The Philosophy Predestination is trying to Explain: Plot Details and Predestination Paradox Lessons

Recently i watched Predestination and it completely blew my mind off. Till now i always believed in Grandfather Paradox and many worlds theory, now after watching the movie i am very much inclined to give Predestination paradox a serious thought.

In Predestination, John/Jane is the source of his own creation, in a timeline where he himself creates the Fuzzy Bomber. A wikipedia entry explains the timeline in a very concise manner:-

“He tells John that he needed John to meet with Jane in order for her to become pregnant and give birth to a child that would eventually grow up to be them and that he deceived John as he had no intention of getting him to kill the Fizzle Bomber. If the temporal agent had not kidnapped the child and transported her back to 1945, or had not set up John and Jane, all of them would not exist. John states that he doesn’t want to leave Jane, but the temporal agent insists it has to be.”

I borrowed a more detailed timeline from a site:-

1975, Temporal agent has face burnt whilst trying to stop the ‘Fizzle Bomber’ who then escapes. A faceless stranger appears and helps badly burnt agent activate his portable time machine.

1992, Agent travels forward in time to the Temporal Bureau, an organization founded in 1985 after the invention of time travel. There he has reconstructive facial surgery, and we find out the Fizzle Bomber killed 11,000 people in New York in 1975.

1970, Temporal agent goes back to New York posing as a bartender and seems keen to engage a man calling himself ‘Unmarried Mother’ in conversation. The man explains he was originally a girl called Jane who was left at an orphanage in 1945. In 1963 Jane fell in love with a mystery man, who then disappeared. Jane had a baby who 9 months later was stolen. She then had a sex change and became a writer called John.

The temporal agent says he suspects the mystery man was the Fizzle Bomber and offers John the chance to go back to 1963 and kill the man who who ruined his life. In return he insists John must then join the Temporal Bureau. They then travel back to 1963 together.

1963, John accidentally meets his younger, female self Jane, falls in love, and impregnates her with a child that eventually would grow up to be them. Meanwhile, the temporal agent travels 9 months into the future, takes Jane’s baby and drops her off at an orphanage in 1945. He then drops John off in 1985 to enlist in the Temporal Bureau.

1975, The temporal agent then retires to 1975 but he still retains the use of the time machine which fails to deactivate itself. The retired agent/John soon tracks down the Fizzle Bomber, who actually turns out to be him in the future. He seems to have become insane from using the non-deactivated time machine too often as he sought to travel in time and avert disasters from occurring. However, his actions actually caused thousands of other untold deaths to happen in the process, and so disgusted with his future self, the agent shoots and kills the Fizzle Bomber, thus ensuring he becomes him.

So essentially, The Fizzle Bomber and John, both are same, both are creation of an endless time loop. Whatever choices they made, they would be kept repeating themselves in the loop. The movie is called Predestination for a reason. It removes the many world interpretation by saying that everything, and everything is under a spatial time loop, stuck inside an original time loop. In the simplest term, Its like concentric circles upon circles. The circles being timeline. The bigger circles or timelines engulfing the other timelines. Whatever choices you make, you will be stuck in a loop and continue to do the same choices. If you choose to observe a different timeline, you would end up thinking you made a different choice, but choice has already had happened in a different timeline or circle.

Suppose, He made a choice not to be the fizzle bomber after retirement. It could so happen that he himself became Robertson, and would have created this loop. He would have made a choice to set up the time travel bureau, and to ensure his creation continues, set forward this spatial loop (such as making sure decommission error happens), which makes sure that whatever choices is made, he exists, thus proving Predestination Theory. The other small choices that he would have made, it would have all affected and connected in this one giant loop. Movie throws hints of Robertson being same as Jane. An example quote:-

“He tells John that he needed John to meet with Jane in order for her to become pregnant and give birth to a child that would eventually grow up to be them and that he deceived John as he had no intention of getting him to kill the Fizzle Bomber. If the temporal agent had not kidnapped the child and transported her back to 1945, or had not set up John and Jane, all of them would not exist. John states that he doesn’t want to leave Jane, but the temporal agent insists it has to be.”

Because the events of the movie is the depiction and living of the temporal loop, not outside of the loop and its creation, the one we call the original timeline under which this loop is happened. So there can be any numerous timelines, all interconnected, in one giant loop. I mean the creation of the device, could be in such a way that its part of this loop. In a way this movie shows that we can all be part of our own creation. The illusion of free will that we have, its free will for us. Whatever choices we make, it would be unaffected in the space time continuum. Because every choice will start and end in a loop, affecting and influencing other loops. This sum of all loops would be a tiny zero. The nothingness. So the creator, the higher being, for them we would under a tiny zero, a tiny by product of a complex time space continuation. For them, whatever choices we made, we will make, or we are making, the past, future and the present, they all exist in the same time frame. For them, our concept of free will will be an alien one, because they are above the time space continuum, above space and time as we know and define it.

Some important lessons that i can think from Predestination is that whatever regrets that we have, we shouldn’t have. Because it’s all part of the plan. All the different choices, circumstances and situations that we want to change, every single choice we would want to take differently, every alternates we can think of, it would spawn into an alternate timeline, and already exists as of the present definition of Now. For us now means present, for the higher beings, the Now means the past and the future. So everything has existed, and every other choice is being made as you currently read this blog. In alternate timeline you could have been a different person altogether, and my blog might not exist. And this alternate universe is happening now, just we don’t realize it is because we cant observe it. Jane doesn’t realize until he gets to know. So any number of timelines can simultaneously exist.

Now imagine these timelines for every life on earth, and for that matter, for every stars, every other planets, every galaxies and for every universe. The alternate universes that simultaneously exist in a loop (all alternate universes have beginning and end). These alternate universes, with different set of physical laws.

Therefore, We should have faith on the higher beings, the creators of this universal loop, the one who created all the entire universes and timelines, and continue to make our free will choices by showing supreme faith and removing any regrets of the past. For them, our entire beginning and end would occur as a giant spatial loop. For us however, our present choices would dictate our future, which currently, as of the present NOW, is in our very hands. We shouldn’t worry much about circumstances (for they are only but created by the higher beings), but continue to make our free will choices.

For the past is just a set of choices that you willingly chose to observe for this timeline, this spatial loop, this Predestination Temporal Loop. You are your own agent. So chose to make your choices correctly. I made my choice to write this article, because i chose to observe this timeline, this spatial loop, this alternate version of myself. Another alternate version of me that is not writing this article could very much exist at the same time, and would be happening now. Just i can never reach it, because for me, the time always moves in forward direction. If i had power of time travel to my own body, i would have went back in time and not written this article, however i would have ended up creating another timeline. But the events of this original timeline would have happened, and i would have written an article any ways, hence my choice of changing the past affected nothing.

So after the movie, and some serious thinking, I believe that we should exercise our free will more willingly, and remove any regrets of the past. It’s the present “time” that matters, and what choices you make in this present waking moment. In a way, which universe you choose to observe in your present life.

That being said however, Predestination is a fresh new hit on the sci fi category. By not being overtly complicated like The Primer, it’s an awesome movie that deserves to be watched and praised.

~ by gravito on January 4, 2015.