Paradox

 Photo copyright Lisa Hazlegreaves

As I’ve already mentioned in previous posts in our house there is one member who is not a Doctor Who fan or indeed a fan of anything remotely science fiction.  This would be Father.  One of the main things that makes Father screw up his face in distaste is the complexity of Time Travel, the way a Doctor Who story can make a massive U-turn because of some paradox or other.   The most frustrating thing for me about all of this is, it all just drops into place in my brain as I’m watching and in my head I do that ‘ahhhhh now I get it’  or ‘ahhhhh good plot line’ but, BUT if I then have to explain it to a confused Father who is laughing at the outrageous story that has got our favourite Doctor out of scrape it doesn’t matter how hard I try his brain just isn’t made that way.  I’m not sure if it’s because since being very small I have been a huge sci fi fan, I watched Doctor Who as a child along with Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, I’ve read hundreds of books, all the usual ones, Lord of the Rings, Shannara, Gormenghast, I loved Blakes 7, Star Trek and Babylon 5.  My head has been full of fantasy creatures and time travelling paradox’s since the word go.  Father has come to this unwillingly through the love of his children and finds himself sitting watching with us, confused and dazed. 

Now I know as yet time travel doesn’t exist but there have been some brilliant papers written about the subject and as any good geek is aware you can Google time travel or paradox and hundreds of pages will pop up trying to explain the theory.  I’ve done this, I am that geek that has Googled time paradox as an aid to trying to explain it to Father.  I remember using ‘The Bootstrap Paradox Theory’ to try and explain it to him, let me see if you my reader can get a handle on it. 

The Bootstrap Paradox Theory

This theory has been used countless times in Doctor Who, here goes...

On his 30th birthday, a man who wishes to build a time machine is visited by a future version of himself. This future self explains to him that he should not worry about designing the time machine, as he has done it in the future. The man receives the schematics from his future self and starts building the time machine. Time passes until he finally completes the time machine. He then uses it to travel back in time to his 30th birthday, where he gives the schematics to his past self, closing the loop. (borrowed this paragraph from Wikipedia)

Get it? 

An example of this from Doctor Who is in a Tennant episode called Blink featuring those wonderfully terrifying monsters The Weeping Angels.  In this story The Doctor records a message in 1969, that is one half of a conversation.  The other half of the conversation is completed by a character named Sally when she watches the video in 2007 and her friend transcribes the conversation.  The completed transcript of the full conversation is handed back to The Doctor in 2008 (this is before The Doctor has travelled back to 1969 in his timeline) therefore he can use this transcript to create his half of the conversation later....confused?  Sally was in the story and The Doctor explained it to her by explaining that most people think of time like a ‘swift progression of cause to effect’  when it is actually ‘a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff’

I think Tennant’s Doctor got it right, and I use this line repeatedly when I see Fathers face getting that derogatory look on it....’shhh I say its wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, that’s all you need to know’

Gamble

Photo copyright Lisa Hazlegreaves

I have to be honest, I wasn’t prepared at all for today’s letter.  I sat for four hours last night and started five different G’s.  I have been sitting at my laptop since ten o’clock this morning and all I have done is flit from Word to Twitter trying, hoping to find some inspiration.  As I’m typing I still don’t have a title or indeed any idea of what I’m going to write.  Father, Daughter and Small Child have all been shouting various G’s at me.  Gelth, Gas Mask Zombies, Gangers, Gallifrey being particular favourites and I have started to write about all four, but, BUT I’m trying not to be obvious, I didn’t want my Doctor Who blog to read like my cherished Doctor Who Encyclopedia that Daughter bought me for Christmas.  I didn’t just want to list the various characters and monsters that we all know and love.  Of course I have done this, I have talked about characters that touched my family like Bannakaffalatta and Daleks but I just can’t find a G that touches me in any particular way.

Of course you, the reader are in a far better position than I because if you are reading this, it means I have posted it and have come up with something and you have already read the title that hasn’t even come into my mind yet and you know what my post on the letter G is about.  This means that you are the River Song to my Doctor and you could give me spoilers (I wish you would I am totally winging it here)  This whole post is turning into some sort of time paradox, where you the reader know more about what I have written already, than I do now as I’m typing.  Now this is the sort of thing in Doctor Who that makes father roll his eyes, the whole concept of time travelling and the various problems it throws at you.  I think I damn near melted Fathers brain when I asked him to read the entry on River Song in the aforementioned Encyclopedia.

I guess I could say what I am doing is taking a gamble that you, my reader will stick with me through this slump in motivation that hopefully after my day off on Sunday, you will all come back on Monday to read my post on H (I have plans for H, why oh why did I not prepare G)  Our beloved Doctor takes gambles in most episodes, I’m wondering if I can cheat a bit and use Gamble?  Can I get away with it? I’m afraid I may have to, my inspiration has up and left me, like so many companions have left the Doctor.  You are probably wondering why I have posted a picture of the Silence to go with this gamble of mine.  It’s simple, I want you to forget this bad post as soon as you have read it, no tally marks on arms please, no photos, no memories.

Until Monday dear reader, Happy Easter.