Time travel theory avoids grandfather paradox

[Siara]

My understanding of relativity is that you can't reverse time, you can only change the pace at which it goes forward. So the grandfather paradox could never arise.

My belief is that if we ever develop warp speed maybe we could send zillions of cameras focused on earth out in a massive shell around our planet. If the cameras had been transported faster than the speed of light and each one somehow represented a few pixels on a giant screen we could conceivably watch reruns of our history (the cameras would record images that happened before those cameras launched because they beat the light into space). We will never be able to go back in time.

Yup, I know this is weird.

Edited July 28, 2010 by Siara

[sepulchrave]

My understanding of relativity is that you can't reverse time, you can only change the pace at which it goes forward. So the grandfather paradox could never arise.

That is through conventional space travel. General Relativity appears to allow the creation of wormholes, and there appears to be no difference between creating a wormhole to a different region of space and a wormhole to a different period in time (or, of course, a combination thereof).

Now obviously making a wormhole is currently impossible, and might always be impossible, since we'd need some very strange forms of exotic matter to build one.

However the mere possibility that a suitable arrangement of mass/energy could create a wormhole, and therefore allow time travel, gives theorists headaches trying to create a paradox-free Universe.

My belief is that if we ever develop warp speed maybe we could send zillions of cameras focused on earth out in a massive shell around our planet. If the cameras had been transported faster than the speed of light and each one somehow represented a few pixels on a giant screen we could conceivably watch reruns of our history (the cameras would record images that happened before those cameras launched because they beat the light into space). We will never be able to go back in time.

Yup, I know this is weird.

If you can travel faster than the speed of light, you can travel back in time.

[danielost]

i wish to point out that the ops fix for this paradox is to make rules.

[psyche101]

Well, no, that's just it. The multiple universe idea is just another idea that is grounded in our innate desire to return to a linear timeline. What I'm talking about is the third option of "We won't be able to logic it out."

What I am saying is that there may well be a paradox for us, because we are unlikely to be able to understand existence in the 4th dimension, whereas to someone in the 4th dimension, there is no more paradox to this than there is to us seeing the star within the circle.

Just hoping to see if I am understanding you post correctly.

Are you saying there is no point in speculating because we do not know what we are speculating about?

[The Silver Thong]

Just hoping to see if I am understanding you post correctly.

Are you saying there is no point in speculating because we do not know what we are speculating about?

I would have to go with that. We could speculate till the cows come home but in the end the debate will have not moved at all. Theorizing is one thing putting it into practical use seems a waste of time.

[aquatus1]

Just hoping to see if I am understanding you post correctly.

Are you saying there is no point in speculating because we do not know what we are speculating about?

Not at all. Speculating is fun! What I am saying is that one cannot assume the same rules apply from one dimension to another. In the same way that the rules of the quantum universe do not apply to ours, our rules do not apply to that of the 4th dimension. The Grandfather Paradox may seem like a paradox to us, but it may be no more a paradox to someone in the 4th dimension than Schrodinger's cat is to someone in the quantum world.

[danielost]

Not at all. Speculating is fun! What I am saying is that one cannot assume the same rules apply from one dimension to another. In the same way that the rules of the quantum universe do not apply to ours, our rules do not apply to that of the 4th dimension. The Grandfather Paradox may seem like a paradox to us, but it may be no more a paradox to someone in the 4th dimension than Schrodinger's cat is to someone in the quantum world.

i think the rules of one spatial dimension applies to all spatial dimensions.

that being said, there could be rules/laws in the higher dimension that modify or negate lower dimensions.