Hey, JD, good points well made, but oh, so familiar. (Sorry, not being rude, I just like the way it sounds.)
For some reason, and I know it's a flaw in my writing, I can't seem to explain this properly. Now, you and I both know - or at least I do, and I hope you will in a moment - that I'm not really likening the Universe to an emotional organism. Just using short-hand. It's lazy, but it saves me sitting up all night looking up the physics, which I wouldn't understand, anyway. (Although a cup and saucer can be
upset.
)
To me, it matters nothing whether Einstein comes up with the necessary theories or some spotty kid from Newark, New Jersey. The theories will arise because people will look for them. The identity of the individual is irrelevant and determines only which generations will benefit from them. So, no Einstein doesn't
necessarily mean Hawking won't have the building blocks to devise his own views. It might, it might not. It doesn't matter as at some point someone in human history will.
My broader picture is that human history is inconsequential to Universal history. Life arises and falls away throughout the Universe and whether we understand our cosmic environment or not is surely, largely, irrelevant. Life is natural. Perhaps intelligence is, too. Perhaps the intelligence to discover time travel is as natural as - a black hole. (What if every black hole were the result of some intelligent race dabbling with time travel? I just know you're going to hate that idea, but it might be worth a short story some time.)
Okay, so anyway, something happens and your metaphorical garment is snagged and begins to unravel. I have no problem with this at all. I agree with it. Maybe the unravelling of the Universe (metaphorically) will begin with some human act. God knows, we're responsible for plenty of unravelling on Earth. Personally, I'm dubious. It's a big and ancient Universe. As I tried to say, if it can withstand the thousand natural shocks it's been heir to on a regular basis since the day it was ... ummmm ... extant, a couple of manmade - or even slug-made - ones wouldn't
necessarily impact on it very much. It's hardly going to change the hour or day of the Big Crunch (or whichever natural end you might subscribe to).
My point about ego is slightly important, but I'll let it pass. Humans will be Humans, after all. But then Daleks are Daleks, too.
If we ever come to understand Time properly, I believe everything will be explained, including the importance or otherwise of not messing with it. I have faith in the Universe. I think it'll know what to do when the time comes, in its non-anthropomorphic, unconscious, non-corporeal way.
I will look up the word teleology and use it some time. Thanks
.
And thanks, too, for making me write this out. It's an incompletely formed idea, and someone smarter and more scientifically tuned in will probably do the math on it one day off his or her own bat, probably on a napkin at a dinner party which will be completely forgotten a couple of hours later, but it's one that, if true, throws open the doors of potential (though potential is unlikely actually to be a building) widely enough to let us see how time is, in the end, just another dimension for us to explore while we await our own natural extinction.