my theory. Funnily enough I can do that on the hoof, as it were. Doing it does not detract from the story because I'm used to it, both when watching fiction and in real life.
I envy you if you never get the wrong end of the stick and have to revise your opinion!
I don't get your last paragraph, which seems to be agreeing with me.
I'm sure Rorschach will correct me if I'm wrong, but that is entirely the point...
Paradoxes are a road less travelled when it comes to tropes and themes in programming (generally), so of course there will be sticking points until they become the norm.
Indeed, I never at any point said that Psychic Paper was a Paradox. What I said was that it doesn't make sense, just like a Paradox.
There are many things that don't make sense in Doctor Who, that have never really been explained and that the viewer just has to accept. Telepathy, aliens, Psychic paper, teleportation, regeneration, and of course Time Travel itself.
To the general public most of those things have been in the media spotlight for years. Aliens have been around in films and television since the 50s, Star Trek has been teleporting people for decades, Sookie reads people minds in True Blood all the time and Doctor Who has of course been time travelling since day 1 (cue someone correcting me to say the first instance of the TARDIS travelling in time would in fact be 12:32 pm on day 9 ). All of these things don't "make sense" but you seem happy enough to go along with them.
But ever since Time Travel has been discussed by clever (or not so clever) people then the problem of a Time Paradox has been discussed. What happens if you kill your Grandfather? Could a Holocaust survivor go back and kill Hitler? What if you killed all the cavemen? Could you travel back in time and give yourself the plans to build a time machine and so on. Time Paradoxes go hand in hand with Time Travel, as soon as Doctor Who introduced Time Travel then Time Paradoxes snuck in as well. The fact that Doctor Who hasn't gone on about them every episode, and that the rest of Sci-Fi media doesn't use that idea very often, doesn't mean it wasn't there all along as the elephant in the room.
And a Doctor Who script is not about to explain a Paradox so it makes sense, because you can't. It's a Paradox.
I find a time machine someone else has built, I get in, I set the controls for sixty years ago (before I was born) and I find my grandfather. I pick up a big stick and prepare to beat him to death.
What's going to stop me? How? Who even?
Does "the universe" somehow stop me and direct my time machine somewhere else? So that would imply the universe has a mind.
Do I blink out of existence as soon as I think about hitting him? Or when I hit him? What if I hit him till he stops breathing but then perform CPR? Am I still there to do that? And again who is it making this decision?
Do flying space aliens appear and devour me, my grandfather and anyone near by? But then if they devour him then I was never born, so never broke the rules, so they didn't need to appear anyway. But then if they didn't appear I'm still standing there with my big stick.
Am I still born anyway but someone else was my Grandfather. But then would I still remember travelling back in time because if he was never my grandfather why would I have bothered?
And "Because you can't travel in time, so there" doesn't work because here we are discussing Doctor Who and you have already accepted that he can, and indeed does.
Indeed, I never at any point said that Psychic Paper was a Paradox. What I said was that it doesn't make sense, just like a Paradox.
Except that it does make perfect sense. It may not be possible now - it may never be possible - but it makes sense.
There are many things that don't make sense in Doctor Who, that have never really been explained and that the viewer just has to accept. Telepathy, aliens, Psychic paper, teleportation, regeneration, and of course Time Travel itself.
No, the only one that does not make sense is time travel. And that's because if you allow time travel you can generate paradoxes at will.
None of the other fictitious technologies enable you to generate paradoxes.
To the general public most of those things have been in the media spotlight for years. Aliens have been around in films and television since the 50s, Star Trek has been teleporting people for decades, Sookie reads people minds in True Blood all the time and Doctor Who has of course been time travelling since day 1 (cue someone correcting me to say the first instance of the TARDIS travelling in time would in fact be 12:32 pm on day 9 ). All of these things don't "make sense" but you seem happy enough to go along with them.
Nope. There is a difference between "not possible(yet)" and "doesn't make sense".
But ever since Time Travel has been discussed by clever (or not so clever) people then the problem of a Time Paradox has been discussed. What happens if you kill your Grandfather? Could a Holocaust survivor go back and kill Hitler?
Did you notice that only one of those is a time paradox (apart from the nomenclature of the holocaust survivor) ?
What if you killed all the cavemen? Could you travel back in time and give yourself the plans to build a time machine and so on. Time Paradoxes go hand in hand with Time Travel,
Quite.
That's why time travel does not make sense - if you examine it deeply enough - whereas personal rocket packs do - even if they may never become generally available.
as soon as Doctor Who introduced Time Travel then Time Paradoxes snuck in as well.
Erm, Doctor Who did not introduce time travel. H.G. Wells got in well before him and even he was not the first.
And a Doctor Who script is not about to explain a Paradox so it makes sense, because you can't. It's a Paradox.
It's impossible - nothing more. So you just have to use suspension of disbelief and enjoy.
Nothing will stop you because it won't happen. Because time travel is impossible.
Does "the universe" somehow stop me and direct my time machine somewhere else? So that would imply the universe has a mind.
It doesn't need to as it will never happen. Because time travel is impossible.
Do I blink out of existence as soon as I think about hitting him? Or when I hit him? What if I hit him till he stops breathing but then perform CPR? Am I still there to do that? And again who is it making this decision?
You don't need to worry about it as it will never happen. Because time travel is impossible.
Do flying space aliens appear and devour me, my grandfather and anyone near by? But then if they devour him then I was never born, so never broke the rules, so they didn't need to appear anyway. But then if they didn't appear I'm still standing there with my big stick.
You don't need to worry about it as it will never happen. Because time travel is impossible.
Am I still born anyway but someone else was my Grandfather. But then would I still remember travelling back in time because if he was never my grandfather why would I have bothered?
You don't need to worry about it as it will never happen. Because time travel is impossible.
And "Because you can't travel in time, so there" doesn't work because here we are discussing Doctor Who and you have already accepted that he can, and indeed does.
Clue: Doctor Who is fiction.
The stuff you were quoted above was related to real life
I'm going to agree with the views that some fans are making it seem more complicated than it really is. When you have fans looking at every little detail and saying "Amy is really the TARDIS because she's a young River because they both have water names and River is the TARDIS because she flies it better than the Doctor" it makes things looked complicated but Moffat is really keeping things quite simple.
Did you notice that only one of those is a time paradox (apart from the nomenclature of the holocaust survivor) ?
Yes it is, in 1970 a man survives the Death Camps and travels back to kill Hitler so they will never happen. Without Hitlers charisma & outlook the Death Camps never happen (perhaps, another unknown up for discussion). So in 1970 why would the man travel back to kill Hitler, Hitler didn't become famous, there were no death camps. So the man doesn't travel back in time. But then Hitler wasn't killed and the death camps happened. Paradox ahoy.
That's why time travel does not make sense - if you examine it deeply enough - whereas personal rocket packs do - even if they may never become generally available.
And yet a major premise of Doctor Who is Time Travel, and you accept it. Time Travel doesn't make sense...but you accept it. A Time Paradox doesn't make sense...and you reject it.
Erm, Doctor Who did not introduce time travel. H.G. Wells got in well before him and even he was not the first.
:rolleyes: Really? That's your way to score a point? I know Doctor Who didn;t invent time travel. But we are discussing Doctor Who Scripts, this entire thread is discussing the use of Paradoxes in Doctor who, thus my statement that as soon as the Doctor Who writers introduced travelling in time to the show then that brought with it the problem of a Paradox.
I find a time machine someone else has built, I get in, I set the controls for sixty years ago (before I was born) and I find my grandfather. I pick up a big stick and prepare to beat him to death.
What's going to stop me? How? Who even?
Does "the universe" somehow stop me and direct my time machine somewhere else? So that would imply the universe has a mind.
Do I blink out of existence as soon as I think about hitting him? Or when I hit him? What if I hit him till he stops breathing but then perform CPR? Am I still there to do that? And again who is it making this decision?
Do flying space aliens appear and devour me, my grandfather and anyone near by? But then if they devour him then I was never born, so never broke the rules, so they didn't need to appear anyway. But then if they didn't appear I'm still standing there with my big stick.
Am I still born anyway but someone else was my Grandfather. But then would I still remember travelling back in time because if he was never my grandfather why would I have bothered?
And "Because you can't travel in time, so there" doesn't work because here we are discussing Doctor Who and you have already accepted that he can, and indeed does.
I think someone might have completely missed your point, again...
Once they learn to read posts properly, I'm sure they will eventually be able to start discussing things properly.
This would all be fine if they weren't dragging out River Song's identity. Three series to get to it. Whether we get it before or after the break is still debatable. I'm following the stories, trying not to read too much into it so I can still enjoy it.
Yet, had the River Song arc being resolved in the last series, I probably wouldn't have bothered with this series. Last series was a disappointment. It started well but ultimately ended as a cop out.
This show is only as complicated as you make it. When it's over, it should make sense. Until SM decides to piss us all off and start another arc that will last 5 years.
The stuff you were quoted above was related to real life
You need to separate the two.
My God, what a bad post. I mean that's really, really bad.
We are on an internet forum called TV - TV Shows - Doctor Who and Torchwood.
And yet you are trying to suggest that I think you and I are discussing real life?
Seems I'm not the one with a problem.
Clue: I never really found a time machine and travelled back to kill my grandfather. The stuff I quoted was not related to my real life. I just made it up, it was therefore a piece of fiction.
I find a time machine someone else has built, I get in, I set the controls for sixty years ago (before I was born) and I find my grandfather. I pick up a big stick and prepare to beat him to death.
What's going to stop me? How? Who even?
Does "the universe" somehow stop me and direct my time machine somewhere else? So that would imply the universe has a mind.
Do I blink out of existence as soon as I think about hitting him? Or when I hit him? What if I hit him till he stops breathing but then perform CPR? Am I still there to do that? And again who is it making this decision?
Regardless of how some might loudly claim 'time travel' is impossible, this actually illustrates ways that it might be.
Look at it this way - for any given intention, there are an almost infinite number of ways that events could play out. I choose to go to Subway for lunch, I get hit by a bus. Having the intent to do something is no guarantee that it will happen, but just because it doesn't happen, it doesn't mean that God disapproves of my choice of sandwich.
You could have the intent to go back and kill your grandfather, but a critical piece could fall off your time machine. Or your calculations were slightly out. Or your grandmother had an affair that she never told anyone about, and the person you thought was your grandfather wasn't. There are as many ways of your grandfather-killing act failing as there are of it succeeding.
Since we know that you're here, it follows that one of those ways of failing happened. The timelines are intact, causality continues unabated. That's one way in which time travel could be possible without breaking causality.
I shall refrain from making up explanations involving the collapse of the probability wavefunction.
My God, what a bad post. I mean that's really, really bad.
We are on an internet forum called TV - TV Shows - Doctor Who and Torchwood.
And yet you are trying to suggest that I think you and I are discussing real life?
Seems I'm not the one with a problem.
Clue: I never really found a time machine and travelled back to kill my grandfather. The stuff I quoted was not related to my real life. I just made it up, it was therefore a piece of fiction.
Rorschach loving your posts today- its like a family dinner at mine when my research scientist bro-in-law and Physics student geek nephew start talking!
Anyway who is to say that time travel is not possible- bit like hyperspace speed and navigating wormholes in space it might happen!
Quantum physics (all got your coffee mugs) is a lot of theories and not always a lot of evidence!
Just cos you can't see it/ do it doesn't mean someone else can's or isn't!
I think I have a foot in both camps here because I enjoy trying to solve Moffat's mysteries and conundrums, but I also love watching the standalone episodes where there is time to explore ideas in a calmer and easier to follow manner. Take the wonderful episode of Vincent and the Doctor, which managed to be both simple yet deeply moving at the same time, IMO. Things don't always have to be complicated to be clever - less is more sometimes.
When I watch Moffat's episodes, there are so many unknowns that I often don't know what is solid ground and what isn't, so it feels as if everything is shifting and I end up feeling metaphorically dizzy. If I can use the analogy of a fairground ride, there are some people who enjoy being thrown around and upside down on a rollercoaster, while others prefer something with less twists and turns, so that they have time to relax and enjoy the view. There's room for both types of writing in Dr Who, but I'm worried that at the moment it's becoming too much of a big rollercoaster ride, which may not be to everyone's tastes.
Yes it is, in 1970 a man survives the Death Camps and travels back to kill Hitler so they will never happen. Without Hitlers charisma & outlook the Death Camps never happen (perhaps, another unknown up for discussion). So in 1970 why would the man travel back to kill Hitler, Hitler didn't become famous, there were no death camps. So the man doesn't travel back in time. But then Hitler wasn't killed and the death camps happened. Paradox ahoy.
Yes, I was wrong there.
And yet a major premise of Doctor Who is Time Travel, and you accept it. Time Travel doesn't make sense...but you accept it. A Time Paradox doesn't make sense...and you reject it.
Time travel is what Doctor Who is all about. You can create stories involving time travel without generating any explicit paradoxes. So you suspend disbelief and enjoy the stories.
When you have a story that does include a paradox then the intelligent thing to do is to say: "well, as time travel is impossible this would never happen so there's no point in pursuing it but I choose to continue to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story.
It's no different to any other plot hole where you ignore said hole and just enjoy the tale.
(For example, it's beyond belief that every freaking time the daleks or the cybermen or the master encounters the doctor they fail to kill him instantly since he invariably thwarts all their plans.)
Really? That's your way to score a point? I know Doctor Who didn;t invent time travel.
I love the way that you make a mistake and then try and lay the fault at someone else's door just because they point it out.
Thanks I will, you just refuse to go with the flow and not enjoy
A very odd thing to say since you are replying to a sentence in which I specifically said what I and anyone else needed to do to continue to enjoy the programme.
My God, what a bad post. I mean that's really, really bad.
ROFLMAO. Well, since you were well and truly taken to task for mixing r/l and fiction I suppose you would think that.
We are on an internet forum called TV - TV Shows - Doctor Who and Torchwood.
Correct so far.
And yet you are trying to suggest that I think you and I are discussing real life?
Well, I know what I'm discussing but you seem to be on shakier ground.
Seems I'm not the one with a problem. [highlight]Seems you are.[/highlight]
Clue: I never really found a time machine and travelled back to kill my grandfather. The stuff I quoted was not related to my real life. I just made it up, it was therefore a piece of fiction.
ROFLMAO - again.
Well, you were the one that suddenly started talking about yourself in the first person inserted into something entirely fictional to try and prove some point.
It's amazing, you manage to make the same point over and over again in an impressively arrogant and condecending manner despite the question of time travel being a contested and debated point in the world of theoretical physics.
The greatest minds haven't been able to prove time travel is either possible or impossible and yet you can be so sure and shout someone down with that knowledge.
We should probably inform the nobel prize chaps, you are a shoe in!
It's amazing, you manage to make the same point over and over again in an impressively arrogant and condecending manner despite the question of time travel being a contested and debated point in the world of theoretical physics.
Not seriously debated, though.
The 'debate' goes something like this: If you could make something that may be theoretically possible (i.e. it's not actually proven that such a thing could exists) then it may be possible to travel back in time (i.e. it's not actually been proven that even if such a thing did exist it would definitely be possible to use it to travel back in time), provided you don't cause any paradoxes.
And if pigs had wings they'd fly.
The big problem is that since every single mass carrying particle is connected to every other mass carrying particle in the entire universe then if you were to go back in time you would have a gravitational effect on everything. Whilst the effect would be minuscule on most things chaos theory tells us that even very small disturbances can have dramatic consequences.
A more sensible way of looking at it is to demonstrate that if you could travel back in time you would definitely be able to create impossible situations at will which, to anyone capable of basic logic tells you that as you cannot do the impossible then time travel must be impossible.
The greatest minds haven't been able to prove time travel is either possible or impossible and yet you can be so sure and shout someone down with that knowledge.
Only if you allow that someone can have a 'great' mind and yet not be aware that you cannot do what is not possible so anything mooted that would enable you to do the impossible must, itself, be impossible.
Regardless of how some might loudly claim 'time travel' is impossible, this actually illustrates ways that it might be.
Look at it this way - for any given intention, there are an almost infinite number of ways that events could play out. I choose to go to Subway for lunch, I get hit by a bus. Having the intent to do something is no guarantee that it will happen, but just because it doesn't happen, it doesn't mean that God disapproves of my choice of sandwich.
You could have the intent to go back and kill your grandfather, but a critical piece could fall off your time machine. Or your calculations were slightly out. Or your grandmother had an affair that she never told anyone about, and the person you thought was your grandfather wasn't. There are as many ways of your grandfather-killing act failing as there are of it succeeding.
Since we know that you're here, it follows that one of those ways of failing happened. The timelines are intact, causality continues unabated. That's one way in which time travel could be possible without breaking causality.
I shall refrain from making up explanations involving the collapse of the probability wavefunction.
A bit far fetched and morbid I know, but what if you had a time machine but had manic depreesion and travelled back in time to kill yourself?
If, for example, you were to stab your 5 year old self to death? Because as soon as the 5 year old died, then the future self wouldn't exist to carry out the killing, therefore it's impossible?
The 'debate' goes something like this: If you could make something that may be theoretically possible (i.e. it's not actually proven that such a thing could exists) then it may be possible to travel back in time (i.e. it's not actually been proven that even if such a thing did exist it would definitely be possible to use it to travel back in time), provided you don't cause any paradoxes.
And if pigs had wings they'd fly.
The big problem is that since every single mass carrying particle is connected to every other mass carrying particle in the entire universe then if you were to go back in time you would have a gravitational effect on everything. Whilst the effect would be minuscule on most things chaos theory tells us that even very small disturbances can have dramatic consequences.
A more sensible way of looking at it is to demonstrate that if you could travel back in time you would definitely be able to create impossible situations at will which, to anyone capable of basic logic tells you that as you cannot do the impossible then time travel must be impossible.
.
But of course all that is theoretical, the clue is in the name, Chaos theory.
You cannot use definites like "impossible" or "possible" in relation to time travel because science has simply not advanced to a stage where there is any definate proof one way or the other.
While it is correct to say that as per the current thinking time travel is improbable, if you have concrete proof that it is impossible I suggest you do inform the nobel prize judges. For someone complaining about a lack of logic to loudly decry something as "impossible" with only theory as a back up is worryingly lacking in logic.
Comments
Sorry, it was a throwaway remark, not meant literally. I'm not telling anyone anything.
I may well have it wrong. if that becomes apparent, I will change my theory. Funnily enough I can do that on the hoof, as it were. Doing it does not detract from the story because I'm used to it, both when watching fiction and in real life.
I envy you if you never get the wrong end of the stick and have to revise your opinion!
I don't get your last paragraph, which seems to be agreeing with me.
There are many things that don't make sense in Doctor Who, that have never really been explained and that the viewer just has to accept. Telepathy, aliens, Psychic paper, teleportation, regeneration, and of course Time Travel itself.
To the general public most of those things have been in the media spotlight for years. Aliens have been around in films and television since the 50s, Star Trek has been teleporting people for decades, Sookie reads people minds in True Blood all the time and Doctor Who has of course been time travelling since day 1 (cue someone correcting me to say the first instance of the TARDIS travelling in time would in fact be 12:32 pm on day 9
But ever since Time Travel has been discussed by clever (or not so clever) people then the problem of a Time Paradox has been discussed. What happens if you kill your Grandfather? Could a Holocaust survivor go back and kill Hitler? What if you killed all the cavemen? Could you travel back in time and give yourself the plans to build a time machine and so on. Time Paradoxes go hand in hand with Time Travel, as soon as Doctor Who introduced Time Travel then Time Paradoxes snuck in as well. The fact that Doctor Who hasn't gone on about them every episode, and that the rest of Sci-Fi media doesn't use that idea very often, doesn't mean it wasn't there all along as the elephant in the room.
And a Doctor Who script is not about to explain a Paradox so it makes sense, because you can't. It's a Paradox.
I find a time machine someone else has built, I get in, I set the controls for sixty years ago (before I was born) and I find my grandfather. I pick up a big stick and prepare to beat him to death.
What's going to stop me? How? Who even?
Does "the universe" somehow stop me and direct my time machine somewhere else? So that would imply the universe has a mind.
Do I blink out of existence as soon as I think about hitting him? Or when I hit him? What if I hit him till he stops breathing but then perform CPR? Am I still there to do that? And again who is it making this decision?
Do flying space aliens appear and devour me, my grandfather and anyone near by? But then if they devour him then I was never born, so never broke the rules, so they didn't need to appear anyway. But then if they didn't appear I'm still standing there with my big stick.
Am I still born anyway but someone else was my Grandfather. But then would I still remember travelling back in time because if he was never my grandfather why would I have bothered?
And "Because you can't travel in time, so there" doesn't work because here we are discussing Doctor Who and you have already accepted that he can, and indeed does.
No, the only one that does not make sense is time travel. And that's because if you allow time travel you can generate paradoxes at will.
None of the other fictitious technologies enable you to generate paradoxes.
Nope. There is a difference between "not possible(yet)" and "doesn't make sense".
Did you notice that only one of those is a time paradox (apart from the nomenclature of the holocaust survivor) ?
Quite.
That's why time travel does not make sense - if you examine it deeply enough - whereas personal rocket packs do - even if they may never become generally available.
Erm, Doctor Who did not introduce time travel. H.G. Wells got in well before him and even he was not the first.
It's impossible - nothing more. So you just have to use suspension of disbelief and enjoy.
No you don't. Because time travel is impossible.
Nothing will stop you because it won't happen. Because time travel is impossible.
It doesn't need to as it will never happen. Because time travel is impossible.
You don't need to worry about it as it will never happen. Because time travel is impossible.
You don't need to worry about it as it will never happen. Because time travel is impossible.
You don't need to worry about it as it will never happen. Because time travel is impossible.
Clue: Doctor Who is fiction.
The stuff you were quoted above was related to real life
You need to separate the two.
How unbelieveably condescending of you.
I don't think there is any further point to having a debate with you - you clearly don't know how to.
If you can't understand the difference between real life and fiction I don't think there is much point in you trying to debate anything with anyone.
And yet a major premise of Doctor Who is Time Travel, and you accept it. Time Travel doesn't make sense...but you accept it. A Time Paradox doesn't make sense...and you reject it.
:rolleyes: Really? That's your way to score a point? I know Doctor Who didn;t invent time travel. But we are discussing Doctor Who Scripts, this entire thread is discussing the use of Paradoxes in Doctor who, thus my statement that as soon as the Doctor Who writers introduced travelling in time to the show then that brought with it the problem of a Paradox.
Thanks I will, you just refuse to go with the flow and not enjoy
I think someone might have completely missed your point, again...
Once they learn to read posts properly, I'm sure they will eventually be able to start discussing things properly.
Hmm... :yawn:
Yet, had the River Song arc being resolved in the last series, I probably wouldn't have bothered with this series. Last series was a disappointment. It started well but ultimately ended as a cop out.
This show is only as complicated as you make it. When it's over, it should make sense. Until SM decides to piss us all off and start another arc that will last 5 years.
We are on an internet forum called TV - TV Shows - Doctor Who and Torchwood.
And yet you are trying to suggest that I think you and I are discussing real life?
Seems I'm not the one with a problem.
Clue: I never really found a time machine and travelled back to kill my grandfather. The stuff I quoted was not related to my real life. I just made it up, it was therefore a piece of fiction.
Regardless of how some might loudly claim 'time travel' is impossible, this actually illustrates ways that it might be.
Look at it this way - for any given intention, there are an almost infinite number of ways that events could play out. I choose to go to Subway for lunch, I get hit by a bus. Having the intent to do something is no guarantee that it will happen, but just because it doesn't happen, it doesn't mean that God disapproves of my choice of sandwich.
You could have the intent to go back and kill your grandfather, but a critical piece could fall off your time machine. Or your calculations were slightly out. Or your grandmother had an affair that she never told anyone about, and the person you thought was your grandfather wasn't. There are as many ways of your grandfather-killing act failing as there are of it succeeding.
Since we know that you're here, it follows that one of those ways of failing happened. The timelines are intact, causality continues unabated. That's one way in which time travel could be possible without breaking causality.
I shall refrain from making up explanations involving the collapse of the probability wavefunction.
Rorschach loving your posts today- its like a family dinner at mine when my research scientist bro-in-law and Physics student geek nephew start talking!
Anyway who is to say that time travel is not possible- bit like hyperspace speed and navigating wormholes in space it might happen!
Quantum physics (all got your coffee mugs) is a lot of theories and not always a lot of evidence!
Just cos you can't see it/ do it doesn't mean someone else can's or isn't!
When I watch Moffat's episodes, there are so many unknowns that I often don't know what is solid ground and what isn't, so it feels as if everything is shifting and I end up feeling metaphorically dizzy. If I can use the analogy of a fairground ride, there are some people who enjoy being thrown around and upside down on a rollercoaster, while others prefer something with less twists and turns, so that they have time to relax and enjoy the view. There's room for both types of writing in Dr Who, but I'm worried that at the moment it's becoming too much of a big rollercoaster ride, which may not be to everyone's tastes.
At the end of the day, it's a matter of personal taste.
I'm still enjoying the show immensely but I wish they'd slow the rollercoaster down a bit :eek:
2. Please stop making new threads for this
3.NO.
Time travel is what Doctor Who is all about. You can create stories involving time travel without generating any explicit paradoxes. So you suspend disbelief and enjoy the stories.
When you have a story that does include a paradox then the intelligent thing to do is to say: "well, as time travel is impossible this would never happen so there's no point in pursuing it but I choose to continue to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story.
It's no different to any other plot hole where you ignore said hole and just enjoy the tale.
(For example, it's beyond belief that every freaking time the daleks or the cybermen or the master encounters the doctor they fail to kill him instantly since he invariably thwarts all their plans.)
I love the way that you make a mistake and then try and lay the fault at someone else's door just because they point it out.
A very odd thing to say since you are replying to a sentence in which I specifically said what I and anyone else needed to do to continue to enjoy the programme.
Correct so far.
Well, I know what I'm discussing but you seem to be on shakier ground.
ROFLMAO - again.
Well, you were the one that suddenly started talking about yourself in the first person inserted into something entirely fictional to try and prove some point.
It's amazing, you manage to make the same point over and over again in an impressively arrogant and condecending manner despite the question of time travel being a contested and debated point in the world of theoretical physics.
The greatest minds haven't been able to prove time travel is either possible or impossible and yet you can be so sure and shout someone down with that knowledge.
We should probably inform the nobel prize chaps, you are a shoe in!
:rolleyes:
The 'debate' goes something like this: If you could make something that may be theoretically possible (i.e. it's not actually proven that such a thing could exists) then it may be possible to travel back in time (i.e. it's not actually been proven that even if such a thing did exist it would definitely be possible to use it to travel back in time), provided you don't cause any paradoxes.
And if pigs had wings they'd fly.
The big problem is that since every single mass carrying particle is connected to every other mass carrying particle in the entire universe then if you were to go back in time you would have a gravitational effect on everything. Whilst the effect would be minuscule on most things chaos theory tells us that even very small disturbances can have dramatic consequences.
A more sensible way of looking at it is to demonstrate that if you could travel back in time you would definitely be able to create impossible situations at will which, to anyone capable of basic logic tells you that as you cannot do the impossible then time travel must be impossible.
Only if you allow that someone can have a 'great' mind and yet not be aware that you cannot do what is not possible so anything mooted that would enable you to do the impossible must, itself, be impossible.
A bit far fetched and morbid I know, but what if you had a time machine but had manic depreesion and travelled back in time to kill yourself?
If, for example, you were to stab your 5 year old self to death? Because as soon as the 5 year old died, then the future self wouldn't exist to carry out the killing, therefore it's impossible?
But of course all that is theoretical, the clue is in the name, Chaos theory.
You cannot use definites like "impossible" or "possible" in relation to time travel because science has simply not advanced to a stage where there is any definate proof one way or the other.
While it is correct to say that as per the current thinking time travel is improbable, if you have concrete proof that it is impossible I suggest you do inform the nobel prize judges. For someone complaining about a lack of logic to loudly decry something as "impossible" with only theory as a back up is worryingly lacking in logic.