If you went back in time...

[The Spawn]

...and killed your mother's mother when she was a child(your grandmother), what would happen?

 

[Darren Daring]

Like, five minutes back in time?

 

[The Spawn]

When she's like 6 yrs old.

 

[Halcohol]

It would turn out that it wasn't actually your grandmother, or you never actually killed her in accordance with the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle.

Basically, the property that everything works out the way it should would remain in effect. That's the theory I like best, that the universe is wired to prevent you creating a paradox.

 

[The Spawn]

Who wired it that way?

 

[Darren Daring]

Drakon?

 

[Erzengel]

...I'd take back those words that hurt you, and you'd stay.

 

[Halcohol]

Who wired it that way?

See, now you're getting into the realm of theological creationism. While I don't consider myself religious, I do believe that there is a Creator who gave the universe its laws that we can determine experimentally. I doubt we'll be able to figure out this one for awhile.

 

[Darren Daring]

Halcohol hasn't figured out how to navigate a Spawn thread yet.

 

[The Spawn]

I feel the need not to agree with Novikov simply because that was in the early '80's...which wasn't too far from today.

 

[Iceman]

...and killed your mother's mother when she was a child(your grandmother), what would happen?

 

[Halcohol]

Halcohol hasn't figured out how to navigate a Spawn thread yet.

I play by my own rules.

 

[Mayor_McCheese]

...and killed your mother's mother when she was a child(your grandmother), what would happen?

You would probably cease to exist on that time line

 

[Kaboom]

so when biff from the future gave the biff from the past the almanac it created an alternate timeline leading to 1985. alternate to you me and einstein, but normal for everybody else.

are you saying i caused all this?

yes. where your father is dead, and this has happened to me!

 

[Hades]

Why would I kill my great grandmother

 

[Kaboom]

Why would I kill my great grandmother

thats the thing, you can't.

 

[November Rain]

from that moment on, you'd be stuck in a time bubble paradox from which you could never escape, constantly looped in killing you gradman, not existing, thus making it impossible for you to kill her, then she would exist and then you would exist and it would start over again.

so you would theoretically get lost in a time bubble for all eternity.

 

[November Rain]

Why would I kill my great grandmother

because she was fat?

 

[Hades]

thats the thing, you can't.

Well, I could if she was still alive.

 

[X-Chick]

thats the thing, you can't.

Yes you can, but you would cease to exist.

 

[Kaboom]

Yes you can, but you would cease to exist.

but you couldnt cease to exist because if you ceased existing, you couldnt have killed your grnadmother, meaning she would be alive, meaning you would exist.

 

[Hades]

Didn't they touch on this with Donnie Darko?

 

[blind_fury]

You don't have to kill the poor woman. Just prevent her from having sex on that fateful day. Different sperm means a different person.

 

[Kaboom]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel#The_possibility_of_paradoxes

 

[blind_fury]

The poll options barely cover the paradoxical possobilities.