Bootstrap paradox is a paradox in time travel. But to know this you have to know
- What is Time?
- What is “time travel”?
- What is a paradox?
Table of Contents
Time
In short, time is God, time is everything and at the same time is nothing. It’s an illusion. In Physics time is the 4th dimension. Time is a very huge matter to discuss and research. With era to era, research is going on and new definitions are creating. Time is irreversible( doubtful & stay tuned for to know if it is truly irreversible or can we somehow reverse it).
Time travel
Naturally, we know time is a progress from past to present & present to future, i.e. a linear progression. But did you ever think what will happen if it’s not right? The by default definition is from the convention, but who knows if the basis of the convention is wrong.
If time is not linear and there is a way to go back or come back to the past from the future or from the future to present or from present to past. What will happen if the time is defined as the progression from future to past, what will happen if what we spent was our future & to what we are progressing is our past. I know these all sound insane or crazy, but don’t scroll away, I’ll simplify it. So, till now, it’s clear that by convention time is traveling through oat, present, and future respectively. If we somehow can breakdown this convention and traveling beyond this respectiveness, then this is called time travel. Naturally, by this process, we can go to our past and may change it. I said “may”. It’s another topic to discuss if it’s really possible to change our past because if time is linear, past influences our present and future. But if time is non-linear, the future can influences our present and past too, i.e. everything influences everything. so, coming to the point, if time becomes reversible from irreversible, i.e. if we are able to change our past and if past influences our future then many things will become illogical and in some cases, our existence will be followed by a big question mark. Here comes the paradox. However, Time Travel is one way to parallel universe. Time Travel is one of the answers How to contact yourself in a parallel universe?
Now, know what is the paradox?
The paradox is a self-contradictory statement, a statement that is impossible if it’s possible. In simple, it stands against itself. ” Time travel” gives birth to many paradoxes, I mean many question marks. Grandfather paradox, Twin paradox, Telepathy paradox, Bootstrap paradox, etc are very important topics from them.
What is the bootstrap paradox?
- Bootstrap paradox is a time travel paradox in which the consequences of a future event journey back in time (past and present) and results in any other event in the past or present, by which it becomes part of a causal loop.
- Now you’re asking yourself what is a causal loop? well, don’t worry. A causal loop is a loop where the result of any event is the cause of another event, which is the cause of the first-said event itself. Sorry, don’t confuse. Let A is an event whose cause is B, but confusingly B is the result of A too, ultimately results in a difficulty to find the true origin of any event, quite similar to the question ” who is the first comer – egg or chicken?” In short, a causal loop is the breakdown version of causality in classical Physics.
- So, you knew that in bootstrap paradox you can’t find the true origin of any event or things, because it’s a part of a causal loop.
- Now, some simple examples will clear your doubts completely. In the first example, you can consider the most simplified paradox,” the billiards ball paradox”.
- Let’s assume you have a doubt regarding Newton’s gravitational theory. Anybody can not satisfy you with the proper answer i.e. can not clear your doubt. You will think it will be best if you clear your doubt from the original discoverer of this, I mean sir Issac Newton. If time travel is possible you will use it and went at the time of Newton when the event of the falling of the apple did not happen yet and he also did not know anything about the gravitational force. You asked but became sad because of the negative answer from him. You became angry and came back to your present time leaving your Physics book there. Now, after you leaving Newton read the book with great interest and published some theories. Leave the other theories, you now concentrate on the gravitational theory, which Newton published illegally and he is now a punishable person of copyright infringement, but wait, if you read it carefully can you name the person whose copyright is broken by Newton. Then you have to stop. Because it’s complicated to prove the original author of the book. Remember the difficulty of finf\ding the origin as of the previous-said casual loop. Here is the confusion and here is the bootstrap paradox.
- Take another dose of example. Today askerweb is about 3 months old, i.e. very very small website and the author, I am working with heart and soul, I am learning new things and creating new contents on this website. From the bottom of my heart, I’m trying to stabilize the website but about every day, new problems occur and to solve them I have to gain my knowledge. So, in short, I’m looking for ideas. Now just think, in 2023 askerweb is old enough to produce valuable content and my one post based on a new idea is full of useful & ens\riched contents and the post becomes viral on the internet. Then if I think that it was very useful if I wrote the same contents with this idea in 2020. So, I travel to the past and do that. Now tell me the origin of the idea. Can you tell me in which year I have gained the idea? This is the origin-related paradox, this is the confusion, and here is the bootstrap paradox.
- Have you watched Netflix TV series Dark? If no, go and watch, it will be worthful for you. This web series is full of paradoxical scientific theories. There are so many things such as St. Christopher’s medal, Helge’s coin, H.G. Tannhaus’s book “a journey through time”, the blueprint of the time machine, which Claudia gave Tannhouse to make the time machine. these are the things whose origin can’t be found. In the middle of the show we can see young Cladia brought the HGT book to Tannhouse before he has written it & wanted an explanation, There was Christopher’s medal which in 1953 wore by Hannah gifted by Tidemann but at the clinic, she gave it to Helena, Katharina’s mother, in 1986 Helena visited Katharina with the medal on her neck, during the fight with Helena Katharina snatched the medal and it fell in the sand where Helena forgot about it. In June of 2019 again we see the medal found by Jonas sitting with Martha on the beach. Later we will see older Jonas left it on Martha’s bed. We can see it on the neck of Eve. So it seems to us that the medal did a time travel, in fact here you also failed to explore the origin of the thing. So it’s a bootstrap paradox.
The famous scientific book from Dark, ” A journey through time” is real & available in amazon bookstore, if you wish can buy this from the above link or from here .
