Leverage (spoilers)
Daibhid Ceanaideach
Leverage
"So how did you know to pull the wibbly lever?" asked Rory.
"Because I *said* it was the wibbly lever," the Doctor answered, "Weren't
you paying attention?"
"But how did you know you were telling yourself to pull the right lever?"
The Doctor frowned, "Why would I tell myself to pull the wrong lever? It
wouldn't make any sense."
Rory felt his head begin to ache, but persevered. "But you didn't *know*
which was the right lever, all you knew was that your future self had
*said* it was the right lever. And all *he* knew was that he'd said it
was the right lever, as well."
The Doctor beamed, "Ah, but once I'd *pulled* the lever I knew it was the
right one. And if I'd pulled the wrong one, I'd have said something else.
And if I'd said something else, I'd have done that, and then, if it
wasn't the right thing either, said something else again. So those two
moments would keep getting rewritten, until eventually I say the right
lever, pull it, and go back to say it. So it *had* to be the right lever,
because it was the only way of maintaining consistency."
"But ... what if the lever did something catastrophic? Like blown the
TARDIS up?"
"Well, then I wouldn't have come back at all, so I'd have known not to do
that. Simple really, isn't it?"
"If I agree, will you stop explaining it to me?"
(Doctor Who and all characters are and remain property of the BBC. This
is based on a paradox the author once read online about a safe, but which
he can no longer find.)
--
Dave
It's all about the triumph of intellect and romance
over brute force and cynicism.
Daibhid Ceanaideach
John Elliott
: On 25 Mar 2011, Daibhid Ceanaideach <daibhidc...@aol.com> wrote:
: "If I agree, will you stop explaining it to me?"
Heh. You've given that particular sequence a lot more thought than I have.
Probably a lot more thought than Moffat did, too...
--
John Elliott
Thinks: This is what a nice clean life leads to. Hmm, why did I ever lead one?
-- Bluebottle, in the Goon Show