time machine paradox issue

[keninsc]

I suppose that it's a valid point, however I can't imagine that the timeline is that sensitive. For instance, if you went back in time and stood on the top decks of the Titanic just before the fatal iceberg impact with a night vision FLIR camera and simply videoed the impact and subsequent break up of the ship for historical purposes. Then just before the ship sank completely you "beamed" back, I seriously doubt you'd actually effect the out come by any significant amount. Granted, someone might see you and think that little "thing" you were holding was curious, but odds are they'd be dead in a very short time anyway.

Now, if you went back and tried to warned the Captain, odds are he'd have thought you were out of your mind and he'd have ordered you to the brig. Which would probably be mentioned in passing that there was a madman who the Captain had to have retrained just prior to the impact. Adding an additional footnote to the story.

[Clarakore]

Killing Hitler would only allow for another to take his place. In my view there are roles which must be filled irregardless of the person fulfilling that role.

[FlyingAngel]

I suppose that it's a valid point, however I can't imagine that the timeline is that sensitive. For instance, if you went back in time and stood on the top decks of the Titanic just before the fatal iceberg impact with a night vision FLIR camera and simply videoed the impact and subsequent break up of the ship for historical purposes. Then just before the ship sank completely you "beamed" back, I seriously doubt you'd actually effect the out come by any significant amount. Granted, someone might see you and think that little "thing" you were holding was curious, but odds are they'd be dead in a very short time anyway.

Now, if you went back and tried to warned the Captain, odds are he'd have thought you were out of your mind and he'd have ordered you to the brig. Which would probably be mentioned in passing that there was a madman who the Captain had to have retrained just prior to the impact. Adding an additional footnote to the story.

By just warning the captain, you'd change the outcome the events.

Ex: The captain is a beleiver, he believes in time travel, etc... He takes precaution and warns other people, other people warns other people, etc... The ship still sank but there will be more people who survive because they take precautions.

If you let anyone see you, you also change the outcomes.

Ex: someone see you, the call the guards for a suspicious man. Therefore, people changed their location where they're not supposed to be, some are closer to the rescue boat, some are further, etc...

The best way to not interact with everything is to not touch anyone, anything, and do not let anyone see you, like a UFO or a ghost.

[S I N]

What if time travel created the big bang?

[keninsc]

By just warning the captain, you'd change the outcome the events.

Ex: The captain is a beleiver, he believes in time travel, etc... He takes precaution and warns other people, other people warns other people, etc... The ship still sank but there will be more people who survive because they take precautions.

If you let anyone see you, you also change the outcomes.

Ex: someone see you, the call the guards for a suspicious man. Therefore, people changed their location where they're not supposed to be, some are closer to the rescue boat, some are further, etc...

The best way to not interact with everything is to not touch anyone, anything, and do not let anyone see you, like a UFO or a ghost.

Granted, there would be some minor changes, the question is would those changes be enough to significantly change history? I, personally, don't think the time line is so fragile that just being there will change anything so much as to effect the historical outcome. That's just a personal opinion so feel free to accept or reject at your leisure.

Now in the Hitler scenario, if you kill Hitler as a child or when he was in the trenches of WWI before he made any significant impact then it's very likely that we might avoid WWII, but many significant changes happened as a result of that conflict and brought us to the existence we enjoy now as a result. Now as far as a replacement Hitler goes, unfortunately there seems to be no end to possible replacements for him in the years that have followed. Stalin, Idi Amin, Ferdinand Marcos, just to name a couple who come to mind right off. Without that conflict the present would be significantly altered, so as bad as he was, the end result was better overall for the world.....yes, even with the cold war and the threat of nuclear annihilation that we managed to get through.

[Alex44]

The real question is this, to me.

When you travel back in time are there two of yourself? What happens when you meet? You could easily avoid a lot of different paradox by diverting your self to two different tasks. IE Giving yourself blueprints for the time machine and telling yourself you need to go back and time and deliver them to yourself. This causes an issue where time just loops repeatedly....except since there are two of you wouldn't you be able to have one live a normal life from that moment on? IE After each delivers the blueprint he stays at that point in time and lives forward while the other goes back?

IDK if ANY of this made sense. Brain imploding.

[StarMountainKid]

These are all very nice ideas. Another nice idea would be to use your time machine as a sort of present time machine. You could pick a day in your past that you really liked and live it over and over again.

I don't know about you all, but I've had some interesting days I'd like to revisit.

[FlyingAngel]

Granted, there would be some minor changes, the question is would those changes be enough to significantly change history? I, personally, don't think the time line is so fragile that just being there will change anything so much as to effect the historical outcome. That's just a personal opinion so feel free to accept or reject at your leisure.

Now in the Hitler scenario, if you kill Hitler as a child or when he was in the trenches of WWI before he made any significant impact then it's very likely that we might avoid WWII, but many significant changes happened as a result of that conflict and brought us to the existence we enjoy now as a result. Now as far as a replacement Hitler goes, unfortunately there seems to be no end to possible replacements for him in the years that have followed. Stalin, Idi Amin, Ferdinand Marcos, just to name a couple who come to mind right off. Without that conflict the present would be significantly altered, so as bad as he was, the end result was better overall for the world.....yes, even with the cold war and the threat of nuclear annihilation that we managed to get through.

Minor change? We are not prophets, we can't predict the future. Who are we to decide whether it's a minor or a big change? Yes, you kill Hitler, you could save lots of people. But the world is complicated. You are not sure that 100% of those who are saved are all good people. There are probably murderers, bad people among them; which will give birth to a 2nd Hitler or Saddam Mussen?

A minor changes, like saving/killing one people, changing one's perception of the world could lead to the birth/death of a future genious/monster that could save/destroy the world. Maybe not in 10 years, not in 100 years, but in 1000 years.

If one person die, then his supposed to exist descendants can't exist. You can't deny that logic.

1000 years ~~ 3000 generations ~~ 6000 people which is supposed to live/die. Not even counting these 6000 people could save/kill other people too or could there be a genious that save humanity.

The concludion is DON'T BE SO SURE and DO NOT PLAY GOD.

Human's not bird, is not flower. Human is intelligent and aggressive. One minor change in a person, change the world.

[StarMountainKid]

There's a science fiction story by Ray Bradbury where you could go back in time and hunt dinosaurs. But you had to stay on an artificial path and kill them just as they were about to die anyway. The guides and a new hunter were nice people watching election returns, and the good guy was about to be elected President.

So, a guide took this new hunter into the past, warning him to stay on the artificial path. As a dinosaur came up suddenly, the new hunter panicked and stepped off the path just for a moment. His guide cursed him for doing this. When they returned to the present, the hunter and his guide found the other guides were now miserable b******s cheering the bad guy for winning the election.

The guide was furious. He pointed to the hunter's boot and yelled, "See what you've done by stepping off the path!" Stuck to the hunter's boot was a dead butterfly.

[keninsc]

Minor change? We are not prophets, we can't predict the future. Who are we to decide whether it's a minor or a big change? Yes, you kill Hitler, you could save lots of people. But the world is complicated. You are not sure that 100% of those who are saved are all good people. There are probably murderers, bad people among them; which will give birth to a 2nd Hitler or Saddam Mussen?

A minor changes, like saving/killing one people, changing one's perception of the world could lead to the birth/death of a future genious/monster that could save/destroy the world. Maybe not in 10 years, not in 100 years, but in 1000 years.

If one person die, then his supposed to exist descendants can't exist. You can't deny that logic.

1000 years ~~ 3000 generations ~~ 6000 people which is supposed to live/die. Not even counting these 6000 people could save/kill other people too or could there be a genious that save humanity.

The concludion is DON'T BE SO SURE and DO NOT PLAY GOD.

Human's not bird, is not flower. Human is intelligent and aggressive. One minor change in a person, change the world.

Wow, I truly don't know how to respond to that. So I'll just not respond at all.

[keninsc]

There's a science fiction story by Ray Bradbury where you could go back in time and hunt dinosaurs. But you had to stay on an artificial path and kill them just as they were about to die anyway. The guides and a new hunter were nice people watching election returns, and the good guy was about to be elected President.

So, a guide took this new hunter into the past, warning him to stay on the artificial path. As a dinosaur came up suddenly, the new hunter panicked and stepped off the path just for a moment. His guide cursed him for doing this. When they returned to the present, the hunter and his guide found the other guides were now miserable b******s cheering the bad guy for winning the election.

The guide was furious. He pointed to the hunter's boot and yelled, "See what you've done by stepping off the path!" Stuck to the hunter's boot was a dead butterfly.

I think the Sci-Fi channel made a movie based on that story. Good story, however they went back and killed the same dinosaur over and over again. Personally, I can't imagine wanting to go hunt a T-Rex, but different stokes and all that, also I can't imagine a "for profit" company offering a hunting trip back in time, the energy cost alone would be astronomical to say the least unless you have some new and super-bad-ass reactor to provide that amount of power cheaply enough.

In that story everything was fine so long as they stayed in one tightly defined space within that prehistoric timeline. Any stepping off the path and the fabric of history could change. If the timeline is indeed that fragile then time travel should never be attempted.........but then a lot of good fiction deals with time incursions into the passed.

[Knight Of Shadows]

suppose we invented a machine that can go in speed of light .. and launched toward the spaces for long long distances and light years

when that ship comes back .. will the time on earth stay the same or it'll be the future ?

it always puzzled me

[keninsc]

suppose we invented a machine that can go in speed of light .. and launched toward the spaces for long long distances and light years

when that ship comes back .. will the time on earth stay the same or it'll be the future ?

it always puzzled me

Suggestion, read up on Einstein's theory of relativity. There are a couple good sites you can read from Google.

[StarMountainKid]

Here's another paradox. I build a time machine, but it can only receive printed messages from the future. Today is Monday. My plan is, tomorrow, Tuesday, I will drop a message into the input saying, "It is now Tuesday at 12 noon." What happens?

As soon as I turn the machine on (Monday) I receive the first message: "It is now Tuesday at 12 noon." Great, my time machine works! My future self sent me the message! I put the printed message in my pocket.

But now I have an idea. One minute after I receive the first message, I destroy the input part of the machine. It cannot be repaired in just 24 hours.

The paradox is, I've gotten a message from myself from tomorrow, but when i break the machine after I received the message, tomorrow I will be unable to send the message.

Who sent the message that I have in my pocket?

[Mikko-kun]

The time paradox works like this:

You want to go back in time to save her life. You build a time machine. You go back in time and you succeed. She lives. Time catches up to where you were inspired to create the time machine to save her life, only now, you are not inspired to invent the machine, because she never died. You never had any reason to invent the machine. Ergo, the machine never gets invented. Which means that you were never able to go back in time to save her. Which means she dies. And then you get inspired to build a time machine. You go back in time and you succeed....

There may be an infinite number of parallel realities. After saving her life when you went back to the past, you think about going back to the future. But which future, the one where she's still dead or the new altered future? What happens to you in the "old" future if you leave to the new future which you altered? How will the new future react to there being two yous there, especially if the two yous happen to meet each other? How would existence of karma and spirit that goes through deaths and rebirths affect this, would it mean that there can be only one dimension in this sense? If so, maybe the "bleed" effect that you can hear on some tapes that was mentioned, manifests. What if your karma and spirit become altered with this process and you happen to meet the other you, maybe through the bleed effect?

Why are both subjectivity and objectivity valid points of observation?

[keninsc]

Here's another paradox. I build a time machine, but it can only receive printed messages from the future. Today is Monday. My plan is, tomorrow, Tuesday, I will drop a message into the input saying, "It is now Tuesday at 12 noon." What happens?

As soon as I turn the machine on (Monday) I receive the first message: "It is now Tuesday at 12 noon." Great, my time machine works! My future self sent me the message! I put the printed message in my pocket.

But now I have an idea. One minute after I receive the first message, I destroy the input part of the machine. It cannot be repaired in just 24 hours.

The paradox is, I've gotten a message from myself from tomorrow, but when i break the machine after I received the message, tomorrow I will be unable to send the message.

Who sent the message that I have in my pocket?

Even if you message yourself about something in the future there are two things you have to consider, 1) Is your past self going to believe it's from the future and from you? And 2) will you believe it enough to act upon it? Strangely enough, I have gotten email from friends who've died. No as some paranormal event but rather they wrote all the emails then set them to be emailed at a future time. Yes, as it happens they knew they were terminally ill at the time.......so when I got the email you can imagine I very nearly crapped my pants, especially because they arrived on very nearly the exact dated of her death. Fortunately, in the same batch of new emails was an email from her still living partner who explained it all............however, I ruined a perfectly good pair of drawer in the process. No, it isn't the totally same thing, but still, get an email from a friend who died last year and see how big a skid mark you leave in the "Fruit of the Looms"?

[StarMountainKid]

keninsc

Since the present influences the future, the future must be a confusing place, constantly adjusting itself to everything you do today to keep in sync.

[keninsc]

keninsc

Since the present influences the future, the future must be a confusing place, constantly adjusting itself to everything you do today to keep in sync.

Actually, the future, at least the future in our time line, isn't carved in stone as yet it's still in a state of flux depending on what happens before it becomes the here and now then becomes the past. Which is why I hold a personal belief that traveling forward in time isn't possible. I could be wrong on that, but it's just a personal belief.

[StarMountainKid]

Actually, the future, at least the future in our time line, isn't carved in stone as yet it's still in a state of flux depending on what happens before it becomes the here and now then becomes the past. Which is why I hold a personal belief that traveling forward in time isn't possible. I could be wrong on that, but it's just a personal belief.

If there is no concrete future, and all time travel is only into the past, an interesting element crops up.

As a time traveler, if you travel back to last Tuesday and observe what someone is doing that day, then travel back further one day to Monday and observe him, from your perspective his future is carved in stone. He may think the future is in flux an has not happened yet, as you do, but he would be wrong.

Now, if on that Monday you told the person you were a time traveler, and that knowledge changed his behavior so that on Tuesday he acted differently than he did when you first observed him on Tuesday, what happened to his original Tuesday behavior that you observed first?

Also, if time travel into the past were possible, how would we know if we are living in our present or in some time traveler's past?

I hate time travelers, they make a simple thing like time way too complicated.

Edited May 9, 2012 by StarMountainKid

[keninsc]

As a time traveler, if you travel back to last Tuesday and observe what someone is doing that day, then travel back further one day to Monday and observe him, from your perspective his future is carved in stone. He may think the future is in flux an has not happened yet, as you do, but he would be wrong.

In this scenario, the only person who knows what the observed person's future is, is the time traveler. The only reason he knows what will happen is because he's already seen the future events as they played out. However, for the observed person, his future is in a state of flux because he hasn't made the critical choice as yet.

Now, if on that Monday you told the person you were a time traveler, and that knowledge changed his behavior so that on Tuesday he acted differently than he did when you first observed him on Tuesday, what happened to his original Tuesday behavior that you observed first?

Simple, it didn't happen. You altered the event by giving him knowledge of what the consequences of his action would be and I would assume he took the advice. Now, I would point out that the event only had an effect on him......perhaps another person as well, but you didn't specify another person. Keep in mind that we all aren't interconnected like a Borg collective. If I went back and say prevented you from tripping and falling down a flight of steps, which resulted in you becoming a paraplegic. That doesn't have an effect on anyone else really except you.........now hold on. You might argue that it will effect everyone who would have been involved in his recovery and rehabilitation and any subsequent care givers. They don't get involved in that until after he gets injured, you prevent the injury then they continue on with their lives as they would have before, resulting in no effective change because the altering change event was the actual fall that you prevented. You see what I'm saying?

Also, if time travel into the past were possible, how would we know if we are living in our present or in some time traveler's past?

That's an age old question really, how do we know that some of these UFO sighting are time travelers from the future coming back for historical research/observation? Personally, I've always sort of wondered about that......and no.....for all you guys who are into demanding proof......it's just a pet theory of mine just like you have yours. Only mine are well-reasoned, logical and insightful.

I hate time travelers, they make a simple thing like time way too complicated.

Time travel has always fascinated me. I fancy myself a bit of a writer and I enjoy time travel plots, possible reaction and even adverse reactions. Some writer do get into some skull cracking paradox issues and some are just really far out there. If you go back and knock up your grand mother for instance and make yourself your own grand son then as a result you may well have altered you very genetic make up which changes who you are and who all you offspring are which would result in your not having become a time traveler in the first place and resulted in you not knocking up grand Mama which then changes your DNA back to what you were before resulting in your becoming a time traveler.

Ok, now I have a headache. Happy? Good, now be a good lad and pass me the industrial strength Tylenol.

[StarMountainKid]

In this scenario, the only person who knows what the observed person's future is, is the time traveler. The only reason he knows what will happen is because he's already seen the future events as they played out. However, for the observed person, his future is in a state of flux because he hasn't made the critical choice as yet.

I agree. I think for the person, he of course views his future as a state of flux, but actually his future is fixed in a sense, as it will play out as the time traveler has seen. There is nothing the person can do to change his future as witnessed by the time traveler. It's a matter of perspective as you say, but also, the person's future has already happened from the time traveler's perspective, so looking at it this way, for the person, his future is a real predetermined dimension, and not in flux at all.

You say in your second paragraph that the original events the time traveler witnessed on Tuesday didn't happen after the person altered his behavior after the time traveler introduced himself, which altered the person's behavior on Tuesday. But the original events the time traveler witnessed on Tuesday must have happened, because the time traveler witnessed them happening. I understand your point, and you may be right, but what has happened to the original Tuesday's events? Can that original day's events just disappear from the person's timeline, or must it still exist somehow in some where or in some when?

There's a famous and interesting time travel short story by Robert A. Heinlein called, "All You Zombies", that delves deeply into time travel paradoxes.

Interesting that you are interested in writing time travel plots, if I understand you correctly. I've written a couple of comedic time travel stories using my fictional Alien characters Zarkor and Zerak. I enjoy thinking about time, too, but it does give me a headache as well. Maybe we should end things here and rest our minds for a while.

Edited May 9, 2012 by StarMountainKid

[keninsc]

You say in your second paragraph that the original events the time traveler witnessed on Tuesday didn't happen after the person altered his behavior after the time traveler introduced himself, which altered the person's behavior on Tuesday. But the original events the time traveler witnessed on Tuesday must have happened, because the time traveler witnessed them happening. I understand your point, and you may be right, but what has happened to the original Tuesday's events? Can that original day's events just disappear from the person's timeline, or must it still exist somehow in some where or in some when?

The time traveler gave the person a new knowledge of what would happen and they made changes to that timeline. In that case that old time line ceased to exist, because as it turned out it never happened in the new timeline. The only person in the world who would know about the old timeline and what happened would be the traveler. So in a sense the altered past only existed in his own mind in the new timeline. This is why I don't think the timeline is so fragile, while the event.....whatever it was.....changed and it had an effect on the person the traveler talked to, in the world of everyone else nothing changed really. The change only really effected the traveler and the person he spoke to, the rest of the world just kept right on going.

I think you're right all these scenarios are giving me a headache as well. LOL!

[Brucewillisisaghost!]

The Grandfather paradox is one that always crops up in discussions of time travel. I would recommend the writing of the meta-physician David Lewis on the subject to anyone who is interested in it. Lewis's theory relies on "personal" time and "external" time; personal time being time as experienced by the traveller external time being that of people, objects and processes that are not travelling. So a backwards time traveller could have a later moment in their personal time that is an earlier moment in external time. He talks of a time traveller Tim who hates his grandfather and wishes to travel back in time to kill him. Now grandfather died in bed in 1957 when Tim was a child but if he was to travel back to 1920 could he then kill his grandfather? The problem is that this would cause a contradictory state of affairs which is impossible. Grandfather died in 1957 not 1920 so Tim cannot kill him. It is not the case that Tim's knowledge of grandfather's death in 1957 makes grandfather bullet-proof just that while Tim "can" kill grandfather e.g. he has a high-powered rifle, he is a good shot . . etc it is the case that he didn't. A backwards time-traveller cannot change the past in the sense of changing A to not-A; Tim cannot change a grandfather that died in 1957 into one that died in 1920, however he could change the past counter-factually in the sense that something which could have happened did not and so make the past as opposed to change it. So you could not go back and ensure that Hitler lived to stand trial at Nuremberg but you may find that were it not for your intervention he would have escaped into exile. Anyone interested in how the theory of relativity does not negate time-travel as a (theoretical) impossibility google something called a Tipler Cylinder.

[The Id3al Experience]

The time traveler gave the person a new knowledge of what would happen and they made changes to that timeline. In that case that old time line ceased to exist, because as it turned out it never happened in the new timeline. The only person in the world who would know about the old timeline and what happened would be the traveler. So in a sense the altered past only existed in his own mind in the new timeline. This is why I don't think the timeline is so fragile, while the event.....whatever it was.....changed and it had an effect on the person the traveler talked to, in the world of everyone else nothing changed really. The change only really effected the traveler and the person he spoke to, the rest of the world just kept right on going.

I think you're right all these scenarios are giving me a headache as well. LOL!

You cant go back and change something that has happened, because then you wouldnt have gone back to change it.... coz it wouldnt have happend.... wow lol.

[StarMountainKid]

You cant go back and change something that has happened, because then you wouldnt have gone back to change it.... coz it wouldnt have happend.... wow lol

Yes, but before you changed it, it did happen. Only after you've gone back in time and changed what happened does your statement beome true. When you return to your original time, the change has happened, so you don't have to go back again.

I think the question is, does the time traveler remain separate from the timeline? When he returns to his originlal time, does he know he has changed things? I think he would, because during his journey he has not experienced the changed timeline until he returns to his original present. Then he would notice the change he has caused.

I think this is true because for him on his time journey, no time would have passed for him in his original present. I say this because during his journey back in time he doesn't exist in his original present. He returns to the same instant he left, and notices the change.

I hope it all turned out as he intended!