If you mean that I can read ‘All You Zombies’ online, for free, I’d like to know where. I’ve tried to find it and can’t. I only found one reference that apparently offered the text for free, but neither of the links (html or pdf) worked.
It’s not that long ago that I found it, but I couldn’t tell you where. Looks like the Wikipedia page has been edited to remove the link, according to the page history. I must’ve just got lucky! (Also read “By His Bootstraps” the same day, which I originally thought was the title for AYZ, the plot whereof I’d heard of before.)
But, what if what we consider to be the prime timeline (T0) is also the alternate timeline of another time traveler? I could zap away in my time machine, give Bill Gates some seed money in the past and then return to the “present” (T1) where I am rich. Meantime, another me has popped into T0 because they had gone back in time and performed some task that converted their timeline (Ti) into T0. To all intents and purposes, everyone who knows me will think I came back. I will be the only one who knows the difference.
I’m not so sure about the grandfather paradox. I don’t think it will be an issue because if I go back in time along T0 and kill off my grandfather, I will then be only effected by events along T1 and anything that might have happened on T0 after the murder (including my birth) would no longer be influencing me. If it people could be impacted by events in alternate timelines then we would constantly be noticing massive changes (scars appearing and disappearing, WTC falling and reappearing, etc.). I doubt that influences from alternate timelines/dimensions could cross over. It’s sort of like Vegas: What happens in T1 stays in T1.
Thanks, guys !