Talk:Temporal paradox

Article cleaned up

rambling article had a lot speculation and relatively little to do with the Whoniverse. I put in some actual examples. --Stardizzy2 21:03, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Page name

The page should be left as 'temporal paradox' it's what has been used in multiple articles and in-universe sources. 'Most people' is kinda a subjective term. --Tangerineduel 14:41, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Jack Harkness

Ok, so the article says Jack was in WWII as three different points of his life, but wasn't he there four times? using his personal time line, the first would be when he was a con artist trying to scam the Doctor and Rose, the second would be during the time he spent waiting to find the Doctor after newly becoming immortal (while working for Torchwood), then when he went back to the dance hall the night before the real Captain Jack Harkness died, and lastly when he was frozen? I've always wondered about that b/c where ever I look the count is always different that mine. --BJ 26 April 2009, 9:50PM Standard Eastern Time

The key phrase in the paragraph to which you refer is "at one stage". It's perfectly true to say that "at one stage" of WWII — namely, for the period of The Doctor Dances story — there were only three versions of Jack about. The "fourth Jack" — the one from from Captain Jack Harkness — was only around for the very brief evening in which that episode was set. On the other hand, the sentence would be equally valid in saying that "at one stage of WWII, four Jacks were around". It's just easier concentrating on the three "main" Jacks because then you don't have to explain the complexity that the fourth Jack represents. The full details of Jack's existence in WWII are best left to the main Jack article; what's here is more than enough information to establish the nature of this kind of temporal paradox. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 17:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this belongs here. I think that only paradoxes pointed out as such in the narrative really belong here. I mean,no plots of stories (so far) hinge on the presence of Jack during World War II.--Stardizzy2 18:26, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The Big Bang

What type of paradox would the Big Bang paradox come under? The Doctor only goes back in time because Rory showed him the screwdriver, alerting him to the fact he went back in time to give Rory the screwdriver in the first place? The Thirteenth Doctor 23:19, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

Predestination Paradox 90.218.185.202 17:09, September 3, 2010 (UTC)

Temporal Anomaly

Are Temporal Anomalies and Temporal Paradoxes similar in any way? 94.6.214.11^{talk to me} 13:24, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Rose and ontological or temporal paradox

From Bad Wolf meme:

"Rose Tyler ... spread the Bad Wolf meme throughout space and time, so she would realise she could use the TARDIS to save the Doctor (thereby creating an ontological paradox)"

I don't see mention of this event in this article. I only see mention of Rose and the Father's Day events. Hasn't Rose created a paradox with potential problems by warning herself to help? How is that even possible if without warning herself, she wouldn't have thought she could help, and wouldn't have had the ability to send the message? +Yc 04:51, September 26, 2012 (UTC)

Name of article

Wikipedia has this to say about paradoxes: "A paradox is a statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction or a situation which (if true) defies logic or reason." I do not see how the bad wolf incident or "blink" transcript-easter egg-story (for example) would fit into this description. They were perfectly logical chains of cause and effect, that just didn't stick to the normal flow of time. That isn't enough to make them paradoxes. I belive the article should be renamed to "Non-linear event", because that's what most of this really is.Thomsons Gazelle ☎ 21:09, December 15, 2012 (UTC)

I think maybe we should split it up into two different articles. The classic example of a temporal paradox, of course, is the Grandfather Paradox. The connection the Tenth Doctor made to Back to the Future in The Shakespeare Code as a method of explaining time and paradoxes to Martha is a perfect example. Or the Master bringing the future of the human race back to kill their ancestors. Or Rose saving her father (if he never died, she would never have gone back to save him). Or Rory jumping off the building in The Angels Take Manhattan. These are all real paradoxes. What I like to refer to as timey-whimey situations, a favourite of Moffat, where the future influences the past but continues to do so in a cycle, where it makes perfect sense, just not in a linear fashion, are not paradoxes. To the best of my knowledge, nothing that does not go under my above description of temporal paradoxes (contradicts itself) has ever been called a paradox by the Doctor or anyone superior knowledge of time. If you can prove me wrong, I'll be glad to read your case. SmallerOnTheOutside ☎ 01:17, January 24, 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, article split or section split... Good question. He did in fact call a whimey loop "an endless paradox" in "The doctors daughter".Thomsons Gazelle ☎ 15:39, January 28, 2013 (UTC)

Is "non-linear event" ever mentioned in-universe? --Tangerineduel / talk 15:39, February 23, 2013 (UTC)

Not to my knowledge, no, but at least it's accurate. Thomsons Gazelle ☎ 20:22, March 4, 2013 (UTC)

Well I think it's an accurate description of a known concept - we know that time is not in fact "a strict progression of cause to effect," rather "a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey whimey... stuff..." I think "non-linear event" sums this up in a much clearer and shorter way. --SOTO ☎ 20:52, March 4, 2013 (UTC)

We will stay with an article name that is mentioned in-universe rather than an interpretation of a sentence.

As if we were to go with SOTO's suggestion it would need to be tagged {{conjecture}} and tagging articles like that should only be used as a last resort when there's no other name we can find to describe the article. --Tangerineduel / talk 14:59, March 5, 2013 (UTC)

But "paradox" doesn't describe it. A paradox requires contradiction, this article isn't primarily about self-contradicting events.Thomsons Gazelle ☎ 23:21, March 5, 2013 (UTC)

What features on this page is what is used in-universe to describe a paradox.

There are several things that are of the DW universe that do not match the real world description of them. That is not a reason to move or change the pages to match the real world definitions. --Tangerineduel / talk 13:17, March 13, 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree, but I don't write the rules. Considering that in this case the meaning is the exact opposite, should it not at least be mentioned in the article? Thomsons Gazelle ☎ 20:28, May 14, 2013 (UTC)