65 replies to this topic

[cladking]

cormac mac airt, on 22 January 2013 - 11:06 PM, said:

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]

cladking, on 22 January 2013 - 11:52 PM, said:

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]

cormac mac airt, on 23 January 2013 - 12:22 AM, said:

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]

cladking, on 23 January 2013 - 02:36 AM, said:

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.