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Tereza Koblihová

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Tereza Koblihová Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Tereza Koblihová Risk Management in Time-Travel Works by Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Filip Krajník, Ph.D. 2015 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature Table of Content Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 4 1. Possibilities and Limitations of Time-Travel ......................................................................... 8 1.1 Types of plots and risk management .................................................................................... 8 1.2 Paradoxes as limitations ...................................................................................................... 12 2. Changeable Reality ............................................................................................................... 19 2.1 Parallel Universes ............................................................................................................... 19 2.2 Bureaucracy and Sentient Reality ....................................................................................... 23 3. Unchangeable Past ................................................................................................................ 30 3.1 The time-viewing fish bowl ................................................................................................ 30 3.2 Causal Loops ....................................................................................................................... 31 3.3 Determinism and Free Will ................................................................................................. 35 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 41 Works Cited .............................................................................................................................. 44 Summary ................................................................................................................................... 48 Résumé ...................................................................................................................................... 49 Introduction In 1979, Thomas Cottle made a study about people‘s desire to travel back to the past. Specifically, they were given the option to travel back in historical past or their own personal past – since their birth. This study shows that 16% of the participants were willing to pay 10,000 dollars to spend a year in historical past and 36% in their own personal past. When the money element was eliminated, nearly everybody said yes to time-travel (qtd. in Nahin 1993). But what makes time-travel so compelling? Since H. G. Wells‘s The Time Machine, time-travel gained popularity within the speculative fiction genre and is still appearing in literature and TV alike. The running theme in popular stories dealing with time-travel, such as Back to the Future (1985), Terminator (1984) or even Christmas Carol (first published in 1843) by Charles Dickens is change. It is the idea of being able to change the historical or just personal past, the big ―what if‖ lingering in reader‘s mind. Furthermore, as suggested by Cottle‘s study, the participants were more interested in visiting their own past rather than the historical past, which contributes to the argument that what makes time-travel so attractive is correcting one‘s mistakes. When it comes to traveling to the future, it is about learning what is about to happen, what awaits us, so we can learn from it or even try to change it in the present time. On the other side of the argument, there are paradoxes questioning those stories or even the possibility of time-travel itself. For instance, the infamous ―grandfather paradox‖, which is, in fact, the plot device of the movie Back to the Future (1985), directed by Robert Zemeckis. The main character, Marty, is sent back to 1950s, where he accidently interferes with his parents falling in love, resulting in him disappearing gradually, since he could have never been born. Marty is then trying to reconstruct the past as it was before, trying to get his parents back together. What the movie does not 4 deal with, however, is the fact that if Marty did prevent his parents from falling in love, causing him to cease to exist, he could never go back to 1950s and change the past in the first place. The works dealing with time-travel face limitation made by logic of the space- time continuum as we know it, but also ethical boundaries. Though it might be true that time-travel gives a writer endless options, what about the newly discovered ethical problems one has to face in a universe, where time-travel is introduced? From interfering with wars and global disasters as in the novel The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov, to works of Robert A. Heinlein, which deal with the possibility of having sexual intercourse with your own ancestor or even yourself, the possibilities are seemingly infinite. And although these things are unimaginable in the universe, where traveling in time is not possible, in these fictional worlds they become potential threats. Through the actions we then learn about character‘s set of morals. Do they use time- travel only to further their own power or do they try to make a difference in the world? Do they take precautions when facing the risk of dramatically altering reality or do they recklessly ignore potential threats? Will the hero kill Adolf Hitler to prevent World War II or just use time-travel to manage the school timetable as Hermione does in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban? Does the character have some unwritten responsibilities or rules to obey when he or she acquires the power to change the past or the future? Before answering this, one has to, however, ask yet another essential question: Is the time-traveler actually able to change the past or are past events just inevitable? In other words: Are there more realities or just one? Both of these options offer different answers to the question above and both of these options face different dilemmas. Going back to Marty, the movie Back to the Future works with infinite number of realities, 5 since he is able to meddle with the past. However, if there was only one reality, Marty would possibly find out that his presence in the past was essential for his parents meeting in the first place. Or, in more extreme case, Marty would become his own father, creating an eternal loop. Time-travel introduces a powerful device and character, who is able to use time- travel possesses god-like power. Therefore, there is a need for regulation of this power, boundaries and rules. Although Marty is able to change the past, any drastic change is prevented. Interfering with his parents getting together endangers Marty‘s whole existence. In the second scenario, Marty‘s presence in the past is not only safe but necessary. Both of the instances mean something different for the risk management. The thesis consults Nassim Nicholas Taleb‘s book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007) and applies the ―Black Swan‖ theory on events in changing- the-past plots, where something improbable has a significant impact and consequences. Changing-the-past plots tend to express how dangerous time-travel is and there is a requirement of regulations. Whereas the ―causal loop‖ one-reality time-travel has no need for risk management, since the free will and chance are eradicated and so the ―Black Swan‖ event, which requires chance and probability, cannot occur. Other secondary materials consulted included Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction (1993) by professor emeritus Paul J. Nahin, which gives an overview of time-travel works, as well as theoretical physics‘ theories and attitudes of many philosophers towards time-travel. This bachelor thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter introduces the main works selected to illustrate the claim and differentiates between three types of time-travel plots. It explains the term risk management and the ―Black Swan‖ theory, 6 applying it on common temporal paradoxes: ―grandfather paradox‖ and ―bootstrap paradox‖. The second chapter focuses on the time-travel plots, where the reality can be changed, whereas the third chapter is analyzing the one-reality type plots and discusses its ethical implications. Authors selected to demonstrate the argument are Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein. Both of the authors are considered to be the two of the ―Big three‖ of science fiction, the third being Arthur C. Clarke (Parrinder 2001: 81), who is omitted from this analysis, because his works are more space travel oriented. Isaac Asimov, born in 1920 and Robert A. Heinlein, born in 1907 are both American writers and contemporaries. Isaac Asimov‘s novel The End of Eternity (1955) is a work often neglected in time- travel analysis, the reason might be that Asimov is better known for the Foundation series and ―The Three Laws of Robotics‖ (Turtledove 2004: 4). Robert Heinlein, on the other hand, is famous for his time-travel works and is considered to be the originator of popular ―bootstrap paradox‖ (Klosterman 2010: 60). Speculative fiction stories with the
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