"But what about the paradoxes," Brett Crain asked, obviously concerned?
"The paradoxes don’t matter," Elaine, his close friend, confidant and research partner replied. They had been studying time, as a dimensional concept for five years now and, Brett thought, were on the verge of a breakthrough. As they approached it, the mathematics seemed to be heading towards velocities and frequencies exceeding C and that paradox worried him. Then he began to worry about the other paradoxes. What if they were able to bridge the gap between past, present and future? What shape might these take if actions in the future somehow led to a past that changed the shape of the future that led to a different present that led to a different future that led to actions in the past that… ad infinitum. Might they not ever again be able to rely on the past as a causal precursor?
"What do you mean they don’t matter," Brett pleaded. "Can’t you even imagine the difficulties and differences that might result, not to mention the disturbances in the Newtonian and Quantum mechanics of it all?"
"Of course I can imagine it," Elaine sighed. The final solution to that complex fear had finally occurred to her only last night. It was as simple as the conception of time travel itself, but she doubted that Brett would understand. She would have to show him she was sure, but first she would try to explain.
"They won’t matter because we don’t let them matter," she said, by way of an introduction to her theory. He looked at her quizzically, his shock of curly red hair tilted slightly askew, his bright blue eyes glistening with questions. "Look, it came to me last night," she continued. "We make it up as we go along. What is past is what we agree is past and therefore it brings us into our present and maps ahead what we will agree is our future. We can travel in time the same way we travel on a road, by mapping what is around us until we get where we are going and then agreeing about where we just came from. Then we have a map to follow from the past, through the present, to the future. The paradoxes don’t matter because we will simply agree to arrive at a future where we travel in time with impunity and the paradoxes don’t effectively exist."
"Do you have any idea how… metaphysical that sounds," Brett asked, beginning to wonder about his friend’s sanity. They were, after all physicists, not metaphysicians and their realm was supposed to be mathematics structured on reality, not some kind of metaphysical agreement with the structure of reality.
"Of course I do," Elaine answered, " but you and I both know I have never had the same reservations about metaphysics that you have. The fact that something has never been precisely described does not, and never has, precluded its existence. The mathematics we are exploring beyond C simply opens the door to realizing that there may be a precision to the metaphysical that no one, even us, has realized and that precision may lie in our own minds, or more precisely in mind as a ground of being."
"Wait," Brett held up his hand as if to staunch the flow of her words. "Are you saying that we can, given that we understand the actual mathematics of it, simply shape reality however we want?"
"Isn’t that exactly what the ninety-five percent of humanity that believes in God think that God does?" Elaine stared straight into Brett’s eyes, waiting for the implications of what she had said to sink in.
" Well, of course," Brett hesitated. "But doesn’t cosmology tell us otherwise?"
"Not really," she offered. "Cosmology disputes the timing and causal mechanisms of the creation myths of a lot of religions, but it doesn’t actually see beyond the border of the creation moment into the mind of the creator. It simply draws the conclusion that it cannot, and posits non-intellectual means by which it all may have come about. None of which I might add are very convincing as they all posit irreducibly complex structures that have somehow to be reduced but cannot actually reduce them. Scientifically that is no better than saying ‘God did it’, or ‘God spoke it’, or ‘God shoved it up our you-know-what’. In short it is no more than educated guessing by people poorly educated to make those guesses. Frankly the metaphysicians are better educated in that particular field and may be making better guesses. Science ought to be listening. "
"Given what you say is true," Brett was beginning to catch a glimmer of where Elaine might be going. "Then where does the reduction of these irreducibly complex systems come in. What actually lies beyond the border of the creation moment?"
"Well, mathematically, dimensionally if we can demonstrate that there are frequencies of motion between C and Simultaneity then we can theorize that for our four dimensions, and possibly as many as six more, those frequencies of being less than simultaneous, but greater than C may hold that answer. If, in our four dimensions the state of being of anything that exists is a function of its frequency of motion, which it seems to be, then why shouldn’t we think that this is so for states of being whose frequencies lie between C and Simultaneity?"
"But, if this is so, then how do we demonstrate such a thing?" Brett asked. As he watched, and quite to his surprise Elaine simply vanished. Ten minutes earlier she appeared before his eyes in the lab where they had not been working together.
"The paradoxes don’t matter," Elaine replied to the unspoken question in Brett’s mind as he poured over their calculations and worried about upsetting the fabric of reality. "We simply make it up as we go along…"
