OK it’s late but I was trying to think this through
We all know of the Grandfather Paradox
OK fine, makes sense
But supposing this time traveler goes back and meets his biological grandfather and the grandfather decided to kill the grandson FIRST and actually kills the grandson in the past.
So what kind of problems does this create?
Outside of the fact the grandfather is now a murder and may be arrested. I was thinkin of how it woud effect the future? Or doesn’t it?
It wouldn’t affect the future any more than if anyone else killed the grandson.
causality is not affected in your stated scenario, as long as the grandfather still progresses to meet and impregnate grandma, as he did in the unaltered timeline.
The education film Roswell That Ends Well addresses the Grandfather Paradox and demonstrates that a Restricted Action Resolution will occur in such circumstances. The greater danger is demonstrated in a more comprehensive scientific documentary where the Destruction Resolutioncomes into play.
Okay, suppose that a guy goes back in time and ends up attempting to kill his grandfather for whatever reason, but the grandfather kills him in self-defense first. Based on the time traveler’s odd dialect and clothing, the grandfather strongly suspects that he was from the future, and even manages to convince a few other people of this. Photos of the dead time traveler are widely reproduced in paranormal/conspiracy books. The grandfather sticks to his story over the years, and even tells his grandson all about it. The grandson grows up, and eventually recognizes himself as the man in the famous “dead time traveler” photo that his grandfather showed him. When time travel is invented, he decides not to risk going back to that era. Paradox?
None.
Awwww…Thanks for remembering
Physicist and science fiction author Robert Forward said that he wouldn’t believe the Grandfather Paradox unless someone could prove it to him mathematically.
His own take was that there was only one, self-consistent past, and that anything you did travelling back in time was unalterably part of it. His novel Timemaster was his way of putting this into a story. But he didn’t address (or ignored) the issues of Free Will and what would happen if someone very precisely and actively tried to alter the past.