Quantum Gravity 166.9: Why You Can't Undo Your Own Birth Back In Time etc.

From Osher Doctorow

The Experimentalists, whom I respect more than most physicists (which
doesn't mean that I worship them), might argue that we have to outlaw
such things as going back in time and prevent our own birth(s). But
is this correct?

No. If a concept makes logical and physical sense, then we don't
arguably have to illegalize violations of it after the fact (for
example, after time has been a variable for so many years in physics,
or even after Einstein's SR). An example is space. The trend in
mathematics and physics is to put LESS a priori restrictions on space,
not more, including Non-Euclidean Geometry, accelerating expansion,
etc.

But wouldn't backward time travel allow you to kill your mother or
grandmother before giving birth to you or your mother or father,
thereby cancelling yourself out? Actually, it isn't the backward
time travel or direction itself that gives rise to the trouble here,
but the VIOLATION OF (PROBABLE) CAUSATION. (Probable) Causation as
in Probable Influence/Causation or Birkhoff (derivative) Causation or
even in the rather loose and special if not questionable Light Cone
Causation involve two types of Causal components:

1) Causes (or Probable Causes, which will be understood here)
2) Effects (or Probable Effects, ditto)

So Cause A can cause/influence Effect B. Now, B as an Effect can
also cause/influence Cause A in certain circumstances, which is the
case of Mutual Causation or Non-Spurious Correlation. But they have
to "make sense". If a mother gives birth to a child, then the child
can't give birth to its/his/her mother or annihilate its own birth.
The child's Causal influence on the mother has to involve things like
interacting with the mother, teaching the mother, talking to the
mother, etc.

Even with absolutely no restriction on backward time travel (which I
am not proposing here), a person cannot go backwards in time and undo
his/her birth because that would violate BY CONTRADICTION the meaning
of (Probable) Causation.

Doesn't this restrict backward time travel in itself? Well, only
insofar as a Contradiction restricts the real or physical world.
Something must be missing from the notion of backward time travel if
it suddenly "blew up" because the backward traveller tried to prevent
his/her own birth! But it is not some arbitrary "Illegalization" of
backward time travel that either reveals or causes the trouble - it is
a very deep concept that underlies physics, namely (Probable)
CAUSATION. As to what backward time travel should be defined as
besides a purely mathematical symmetry in physical equations, this is
a separate but very important question.

Osher Doctorow

.

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