Timelines and Alternate Dimensions are nearly as perplexing as matters of the heart

[fredericks]

Okay, this is so weird I felt it had to be plastered in my LJ.

Say you're in a deep (think "soul mate") relationship and then somehow you're suddenly flung into the future. Perhaps 15 years later. Same place, just the future. You meet up with your soul mate; of course, he/she's aged 15 years. He/She is also married or otherwise committed to another person and there are kids involved. You, say, run around with the other person because you have some mission or task to accomplish with them, and the old feelings he/she had for you re-emerge (remember now, y'all are soul mates... or at least a reasonable facsimile). You're torn because this person is your soul mate, only...not. Your alternate dimension soul mate (ADSM for short), if you will. He/she has someone else in their life and young'uns. But he/she obviously still cares for you.

So y'all run around, do your thing, and then you're ready to go back to your past (you were flung into the future with knowledge that you knew how to get back to your own time, and you didn't hesitate to share this knowledge with the ADSM). But...ADSM's looking at you with the most forlorn expression and you're looking back at him/her and you want to kiss him/her just to...you don't know. Argh! The agony!

Do you kiss ADSM and perhaps engage in sexual relations? For clarification, you're unsure if your departure from the "future" timeline will cause a collapse of the dimension or if time will continue and ADSM will have to deal with the fallout of having essentially having an affair with you. Maybe there will be no fallout and ADSM will keep it all as a secret. Maybe ADSM's SO will be understanding. Maybe not. You have no idea. What you do know is that you love the person, but you're just as conflicted as they are.

Again, what do you do? And if you do, uhm, DO ADSM, what would you tell soul mate from your own time when you returned, if anything?

I've been reading comics for the last couple of weeks. It's the only reason I can think of that I've been pondering this all damned afternoon.

ETA - There are more than a few books/movies/comics that deal with this. Can anyone lend me the names of good ones?

Comments

[gorzo.livejournal.com]

Well, yoor present SM and your future SM are different people, as defined by the experiences of the intervening years, 4th-dimensional physics, and possibly by their existence in an alternate splinter timeline. So the future SM is just a possible future SM. What you'd be doing is projecting your love for your present SM on this image of your SM.

Of course, then, theoretically every possibly moment in time contains different incarnations of all people, strung together in animation like the frames of a movie. Also, you could take the question further by meeting your future self and having sex. Would it be a homosexual experience or masturbation? And if 3 or 4 incarnations of you and SM all got together for group sex, would it be an orgy?

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

Actually, you're right. I should have clarified. Technically what I had in mind was that your being flung into the future essentially removed you from the timeline. So "alternate" is a bit of a misnomer. It is YOUR timeline, but since being "flung" you were not in it during the intervening years. There is no future self because you're not there. Your aged 15 year SO had no idea of your whereabouts. You just upped and disappeared.

When you think about it, when you return you are no longer returning to your own timeline but THE alternate one. If such a thing is possible.

I was pondering time as linear instead of splinter-able in this circumstance. Otherwise all possible discussion is immediately muted by "but what if you go to this dimension" and "what happens here?".

Well, yoor present SM and your future SM are different people, as defined by the experiences of the intervening years
Circumstances don't change the essence of a person. If you're Joe Smith and in five years, two mortgages, one personal jihad, and two minor life crises pass, you're *still* Joe Smith. You're just probably feeling very Job-like.

What you'd be doing is projecting your love for your present SM on this image of your SM.
Of course. That was the whole point behind my query.

[gorzo.livejournal.com]

Circumstances don't change the essence of a person. If you're Joe Smith and in five years, two mortgages, one personal jihad, and two minor life crises pass, you're *still* Joe Smith. You're just probably feeling very Job-like.

People can and do change. Life experiences, like births, deaths, marriages, pain, abuse, and loss all change how people see and react to the world. It's an incremental process, but it is there. Children mature. Dreams die. Change is a constant both within and without. I guess it depends on how you define "essence." Is it a soul?

Of course. That was the whole point behind my query.
Then you answered your own question. If you're projecting your love, the projectee, if you will, must therefore be different. It's false emotion. And if your feelings for the future SM override the feelings for you present SM in such a way, then I guess the person wasn't really much of an SM after all.

Also, your query assumes that your own future self is dead, since SMs don't usually drift apart and if the future SM had her own version of you she'd not be looking so forlorn (unless she doesn't find your aged version attractive, but that invalidates the whole SM thing). Any sexual contact would seem to indicate that the relationship is at minimum not what you thought it to be.

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

People can and do change.
I agree. I'm speaking of a soul (the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life). Hence the mentioning of "soul mate".

Then you answered your own question.
Of course I did. The point was for the readers of the post to share their own answers. Thank you for your input. Twas quite clever.