One of Them Questions (1 Viewer)

[drobbins]

My son and I were watching Back to the Future the other day and this question came up:

Marty McFly had heard Johnny B Goode on the radio played by Chuck Berry.
Marty McFly traveled back in time.
Chuck Berry heard Marty McFly play Johnny B Goode over the phone and recorded it.
It was that recording that Marty McFly heard on the radio.

Where did that song come from if nobody wrote it?

 

[Holadem]

Related: Grandfather paradox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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[Steve_Pannell]

But didn't "Marvin Berry" tell Chuck over the phone that was the sound he was looking for, and not the specific song?

 

[BrianW]

That violates the law of conservation of music.

 

[Henry Gale]

Maybelline came from Ida Red!

 

[Holadem]

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[drobbins]

I thought that only the RIAA enforced laws about conserving music.

 

[Holadem]

I didn't mean to imply that anything could work. Paradoxes, by definition, don't work. What you described was one of them.

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[Charles Knox]

Example of a classic paradox, is the whole Terminator concept of John Connor and the Terminators having to send people/machines back, in a weird attempt to make sure thier very existence stays intact. How did John Connor and Skynet come into existence in the first place?

 

[Jeff Gatie]

The TV show is handling this right now. Having multiple Terminators/humans going back in time at different places in the timeline, it seems that every individual comes from a parallel universe, with each having a different "Judgment Day". The actions of the characters in the present are manifested in a parallel future, and as such the further one comes from in the future, the more the timeline has evolved due to the actions of previous time travelers in the past.

For instance, in last weeks episode (the best of the series IMHO), it was speculated that in another universe, John Connor was fathered by someone other than Kyle Reese. As soon as Kyle came back, he split reality into another universe that had John Connor as his son.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I just watched The Terminator in its entirety for the first time the other day. (And wow is it dated 80s!) When Sarah Connor asks Kyle Reese if he's from the future when they're in the stolen car, he's very careful to note "one possible future."
As I stated in the Sarah Connor Chronicles thread, the only way time travel can be possible without paradoxes is in a quantum theory in which each trip through time spawns a whole new set of universes. This explains why all of the people from the future can be from different futures without disappearing once actions in the past invalidate that future.

 

[Charles Knox]

I thought about your idea when posting, but it still seems improbable, because Skynet does not have roots in the past.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Uhhh, it's not my idea, it's the writer's. Don't blame the messenger.

 

[MarkHastings]

While it's hard to put any real logic into this, the Doc kind of explains a possible solution with his "skewed timeline" explanation.

Berry originally wrote the song, Marty hears it, goes back in time, plays the song, but in a NEW timeline, Chuck Berry ends up writing the song based on what he hears Marty playing....so it's not like Marty is canceling the original recording out because when he effects the past, they just end up following a new timeline of events.

 

[Michael Warner]

The real BTTF question is how the altered future McFly's don't seem to notice that their son looks just like that weird kid who got them together in the first place way back when.

 

[Jerry Almeida]

I'm glad I'm not the only who's been bothered by that for the last 20+ years.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

Mr & Mrs Connor loved each other very much, and ...

 

[Will_B]

There was an Outer Limits episode about an Elvis impersonator/uber-fan who traveled back in time to see Elvis perform. He accidentally kills Elvis and then, since he's a super-fan, decides he has no choice but to live out the rest of Elvis' life, including doing all the performances that the real Elvis had done.