Brand says... "time might be a valley they can descend or a mountain they can climb up"

That should give a clue as to how time travel might actually work.

I was concerned about the paradox but some of the info in the last posts has helped to explain some of it, so thanks for that.

However some of it makes no sense still. Please bear in mind I know nothing about physics. Any thoughts or corrections to help me understand this ?

StringerB3ll wrote:I was concerned about the paradox but some of the info in the last posts has helped to explain some of it, so thanks for that.

However some of it makes no sense still. Please bear in mind I know nothing about physics.

Although I accept cooper once in the 5th dimension can manipulate it and tell murph and himself to go to NASA.

I am not convinced this explains how he can go from being a purely 3/4 dimension based being in the first place and get to the 5th dimension.

For example if I could build a time machine from my own linear bound timeline then after this point I could go back and tell myself how to build it 10 years earlier. This I accept. However if I have not yet figured out how to break the restraints of my linear bound dimension then I don't believe it is possible.

So I do not understand how cooper can tell himself to go to NASA when from his own linear timeline, that we are aware of, he has not manged to get to the 5th dimension.

Any thoughts or corrections to help me understand this ?

Hi, for those that don't understand the paradox in Interstellar, here it is:

Firstly, you need to agree to these statements, that I believe were made clear in the film.

1. If humans don't go through the wormhole, they perish on Earth. Dead, never to be revived.

2. The wormhole was created by future humans manipulating time in the 5th dimension.

Ok, so I just want to say I really enjoyed the film and it was great to see the use of real (proved) science, surrounding Einsteins theories and the ability to move slowly through time the faster you travel towards the speed of light. Awesome.

And I love the idea of manipulating time in the 5th dimension (even though it's just a great sci fi idea). The visuals and soundtrack were really impressive too.

Back to the paradox. So, it's pretty simple. Future humans have to be created first, before they can work out the science to do 5th dimensional time manipulation, and if the humans perished on Earth, that could never happen. And don't say, "but they did go through the wormhole!" Yeah, but that's the impossibility. The wormhole could never have been created if humans perished on earth. More plausible would have been if aliens created the wormhole. Unfortunately, that's not what happened in the film. Try to correct me if I'm wrong, but if you agree to the top two statements then there's no getting out of a paradox.

Mileniumhut wrote:

Hi, for those that don't understand the paradox in Interstellar, here it is:

Firstly, you need to agree to these statements, that I believe were made clear in the film.

1. If humans don't go through the wormhole, they perish on Earth. Dead, never to be revived.

2. The wormhole was created by future humans manipulating time in the 5th dimension.

Ok, so I just want to say I really enjoyed the film and it was great to see the use of real (proved) science, surrounding Einsteins theories and the ability to move slowly through time the faster you travel towards the speed of light. Awesome.

And I love the idea of manipulating time in the 5th dimension (even though it's just a great sci fi idea). The visuals and soundtrack were really impressive too.

Back to the paradox. So, it's pretty simple. Future humans have to be created first, before they can work out the science to do 5th dimensional time manipulation, and if the humans perished on Earth, that could never happen. And don't say, "but they did go through the wormhole!" Yeah, but that's the impossibility. The wormhole could never have been created if humans perished on earth. More plausible would have been if aliens created the wormhole. Unfortunately, that's not what happened in the film. Try to correct me if I'm wrong, but if you agree to the top two statements then there's no getting out of a paradox.

You are wrong, but to correct you would take too much effort considering I'm pretty sure this has been thoroughly discussed elsewhere on here.

Mileniumhut wrote:

Hi, for those that don't understand the paradox in Interstellar, here it is:

Firstly, you need to agree to these statements, that I believe were made clear in the film.

1. If humans don't go through the wormhole, they perish on Earth. Dead, never to be revived.

2. The wormhole was created by future humans manipulating time in the 5th dimension.

Ok, so I just want to say I really enjoyed the film and it was great to see the use of real (proved) science, surrounding Einsteins theories and the ability to move slowly through time the faster you travel towards the speed of light. Awesome.

And I love the idea of manipulating time in the 5th dimension (even though it's just a great sci fi idea). The visuals and soundtrack were really impressive too.

Back to the paradox. So, it's pretty simple. Future humans have to be created first, before they can work out the science to do 5th dimensional time manipulation, and if the humans perished on Earth, that could never happen. And don't say, "but they did go through the wormhole!" Yeah, but that's the impossibility. The wormhole could never have been created if humans perished on earth. More plausible would have been if aliens created the wormhole. Unfortunately, that's not what happened in the film. Try to correct me if I'm wrong, but if you agree to the top two statements then there's no getting out of a paradox.

Some have suggested that the 5th dimensional beings/people are from an alternate reality, where, maybe, they never had a danger of perishing on Earth. I don't think that's correct, there isn't even a slightest idea presented throughout the film that it's a multiverse (or I probably missed it).

Other than that.. Ever heard of infinite time loops?

Law wrote:

Law wrote:

Lol.

Ron Burgundy wrote:Firstly I enjoyed the movie very much. I loved the use of the science of relativity and the human nature aspects that were explored in the movie. I have a few issues though.

The biggest problem for me with the movie is the time travel paradox. It is revealed that 'They' who sent the messages to the room that resulted in Cooper heading off to NASA was actually Cooper from the future. But how can Cooper be in that position in that black hole to send the information if him being in that black hole required him to know to go to NASA in the first place. A chicken cannot send the egg from which it will hatch back in time.

I also thought the start of the movie was weak. I thought the fact that Cooper can go from a dude on an adventure with his daughter and accidentally trespassing on NASA property to abandoning his family and actually going up into space for the rest of his life (possibly) is just so ludicrous. I think the start should have been rewritten to have Cooper get into space in a more believable way.

Finally Cooper surviving a trip into a black hole is impossible through the laws of science, but I will let that one pass for the sake of artistic liberty.

The black hole was created for Cooper to survive from the future!