Superman & The Wave Model

If you've ever seen the 1978 film Superman, then you may recall a very memorable scene that happens near the end of the movie.  It's been awhile since I've seen it, so you'll forgive me if I'm a little hazy on the details.  Okay, so, Lex Luther had just activated some sort of earthquake-causing machine along the San Andreas fault line as part of the world's most bizzare real estate scam.  A big crack opens up in the earth, spreading across the land.  Lois Lane is driving down the road when it splits open in front of her, and then her car falls into the spreading crevise and she dies.  By the time Superman reaches her, it's too late to save her.  Or is it?  He flies out into space and begins to circle the Earth counter to its rotation.  He flies faster and faster, and as he does, we see the Earth slow to a stop and then start to spin the other away.  As he continues to circle the Earth, we are treated to cutaway shots of everything on Earth happening in reverse.  We see Lois' car fly back up out of the crack, the crack seals back up and recedes from the direction it came, ect.  These cutaway shots establish an important distiction.  Superman is not traveling back in time to save Lois.  He's turning back time itself to before she died.  Naturally, this is a ridiculously implausible concept, and it may seem as though I'm splitting hairs with the distinction I'm making.  But would you believe me if I told that our entire concept of time might hang on this difference? 

In my previous post, I formulated my position on the grandfather paradox by saying, "It would be impossible for a time traveler to change the past."  I knew that I had to choose my words carefully, because I knew where I was going with this.  I needed to keep the statement simple and absolute, without a lot of provisions and qualifications, but it also had to be precise.  I couldn't quite say, "It's impossible to change the past.", because, oddly enough, if you take the time traveler out of the equation, then it MIGHT be possible to do just that...at least in principle and on paper.

Time travel, as we typically understand it, would only work in a certain model of time.  I'll refer to this as the "linear model", because in this model time is...well, like a line.  In order from someone to travel freely on this line, the line itself would have to exist in a completed, static state.  Consider this: Picture time in this model as a long, straight country road.  As you drive along this road, this represents the way you experience time.  You experience the section of the road you cover as a succession of moments that you call "the present".  There is no special point on the road itself designated as the present, rather the present is just your perspective of the road as you drive over it.  Now, if it were possible to pick up your car and move it back to a section of the road behind you, then that section of the road would have to still exist back there in some sense.  If it were possible to skip ahead to a section of the road far ahead of you,  then that section of the road would have to already exist up there in some sense.  If, in all this skipping around, you encountered other cars on the road, they would consider the section of the road they're covering as the present, and you would be forced to conclude that the section of the road that you consider the present isn't a unique perspective.  You would be forced to conclude that there are just different cars driving on different sections of the road.  

In other words, for it to be possible to be able to pick your car up and move it around freely to any point on the road, then the road itself has to be finished product, fixed and complete.  That would mean that past, present, and future have all already happened and we are just experiencing our position on the road from our own subjective point of view.  That would mean that any time traveling that anyone is going to do, they've already done, and if they're going to go to what we consider the past, then they're already been there, and they've already done whatever they did.  This is why a time traveler can not change the past.

If there's a part of you that rebels at this idea, if there's a part of you that's uncomfortable with the notion that the future ahead of you has already happened and that it's as inevitable and unchangable as the past, if there's a part of you doesn't like feeling the stranglehold of fate slipping its icy fingers around you restricting your freedom to make your own choices, then don't worry.  I feel the same way.  There's a way out of all this.  We just have to ditch the time traveler.

We've been looking at time on the linear model.  But what if time isn't like a "line" at all?  What if time isn't a fixed thing that we move on?  What if it's time itself that's moving, sweeping us along like a wave?  In this model, the present is no longer just a matter of perspective; it's no longer a subjective point on a quiet eternal road.  In this model, the present is right now, right here along the cutting edge of the wave.  The crest of this wave is composed of the dynamic flux of everything in the universe, galaxies colliding, mountains crumbling, a ball as it flies through the air.  It's composed of the motion, the evolution, the degeneration, the growth, and the changing of all matter and energy and even consciousness.   In this model, the present is...everything.  It's the advance of the wave.  The past doesn't "exist" somewhere behind it, but rather the past is just a way of describing a prior state of the flux.  The future doesn't "exist" out there ahead of the wave.  The wave is just moving in that direction and things are just happening, moving, changing along the crest.  Now, honestly, doesn't this sound a little bit more like time as we know it?

In this "wave model" you can't travel back and see Ben Franklin fly his kite, because he isn't back there anymore.  The wave has long since swept over him and his kite, and along the crest he grew old and died and men dug a hole and buried him, and still the wave swept on until what was left of his body crumbled away into dust, and then the wave moved on without him.  In the "wave model" you'll never get a knock at your door from a guy in silver jumpsuit from the year 2598.  There's nothing but emptiness out in front of the wave, nothing but the potential of what the flux might become.  There is no man in a silver jumpsuit.  There is no 2598...at least, not yet.

Take a look at our old friend Relativity, which remains our best and only hope for manipulating time in the real world.  If you look carefully, you'll notice that Relativity suggests nothing about people occupying seperate points in time.  Relativity only suggests that someone could observe time running at a different rate in a different frame of reference.  The twin on Earth sees time run slower aboard his brother's ship, but yet they're both still contemporaries.  They can maintain eye contact, even as one grows old and the other stays young.  They still agree on what "now" is, even though their clocks disagree about the speed of its passing.  If anything, this only gives further evidence that time is not a fixed and rigid line, but rather something fluid and dynamic.  This may not be useful information to Dr. Stumblebum puttering around in his basement, but it can be useful to us.  It tells us that the sweep of this wave is not constant and relentless.  It tells us that the wave is flexible.  All you need is a lot of speed and a lot of gravity.  As to why that is....well, what do think I've been trying to figure out?

So that leads me back to my original point.  I said that it might be possible in principle to change the past, if you took the time traveler out of the equation.  What exactly did I mean by that?  Well, suppose it were possible to push the wave itself back, so that the motion in the universe's dynamic flux moved in reverse, so that everything that has happened up to a certain point can be made to unhappen.  What if, instead of traveling back to yesterday, it were possible to push time itself back so that today never happened, or rather could be made to have unhappened, and every change in the flux reversed?  This is why I say "in principle".  Clearly, the magnitude of such a thing is unthinkable at this point.  But hypothetically, suppose it were possible.  First of all, the mere act of pushing the wave back, as momumental an undertaking as it would be, wouldn't be enough to cause a change.  Without introducing some new element, some new factor or piece of information, the dynamic flux would simply repeat the same motions once you released the wave and allowed it to run forward again.  Yesterday would play out the same way it did before and we'd be right back here all over again.  There would have to be some way of carrying back on the wave some kind of premonition of what the flux was going to do once it ran forward again.  Only then could someone act on this information and change the outcome.  In effect, they would be changing the past, even though they might not realize it.  Would the grandfather paradox still be an issue?  Would any paradox be an issue?  I don't know.  I've taken this line of thought as far as I'm going to today.

Does this mean that the linear model is dead?  Not necessarily.  Personally, I prefer the wave model.  I think it makes more sense, but I'm in no position to make any solid claims.  As far as  time goes, we are all like the citizens of Flatland.  Without any freedom of movement or control over the 4th dimension, it becomes difficult to be certain of its true nature.  I present this "wave model" hypothesis simply for your consideration, just as means of showing you the different possible ways of looking at time.  The silver jumpsuit guy could still concievably show up at my door any day now, and we still have the rest of the month to consider the possibilities.  

(This post is also available in extra cheesy version.)