Is time travel possible?

[fury]

What do you think? And why?

I think travelling forward in time is possible, because it's really pretty simple... Enter cryogenic stasis and leave a note for someone to hit defrost in however many years forward you want to go.

If time travel backwards were possible, by the time you did it, you wouldn't know that.

What I mean is, the knowledge of travelling backwards through time would be lost as well as all the knowledge you had gained after the point in which you returned, so when you got to the point in the past that you wanted to be, you would be in the same state of mind and matter as you were at that point. If you went back to 1 year after you were born, for instance, you would think like an infant, and act like one, because you would BE one. Does that make sense?

Wonder what point of view you would take on if you went back to 9 months before you were born... would you be the sperm or the egg?

Paradoxes are fun to try and understand.

<small><i>Don't mind me, I'm just jacked up on PHP and caffeine</i></small>

 

[alex]

I disagree with your theory that you would revert back to your state of being at the time you had traveled to. If you traveled back to the time back before you were born, would you become a sperm, die or disintegrate? I think if time travel were possible, you would be transformed to that time, past or future, in the same state of being that you left in. Jeez fury, didn't you ever watch the movie Contact?

 

[fury]

That may be the case if the time travel machine were encased in chronoton particles that protected you (and it) from the effects of time travel (i.e. going back to before you were born and ceasing to have gone through the time travel since you didn't exist, which meant you never attempted the time travel, so that means you DIDN'T go back in time, which means you DIDN'T cease to exist, but then that means you did go through with the time travel, and other odd infinite loops like that)

 

[br0ck]

This brings up some very interesting ideas. Do you think if you leaped back in time, or forward, and not by cryogenic sleep either, you'd end up in the same spot as you are now. For example, you want to go forward 5 days, that's all. You left from your garage, do you think you'd end up in your garage 5 days later? Or do you think that you'd end up in space, cause the Earth as moved away from that spot you left 5 days ago?? That point always plays the spoiler in the time dependant films, cause I tend to believe that space is not equal to time.

Fury, I'd have to agree with alex. You, yourself are going back in time. You are just jumping time lines, not going back in the one that you are presently in. It would be virtually impossible to go back in the exact same one. With your presence in the past, the smallest thing you'd do would throw that line off from the one that you are in. As time passed, it would push itself away from the the one you came from more and more.

I always find time as a very interesting subject. It is one varible, not constant, that really fascinates me.

 

[unclehobart]

If backwards travel were possible, I am of the opinion that some James Bond super villan of the future would have already done. It stands to reason that someone with ill designs would have already gone back and mucked it all up... unless the temporal police have methods of tracking time flux and can go back prior to the disturbance in order to prevent it. Perhaps the cost of time travel is too high. They might know how to do it, but it would take the equivalent of the entire Earths power supply for 5 seconds per kilo.

 

[br0ck]

Originally posted by unclehobart
If backwards travel were possible, I am of the opinion that some James Bond super villan of the future would have already done. It stands to reason that someone with ill designs would have already gone back and mucked it all up...

maybe we are living in a mucked up time line? For all we know, it's the right one and nothing has changed? Remember, if the time line gets messed with, all proof of a mess up will never be known. Cause all the history books and all the memories of ppl will change along with the disturbance. The only way to know is to find the time traveler themself. Then and only then will we know that events has changed. Cause the only way, and if things would fall into place, is for a time traveler to go back before he/she is planning going back. Let's say I want to go back to 1984. I go back to 1980, imform and take a person with me to 1984. Where the 1980 person and myself are going to let's say "prevent a war". The only person that would remember that a war was going to take place is the person from 1980. Cause his/her past was never affected. The time traveler's knowledge of the war would vanish with the prevention of the war. Perhaps his knowledge of operating a time machine.

As you can see, this can really be a great subject for debate.

 

[Noite Escura]

Whoo-hoo. The kind of discussion we use to have it the old times on the lightside.
Yeah br0ck is right, only the time traveler would have the exact perception of the corret timeline. Who can't say all the powerful leaders in the world today aren't time travellers. Maybe they just knew where to be and what to do. That would explain some morons being where they shouldn't be.

 

[alex]

Something to think about.......


"the Grandparent Paradox".

One of the problem with time travel is the so called "grandparent" paradox. Suppose you are moving backwards in time and kill your grandparent before he or she has any children. Could you do this and not, in doing so, eliminating your own existence? And even if you do that, then no one killed your grandparent in the first place and your birth is possible again!

 

[patweb]

Here is a little story I wrote on the subject.

________________________________________

The Time Traveler- an original work of fiction


Judea, ~20BC. A baby appears in the manger of one Joseph and Mary of Aramathea. There is no indication of how it arrived, and yet it was there. The stuff of miracles no doubt. This child grows into a man; he becomes a carpenter, a builder of things. He carries the gene sequences of the entire DNA database of scientific knowledge from the 21st century.

He warns the people of a catastrophe set to take place in what is the year 2005 (though no calandar existed in the future to accurately pinpoint this instance). He is embraced by the people due to his ability to create food and heal the injured at will. The local government looks upon him as a seditious outsider, an alien. They were right, in a way. Ultimately, he is crucified for spreading his apocalyptic words. But not before spawning a movement destine to change the world in it’s own time. He dies a happy man. He wasn’t the only messenger, they sent many. Mohammed, Nostradomus, Elijah, Apollonius, Magus to name a few.

Forward, the year is now ~2020. A small enclave of scientologists lives on a remote island in the Artic Ring. They have collected faithfully as much technology and arcane knowledge possible in their archives. They discovered the ability to infuse much of that knowledge into the DNA makeup of an individuals brain cells. You see, in 2005 an asteroid struck the moon. The fallout of gamma particles on the planet made 98% of all life extinct.

The plan was to use time travel to send a man with the knowledge to save the earth from this fate. His parables and the writings of his adherents make up what is now the New Testament. Unfortunately, he was murdered before he could resequence and impart all of his knowledge to his disciples.

He was not a total failure. His visitation spawned what was known as the Christian movement in Asia. It worked its way into Europe and eventually created the ideals upon which the United States of America are based today. The ideals were of man as equals, freedom from religious persecution and harbinger of the poor and unwanted masses.

This country pushes the envelope to space and races to install global ABM systems capable of knocking down incoming enemy missiles. Who was to know that one day the lasers, particle beams and kill vehicles would be pointed skyward in defense of the death from space.

 

[patweb]

>>If backwards travel were possible, I am of the opinion that some James Bond super villan of the future would have already done. <<

A scarier proposition is that it would be possible but there is no future to return from. That gives me the willies!

 

[Stop Laughing]

Just don't forget Grandpa Simpson's advice to Homer on his wedding day.

 

[unclehobart]

“If you ever travel back in time, don’t step on anything, because even the tiniest change can alter the future in ways you can’t imagine.” – Grandpa’s advice to Homer on his wedding day.

 

[Stop Laughing]

Now that's great advice for all newlyweds. If you don't follow it, you don't know who (or maybe what) you'll end up married to.

 

[DarkPrincess]

I don't think you can, but I have no scientific research to back that up.

 

[s4]

Only the Lord has that kind of power. A quote from Clint Eastwood fits here: "A man's got to know his limitations".

 

[Gonzo]

Unlikely. Where is time? More importantly WHAT is time? A man-made phenomena that traps us in a straight line? Religiously, there was a beginning. Scientific theory says there was a beginning. Logic says there has to be a beginning. But nobody can explain what time is. If, in the case of the question, one could travel to & fro along the boundries of time, wouldn't one of the stops be 1938 Berlin, with a weapon to stop attrocities like WWII from happening. (in which case, you'd stop about 60% of our current knowledge). Maybe you'd harken back to the & stop Rome from falling. Then, where would we be.

I love the concept of time travel, but it is far too dangerous a possibility to be allowed, by any law of nature or gods.

 

[fury]

Originally posted by br0ck


maybe we are living in a mucked up time line? For all we know, it's the right one and nothing has changed? Remember, if the time line gets messed with, all proof of a mess up will never be known. Cause all the history books and all the memories of ppl will change along with the disturbance. The only way to know is to find the time traveler themself. Then and only then will we know that events has changed. Cause the only way, and if things would fall into place, is for a time traveler to go back before he/she is planning going back. Let's say I want to go back to 1984. I go back to 1980, imform and take a person with me to 1984. Where the 1980 person and myself are going to let's say "prevent a war". The only person that would remember that a war was going to take place is the person from 1980. Cause his/her past was never affected. The time traveler's knowledge of the war would vanish with the prevention of the war. Perhaps his knowledge of operating a time machine.

Very interesting points. But, however, wouldn't the person from 1980 have never known about the war in the first place, since the time traveller's knowlege of operating the time machine vanished, and therefore as did his encounter with the person from 1980? But then, that would mean the war still happened, and the time traveller's knowledge of the time machine remained, and he DID in fact go back to 1980 to warn that person of the war, but then the war would be prevented again... You see the kind of endless loops that can happen with time travelling?

As you can see, this can really be a great subject for debate.

This is exactly why I started the debate

 

[br0ck]

Ok, let's look at this differently:

If the time traveler went to 1980 and told the person there about the upcoming war, and then left the person there in 1980. From there the time traveler when forward to stop the war and succeeds! Would or wouldn't the person in the 1980 know anything about the up coming war?

Let's hear those answers?

 

[fury]

Originally posted by br0ck
Ok, let's look at this differently:

If the time traveler went to 1980 and told the person there about the upcoming war, and then left the person there in 1980. From there the time traveler when forward to stop the war and succeeds! Would or wouldn't the person in the 1980 know anything about the up coming war?

Let's hear those answers?

Well, yes and no.

Because the war was prevented, history was altered, and thus the time traveller never went back in time to warn anyone about the war, let alone stop it.

That, however, would cause the war to happen since it was never prevented, and then the time traveller would have gone back through time to warn the person in 1980 about the war.

Then the war would be prevented, and the time traveller would have never warned about or stopped the war.

It would keep going back and forth and back and forth for all eternity, because what he did in the past (warned someone about the war) directly affects his history since a particular event (the war) that made him undertake the journey in the first place never happened (it was prevented from occurring). Since the event never took place, he never got the idea to travel back through time to prevent it, and thus it did in fact occur.

 

[br0ck]

You are correct on most your points.

In a greatest time episode ever, Times Arrow (Star Trek : TNG), is where I got the idea. Guinen was alive back in Samuel Clemens time to see some of the crew of TNG. Even though they came back and alterned time, she remembered them coming back and visiting her.

As you can see, the person in 1980 would remember the warning cause his/her past was never changed, to the person in 1980, that would be as normal as a talk with anyone in his/her time. That visit is just part of their time line even though their future was changed, and since some believe the future is not written, which brings up another debate, that person would remember the visit from the time traveler even though some of the events might of led the time traveler to never come back in the first place.