"Time Travel"

[~kitty~]

Originally Posted by devonin

Or we're just already living the reality that is the result of all current and future trips into our past.

Then we find out about all future time travels to the past and detect that they'll arrive somewhere and we shoot them and kill them, then send a person into the future to shoot them again and what then?

We caused a paradox, so I doubt that's going to happen.

Plus the theory that no two entities can exist at the same time in the same place still stands, I believe.

[devonin]

Originally Posted by ~kitty~

Then we find out about all future time travels to the past and detect that they'll arrive somewhere and we shoot them and kill them, then send a person into the future to shoot them again and what then?

We caused a paradox, so I doubt that's going to happen.

Plus the theory that no two entities can exist at the same time in the same place still stands, I believe.

Perhaps you misunderstand? The past that we experienced IS ALREADY THE ONE THAT HAS BEEN MODIFIED BY FUTURE TIME TRAVELLERS. That is, you cannot go back in time and change the timeline, because when you go back in time, what you did has already happened, since it is, after all, in the past. So any changes you were going to make ARE WHAT HAPPENED, and the resulting timeline which is our timeline is completely paradox free.

As for the theory, I think you mean that no -one- entity can exist in the same time and place as itself? Like, I can't go back in time to my own childhood and give myself some winning lottery numbers or something? Even if we grant that as correct, that still doesn't suggest any inability to time travel, so I'm not sure why you brought it up.

[~kitty~]

Originally Posted by devonin

Perhaps you misunderstand? The past that we experienced IS ALREADY THE ONE THAT HAS BEEN MODIFIED BY FUTURE TIME TRAVELLERS. That is, you cannot go back in time and change the timeline, because when you go back in time, what you did has already happened, since it is, after all, in the past. So any changes you were going to make ARE WHAT HAPPENED, and the resulting timeline which is our timeline is completely paradox free.

As for the theory, I think you mean that no -one- entity can exist in the same time and place as itself? Like, I can't go back in time to my own childhood and give myself some winning lottery numbers or something? Even if we grant that as correct, that still doesn't suggest any inability to time travel, so I'm not sure why you brought it up.

Hmm, I did mean that.

and I guess I did misunderstand, so I do see what you mean now.

I was thinking in a different context. I was a little in a rush with my thinking and sorta slipped on that.

[slipstrike0159]

Originally Posted by devonin

Perhaps you misunderstand? The past that we experienced IS ALREADY THE ONE THAT HAS BEEN MODIFIED BY FUTURE TIME TRAVELLERS. That is, you cannot go back in time and change the timeline, because when you go back in time, what you did has already happened, since it is, after all, in the past. So any changes you were going to make ARE WHAT HAPPENED, and the resulting timeline which is our timeline is completely paradox free.

As for the theory, I think you mean that no -one- entity can exist in the same time and place as itself? Like, I can't go back in time to my own childhood and give myself some winning lottery numbers or something? Even if we grant that as correct, that still doesn't suggest any inability to time travel, so I'm not sure why you brought it up.

Technically it all depends on what time the travelers from the -future- decided to go back to. They could have gone back to a period of time that is in the future for us but also that is in the past for them and we just havent realized it yet. Hence my theory of a doomsday event. I believe that with whatever amount of time that we have left in our (as in the earth's or humanity's) future, from the moment the said device is created to the point of its destruction there would be an infinite amount of time for something they do to go wrong. Even if you think of a good natured being going back to change something for the better, it could have many negative repercussions that werent considered. Not necessarily that it will lead to a cataclysmic event, but i believe the likelyhood if it would be very high.

Also, as far as the whole one entity existing in the same time thing, i think its important to realize that considering the matter involved it would just be like seeing a twin. Sure its the same person but the one from the future wouldnt have a huge "omg i looked into your/my eyes and now theres a paradox that ripped apart the space time continuum!" effect on interacting with his/her former self.

[devonin]

It doesn't depend on the time travellers from the future going to a certain time or another. From the point of view of our fiction, it is meaningless to consider 'the repercussions' of time travellers travelling to a point which is still in our future, because our future is not a fixed series of events yet.

It is only when you are dealing with people who have travelled to -your- past, does one have to consider 'changing the timeline' in a way that potentially creates a paradox, and my assertion is simply that there can be no paradox because we are already living the results of any and all meddling that was done, or will have been done in our past at any given moment.

Put another way: Like the question of whether or not there is free will, or determinism (The answer to which is "Whether there is free will or not is irellevant because we have an incredibly persistant illusion of free will.") the question of whether or not time travellers to our past have changed the timeline is irellevant because we by necessity are the end product of those changes. If someone could go back and change our current fiction, the changes would cascade up in such a way that we WOULD NEVER POSSIBLY KNOW THERE HAD BEEN A CHANGE, so whether they CAN change things or not is irellevant unless you simply grant that any changes they make ARE what generated our fiction.

[Oni-Paranoia]

If going back in time was even possible, someone from the future would be here. It seems as if before we'd ever learn how to do that, we hit extinction since we do not see anyone from the future here unless they have already changed the past before which brings us to today. So either they were before us or not at all because 1. its impossible or 2. humanity will seize to exist before its figured out

Time Travel in my opinion is impossible and ive been following along with this thread, mostly Devonin's post since they are logical to even my understanding. ++

[devonin]

If going back in time was even possible, someone from the future would be here.

How do you know they aren't?

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by devonin

How do you know they aren't?

Probably because if you believe in a correcting time stream like that, a paradox would be unavoidable, and as Doc Brown put it, it would likely destroy the entire Universe.

If backward time travel is possible, it works on a branching system. If the time stream branches at points of backward time travel, it allows for instances of time dopplegangerisms without introducing the idea of a paradox. The future where the time traveler comes from need not exist in that iteration of time, because it DOES exist in another dimension where he came from.

[DarknessXoXLight]

Wow dammit.
I was going to post my awesome explination but it looks like devonin has got it under control. xD

[Izzy]

Time is just a concept. Not something you can go back in.

[Oni-Paranoia]

Originally Posted by Izzy

Time is just a concept. Not something you can go back in.

Exactly, time is a mental aspect.

[devonin]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

Probably because if you believe in a correcting time stream like that, a paradox would be unavoidable, and as Doc Brown put it, it would likely destroy the entire Universe.

If backward time travel is possible, it works on a branching system. If the time stream branches at points of backward time travel, it allows for instances of time dopplegangerisms without introducing the idea of a paradox. The future where the time traveler comes from need not exist in that iteration of time, because it DOES exist in another dimension where he came from.

Or, as I said, this is already the reality that is a result of all time travel that went into our past. All the changes to the time stream happened, and this is the result. I don't get why that's such a strange line of reasoning to people. Any changes to the timeline of the -traveller- who came from the future are irellevant and not something we need to consider or account for, because the future is not fixed, only the past.

Time is just a concept. Not something you can go back in.

We can already create a situation in which a person's subjective time differs from the subjective time of everyone else. The net effect has been a slight instance of time travelling to the future.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by devonin

Or, as I said, this is already the reality that is a result of all time travel that went into our past. All the changes to the time stream happened, and this is the result. I don't get why that's such a strange line of reasoning to people. Any changes to the timeline of the -traveller- who came from the future are irellevant and not something we need to consider or account for, because the future is not fixed, only the past.

Because if the time we have now is the result of the time line correcting itself on every backward time travel, THERE WOULD BE TIME PARADOXES. Did you see Back to the Future? That **** would never play out in reality. Marty would have gone back in time and the paradox would have become completely apparent the moment he saved his father from getting hit by the car. Time wouldn't wait and give Marty a chance to influence things. Furthermore, even if he had succeeded in putting his mother and father together, his interfering in the past would have caused a butterfly effect that would have, in all reality, change the genetic structures of himself and his siblings, to say nothing of the chance that he may have more or less siblings. His alterations to his parents' past could even have affected his younger self to such a degree that he might never have met Doc or might have decided not to go to Twin Pines Mall that fateful night, presenting an entirely different paradox possibility. The movie glosses over these facts because it would make for a very boring and stupid story.

The only chance of a correcting singular time line like you are describing would be for it to be paradox resistant. I think Futurama Bender's Big Score touched on something like this, but if I recall, the Universe just ended up ripping apart at the end anyway. Maybe a better example is the 2002 version of The Time Machine (honestly, it's the only adaptation I've seen). The guy builds a time machine to go back in time to save his fiancée. However, when he goes back in time and saves her, it turns bad anyway and she dies again in a different way, because if she never died in the past, he'd have never built the time machine. The Universe corrected the paradox by making it so that no matter how he influenced the past, she would die an accidental death to be the catalyst for him to build the time machine that would get him there.

Now, take a step back. How could the Universe "know" what to do? I'd have to say that this would only be possible with an all-knowing and all-powerful god who would watch over the time stream, one who can even override our apparent free will to ensure that paradoxes are explained out reasonably without logical contradictions.

We can already create a situation in which a person's subjective time differs from the subjective time of everyone else. The net effect has been a slight instance of time travelling to the future.

If you go at high velocities, time passes more slowly for you. Why then would you expect backward time travel to affect THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE? Isn't it much more likely that in traveling back in time, you'd branch off another path in the 4th dimension by way of the 5th, such that the only one affected by the alternate path through the 4th dimension was you? Again, subjective time dilation affects you rather than the Universe, so why would other variances in subjective time flow affect anything other than just you?

Or do you not buy into the concepts presented by multiple dimensions stacked upon each other? I think it's sort of silly to think that there could only be one instance of our reality that would need to be constantly written and overwritten as changes to history (or even future history) are made.

[Oni-Paranoia]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

If you go at high velocities, time passes more slowly for you. Why then would you expect backward time travel to affect THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE?

True.
Listen to a song (Monolith)
Listen to m1dy speedcore BS for the next 5 songs
Listen to monolith again

Concentration level effected?? Kinda like slowing down time in a way, but only for your instant, which means in anyone eles perspective your going rly fast. correct?

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by Oni-Paranoia

True.
Listen to a song (Monolith)
Listen to m1dy speedcore BS for the next 5 songs
Listen to monolith again

Concentration level effected?? Kinda like slowing down time in a way, but only for your instant, which means in anyone eles perspective your going rly fast. correct?

No.

Time dilation is a scientifically measured phenomena. It can be measured by highly accurate clocks. Even without a person on board a high speed vehicle, time dilation could be measured by COMPLETELY OBJECTIVE equipment on board designed to measure time.

Actually... wow. Just thought of something. Time dilation on the Earth as a whole due to the planet's velocity moving through the galaxy. Is that possible or is the effect of it negligible?

Then again, everything is relative and there is no "standing" measurement for anything... even if time was dilated greatly, we'd have no measuring stick that isn't also bound by the same motion that the Earth is on track with through the galaxy.

[devonin]

If you go at high velocities, time passes more slowly for you. Why then would you expect backward time travel to affect THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE

It was inherant in the nature of time travel as discussed in this thread, that you were being picked up and moved backwards in time from when you started, and deposited into the same world earlier in time. It still only effects you, not the entire universe, you singularly were moved to an earlier point along the spatial dimension that time is. The issue is then one of whether what you can do while there will have any effect on the rest of the timeline, and people propose all kinds of paradoxes involving killing your grandfather, or whatever to somehow suggest that time travel would either be impossible, or destroy the universe.

Because if the time we have now is the result of the time line correcting itself on every backward time travel, THERE WOULD BE TIME PARADOXES.

I don't think there would be. Remember, what we perceive as reality is, in my theory, already effected by any and all actions that took place "in the past" whether those actions were carried out by people native to that fiction, or people from the future of that fiction.

It isn't a matter of saying "What happens if in 100 years, someone developes time travel and tries to go back in time to prevent Hitler coming to power?" because the fact that Hitler -did- come to power already shows that nobody did such a thing.

Whether that's because time travel included some means of guarenteeing that time travellers couldn't interfere in any way, or whether there's a group from further uptime whose job is to fix things people screw up, or because someone in the future went back in time to stop Gordon Jones from coming to power, and as a result of that prevention, allowed Hitler to come to power instead is irellevant, because whichever of those things might have been true, the end result was OUR PAST AS WE RECORDED IT.

Were someone -ever- to go back in time to try and prevent Hitler coming to power, they clearly either changed their mind, were stopped, or failed in their attempt, because he did come to power.

There are no paradoxes, because the past is already fixed, it is static and objective AND INCLUDES ALL MESSING AROUND DONE BY TIME TRAVELLERS.

[footbull3196]

Actually, time travel is possible.

BUT, it's so improbable that it will almost likely never happen.

Also, if you went back and, let's say, killed your grandfather, a new parallel timeline would be created where you are not born. I'm not exactly sure how that would end up, but it's still interesting.

[devonin]

Actually, time travel is possible.

BUT, it's so improbable that it will almost likely never happen.

Don't use absolute claims unless you can actually prove them. Please prove that your claim "Time Travel IS possible" is correct.

Also, if you went back and, let's say, killed your grandfather, a new parallel timeline would be created where you are not born. I'm not exactly sure how that would end up, but it's still interesting.

I would instead suggest that the fact that you are alive clearly shows that either you never went back in time to try and kill your grandfather, or that you failed in your attempt to do so.

Which seems like the more likely explanation of your existance?

"I went back in time, and killed my grandfather, which to avoid a paradox, created AN ENTIRELY SEPARATE UNIVERSE in which I wasn't born, for the SOLE REASON of avoiding a potential paradox involving my not being alive in order to go back in time"

or

"Because I do exist, I either never attempted to kill my grandfather in the first place, or I tried and failed"

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by devonin

Don't use absolute claims unless you can actually prove them. Please prove that your claim "Time Travel IS possible" is correct.

We're traveling through time right now naturally. We know that time dilation occurs at high velocities and that gives us a means to control time's flow to a degree.

The only thing we don't have an absolute theoretical mechanism for is backwards time travel.

I would instead suggest that the fact that you are alive clearly shows that either you never went back in time to try and kill your grandfather, or that you failed in your attempt to do so.

No... you're misunderstanding the concept of a branched time line. There would be two points in time and space, simultaneously existing at different places in the 5th dimension. One would be the time where your grandfather is alive and you are alive, and your future self makes a trip to the past. The other would be an iteration of reality where you seemed to have come out of nowhere, killed who would have been your grandfather, and the you that should have been born according to your native timeline would never have been created.

These potential time lines are all existing within the 5th dimension and it's just our path along the 5th dimension that defines what form our 4th dimension takes.

Which seems like the more likely explanation of your existance?

"I went back in time, and killed my grandfather, which to avoid a paradox, created AN ENTIRELY SEPARATE UNIVERSE in which I wasn't born, for the SOLE REASON of avoiding a potential paradox involving my not being alive in order to go back in time"

or

"Because I do exist, I either never attempted to kill my grandfather in the first place, or I tried and failed"

If you take backward time travel as a given, you cannot very well say "I either never attempted to kill my grandfather... or I tried and failed." There are very basic tests to try to create this sort of paradox which should be fail-proof. Again, I would say that the only way that the Universe would "know" how to prevent such a paradox would be if there was an all-powerful, all-knowing god of time.

And again, you are misunderstanding the concept of branched time lines. The time that you "created" actually already existed in one form in the 5th dimension and our actions through the 4th dimension just never caused it to come into being in our dimension. However, going back in time and causing a shift in the events of the past would cause the time line to shift in another direction. And even though the time line that we see as established time would have shifted to another place in the 5th dimension, our previous 4th dimensional reality would still exist at another point within the 5th. In truth, the only one who would be aware of the change would be the time traveller, who will be composed of matter from a different place in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th dimensions.

But really, the paradox is explained perfectly on a branched time line. You killed someone who was your grandfather, but in killing him, all you did was put that time line on alternate path in which you don't exist. The paradox is irrelevant here, because the you that killed your grandfather is known to have time traveled to that time from a time and place where that man would have been your grandfather. Think of it this way:

Your home is at a coordinate in reality which can be defined by a set of 5 dimensions, which for the sake of argument I'll call (0, 0, 0, 0, 0). Now, the point in reality where your grandfather was killed by a time traveler from what is for them an alternate future can be defined as, let's say (-1, -1, -1, -1, 1). All you're doing is moving from one point in reality to another point in reality. There is no wave of refreshing on the time line that makes the paradox destroy the Universe; this is not Back to the Future. And if there was a wave that refreshed the timeline, how long would that take? What would trigger it? Why do you believe the Universe KNOWINGLY avoiding a time paradox makes more sense than explaining that the person who killed the man who would have been a grandfather was a person from an alternate reality in the 5th dimension?

Have you seen Sliders? You know how they go to other worlds and things? I believe in most of the worlds they went to, that world's copies of them were ALSO traveling through worlds, but sometimes they weren't. What they were doing is foregoing time travel and just hopping into the same point in time and space at different points in the 5th dimension. Would you consider their existence and affecting those "alternate" time lines to be paradoxical?

[devonin]

You could try not just reexplaining your point as though I fail to understand it, because I clearly do understand it. Instead, I was showing a way in which you can resolve the idea of a time paradox without having to presuppose the existance of multiple universes.

Nowhere in anything I said, did I even imply that the universe is in any way self-correcting, that the universe "knows" anything.

What I said was "The fact that you exist shows that you did not kill your grandfather"

There are very basic tests to try to create this sort of paradox which should be fail-proof.

Such as? You're intending to just describe some set of circumstances where if you were hell-bent on creating a paradox you could simply arrange your attempt in such a way as to make it "impossible" to fail?