We spoke about Terminator earlier and it got me thinking.
It’s been about 15 years since this happened and it still shapes my thinking.
At the time, I was studying science at university. It was challenging stuff – for me, at least. I wasn’t the brightest, most diligent kid around. Even if I was, working on molecular machinery isn’t simple.
You can’t even see when things go wrong.
Or right.
And while I was struggling with my honours project, I attended a PhD presentation.
The soon-to-be doctor had done some research into public perceptions of time travel. See, there are different models of time travel out there.
In causal loops, you can’t change history – going back in time to change things is what makes things turn out as they do.
(Example: Predestination)
Then there’s the idea that you can change the past, but you risk wiping out your own future.
(Example: Back to the Future)
Then there’s the multiverse approach, where time travel creates a separate timeline for you to mess around in.
(Example: Marvel Comics, sort of. The Axis of Time trilogy, for a more robust but obscure example.)
There are other categories. The Xeelee Sequence has time travel within a universe. When paradoxes arise, the universe just copes with it. Doctor Who’s approach is (usually) that you can change the details of history, but it tends to correct itself.
So this guy categorised a couple hundred popular time travel stories – movies, books, TV shows – and surveyed people to see if things lined up. For example, if most fiction portrays history as unchangeable, do most people believe that’s how time travel would actually work?
Is this difficult, challenging research?
No.
But is it potentially useful?
Also no.
It’s certainly not something worth a PhD. This feels like an honours project you give to the slow kid.
But what’s worse was how wrong he got it.
I mentioned Terminator before. He classified the entire franchise as an example of causal loops. The first movie is, sure, but the second shows that history can be changed.
Imagine having a PhD project where you watch movies and talk to people – and you still get it fundamentally wrong.
This stands out in my memory because I’m a huge nerd. I’ve found time travel intriguing since playing Ocarina of Time as a child. In that classic, you learn a song from a windmill owner, then travel back in time and teach the song to the windmill owner… so where did the song come from?
But his flimsy PhD project didn’t stand out for being particularly farcical. I saw a dozen just like it.
Like the proposal to save water by adding fish tanks to showers. As you shower, the water in the fish tank lowers – so unless you want Nemo to flop around on aquarium gravel, you need to take shorter showers.
Or the time people thought austerity measures would work, based on incorrect calculations.
Or the 1.5-metre separation rule during the lockdowns, based on nothing.
I’ve noticed the people willing to defend academia either have never been involved in it (so are ignorant to how flawed, political and intellectually conservative it is) or are currently involved in it (and so need to defend the system to protect their resources).
But anyway, it’s all Good.
Knowing how to distinguish real expertise from hollow certification is a useful skill, and I’m glad I learned it early.
On that topic:
Here’s another thing I wished I learned early.
It’s too late for me (pfft, hardly) but it’s not too late for you: