Time travel and matter transfer

C.S. Lewis

Apart from the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis wrote a science fiction trilogy and left an unfinished fourth novel, The Dark Tower, which was published as-is after his death. In this novel, Lewis offers an argument against the possibility of time travel, not commonly advanced in this context. Usual arguments are a version of the Fermi paradox, or the enumeration of the paradoxes that could occur if it were possible to travel to the past, and in some cases also to the future.

The argument offered by C.S. Lewis consists of two parts:

• If time travel were possible, the space-time curve of the atoms making the trip would be discontinuous. According to the theory of relativity, these curves are always continuous. So, making atoms travel through time should be impossible.
• Time travel would be a violation of the principle of energy conservation. If someone traveled to the past, the total energy of the universe would suffer a sudden increase at the moment of arrival of the trip, because all the atoms that make up the traveler’s body would be in two places at the same time. This total energy would remain constant until the starting moment of the trip, when it would suddenly get back to its usual value. Something similar would happen in trips into the future: at the starting point, the total energy of the universe would suffer a sharp drop that would be recovered, also sharply, at the time of arrival.

These two problems are stronger than the usual ones, for they apply to time travel towards the past and towards the future.

In my science-fiction novel A Face in Time, I proposed a method that would be free from both problems, by making use of another classic theme of this literary genre: instantaneous transfer of matter, as in the movie The Fly, where a scientist invents a procedure to do it, and while trying to transfer himself to another part of his laboratory, his atoms mix with those of a fly that has entered the device, and out of the arrival station come a man with the head and leg of a fly, and a fly with the head and arm of a man.

Note that the first of the two problems proposed by C.S. Lewis applies not just to time travel, but also to matter transfer. The second problem would also apply locally, but not if one considers the universe as a whole, whose total energy would be constant at all times.

In my novel, the method proposed for matter transfer managed to avoid both problems: the body of the object or person to be transferred would be decomposed into its atoms at the starting station, and information about the state and initial position of each of the atoms would be sent to the arrival station, where the original object or person would be rebuilt, using atoms extracted from a store attached to the target station. It is obvious that this method could also be used for time travel, if the corresponding stations were available. In fact, in the novel it is used to send to the future a girl executed by guillotine during the French Revolution, with whom the protagonist has fallen in love.

I didn't say so in the novel, so as not to spoil the plot, but this procedure, although it solves the two C.S. Lewis’s problems, introduces an additional problem. It seems evident that, if the transferred object is a living being or a person, the result of its rebuilding with the atoms of the arrival station would not be a living being or a person, but a corpse.

Yes, I know, a strict materialist would say that the information about the position and state of all the atoms of a living being is enough to rebuild that living being. Let me doubt it. I am convinced that something more is needed. Something that makes the difference between a living and a dead body. And until the contrary is proven (which will not happen during my lifetime) I will continue to believe that the instantaneous transfer of living beings and time travel are and will always be impossible. Not to mention the plethora of reasons that point in the same direction, that could only be refuted by a successful experiment.

The same post in Spanish

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Manuel Alfonseca