So I'm watching the terminator for the umpteenth time and something puzzled me

[IamElectro]

John Conner sends Kyle Reese back in time who is unable to return to save John's mom Sarah Conner...ok

So how is it possible that John and Kyle ever meet? How could a son send his father back in time before the son is concieved?

The way I see it for John to exsist there is no possible way he and Reese could have ever met. Because if Reese is alive in the future than John could not exsist.

I know its a movie and your not supposed to think about this but think about it for a minute.

 

[iamme]

you're trying to make sense.......out of the Terminator.

 

[Evadman]

It is called a paradox. Welcome to Space-Time & relitivity.

 

Reese really isnt his father.

ITS MACHINE SPERM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111one oji23

 

[IamElectro]

No jsut trying to figure out if that scenario is possible. Cant seem to make it work.

 

[silverpig]

No one really knows what would happen.

Let's say I go back in time and kill my grandmother before she gave birth to my dad. Okay, so now she can't have my dad, which means that I can't be born, which means I can't go back in time to kill my grandmother, so she has my dad, and then I'm born, and then I go back in time to kill...

Is it possible to even enter this loop? Will the loop continue until I decide to not go through with killing her? Will it repeat forever? Or will it not matter at all to me because of some alternate reality thing? No one knows and no one can say.

 

[tm37]

this is actually pretty easy to figure out.

Now I don't know the dates but we can go with the prinicple.

1985 - John Connor born
1985 - kyle born

2010 (I know this is wrong) - John and kyle meet.

2011 - john sends kyle back to 1984 in order tosave sarah and he gets sarah pregnant. kyle dies.

So kyle actually dies before he was born.

 

[Wuffsunie]

Welcome to the lovely world of temporal mechanics! This is the kind of thing that makes even the physicists who study thing go "fawk.."

I think that if you accept the whole Terminator timeline as a loop connecting 2029 and 1985, it works a little. The loop is a completely artifical construct made by the timegate constructed by Skynet and supported on a host of self-recursive events. If you really think about the Terminator timeline, everything could potentially be solved by just killing John Conner in the past. However that's working on the postulate that Skynet really sent back the original Terminator with the sole intention of killing John and not for the fact that that Terminator would eventually lead to Skynet itself

And, yes, I don't consider T3 an official part of the Terminator timeline. That movie sucked too bad in all respects for that.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: tm37
this is actually pretty easy to figure out.

Now I don't know the dates but we can go with the prinicple.

1985 - John Connor born
1985 - kyle born

2010 (I know this is wrong) - John and kyle meet.

2011 - john sends kyle back to 1984 in order tosave sarah and he gets sarah pregnant. kyle dies.

So kyle actually dies before he was born.

So he fvcks his mom and she gives birth to him?

 

[dighn]

that happens in star trek all the time. something in the future causes something in the past to happen that ensures the existance of the first something

 

[freakflag]

Perhaps what the Terminator actually said was "I'll be back....that ass up. " and they just edited it down for the movie.

 

[EvilYoda]

Originally posted by: Wuffsunie
Welcome to the lovely world of temporal mechanics! This is the kind of thing that makes even the physicists who study thing go "fawk.."

I think that if you accept the whole Terminator timeline as a loop connecting 2029 and 1985, it works a little. The loop is a completely artifical construct made by the timegate constructed by Skynet and supported on a host of self-recursive events. If you really think about the Terminator timeline, everything could potentially be solved by just killing John Conner in the past. However that's working on the postulate that Skynet really sent back the original Terminator with the sole intention of killing John and not for the fact that that Terminator would eventually lead to Skynet itself

And, yes, I don't consider T3 an official part of the Terminator timeline. That movie sucked too bad in all respects for that.

maybe it's cuz I'm drunk, but I think that's one of the most coherent statements that a relative "newb" has made...

:beer:

 

[IamElectro]

Originally posted by: tm37
this is actually pretty easy to figure out.

Now I don't know the dates but we can go with the prinicple.

1985 - John Connor born
1985 - kyle born

2010 (I know this is wrong) - John and kyle meet.

2011 - john sends kyle back to 1984 in order tosave sarah and he gets sarah pregnant. kyle dies.

So kyle actually dies before he was born.

This could work but still how could John exsist if Kyle had not been sent back in time yet? There is still that loop "paradox" thing.

 

[dighn]

Originally posted by: IamElectro

Originally posted by: tm37
this is actually pretty easy to figure out.

Now I don't know the dates but we can go with the prinicple.

1985 - John Connor born
1985 - kyle born

2010 (I know this is wrong) - John and kyle meet.

2011 - john sends kyle back to 1984 in order tosave sarah and he gets sarah pregnant. kyle dies.

So kyle actually dies before he was born.

This could work but still how could John exsist if Kyle had not been sent back in time yet? There is still that loop "paradox" thing.

because he's going to! if you take time travel into the equation, the future will affect the present, well at least the movie/tv kind of time travel anyway

 

[Wuffsunie]

Originally posted by: EvilYoda
maybe it's cuz I'm drunk, but I think that's one of the most coherent statements that a relative "newb" has made... :beer:

Nah, I blame the "newb" part on the drunkeness. 841 posts != newb.

 

[Cougar]

Originally posted by: Evadman
It is called a paradox. Welcome to Space-Time & relitivity.

Exactly. To quote the infamous Captain Picard, "It's the chicken and the egg Will, the chicken and the egg!!!"

 

[MartyMcFly3]

Originally posted by: silverpig
No one really knows what would happen.

Let's say I go back in time and kill my grandmother before she gave birth to my dad. Okay, so now she can't have my dad, which means that I can't be born, which means I can't go back in time to kill my grandmother, so she has my dad, and then I'm born, and then I go back in time to kill...

Is it possible to even enter this loop? Will the loop continue until I decide to not go through with killing her? Will it repeat forever? Or will it not matter at all to me because of some alternate reality thing? No one knows and no one can say.

Havent you seen Back to the Future??? In the original, Marty messes everything up and almost causes his parents to never hook up.... The picture Marty has of him, his brother and his sister starts erasing as the chance that Lorraine and George hook up becomes less likely.... So using this erase method, lets say in the movie Marty murders George... Marty then is erased from existence and that's that...... History doesnt loop. Basically, as explained in the trilogy, the future is unwritten. So just like when Biff gives himself the almanac in BTTF 2, 1985 would be completely different where in this case there is no McFly family.

 

[rh71]

Originally posted by: IamElectro
No jsut trying to figure out if that scenario is possible. Cant seem to make it work.

If you were smart enough to come up with this paradox, you should be smart enough to realize there's no solution - it is a paradox.

 

[IamElectro]

Originally posted by: rh71

Originally posted by: IamElectro
No jsut trying to figure out if that scenario is possible. Cant seem to make it work.

If you were smart enough to come up with this paradox, you should be smart enough to realize there's no solution - it is a paradox.

I realize there is no solution but its late and was checking to see if there may have been something I overlooked. Not to mention I wanted to get some other peoples opinions.

 

[Wuffsunie]

To see how it's sustained is no problem. Seeing how it came about in the first place, that's hard. The only possible explination is that all events in time coexist simultaneously and our preception of it as a series of conjoined moments is some byproduct of consciousness.

 

there is a solution though. Kyle was born, John was born, but to a different father. Events happen, John sends Kyle back in time to save his mother, Kyle screws Sarah and changes the looks, but not the history of John.

 

[Wuffsunie]

Originally posted by: FallenHero
there is a solution though. Kyle was born, John was born, but to a different father. Events happen, John sends Kyle back in time to save his mother, Kyle screws Sarah and changes the looks, but not the history of John.

Which neglects upbringing and the training and leadership preperation he had to endure growing up with Sarah. She was the one who prepared him to fight the machines.

 

Originally posted by: Wuffsunie

Originally posted by: FallenHero
there is a solution though. Kyle was born, John was born, but to a different father. Events happen, John sends Kyle back in time to save his mother, Kyle screws Sarah and changes the looks, but not the history of John.

Which neglects upbringing and the training and leadership preperation he had to endure growing up with Sarah. She was the one who prepared him to fight the machines.

I dont think they mention that until the second movie though. Perhaps Johns first upbringing before Kyle was his father was different, or perhaps he joined the military and was in the right place and time. Unless I'm completely wrong, in which case you can correct me.

 

[Yossarian]

Originally posted by: Wuffsunie
And, yes, I don't consider T3 an official part of the Terminator timeline. That movie sucked too bad in all respects for that.

Roger that, I just got done watching it. What a piece of shite.

 

[TheToOTaLL]

Originally posted by: Wuffsunie

Welcome to the lovely world of temporal mechanics! This is the kind of thing that makes even the physicists who study thing go "fawk.."

You said it!

This reminds me of the Enterprise eposide last season, Regeneration.

Humans "supposedly" did not first encounter the Borg until TNG, thanks in part to Q. Well, in the movie First Contact, Picard & Co follow a Borg ship back in time, to prevent them from stopping Cochran's first warp trip. It's at that time Enterprise-E destroys the Borg sphere, and remnants land in the arctic, which takes us back to the Enterprise episode where they really first encounter the Borg.

All this occurs 200+ before that event, yet they were lying dormant in the arctic for 100 years

Isn't science fiction grand???