Time Travelers

[freetoroam]

Man fears time, but time fears the pyramids - old saying I may have just mucked up.

Nice one:

I read Tutankhamun by Otto Neubert many years ago, I think man should fear the pyramids too.

[keninsc]

Actually, we don't know this would lead to a paradox either. At least not in the way you seem to be implying. It's also possible that in going back and killing ones own grandfather that it might create an alternate timeline in which ones lineage originates with ones self at that point.

cormac

Oooooh, paradox.....my old shrivelled up a$s. Everyone who doesn't want to tax their brains runs to the paradox excuse like it's home base in backyard tag or something. To hear the weak, lame and just inane paradox excuses you'd think us talking about the past might change it. Give me a freaking break. I happen to enjoy talking about it and discussing the theoretical aspects of the subject. If you want to discuss it like adults then let's do so, if not or your ego can't handle getting your pet paradox theory shot down then please just drink a big glass of ****.

Cormac, sorry to unload in my reply to you. I actually agree with you on this........however these others either can't or won't get their head out and think......and on occasion it just pi$ses me all the way off. Again, sorry.

[cladking]

Actually, we don't know this would lead to a paradox either. At least not in the way you seem to be implying. It's also possible that in going back and killing ones own grandfather that it might create an alternate timeline in which ones lineage originates with ones self at that point.

I don't know how it might work. All I know is no one else started with himself.

We don't know there is such a thing as an "alternative timeline" so we're complicating

this tremendously. What if instead of altering the reality in the here and now in the past

we instead just removed an object that would be of immense importance over the coming

centuries? Soes this so-called time line split each time the object is missed?

It appears that time is both real and a construct. It's the 4th dimension that prevents

two objects from being in the same place and is necessary to describe movement but there's

no way of knowing there's much reality beyond this. Funny thing is I'm the guy who doesn't

believe one plus one equals two but it's everyone else who has no problem with the effects

of time travel and foreknowledge.

A human being, or even an object, can not exist without having an influence on his surroun-

dings. The more activity and communication the greater the impact. The ability to remote

sense things in the past doesn't break any possibly immutable lawsa except that I can't im-

agine how someting can be sensed remotely without some sort of transducer. Chaos and

the random behavior of particals wholly erases the present nearly as fast as it occurs so no

possibility of "rewconstruction" exists.

Time travel is very little more than an interesting concept. It's one I've found intriguing all of

my life and forms the basis of much of my favorite fiction, but it's logically unsound and there

are no experiments revealing the nature of time beyond the distortion associated with speed.

Perhaps time travel happens only once and it occurs in 20 years when someone goes back

to the 1890's and kills his great grandfather causing the universe to blink out of existence.

[cormac mac airt]

I don't know how it might work. All I know is no one else started with himself.

We don't know there is such a thing as an "alternative timeline" so we're complicating

this tremendously. What if instead of altering the reality in the here and now in the past

we instead just removed an object that would be of immense importance over the coming

centuries? Soes this so-called time line split each time the object is missed?

~SNIP~

That's the point, cladking. There's much about time and dimensions that we don't know. So it's meaningless for you to claim what we 'do' know concerning paradoxes.

cormac

[TheSearcher]

Clad, despite you being a pain in the butt now and then, you do have humor, "always ready" indeed

Now, Stephen Hawking has suggested that the absence of tourists from the future, is an argument against the existence of time travel. This does not prove that time travel is physically impossible, since it might be that time travel is physically possible, but that it is never developed, or isn't practiced because of the inherent dangers.

Hawking also says, that time travel might only be possible in a region of spacetime, which is warped in the correct way and that if we cannot create such a region until the future, time travelers would not be able to travel back before that date, so "This picture would explain why we haven't been over run by tourists from the future." (dixit Hawking)

Goes to show that even such eminent scientist entertains the idea of time travel.

[Trakkia]

As a reply to the original post; I'm pretty sure a fair amount of people are aware of the the 'time travels faster further from a gravitational pull' or similar, not sure which way around it is. Anyways, you could go to one of these places where time travels slower in comparison to the place you are currently in. Then once you have spent a certain amount of time there, enough for your needs, not that you'd notice the difference-you wouldnt see, feel or think like you're in slow motion- because you move with the flow of time there, you return to where you were and you will be in the 'future' but would not have aged as much as if you had stayed there, so I suppose you can call that time travel. It's like being in a slow moving river that leads out to sea, you don't want to spend all that time to get out to sea, so you go left to that fast moving river and hurry off to sea, then join back with the other river just before you get to sea. You end up where you would have gone anyway, but it took less time, so you aged less. Not quite the traditional idea of time travel, though.

As for travelling backwards in time, it doesn't make any sense, at least not to me. Someone would have gone back in time and we would know about it. Plus, even if it was outlawed, doesn't anyone think they'd have bankrupted betting agencies or killed a few historical figures? There's always going to be some guy, terrorist or psychopath or someone with a grudge, to do that, and there'd always be a way to get their hands on a time machine if it exists. If it exists, someone's going to use it.

So yeah, its impossible to travel back in time, not just people are rational and didn't use it because bad things could happen, there's always some idiot to do it, a fair amount that don't care if they die because of it.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Trakkia

[cladking]

That's the point, cladking. There's much about time and dimensions that we don't know. So it's meaningless for you to claim what we 'do' know concerning paradoxes.

It's not really my contention that we know anything about temporal paradoxes beyong their theoretical definition.

You're probably familiar with Xeno's paradox which states that in order to walk across a room youmust first walk

half way across. Then you must half the remaining distance and then half that remainer ad infinitum making it

impossible to walk across the room. My opinion is that this is a fault in the way we define space/ time and is not

real. Of course there are other ways to interpret this.

We do know that everything in existence has a precedent and that time travel back in time would seem to entail

the ability to erase one of these precedents. I don't know how nature deals with this and no one will until we have

a means to travel back in time but my guess and the evidence still suggests that nature deals with it by making it

impossible just like it's impossible for 3 x 7 to not equal 7 + 7 + 7. Nature isn't beholden to anyone's opinion, least

of all mine.

Time travel is a fascinating concept because it opens up many worlds we don't know and a few we do. If the uni-

verse doesn't blink out of existence on the first trip one could spend a lifetime learning about its nature as well as

the past and future. I've got a few questions for Imhotep.

[cladking]

Now, Stephen Hawking has suggested that the absence of tourists from the future, is an argument against the existence of time travel. This does not prove that time travel is physically impossible, since it might be that time travel is physically possible, but that it is never developed, or isn't practiced because of the inherent dangers.

Hawking also says, that time travel might only be possible in a region of spacetime, which is warped in the correct way and that if we cannot create such a region until the future, time travelers would not be able to travel back before that date, so "This picture would explain why we haven't been over run by tourists from the future." (dixit Hawking)

Goes to show that even such eminent scientist entertains the idea of time travel.

And I still say Hawking's opinion is irrelevant. This goes twice over since he believes he recently disproved "god".

When he can show some attribute of time experimentally then his opinion willmean something. At this time it's merely

hypothesis at best and mere speculation at worst. When Hawking speculates about cosmology or physics, I'll listen,

but not when he speculates about God or time.

People should play in their own ballparks or act like a Roman.

[cladking]

Travel to the future entails no paradoxes and is lightly evidenced. It's highly improbable

anyone has devised a technological means of traveling to the future yet unless the ancients

did it with some sort of science we don't understand which is also highly improbable but there

could well be natural means by which things, people, or some potentiality is removed from the

present and deposited in the future. There's no paradox because the present from which "he"

or it is ripped simply continues to evolve naturally without his or its influence until it becomes

the past. Perhaps this is the cause of "ghosts" or other apparently supernatural and lightly

evidenced phenomena. There are cases of people being in two places at one time which might

be accounted for by short jumps.

It's difficult to imagine what natural process could cause this but then nature doesn't care about

peoples' imaginations either. Perhaps it's some strange implosion of some time elements that get

too large because some force prevents them from transmogrifying into photons as they are sup-

posed to.

Perhaps at the end of time can be found many quadrillions of time machines from all over the universe

because the operators didn't properly understand entropy. Perhaps all this mass is the dark matter

rippling through space-time and "God" is the first machine intelligence that created the universe so

talking apes would build it knowing that He needed time drives at the end to reboot.

In point of fact people believe they have all the answers but we don't even really know what the ques-

tions are yet. Science only means what it means and technology does not represent knowledge or

intelligence. We have barely even begun to understand the most basic aspects of nature yet our

ability to understand it is already breaking down. Just as the ancients ran into the brick wall of an

overly complicated metaphysics we are running into a brick wall of overly complicated experimental

results. If even people like Hawking don't comprehend the nature of science and nature then what

chance do the rest of us have?

[cormac mac airt]

Travel to the future entails no paradoxes and is lightly evidenced. It's highly improbable

anyone has devised a technological means of traveling to the future yet unless the ancients

did it with some sort of science we don't understand which is also highly improbable but there

could well be natural means by which things, people, or some potentiality is removed from the

present and deposited in the future. There's no paradox because the present from which "he"

or it is ripped simply continues to evolve naturally without his or its influence until it becomes

the past. Perhaps this is the cause of "ghosts" or other apparently supernatural and lightly

evidenced phenomena. There are cases of people being in two places at one time which might

be accounted for by short jumps.

It's difficult to imagine what natural process could cause this but then nature doesn't care about

peoples' imaginations either. Perhaps it's some strange implosion of some time elements that get

too large because some force prevents them from transmogrifying into photons as they are sup-

posed to.

Perhaps at the end of time can be found many quadrillions of time machines from all over the universe

because the operators didn't properly understand entropy. Perhaps all this mass is the dark matter

rippling through space-time and "God" is the first machine intelligence that created the universe so

talking apes would build it knowing that He needed time drives at the end to reboot.

In point of fact people believe they have all the answers but we don't even really know what the ques-

tions are yet. Science only means what it means and technology does not represent knowledge or

intelligence. We have barely even begun to understand the most basic aspects of nature yet our

ability to understand it is already breaking down. Just as the ancients ran into the brick wall of an

overly complicated metaphysics we are running into a brick wall of overly complicated experimental

results. If even people like Hawking don't comprehend the nature of science and nature then what

chance do the rest of us have?

And this is what I'm talking about. Until science gets to the point where it understands the nature and aspects of time and whether or not time travel in either direction or across dimensions (if they exist) is possible then no one, including yourself, has any idea what paradoxes (if any) will or won't come into play.

More often than not you'll say something like the above "It's not my contention that...) and then say the exact opposite. Perhaps you might want to reconsider that approach.

People should play in their own ballparks or act like a Roman.

Sounds like good advise. Perhaps you should pay attention to yourself.

cormac

[cladking]

And this is what I'm talking about. Until science gets to the point where it understands the nature and aspects of time and whether or not time travel in either direction or across dimensions (if they exist) is possible then no one, including yourself, has any idea what paradoxes (if any) will or won't come into play.

More often than not you'll say something like the above "It's not my contention that...) and then say the exact opposite. Perhaps you might want to reconsider that approach.

I'm merely saying that there are not necessarily any paradoxes going forward in time but

there are necessarily paradoxes going backward in time. I don't need to know the nature

of these paradoxes or how they affect things in the real world in order to identify the fact

they would exist as soon as something went back in time.

Maybe Dr Who is right and time is just a wibbly wobbly mess turned in on itself and minor

paradoxes have no effect. But W(w)ho knows more than Dr Hawking.(?) The only thing

we know for certain is time progresses only one direction at the same rate as determined by

speed. We can measure it but our definition of it does not allow us to manipulate the event

itself. While theoretical means exist to time travel they are not based on actual knowledge

or experiment.

[cormac mac airt]

I'm merely saying that there are not necessarily any paradoxes going forward in time but

there are necessarily paradoxes going backward in time. I don't need to know the nature

of these paradoxes or how they affect things in the real world in order to identify the fact

they would exist as soon as something went back in time.

Maybe Dr Who is right and time is just a wibbly wobbly mess turned in on itself and minor

paradoxes have no effect. But W(w)ho knows more than Dr Hawking.(?) The only thing

we know for certain is time progresses only one direction at the same rate as determined by

speed. We can measure it but our definition of it does not allow us to manipulate the event

itself. While theoretical means exist to time travel they are not based on actual knowledge

or experiment.

And either what you don't comprehend or would rather ignore is that since we don't have a realistic understanding of the nature of time and how it operates and whether it's just a single, linear progression of events for our universe, or a composite of 'X' number of possibilities/dimensions operating at the same time then there's not validity to your claim that "there are necessarily paradoxes going backward in time". In short, your statement has no basis in fact.

cormac

[+DieChecker]

I've seen on various shows on time travel that one idea is that whenever a time traveler goes into the past, he actually is not going into his Past, but into a branched off alternate universe. So that no matter what a time traveler does he cannot affect his own timeline. And for the people in the alternate universe, it has always been that way, so they don't notice anything either. And every single time someone would go back in time, it would be the same thing.... a seperate universe created for each. So there is no way to go back and "Fix" anything, since the present will never change.

[cladking]

And either what you don't comprehend or would rather ignore is that since we don't have a realistic understanding of the nature of time and how it operates and whether it's just a single, linear progression of events for our universe, or a composite of 'X' number of possibilities/dimensions operating at the same time then there's not validity to your claim that "there are necessarily paradoxes going backward in time". In short, your statement has no basis in fact.

Sure there are. As certainly as the son follows the father or summer follows spring that have

to be paradoxes. It's true that we don't know the nature of the paradoxes and we can't state

that the existence of paradoxes in time travel makes it impossible but we can say there are

paradoxes in travelling back in time.

You can talk about "alternate time lines" or numerous means to resolve paradoxes but until

such time as there's an experimental basis for such concepts (such as alternate time lines)

there is still a paradox. It's legitimate to ask where are these other time line? You say out of

phase or somesuch but again we run right into lack of evidence and the illogic of nature being

able to create a whole new universe each time we put the key in the way-back machine. If we

are going to an "alternate time line" then it's not really our past so the very definition of "time

travel" becomes "alternate time line generator". That we can actually do things in the past

without the universe flicking out of existence is nice but what if there's a finite number of uni-

verses that can exist and after 10,000 or maybe 8 trips to the "past" the universe still disappears.

The paradoxes are essential to time travel. That they might not matter is beside the point. Their

existence and the lack of timetravelers leads me to believe we will never have this technology and

that it is most probably impossible in nature.

[cormac mac airt]

Sure there are. As certainly as the son follows the father or summer follows spring that have

to be paradoxes. It's true that we don't know the nature of the paradoxes and we can't state

that the existence of paradoxes in time travel makes it impossible but we can say there are

paradoxes in travelling back in time.

You can talk about "alternate time lines" or numerous means to resolve paradoxes but until

such time as there's an experimental basis for such concepts (such as alternate time lines)

there is still a paradox. It's legitimate to ask where are these other time line? You say out of

phase or somesuch but again we run right into lack of evidence and the illogic of nature being

able to create a whole new universe each time we put the key in the way-back machine. If we

are going to an "alternate time line" then it's not really our past so the very definition of "time

travel" becomes "alternate time line generator". That we can actually do things in the past

without the universe flicking out of existence is nice but what if there's a finite number of uni-

verses that can exist and after 10,000 or maybe 8 trips to the "past" the universe still disappears.

The paradoxes are essential to time travel. That they might not matter is beside the point. Their

existence and the lack of timetravelers leads me to believe we will never have this technology and

that it is most probably impossible in nature.

And again you're putting the cart before the horse. We don't even have an experimental basis to support any meaningful version of time travel itself and you're already placing unknown and currently unknowable limitations on it. I'm not sure whether that deserves a bigger award for ignorance or hilarity.

cormac

[stevemagegod]

I have read somewhere that Seances could be used as a way of Time Travelers instead of Ghosts to contact the past without much interaction.