After a long hiatus, I have decided to resurrect my 'Time Travel' series of Insights. I'm sure you're all overjoyed to hear what I'm about to tell you. But calm yourselves, dear followers. I simply state the obvious and obscure. The two are very closely related, I'm led to believe.
The subject of my talk today is to be Temporal Feedback Loops and their projected effects. Now, temporal feedback loops are quite annoying, at least to me. These feedback loops are, in a sense, a form of paradox - and an annoying one at that. Allow me to explain firstly by outlining what a temporal feedback loop actually is, and secondly by explaining the implications of such things existing. Then you shall truly understand why temporal feedback loops frustrate me.
Feedback Loops
Okay, so I first need to let you know what a temporal feedback loop actually is. I can only do this by reverting to analogy. (I tend to do that a lot, don't I?)
Imagine, if you will, a microphone and a loudspeaker. The microphone is connected to the loudspeaker so that whatever sound is picked up by the mike is amplified by the loudspeaker by, let's say, a factor of ten. Without other input, the mike simply picks up ambient sound, i.e. the movement of air and suchlike. Even such minute sounds as this are amplified by the loudspeaker so that it is clearly audible to the human ear.
Now, if you were to hold the microphone close enough to the speaker, you would have a problem. This is because, having picked up the ambient sound in the room, the loudspeaker is amplifying that sound. If the mike is in the right (or wrong, depending on your view) position, then the mike picks up that amplified sound, feeds it back to the loudspeaker and has it amplified. This action is looped to produce what is called a feedback loop. Basically, the loudspeaker very quickly begins increasing the level of the sound until - WHUMP! - the loudspeaker conks out, explodes or a failsafe mechanism kicks in. Not good.
In the same way as a sonic feedback loop (described above) occurs, a temporal feedback loop could be equally disastrous. In this next section, I'll tell you exactly how...
The Temporal Feedback Loop Paradox
Right. Let's revert to analogy again. (I only do this because it's the best way of doing this. That, and it's fun.)
You have, for example, a sponge. At some point, it becomes caught in a temporal loop where it is picked up, used to scrub the back of a person's neck, and then put back in its original spot. It loops so as to return to the position it was in just before getting picked up. It then gets picked up again, scrubbed with, set back up again, looped, picked up, etc, etc...
The problem with this is that, while the sponge is looping, it's being subjected to constant wear from constant use. Because looping back through time doesn't actually undo any change caused by what's happened, each time the sponge loops back, it wears away a little more. Over time, like with the sonic feedback loop, the effect builds up into something potentially disastrous.
Of course, this in itself should create a paradox. And that's just impossible, because I explained that earlier on. (See why here.) Therefore, if paradoxes are imposible, and temporal feedback loops cause paradoxes, it is only logical - and indeed correct - to say that temporal feedback loops are impossible.
* * *
So that's the trouble with handing objects back through time. This means that you can't create a time machine and go back in time to give it to yourself. However, that's not to say that you can't be given a time machine, build an exact duplicate and then give that one to yourself. That wouldn't cause any harm at all.
While you all get your heads around that one, I'll just go and test that theory... If the world explodes, this post will never reach you. It will also mean that pretty much everything I've set in these 'Time Travel' posts is wrong, which is severely unlikely.
Off to Time Travel - I'll see you in a fraction of a second. With kindest regards,
Professor Pisces
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