WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.020 Imagine mapping out your family tree. Right, 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:04.839 something we've all probably tried to do at some 00:00:04.839 --> 00:00:07.980 point. Exactly. And normally you expect this 00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:10.839 sprawling network. You start with yourself, you 00:00:10.839 --> 00:00:12.580 trace the branches back to your parents, your 00:00:12.580 --> 00:00:15.099 four grandparents, eight great grandparents, 00:00:15.439 --> 00:00:17.699 just kind of multiplying outward and backward 00:00:17.699 --> 00:00:19.839 into history. Yeah, it anchors you. It gives 00:00:19.839 --> 00:00:22.519 you a sense of place. It does. But what if you 00:00:22.519 --> 00:00:24.420 started tracing those branches and instead of 00:00:24.420 --> 00:00:27.079 expanding, the lines twisted, turned, and just 00:00:27.079 --> 00:00:30.260 crashed directly back into you? Oh, wow. What 00:00:30.260 --> 00:00:32.640 if you realized that you are your own mother, 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:35.679 you're your own father, and you're your own child? 00:00:36.020 --> 00:00:38.119 Well, biologically and chronologically, that 00:00:38.119 --> 00:00:40.539 is the absolute definition of a short circuit. 00:00:40.759 --> 00:00:43.380 I mean, you are describing a scenario where a 00:00:43.380 --> 00:00:46.679 human being exists without a true origin point, 00:00:46.979 --> 00:00:49.060 just completely untethered from the rest of the 00:00:49.060 --> 00:00:51.479 human race. That is exactly the premise of our 00:00:51.479 --> 00:00:54.259 deep dive today. We are exploring the ultimate 00:00:54.259 --> 00:00:57.740 brain breaking time travel paradox by dissecting 00:00:57.740 --> 00:01:00.479 the Wikipedia article on Robert A. Heinlein's 00:01:00.479 --> 00:01:03.820 legendary 1959 science fiction short story, All 00:01:03.820 --> 00:01:07.140 You Zombies. Such a fascinating piece of literature. 00:01:07.540 --> 00:01:09.500 It really is. And just to clear the air right 00:01:09.500 --> 00:01:11.459 off the bat, since we're diving deep into the 00:01:11.459 --> 00:01:14.219 source material for you, this is not a story 00:01:14.219 --> 00:01:17.450 about... literal undead zombies shuffling around 00:01:17.450 --> 00:01:19.730 looking for brains. No, not at all. Actually, 00:01:19.849 --> 00:01:22.609 this is a narrative so meticulously constructed 00:01:22.609 --> 00:01:25.689 that philosophers and astrophysicists, like Carl 00:01:25.689 --> 00:01:28.329 Sagan, for instance, have utilized it to teach 00:01:28.329 --> 00:01:31.290 the fundamental nature of causality. Which is 00:01:31.290 --> 00:01:34.049 wild for a pulp sci -fi story. Right. And the 00:01:34.049 --> 00:01:35.989 real -world history of the text is fascinating 00:01:35.989 --> 00:01:38.890 in itself. Heinlein supposedly wrote this entire 00:01:38.890 --> 00:01:43.030 mind -bender in a single day, July 11, 1958. 00:01:43.310 --> 00:01:45.780 A single day? That's just... Yeah, and it was 00:01:45.780 --> 00:01:47.939 actually rejected by Playboy before finding its 00:01:47.939 --> 00:01:50.019 home in the magazine of fantasy and science fiction. 00:01:50.640 --> 00:01:52.659 It eventually earned a Balrog Award nomination 00:01:52.659 --> 00:01:56.599 and even inspired the 2014 Ethan Hawke film Predestination. 00:01:56.760 --> 00:01:59.159 Okay, but to understand why academics study a 00:01:59.159 --> 00:02:02.120 1950s pulp sci -fi story, we have to look at 00:02:02.120 --> 00:02:04.359 the incredibly specific mechanics Heinlein built. 00:02:04.500 --> 00:02:06.879 We do, and those mechanics start in a surprisingly 00:02:06.879 --> 00:02:10.099 gritty setting. You know, we open in this dimly 00:02:10.099 --> 00:02:13.780 lit bar in the year 1970. The narrator is the 00:02:13.780 --> 00:02:17.479 bartender. And the source material explicitly 00:02:17.479 --> 00:02:20.479 notes that he is wearing an Auroboros ring. Right, 00:02:20.699 --> 00:02:22.659 the ancient symbol of a snake eating its own 00:02:22.659 --> 00:02:25.580 tail. Exactly. And that is a massive thematic 00:02:25.580 --> 00:02:27.500 anchor for literally everything that follows. 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:30.599 So he's working and he strikes up a conversation 00:02:30.599 --> 00:02:33.340 with a patron, this cynical young man who goes 00:02:33.340 --> 00:02:35.960 by the pen name the unmarried mother. Which is 00:02:35.960 --> 00:02:39.060 such an intriguing detail. The patron earns that 00:02:39.060 --> 00:02:41.599 nickname by writing sensational confession stories 00:02:41.599 --> 00:02:44.180 for magazines from the perspective of unmarried 00:02:44.180 --> 00:02:46.360 women, and he's just churning them out at four 00:02:46.360 --> 00:02:48.719 cents a word. So the bartender is observing this 00:02:48.719 --> 00:02:51.090 guy and essentially challenges him. He wants 00:02:51.090 --> 00:02:53.569 to know how a man can write so convincingly from 00:02:53.569 --> 00:02:56.030 a female perspective. And that question is the 00:02:56.030 --> 00:02:58.629 catalyst. It prompts the patron to reveal a life 00:02:58.629 --> 00:03:01.729 story that reads honestly like a tragic mid -century 00:03:01.729 --> 00:03:03.750 noir. Yeah, the patron explains that he wasn't 00:03:03.750 --> 00:03:05.889 born a man. He was actually born a girl named 00:03:05.889 --> 00:03:09.969 Jane in 1945. And Jane was entirely abandoned, 00:03:09.990 --> 00:03:12.889 raised in this cold institutional orphanage. 00:03:13.069 --> 00:03:14.969 Just profound isolation right from the start. 00:03:15.289 --> 00:03:17.750 Exactly. And Jane's one escape plan was to join 00:03:17.750 --> 00:03:20.199 what they call a comfort organization. Which 00:03:20.199 --> 00:03:22.419 in this universe is a government program providing 00:03:22.419 --> 00:03:25.159 rest and recreation for spacemen. Right. But 00:03:25.159 --> 00:03:28.900 in 1963, as a teenager, Jane is seduced by an 00:03:28.900 --> 00:03:32.259 older, mysterious man. She gets pregnant and 00:03:32.259 --> 00:03:34.479 is promptly abandoned again. And the tragedy 00:03:34.479 --> 00:03:36.180 just compounds from there. Especially during 00:03:36.180 --> 00:03:38.789 the delivery. The doctors are forced to perform 00:03:38.789 --> 00:03:41.770 an emergency, highly complicated cesarean section. 00:03:42.150 --> 00:03:44.349 And during the surgery, they make a profound 00:03:44.349 --> 00:03:47.689 medical discovery. Jane has an extremely rare 00:03:47.689 --> 00:03:50.409 intersex condition. She possesses fully developed 00:03:50.409 --> 00:03:53.509 female reproductive organs, but also internalized, 00:03:53.710 --> 00:03:56.490 undeveloped male sex organs. Right. And because 00:03:56.490 --> 00:03:58.509 the pregnancy and the surgical trauma severely 00:03:58.509 --> 00:04:01.169 damaged her female organs beyond repair, the 00:04:01.169 --> 00:04:03.669 doctors make this unilateral, non -consensual 00:04:03.669 --> 00:04:06.050 decision to perform a sex reassignment surgery. 00:04:06.859 --> 00:04:09.699 So Jane wakes up from saving her baby to find 00:04:09.699 --> 00:04:12.280 out that she is now, biologically and legally, 00:04:12.719 --> 00:04:15.240 a man. And while recovering from that unbelievable 00:04:15.240 --> 00:04:18.279 physical and psychological trauma, another mysterious 00:04:18.279 --> 00:04:20.939 older man sneaks into the hospital and kidnaps 00:04:20.939 --> 00:04:23.500 her newborn baby. Left with absolutely nothing. 00:04:23.879 --> 00:04:26.300 Nothing at all. So the former Jane, who is now 00:04:26.300 --> 00:04:29.420 living as a man, has to adapt. He learns secretarial 00:04:29.420 --> 00:04:31.779 skills, leverages his experiences into writing, 00:04:32.040 --> 00:04:34.139 and eventually becomes the bitter young man sitting 00:04:34.139 --> 00:04:37.720 in the bar in 1970. It is a staggering sequence 00:04:37.720 --> 00:04:40.480 of traumatic events, just complete social and 00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:43.220 biological isolation. OK, let's unpack this. 00:04:43.220 --> 00:04:46.379 Yeah. Because I promised the listener a mind 00:04:46.379 --> 00:04:49.000 -bending exploration of theoretical physics and 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:51.240 time travel. Right. And right now, we are deep 00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:55.339 into a gritty medical trauma drama. You've got 00:04:55.339 --> 00:04:58.040 this classic noir set up, a tragic victim in 00:04:58.040 --> 00:05:01.040 a bar with a dark past. How does a story about 00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:03.920 an orphanage, a C -section, and a kidnapped baby 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:06.660 translate into a high -level physics paradox. 00:05:06.939 --> 00:05:08.439 I mean, it feels like two completely different 00:05:08.439 --> 00:05:11.139 genres. I completely agree, but that dissonance 00:05:11.139 --> 00:05:13.439 is exactly why the story is brilliant. Every 00:05:13.439 --> 00:05:15.699 single detail you just mentioned, it isn't merely 00:05:15.699 --> 00:05:17.860 project backstory. Yeah. No, it is the strict 00:05:17.860 --> 00:05:20.040 biological mechanism required for the physics 00:05:20.040 --> 00:05:22.420 loop to function. Heinlein is setting up the 00:05:22.420 --> 00:05:25.300 parameters of an impossible equation. Yeah. Think 00:05:25.300 --> 00:05:27.279 about it. Without the orphanage, there is no 00:05:27.279 --> 00:05:30.639 isolation. Without the specific intersex physiology, 00:05:31.199 --> 00:05:34.259 the upcoming chronological loop violates biological 00:05:34.259 --> 00:05:37.879 reality. The medical trauma is quite literally 00:05:37.879 --> 00:05:39.879 the engine of the time machine. The engine of 00:05:39.879 --> 00:05:41.540 the time machine. Okay, let's look at that engine 00:05:41.540 --> 00:05:44.839 then because we are back in the bar in 1970 and 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:47.139 the bartender makes an impossible offer. Right. 00:05:47.180 --> 00:05:49.639 He listens to this horrific life story and then 00:05:49.639 --> 00:05:52.519 the bartender tells the unmarried mother that 00:05:52.519 --> 00:05:55.120 he can offer him ultimate revenge. He says he 00:05:55.120 --> 00:05:57.620 can deliver the patron directly to the man who 00:05:57.620 --> 00:06:00.439 seduced and ruined Jane's life. So the bartender 00:06:00.439 --> 00:06:03.000 leads the young writer into the back room, reveals 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:05.579 a portable time machine and jumps them both back 00:06:05.579 --> 00:06:08.920 seven years. They land precisely on April 3rd, 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:11.699 1963. And he turns the unmarried mother loose 00:06:11.699 --> 00:06:14.610 to find the seducer. But the bartender does not 00:06:14.610 --> 00:06:16.850 wait around. No, he doesn't. He uses the time 00:06:16.850 --> 00:06:19.310 machine to execute this highly calculated heist 00:06:19.310 --> 00:06:22.149 across decades. First, he jumps forward 11 months 00:06:22.149 --> 00:06:26.149 to March 1964. He infiltrates the hospital, kidnaps 00:06:26.149 --> 00:06:28.810 the newborn baby, and then time travels way back 00:06:28.810 --> 00:06:32.670 to September 1945. And he drops that infant off 00:06:32.670 --> 00:06:35.529 at the very orphanage where Jane grew up. Exactly. 00:06:36.129 --> 00:06:38.269 After planting the baby, he jumps forward again 00:06:38.269 --> 00:06:42.000 to 1963. waits a month, picks up the unmarried 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:44.399 mother, and pulls him out of that timeline. But 00:06:44.399 --> 00:06:46.620 we have to look really closely at what the unmarried 00:06:46.620 --> 00:06:49.439 mother was doing during that month he spent stranded 00:06:49.439 --> 00:06:53.139 in 1963. He was searching for the man who ruined 00:06:53.139 --> 00:06:56.620 his life. But instead, wandering around, he bumps 00:06:56.620 --> 00:06:59.220 into a lonely 17 -year -old girl named Jane. 00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:02.899 Oh my god. He begins dating her, eventually seduces 00:07:02.899 --> 00:07:05.339 her, and leaves her pregnant. Here's where it 00:07:05.339 --> 00:07:06.959 gets really interesting. I remember reading this 00:07:06.959 --> 00:07:09.720 for the first time, and the realization just 00:07:09.720 --> 00:07:12.500 hits you like a freight train. He was instinctively 00:07:12.500 --> 00:07:14.939 attracted to his younger female self. Exactly. 00:07:15.500 --> 00:07:18.000 The older man who seduced Jane, Jane herself, 00:07:18.500 --> 00:07:20.360 the baby stolen from the hospital, and the time 00:07:20.360 --> 00:07:22.939 traveling bartender pulling the strings. I mean, 00:07:23.060 --> 00:07:25.300 for everyone listening, try to draw that family 00:07:25.300 --> 00:07:27.699 tree in your head. You can't. You can't. They 00:07:27.699 --> 00:07:29.879 aren't a family. They're the exact same person 00:07:29.879 --> 00:07:32.579 at four different stages of a single life cycle. 00:07:32.759 --> 00:07:34.649 It's just a single thought. What's fascinating 00:07:34.649 --> 00:07:37.509 here is how Heinlein constructed what the author 00:07:37.509 --> 00:07:41.709 Staniso Lim calls the minimal possible bootstrap 00:07:41.709 --> 00:07:44.250 paradox. The minimal possible bootstrap paradox. 00:07:44.529 --> 00:07:46.769 What does that mean exactly? Well, the term comes 00:07:46.769 --> 00:07:49.750 from the old physically impossible adage of pulling 00:07:49.750 --> 00:07:52.990 yourself up by your own bootstraps. In this framework, 00:07:53.589 --> 00:07:56.170 an object, an event, or in this case, a human 00:07:56.170 --> 00:07:59.379 being, exist without any true origin. They're 00:07:59.379 --> 00:08:01.300 entirely self -created. Let's just connect the 00:08:01.300 --> 00:08:04.000 dots here for this one. Jane gives birth to herself, 00:08:04.319 --> 00:08:07.079 fathers herself, and orchestrates her own kidnapping 00:08:07.079 --> 00:08:10.079 to ensure she exists. Yes, they're entirely self 00:08:10.079 --> 00:08:13.199 -created. But biologically, how do physicists 00:08:13.199 --> 00:08:15.519 or philosophers even grapple with that? I mean, 00:08:15.540 --> 00:08:17.579 where did the original genetic material come 00:08:17.579 --> 00:08:19.959 from? That is the big question. If the bartender 00:08:19.959 --> 00:08:22.199 drops himself off at the orphanage to grow up 00:08:22.199 --> 00:08:25.319 to father himself, how can DNA just exist without 00:08:25.319 --> 00:08:27.939 an origin point? It violates everything we know 00:08:27.939 --> 00:08:30.060 about how matter and information work. And that 00:08:30.060 --> 00:08:32.200 is exactly what broke the brains of academics 00:08:32.200 --> 00:08:34.259 analyzing the text. You are shitting on something 00:08:34.259 --> 00:08:37.039 called an ontological paradox. Ontological? Yeah. 00:08:37.580 --> 00:08:39.940 Ontology is the philosophical study of being 00:08:39.940 --> 00:08:43.519 and existence. In our normal reality, information 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:46.120 and matter have to come from somewhere. But in 00:08:46.120 --> 00:08:49.059 a bootstrap loop, the information is completely 00:08:49.059 --> 00:08:51.659 uncreated. Completely uncreated? Right, think 00:08:51.659 --> 00:08:53.759 of it like a word in a dictionary that defines 00:08:53.759 --> 00:08:56.870 itself using its own word. There is no root origin. 00:08:57.129 --> 00:08:59.909 It is just a self -referential circle. Jane's 00:08:59.909 --> 00:09:02.289 DNA wasn't created by a combination of a separate 00:09:02.289 --> 00:09:05.450 mother and father. Her DNA is just permanently 00:09:05.450 --> 00:09:08.389 suspended in this loop of time existing simply 00:09:08.389 --> 00:09:10.730 because it exists. It's like putting a microphone 00:09:10.730 --> 00:09:13.240 directly next to a speaker. You get that screeching 00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:16.100 audio feedback loop where the sound is just endlessly 00:09:16.100 --> 00:09:18.600 amplifying itself with no external input. That 00:09:18.600 --> 00:09:21.419 is a perfect analogy. But you mentioned earlier 00:09:21.419 --> 00:09:23.799 that philosophers like David Lewis actually defended 00:09:23.799 --> 00:09:26.440 this story. How can a philosopher look at a person 00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:28.840 fathering themselves and say, yes, this makes 00:09:28.840 --> 00:09:31.100 perfect logical sense? Well, because David Lewis 00:09:31.100 --> 00:09:34.759 in his highly influential 1976 paper, The Paradoxes 00:09:34.759 --> 00:09:37.519 of Time Travel, analyzed the logic of timelines. 00:09:37.659 --> 00:09:40.559 And he specifically praised Heinlein's construct 00:09:40.559 --> 00:09:43.590 here. Yeah. Lewis argued that the grandfather 00:09:43.590 --> 00:09:46.049 paradox, the idea that you could go back in time 00:09:46.049 --> 00:09:48.610 and kill your own grandfather, thus erasing yourself, 00:09:48.929 --> 00:09:52.389 is logically flawed. Instead, Lewis championed 00:09:52.389 --> 00:09:55.970 the idea of a block universe. A block universe, 00:09:56.190 --> 00:09:59.210 meaning time isn't like a flowing river, but 00:09:59.210 --> 00:10:01.750 a solid object. Precisely. Imagine the universe 00:10:01.750 --> 00:10:04.629 not as a story being written line by line, but 00:10:04.629 --> 00:10:07.330 as a DVD that has already been burned. Oh, I 00:10:07.330 --> 00:10:10.100 see. all of the past, present, and future exist 00:10:10.100 --> 00:10:12.980 simultaneously. Lewis argued that a time traveler 00:10:12.980 --> 00:10:15.549 doesn't change the past when they go back. Their 00:10:15.549 --> 00:10:17.690 journey was already baked into the timeline from 00:10:17.690 --> 00:10:19.909 the very beginning. So you aren't writing a new 00:10:19.909 --> 00:10:22.450 draft of history. You are just fulfilling the 00:10:22.450 --> 00:10:25.450 original draft. Exactly. So under Lewis's theory, 00:10:25.690 --> 00:10:28.190 a bartender isn't altering his past by dropping 00:10:28.190 --> 00:10:30.950 the baby off in 1945. Because if he chose not 00:10:30.950 --> 00:10:32.870 to do it, the universe wouldn't unravel. Right. 00:10:32.870 --> 00:10:35.029 Because in a block universe, it is impossible 00:10:35.029 --> 00:10:37.789 for him to choose not to do it. Spot on. His 00:10:37.789 --> 00:10:40.269 future self was already present at his own past 00:10:40.269 --> 00:10:43.149 events. Lewis pointed out that Heinlein's loop 00:10:43.149 --> 00:10:46.570 is logically watertight. Every single action 00:10:46.570 --> 00:10:49.610 perfectly causes the next, forming a closed loop 00:10:49.610 --> 00:10:52.470 with absolutely no loose ends. So the timeline 00:10:52.470 --> 00:10:54.549 is consistent because there are no contradictory 00:10:54.549 --> 00:10:57.309 events. Right. The loop is bizarre, yes, but 00:10:57.309 --> 00:10:59.450 it does not contradict its own internal rules. 00:10:59.610 --> 00:11:02.740 Which brings us to Carl Sagan. a legendary astronomer 00:11:02.740 --> 00:11:05.559 analyzing a pulp fiction story about an intersex 00:11:05.559 --> 00:11:07.700 time traveler. It's quite a crossover. It is. 00:11:08.259 --> 00:11:10.000 And Sagan said that science fiction like this 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:12.419 conveys inaccessible knowledge, forcing the reader 00:11:12.419 --> 00:11:15.740 to contemplate causality and the arrow of time. 00:11:16.539 --> 00:11:18.039 But I want to bring this down to Earth for you 00:11:18.039 --> 00:11:19.740 listening right now. So what does this all mean 00:11:19.740 --> 00:11:22.159 for you? It's a heady concept to apply to real 00:11:22.159 --> 00:11:25.059 life. It is. Because we all experience time as 00:11:25.059 --> 00:11:28.000 a one -way street. Cause always precedes effect. 00:11:28.279 --> 00:11:30.000 Like you accidentally push a glass off a table, 00:11:30.159 --> 00:11:32.620 it hits the floor and it shatters. Pushing the 00:11:32.620 --> 00:11:35.179 glass is the cause. The shattering is the effect. 00:11:35.399 --> 00:11:37.899 And the arrow of time dictates that the shattered 00:11:37.899 --> 00:11:40.639 glass will never spontaneously reassemble itself 00:11:40.639 --> 00:11:43.279 and jump back onto the table. Thermodynamics 00:11:43.279 --> 00:11:46.139 and entropy demand that time moves in one direction. 00:11:46.340 --> 00:11:49.679 Right. But Heinlein's loop forces us to ask, 00:11:50.159 --> 00:11:53.440 what happens to our reality? If the glass shattering 00:11:53.440 --> 00:11:55.639 is the very thing that caused you to push it 00:11:55.639 --> 00:11:58.019 in the first place, what if the effect is the 00:11:58.019 --> 00:12:00.860 cause? It completely flips everything. It does. 00:12:00.980 --> 00:12:04.139 If you apply that to a human life, it redefines 00:12:04.139 --> 00:12:06.879 what existence means. We use the phrase a self 00:12:06.879 --> 00:12:08.840 -made person to describe someone who, you know, 00:12:08.940 --> 00:12:11.620 built a business from scratch. But this character 00:12:11.620 --> 00:12:15.139 is the ultimate literal self -made entity. They 00:12:15.139 --> 00:12:17.220 owe their existence to absolutely no one but 00:12:17.220 --> 00:12:19.120 themselves. If we connect this to the bigger 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:22.019 picture, they're completely self - in the most 00:12:22.019 --> 00:12:24.279 literal, biological sense. It's the ultimate 00:12:24.279 --> 00:12:26.240 thought experiment in self -reliance and the 00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:28.659 illusion of beginnings and endings. The snake 00:12:28.659 --> 00:12:31.559 eating its own tail. The Ouroboros ring isn't 00:12:31.559 --> 00:12:33.700 just a piece of jewelry the bartender wears. 00:12:33.940 --> 00:12:36.559 The ring is the map of his life. There is no 00:12:36.559 --> 00:12:39.159 head and no tail, no start and no finish. But 00:12:39.159 --> 00:12:41.220 we have to look at the psychological reality 00:12:41.220 --> 00:12:45.220 of living as an Ouroboros. Because having no 00:12:45.220 --> 00:12:47.720 origin outside of yourself might sound like the 00:12:47.720 --> 00:12:50.159 ultimate form of independence, but when you actually 00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:53.179 sit with it, It is a nightmare of loneliness. 00:12:53.299 --> 00:12:56.080 A total nightmare. And the source material highlights 00:12:56.080 --> 00:12:59.039 that emotional toll brilliantly in the final 00:12:59.039 --> 00:13:01.740 act of the story. It really does. Because after 00:13:01.740 --> 00:13:03.799 the bartender retrieves his younger self, the 00:13:03.799 --> 00:13:06.639 unmarried mother from 1963, he doesn't just drop 00:13:06.639 --> 00:13:09.279 him off anywhere. He transports him to the year 00:13:09.279 --> 00:13:13.019 1985 to an outpost of the temporal bureau. And 00:13:13.019 --> 00:13:15.120 the temporal bureau being this secret police 00:13:15.120 --> 00:13:17.500 force that travels through time, manipulating 00:13:17.500 --> 00:13:19.440 historical events to protect the human race. 00:13:19.659 --> 00:13:22.340 Correct. The bartender drops the young man there 00:13:22.340 --> 00:13:25.580 specifically to enlist him, which means the bartender 00:13:25.580 --> 00:13:27.559 has just recruited a younger version of himself 00:13:27.559 --> 00:13:30.159 into the very agency he already works for. Wow. 00:13:30.250 --> 00:13:32.990 He created his own past, orchestrated his own 00:13:32.990 --> 00:13:35.070 birth, and now he's officially initiating his 00:13:35.070 --> 00:13:38.169 own future. Once the mission is complete, the 00:13:38.169 --> 00:13:41.470 older bartender returns to the bar in 1970, arriving 00:13:41.470 --> 00:13:43.669 just moments after he initially left for the 00:13:43.669 --> 00:13:46.529 back room. He ties off the loop, and there's 00:13:46.529 --> 00:13:48.590 a brilliant dark detail here that we have to 00:13:48.590 --> 00:13:51.970 mention. Earlier in the 1970 timeline, a customer 00:13:51.970 --> 00:13:54.929 was playing a song on the jukebox, and the bartender 00:13:54.929 --> 00:13:57.769 yelled at him for it. He hated it. Right. But 00:13:57.769 --> 00:14:00.370 when he returns, having just completed this monumental 00:14:00.370 --> 00:14:03.269 existential task, he actually allows the customer 00:14:03.269 --> 00:14:06.649 to play the song. And the track is I'm My Own 00:14:06.649 --> 00:14:10.509 Grandpa. It's just Heinlein injecting this dark 00:14:10.509 --> 00:14:13.529 comedy into an incredibly bleak reality. Yeah. 00:14:13.809 --> 00:14:16.710 So the bartender close up the shop and time travels 00:14:16.710 --> 00:14:20.110 one final time. retiring to his home base in 00:14:20.110 --> 00:14:23.009 the year 1993. And this is where the philosophy 00:14:23.009 --> 00:14:25.129 of the story turns completely inward. He's all 00:14:25.129 --> 00:14:28.049 alone. Yes. As he gets ready for bed, exhausted 00:14:28.049 --> 00:14:30.210 from effectively orchestrating his entire life 00:14:30.210 --> 00:14:32.529 cycle, he looks down at his own stomach. He stares 00:14:32.529 --> 00:14:34.809 at the surgical scar, the scar left over from 00:14:34.809 --> 00:14:37.309 the cesarean section he endured back in 1963 00:14:37.309 --> 00:14:40.129 when he gave birth to his own daughter. who is 00:14:40.129 --> 00:14:42.509 also his mother, his father, and his entire history. 00:14:42.669 --> 00:14:44.929 He knows the truth of that scar better than anyone 00:14:44.929 --> 00:14:47.809 in the universe ever could. And staring at that 00:14:47.809 --> 00:14:50.909 physical proof of his loop, he has a final revealing 00:14:50.909 --> 00:14:55.370 thought. He thinks to himself, I know where I 00:14:55.370 --> 00:14:57.789 came from, but where did all you zombies come 00:14:57.789 --> 00:14:59.750 from? It's a haunting realization. Where did 00:14:59.750 --> 00:15:01.509 all you zombies come from? That's a chilling 00:15:01.509 --> 00:15:05.059 arresting line. And it finally explains the strange 00:15:05.059 --> 00:15:07.000 title of the story. Yes, the formatting. The 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:09.379 title is formatted with dashes on either side. 00:15:09.519 --> 00:15:12.299 I'll use zombies. The dashes indicate that the 00:15:12.299 --> 00:15:14.679 title is actually a fragment. It's a quote pulled 00:15:14.679 --> 00:15:17.340 directly from the middle of this exact closing 00:15:17.340 --> 00:15:19.919 thought. Exactly. It represents the alighted 00:15:19.919 --> 00:15:22.639 text before and after the phrase. It's a literal 00:15:22.639 --> 00:15:25.419 snippet of a mind completely isolated from the 00:15:25.419 --> 00:15:28.179 rest of humanity. I just marvel at the sheer 00:15:28.179 --> 00:15:30.700 terrifying isolation of the character in that 00:15:30.700 --> 00:15:32.840 moment. I mean, even though he knows his own 00:15:32.840 --> 00:15:35.240 perfect closed -loop origin, everyone else in 00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:37.679 the world is an inexplicable mystery to him. 00:15:37.720 --> 00:15:39.799 How were they born? Right. Normal people have 00:15:39.799 --> 00:15:42.240 mothers and fathers and sprawling oak trees of 00:15:42.240 --> 00:15:45.539 ancestry that extend into infinity. To him, normal 00:15:45.539 --> 00:15:47.799 people are the bizarre anomalies. They are the 00:15:47.799 --> 00:15:50.159 zombies because they wander around with these 00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:53.080 messy, linear, unprovable origins. This raises 00:15:53.080 --> 00:15:56.120 an important question about solipsism. Solipsism. 00:15:56.379 --> 00:15:58.899 Yes, the philosophical idea that the only thing 00:15:58.899 --> 00:16:01.539 you can be absolutely sure exists exists is your 00:16:01.539 --> 00:16:05.100 own mind. Everything else outside of you could 00:16:05.100 --> 00:16:08.179 be an illusion. If you think about playing a 00:16:08.179 --> 00:16:11.200 massive open world video game, you know you are 00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:13.639 the player holding the controller. But every 00:16:13.639 --> 00:16:15.419 other character walking around the city is an 00:16:15.419 --> 00:16:18.320 NPC. A non -player character. Right. They're 00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:20.659 just code generated by the system to give you 00:16:20.659 --> 00:16:23.360 a backdrop to interact with. They have no inner 00:16:23.360 --> 00:16:25.100 life. And for the bartender, that isn't just 00:16:25.100 --> 00:16:27.320 a philosophical thought experiment. It is his 00:16:27.320 --> 00:16:30.019 empirical reality. He is the only person in the 00:16:30.019 --> 00:16:32.440 universe whose existence he can physically prove 00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:34.820 from beginning to end because he is the sole 00:16:34.820 --> 00:16:36.919 author of it. Exactly. Since he cannot trace 00:16:36.919 --> 00:16:39.039 the origins of anyone else, the way he can trace 00:16:39.039 --> 00:16:41.840 his own absolute undeniable loop, the rest of 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:44.139 humanity lacks the same level of reality to him. 00:16:44.700 --> 00:16:46.700 They are just a backdrop. It is the ultimate 00:16:46.700 --> 00:16:49.299 tragedy of his design. He has conquered time, 00:16:49.539 --> 00:16:52.200 but in doing so he has alienated himself from 00:16:52.200 --> 00:16:55.720 the human race. He is a species of one. It is 00:16:55.720 --> 00:16:58.379 incredible to look at the journey of this narrative. 00:16:58.679 --> 00:17:00.899 I mean, we started by looking at a rejected magazine 00:17:00.899 --> 00:17:04.539 manuscript from 1958, bouncing back from Playboy 00:17:04.539 --> 00:17:07.799 to find a home in a sci -fi digest, eventually 00:17:07.799 --> 00:17:11.920 earning a 1980 Balrog Award nomination and inspiring 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:14.160 a major film adaptation. And it deserved all 00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:16.299 of it. It really did. Because what we actually 00:17:16.299 --> 00:17:19.220 untapped was a master class in theoretical physics 00:17:19.220 --> 00:17:22.980 wrapped in a noir detective story. It takes that 00:17:22.980 --> 00:17:24.940 sprawling family oak tree we talked about at 00:17:24.940 --> 00:17:27.720 the very beginning, strips away all the branches, 00:17:28.500 --> 00:17:30.819 and whittles the entirety of a human life down 00:17:30.819 --> 00:17:34.019 into a single impossible self -sustaining point. 00:17:34.400 --> 00:17:37.180 It challenges our fundamental understanding of 00:17:37.180 --> 00:17:39.400 cause and effect. It proves that fiction can 00:17:39.400 --> 00:17:42.059 be just as rigorous as a mathematical proof or 00:17:42.059 --> 00:17:44.180 a physics equation when constructing a closed 00:17:44.180 --> 00:17:46.839 system. Absolutely. But as we wrap up our analysis 00:17:46.839 --> 00:17:49.319 of Heinlein's loop, there's one critical implication 00:17:49.319 --> 00:17:51.420 we haven't touched on. And it's something I want 00:17:51.420 --> 00:17:53.440 you to think about long after this deep dive 00:17:53.440 --> 00:17:55.819 in. Let's hear it. We established that the bartender 00:17:55.819 --> 00:17:58.420 ultimately works for the temporal bureau, right? 00:17:58.619 --> 00:18:01.960 A secret police force dedicated to actively manipulating 00:18:01.960 --> 00:18:04.140 history and protecting the human race. Right. 00:18:04.539 --> 00:18:06.799 But think about the block universe we discussed. 00:18:07.400 --> 00:18:10.440 If this agent's entire existence, his birth, 00:18:10.559 --> 00:18:13.759 his trauma, his recruitment, is a perfectly closed, 00:18:13.960 --> 00:18:16.480 predetermined loop that cannot be altered, how 00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:19.400 can he possibly possess the free will necessary 00:18:19.400 --> 00:18:22.660 to manipulate anything else in history? Oh, wow. 00:18:23.099 --> 00:18:25.539 If his own timeline is completely unchangeable, 00:18:25.819 --> 00:18:27.680 wouldn't his interventions in the world's timeline 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:30.160 be just as predetermined? Are you actually holding 00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:32.779 the pen and making choices, or are you just flawlessly 00:18:32.779 --> 00:18:34.609 executing a script that was written before you 00:18:34.609 --> 00:18:35.109 were even born.