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From: smc@mit-vax.UUCP (Stewart M. Clamen)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: Re: BACK TO THE FUTURE  (Question, but spoiler)
Message-ID: <387@mit-vax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Jul-85 03:30:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-vax.387
Posted: Tue Jul 16 03:30:33 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 16-Jul-85 21:36:04 EDT
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Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
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	Probably the best way to think about a time travel film is as
little as possible, ie. to enjoy the film and its paradoxes and not
attempt to explain them.  Of course, trying to come up with a
consistent explanation of events only characterizes you as a human,
and I am no exception...



> Actually, there's only one serious praradox you need to resolve to get all
> the others to go away: what happens to the "second" Marty?

	I agree. One solution to the Berry problem is to assume that
the 'first' Chuck hears "the new sound" from someone else, but after
November 10, 1955.  All Marty does is teach it to him a bit earlier.

	Here is my attempt to resolve the "real" paradox:

	I tend to categorize the consistent time-travel stories I've
read/seen into 2 groups, the "1-past model", and the
"infinite-timeline model".  The former ides suggests that a time
traveler cannot travel back to the past and change it, because it has
already happened and he has already been there.  The latter assumes
that there are an infinite number of possible futures, and by
'changing' the past, you are just following a different one.  The
other future still 'exists' (for lack of a better word), though, as do
many other possible futures.  The time-traveler, returning to the
future, would find a different one, because he would be following a
different line.  On the other hand, if the traveler goes forward in
time, everything reamins causal, as when the dog Einstein his
propelled forward in the first test on the deLorean.


> Marty has this picture, from future v1.0 which is disappearing because
> future v1.1 will be different.  But when he gets back home, he remembers
> v1.0, even though he was making himself v1.0 disappear.  Either his memory
> should somehow reflect 1.1 now instead of 1.0, or he couldn't cause himself
> not to exist.

	I view the BTTF as following the "infinite-timeline model" to
some extent.  When the instance of Marty that the movie concentrates
on returns to his own time, he notices the changes because he grew up
in another (original?) timeline.  This new timeline differs from the
other one in that, in November 1955, a teenager from the future
arrives and confuses the lives of a number of contemporary figures.
The appearance of Marty in the past, an event which DID NOT occur in
the timeline in which our Marty was born, causes Marty's relative
time/space to diverge from its previous path, ie. he doesn't return to
the same place he came from.

	I think of the picture of himself and his siblings as a
dramatic prop, a link to this new future timeline, that his presence
in 1955 has led to.


> The only way I see out of this is to postulate that Marty v1.0 is distinct
> from Marty v1.1, but that their existences are somehow coupled (at least up
> to the point where they both go backwards.  It's certainly clear that Doc is
> different; in v1.0 he is clearly NOT wearing the bullet-proof vest.  But
> then you have to figure out where Marty v1.1 went to.  

	An interesting thought about the 'second' Marty just crossed
my mind.  We really have no idea as to what point in time he went.
Remember in the 'first' timeline, Doc sets the clock to the day in
which he discovered the flux-converter, the invention that began his
work on the time machine.  In this new timeline, Doc remembers Marty
from 1955, and may not consider that a prime time to return to.  Maybe
this other Marty went to the future!

	Anyhow, we can assume that this other Marty traveled to some
point in space/time, ad if he went to the past, that he spawned off
yet another timeline, and if he went to the future, that he may meet
his other instance one day.


	I apologize for being so long winded; I hope I didn't bore you
too much.

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