Author Archives: Hamza Ansari

Grandfather Paradox!

Posted by Hamza Ansari on

The Grandfather Paradox is a well known paradox in which a (presumably) male travels back in time and kills his grandfather; not only he kills the grandfather, but also his kid(s), and in turn, himself. It is also known as The Grandmother Paradox in which a woman travels back in time and kills her grandmother, thus killing herself. To the explain the paradox: (source: Wikipedia)

The grandfather paradox is a proposed paradox of time travel first described by the science fiction writer René Barjavel in his 1943 book Le Voyageur Imprudent (Future Times Three).[1] The paradox is described as following: the time traveler went back in time to the time when his grandfather had not married yet. At that time, the time traveler kills his grandfather, and therefore, the time traveler is never born when he was meant to be.

Here is my take – I don’t know much about time-travelling nor have I done extensive research. I’m merely looking at it from a different perspective. My perspective, so to speak. Many well educated people than I have put in their own input, discussing rationality, implausibility, the consequences, ad infinitum, and so on. What you read below is purely my own!

First off, I don’t believe time travel can ever be possible. It’s one of those things that absolutely cannot happen. I say this from a rational, realistic point of view. Due to the teachings of my faith, I’m inclined to believe it cannot happen because to make it successful (let’s say you’re time-travelling in the past), the citizens of the by-gone era would have to be resurrected, and my faith simply denies that. Resurrection cannot happen. As a follower of the faith, and as a realist, I have reasons to believe that line. But since these paradoxes – no matter how rational or irrational they may seem – get the gears working, it’s always good to dwell on these things from time to time. Plus, these things are more fun than predicting when Lindsay Lohan will be going back to rehab, or who Taylor Swift will be dating next.

2013 – this is your current timeline. You exist here, in the now, in the present. 26th April of 2013 is your present. 25th April of 2013 was your past. 27th April of 2013 is your future.

Now let’s say you were born in 1993 – OK, that’s when I was born. I was born 10th August 1993. You know what, I’ll use myself as the example for the time being. Now, I started existing, started creating an echo of myself from the 10th of August 1993 to this current day. No-one can tell how long will I continue creating that echo, stretching my existence before the string breaks. Suppose I die in 10 years time, or longer, then my timeline will be limited from 1993 to my year of death. I physically existed in that timeline. The ones who were there with me in that timeline will remember my echo, my unphysical being, that will stretch beyond that original timeline, that original frame. To sum it up, I had no timeline of my own prior 10th August 1993, meaning there was a big blank. From my birth to my death I will have existed in an unique timeline that’s entirely my own. From the day of my death onwards I will only exist as an echo, a complete opposite of who / what I’m currently – a physical being. I will have become an unphysical being.

I have no idea what I just explained was something worthy of being read, or something that made sense. Well, that’s for you to decide. Now I’m going to take a fictional example, because I feel too guilty in killing my grandfather – who is still alive, by the way.

John was born in 2000. He is currently 13 years old. For the time being, his timeline is from 2000 to 2013, and who knows how long will it stretch. In his 13 years of existence, he has made a lot of friends, has many cousins / relatives and, of course, a mother and a father. He has associated himself with them and they with him. Let’s say one of his friends thinks back to a happy moment he spent with John 50 years from 2013 – that would be 2063 – he will remember John, who was alive in that time period. John was there physically. He may or may not be alive by 2063 but that’s a different point than what I’m trying to make. The reason John existed because his parents existed and because their parents existed. In short, the string wasn’t interrupted or disrupted in any way.

One day John stumbles upon a time machine, and due to too much time playing violent video games and watching violent movies, decides to go back in time and kill his grandfather. Now, backward time-travel is of high implausibility – actually, this whole thing is of utter nonsense – is because how can someone exist in a time-plane in which he never existed? Nevertheless, John successfully goes back in time and kills his grandfather, thus disrupting the timeline and destroying a generation. He act of killing his grandfather also results in the death of one of his parent and thus, himself.

I believe that as soon as he time-traveled back in time – let’s say 1950, when his grandfather was a young man – he unknowingly created two time-lines: parallel time-lines, so to speak. Not only he exists in the present – 2013 – he now also exists in the past – 1950. He has now created an echo of himself in the past that will be manifested into something / someone physical in the future – meaning present – should he time travel back to the original time-period where he originally started his journey from.

Since he still hasn’t killed his grandfather, he has the rights to call 2013 as both “future” and “present” and 1950 as both “past” and “present”, because he is currently physically existing in the 1950 time period, but it is not his “original” time period, hence the use of the word “past”. He is merely existing in it, not living in it, because he is currently living in 2013. You can’t be alive in two places at once, can you?

Now let’s say John kills his grandfather in 1950, thus not only killing his – the grandfather’s – child(ren), but also killing their child(ren), which happens to be John – let’s assume he has no siblings. The original timeline of John’s parents has been interrupted. Let’s say they were born to another family. They now exist in an alternative time-line where either John’s parents are complete strangers to each, siblings, or are simply not born at all. In short, their original time-line has now become a different one. Their original friends and everything + everyone they associated themselves with have become vaporized. By this I don’t mean physically. Their – the parents – friends did not blow up or anything, but simply don’t remember and/or associate themselves with the echoes of the parents because now they – the parents – did not even exist to begin with. No existence, no echo. No echo, no association.

The same is true with John and everyone he knew. His friends are now simply denied of his existence because as soon as John killed his grandfather, he erased himself in the present time period – 2013 – both in physical and echo manner.

Over here I believe that John now has only one time-line. Before he killed his grandfather, he had two. After the killing, now he has only one – 1950 to whenever he will die. Now, he cannot classify 2013 as either “present” or “future”, because it wouldn’t be granted to him. 1950 – once classified as both “past” and “present” – is now only “present.”

1950 has become his “present”, because he isn’t alive anywhere else, and the future will be a black-hole, an oblivion, because it hasn’t happened yet. And anyway, how can you “resurrect” someone who hasn’t been born yet? In the killing, he destroyed his time-line, and in that it shifted from 2013 to 1950. I believe that if he attempts to time-travel to anywhere between 2000 and 2013, he will simply die, because he is dead in that period. From his point of view, he killed an echo version of himself right after he murdered his grandfather. But if he time-travels back to that place where he originally started his journey from – 2013 – he will have killed himself (again), but this time physically, because his link has been broken.

You will remember I started off this entry by saying I don’t believe in it. Here’s why: In this theory, this interpretation of mine, I have “proved” that John is now someone without any origin, no one, other than Allah, is without any origin. I didn’t come up with this entry to prove anything that will contradict a fact that’s not only real but something that will contradict a very basic Islamic understanding: Allah is one and without origin. It was not my aim to bring John to the same level. But since somehow I managed to achieve just that, I’m saying this again that it was not my aim, nor had I planned on that. This is my take on what can / could happen should one attempt to time travel and in no way is trying to lay down the rules and/or bring solid evidence. This was all done for fun and entertainment, so treat it like one! Thank you!

*phew* I don’t think I understood it any better myself. Anyway, what does this prove? Is this writing a work of a genius… or a complete buffoon? If this is any of the two, or any other, let me know in the comments section.

Now, excuse me while I go and massage my head!