Talk:It's About Time/@comment-75.194.150.126-20120315193006/@comment-68.107.136.215-20120316192939

^I just wanted to add to what I said above - that this isn't the same thing as "The Grandfather Paradox" - where you go back in time and *change* things...like killing yourself or an ancestor in the past (so therefore you wouldn't exist in the present, so therefore couldn't go back in time and kill a past self or ancestor, therefore you DO exist, and can kill them, which means that you wouldn't exist, and so on...and on)....but this is where an *attempt* to go back in time and change things results in you *causing* those very things to happen...

It's a "paradox" in the sense that that there's no original original cause and effect...(what caused the loop in the first place!?) - but it's only a real paradox if you assume that time can only go one way...which, well, depends on who you ask.

The revived TV series version of "Doctor Who" OFTEN uses this trope - even to absurd effects, such as The Doctor getting out of seemingly impossible traps by being rescued by his future self who isn't in the trap anymore...because he rescued his past self...