TIME TRAVEL AND THE BOOTSTRAP PARADOX EXPLAIN
The Bootstrap Paradox is theoretical paradox of time travel that occurswhen an object or piece of information sent back in time becomes trapped within an infinite cause-effect loop in which the item no longer has a descernible point of origin, and is said to be "uncaused" or "self-created". It is also known as an Ontological Paradox, in reference to ontology, a branch of metaphysics dealing with the study of being and existence.
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Etymology of Bootstrap Paradox
The term Bootstrap Paradox is derived from the expressions to "pull oneself over a fence by one's bootstraps", which indicates performing an impossible or Ludicrous task. In this instance, by pulling yourself over a fence by holding onto your bootlaces and tugging upwards. The first reference to such an absurdly impossible action is widely believed to originate from an 18th century literary classic, 'The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchhausen', in which the eponymous hero is stuck in a swamp and managers to escape by pulling upwards on his own hair.
The term "bootstrap paradox" was subsequently popularised by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, whose book, 'By His Bootstraps' (1941), tells the story of Bob Wilson, and the time travel paradoxes he encounter after using a time portal. One such example involves Wilson travelling to the future and being given a notebook by his future self, before then travelling to an earlier point in the future and using the book's useful information to set himself up as a benevolent dictator. After the notebook become so worn, Wilson copies the information into a new notebook and disposes of the original. He later muses that there never wear two notebooks and thet newly created one is actually the one given to him in the far future. So, who wrote the book, and where did it's informations actually originate?
Bootstrap Paradox Exampls
---Information: An example of bootstrap paradox involving information would be if a time traveller went back in time and thought Einstein the theory of relativity, before returning to his own time. Einstein claims it's his own work and over the following decades that theory is published countless times until copy of it eventually in the hands of the original time traveller who then takes it back to Einstein, begging the question "where did the theory originate". We cannot say that it came from the time traveller as he learned it from Einstein, but we also cannot see that it is from Einstein, since she was thought with by thee time traveller. Who, then, discovered theory of relativity?
In fiction, the Doctor Who episode 'Blink' contains and information paradox in which a video message forms an endless loop spanning thirty-eight years. Likewise, the two-part Doctor who episodes 'Under the Lake', and 'Before the Flood' also features and nifty Paradox anecdote involving Beethovene's music. The 2014 film 'Time Lapse' provides further example of a story rich in bootstrap paradoxes, with the main characters responding daily to photos they receive from 24 hours into their future.
---Object: The 1980's movie Somewhere in Time provides an example of a bootstrap paradox involving an object, in this case a pocket watch. In 1972, Christopher Reeve is given a watch by an old woman, which it turns out was given to her younger self by Reeve after travelling back to 1912. The young women then completes the infinite loop by giving the watch to Reeve in 1972 when she's older. An inconsistency that subsequently arises is how the pocket watch survives countless times cycles while remaining "unached and unfactor by time. The problem is no less true for information trapped inside a bootstrap paradox. Both seem to violet the second law of Thermodynamics, which states that entropy (gradual decline into disorder) will always increase over time.
In The Terminator movies, Skynet is an example of bootstrap paradox involving an object. Skynet, the conscious AI system and mankind's nemesis, could not have been invented without the leftover components of the T-800 cybernatic organism it sent back in time to stop John Corner. The technology was analysed, and Skynet and Cyborgs were subsequently created through riverse engineering.
---Person: The most extreme example of a bootstrap paradox involving a person can be found in the Robert A. Heinlein's short story "All You Zombies" (1959), which inspired the 2014 movie "Predestination". Hear the main character, and intersex male born a female is tricked into going back in time and impregnating his pre-gender reassigned female self, who subsequently gives birth to himself/herself. As a results, he becomes a self-created entity who is both his own mother and father. This naturally presents a real mind-bending chicken-and-egg conundrum. Once again, however, the story appears to be self-consistent, with no changes taking place each time through and the loop. Nevertheless, Heinlein doesn't attempt to answer the role "free will" plays in this imaginative scenario.
The futurama episode 'Rosewell That Ends Well' where fry becomes his own grandfather provides another good example of a person-centric bootstrap paradox in fiction. As does the Terminator movies, once more, with your future John carner sending Kyle Rease to the past to impregnate Sarah Corner, who them gives birth to John Corner.
Self-Consistent with Timeline
Consistency Paradoxes, such as the Grandfather Paradox, The Hitler Paradox, and Polchinski's Paradox, result in a 'self-inconsistent' solution with the timeline's history. After all, if a time traveler killed his own grandfather, then he would never have been born, and so would not have been able to travel back through time and murder his grandfather. This would be a paradox.
The Predestination Paradox, and the Bootstrap Paradox, on the other hand, are examples of closed loops in time in which cause and effect' repeat in a circular pattern, resulting in a self-created entity with no point of origin. Despite being an oddity and apparently conspiring against our understanding of casuality, this 'self-caused' event, like Big Bang, does not appear to be an impossibility. Nor does it imply any inconsistency with the timeline's history. In fact, all the events in the time loop are "fixed" and take place on a single unchangeable timeline.
Problems
Einstein's Theory of General Relativity tells us that we have got almost complete freedom of movement into the future. Time travel to the past, on the other hand that throws up several paradoxes. That's despite his equations maintaining that four-dimensional space-time can be twisted into any shape, and that loops in space-time or possible. Any time travel paradoxes that do arise are therefore of particulars concern to theoretical physicist. The line of reasoning has subsequently led many of them to conclude that time travel to the past must be impossible. Sume of those fundamental breaches in the lows of physics include the following examples:
---Law of casuality: While a bootstrap paradox on may produce a consistent account of the timeline's history, one problem associated with this ontological conundrum is an apparent violation of the Law of Casuality. As a result scientists are presented with an obvious problem in that they are no longer able to say that a past cause' leads to a future 'event'. After all, the event me equally have been created in the future before leading to its cause in the past. This suggests that instead of time moving from a dead past to an undetermined future, the past, present, and future are, in fact, all equally real at the same time. In this process, rendering the task of defining the "Origin" of anything, a term usually associated with the past, now meaningless.
Law of entropy: Another problem associated with a bootstrap Paradox is an apparent violation of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that system always flow from a state of order to a state of disorder. This would suggest that an object or information trapped within a time loop would continue to age and eventually disintegrate. We touched upon this earlier with the pocket watch in somewhere in time, which one would have expected to get older as it progressed through the cycle. In which case, the item cannot be the same as the one sent back in time, which creates a contradiction and rises the prospect of Theseu's Paradox , and the question of Identity. Furthermore, the watch untimately wearing out would also indicate a discontinuity in the story, as Jane Seymour could than have never received it as a young women and the time loop could never have started.
Possible solutions
Working on the assumption of an "immutable" timeline in which the circle of events are identical every time, the 'Somewhere In Time' example races the problem of an increasingly aging pocket watch. One solution may be to assume that entropy is somehow reversed by Time travel, although this may also suggest that the matter which comprised Reeve himself would also have subsequently been restored to its 1912 state when he returned to the past, which needless to say would not be in the form of Reeve.
Well, perhaps not, according to Russian professor Novikov, as the second law of thermodynamics is thought to be a statistical law, and not an absolute one, making spontaneous entropy reversals or failure to increase improbable, but not impossible. Furthermore, the second law of thermodynamics applies only to a system isolated from the external world, and as Novikov argues:
"..In the case of macroscopic objects like the watch whose worldlines from closed loops, the outside world can expand energy of repair were/entropy that the object acquires over the course of its history, so that it will be back in its original condition when it closes the loop. (Wiki)"
Otherwise, it would be intriguing to consider the possibility that the time travelling watch might have to obey the 'timeline protection hypothesis' which states that any attempt to create a paradox would fail due to a probability distortion being created. Imagine young Jane Seymour becoming angry, for instance, and throwing the watch at the Wall. The Wall may be damaged slightly but the watch must remain in the same state. Probability would bend to prevent any damage occurring to the watch, which could result in some pretty incredible outcomes. Novertheless, the universe must fevour and improbable event happening, in order to prevent an impossible one.
A final possibility involves a chrononaut finding himself in a parallel universe or multiverse each time he travels to the past, thereby changing nothing of his original timeline.
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