Time Travel

[Fsiphskilm]

after reviewing what ever

[Scribs]

what is it called..... well... nm what its called.... basically what it says is that the past is unalterable. and because of this, if you were to go back in time, a blade of grass would be like a razor blade to you, and rain would be like bullets. this is due to your inability to alter the past. Its an odd theory, but valid nontheless.(well, at least as valid as a theory about time travel can be)..... Obviously, this has its problems, but the Alternate Universe is filled with so many philosophical questions.... I dont wanna to touch that one.....

This is the theory mentioned by C.S. Lewis in the preface to The Great Divorce, no? He used the idea when in the book the main charachter visited heaven, but that was not time travel. I believe that he said that he got the idead form a science fiction book of his day. It's an interesting theory, but I don't see any logical reason for it to work.

[JediSonic]

Personally I dont beleive time-travel into the past is possible. Even if there were alternate realities, Volt brings up a good point with the "which one is your soul in" issue. I'm not quite satisfied with his answer though; if each other universe was a reflection of the soul you have in the "main" universe, would you lose your soul and become a "reflection" of it by entering the other timeline (killing your granfather, for example)? Also, what if there are multiple "reflections" of you in different timelines, and you die. Is your soul still there to have a reflection? The whole thing doesnt add up for me.

However, that doesnt mean I cant enjoy watching such great movies as "Back the the Future", or reading things like "A Sound of Thunder", even though they dont make logical sense.

Here's a link for Sound of Thunder, if anyone cares to read it. http://www.sba.muohio.edu/snavely/415/thunder.htm I like it because it's a very secular story that none-the-less puts a spotlight on the idea of "Intelligent Design" (that the universe couldnt have turned out this well without God managing every detail).

[Technomancer]

The 'many universes' hypothesis is about the only way that I could see time travel working without creating paradoxes. It allows alterations to the time line without affecting a time traveller's personal past. However, it does certain theological problems, like the issue of one's soul.

[Dante]

Actually Volt, the alternative universe concept has actually been used to explain free will. Allow me to clarify. When you state alternative universe you imidiatly think of a clear distinct "jump" or interger step. However this is not neccessarily the case, what if the pattern of alternative universes were a smooth transition where every single combination of energy over space was forever frozen in a smooth transitional proccess. Time would then merely be the infintesmal shift of energy in the universe from it's current position to another position in in the +/- dx, +/- dy, +/- dz direction. This means that each chunk of energy in the universe has 6 degrees of freedom, up, down, left, right, forward and backward. Time is merely the smooth connection of these possibilities over time. Quantum mechanics suggests that any of these can be chosen at any time, for after the collapse of the wave function a particle is said to be a specific place "a" in one-dimensional quantum mechanics. But a little while after that it has a probability of being found to the right or the left of a. Thus we see that a smooth mutiple universe theory would allow for a large amount of possibilities and isn't predetermined, if the soul were to act a a control device for basic movements of the human body we could say that it "chooses" which of these new dimensions time will flow into. I myself to prescribe to this theory but look for alternatives that are more complex but stick closer to life. For instance it has no boundary conditions so there is a possibility of all the energy changing into a giant elephant at one point as well as other completely ubsurd concepts that suggest a better theory, but I won't put it down as this hasn't been found as far as I know.

Also, heres another interesting paradox that isn't talked about much,
1. A robot wakes up in the future, but has no memory of it's origin.
2. Several year down the robots existance it falls into a time machine and is transpoted back in time.
3. The robot suddenly decides to build a replica of himself at the place where he was found. (then after it goes back in time it will build more and eventually he will have an army to destroy the pesky human race)
4. After completing the replica he accidently hits a pocket of anti-matter and vanishes.
Go back to step 1.
This a loop event possible in Time Travel and would allow for something to "create itself" if it is lost after that creation. The robot is only there because he created himself to begin with. Cool huh?

[skynes]

Be warned, if you go back in time and change ANYTHING, you have just annihilated your entire universe. Your universe never happened and therefore ceased to exist. You just killed everyone, congratulations.

- Based on an extract from Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time.

[Fsiphskilm]

[quote="JediSonic"]Volt brin

[mitsuki lover]

To begin with I have to admit I've watched one too many episodes of both
Dr.Who and Quantum Leap so my answer was biased toward a yes from
the get go,although scientifically speaking we can't be sure.

I agree though that the "Parallel Worlds/Alternate Realities" theory would
be the best and only way of explaining away any paradox that resulted
in time travel.
Of course IF a major change were made then there would have to be
some sort of compensation so that history wouldn't get too far screwed
up.
What that change would be we wouldn't know UNLESS we existed in
that particuliar universe.

An example of a minor change would be the famous case of IF you
traveled back to the past and accidentally killed your paternal grandfather,
BUT still existed(did anyone else see the Futurama ep.where they explored this subject...Fry unwittingly is responsible for his grandfather's death but
he still exists because Fry had sex with his grandmother thus becoming
his OWN grandfather...aside from the number of ways this is so very
wrong it also gives one a headache just thinking about it! ).
Aside from the Futurama example there would probably many ways to explain ones continue existance after the unwitting killing of one's grandfather.One would be,and most likely,that your grandfather would
turn out to be what used to have been your great uncle in the original
time line.

As far as MAJOR changes,as noted the history of the particuliar universe
would then diverge from history AS WE KNOW IT to a different direction.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

i support theory 2. If somebody died 10 years ago by a drunk driver. You go back 10 years to try to save him. YOu cannot save him, becaause he died while u were trying to save him.

on the other hand, If you save him, then he wouldnt of died 10 years ago.

[JediSonic]

The robot loop theory is a pretty intersting idea. Come to think of it, if he didn't happen to fun into a pocket of antimatter he pretty well COULD wipe out the pesky human race because about 100,000,000 of him could just appear at any given time 0_o

[termyt]

For me, it comes back to the granfather paradox Zedian mentioned:

1) You go back in time
2) You kill your grandfather before your parents were born
3) Your parents are never born
4) You were never born because your parents didnt exist
5) You did not exist to go back in time
6) Your grandfather wasn't killed because you werent there to go back and kill him
7) Your parents are born
8) You are born
1) You go back in time
etc.

This, to me, is the most fun and interesting theory on time travel - at least from a literary / RPG point of view. It's fully of paradox and irony and has a great twist to the end. (Of course, it only works once in a series).

As for a real-world interpretation, I doubt time travel is even possible. Einstein theorized that, if you could move faster than light, you would move forward in time relative to the rest of the Earth. It would not be possible to move back.

My personal opinion is that we can not manipulate time in any way. We are three dimensional creatures and as such, we can manipulate our three dimensions - length, width, and depth. We can perceive the fourth dimension - time - but we can not violate it. It is a constant to us.

For the sake of argument, and the stated purpose of this thread, if time travel into the past is possible, I doubt we’d be able to change history as we know. We would simply become part of history as we know. The actions we take would shape the world as we know it. Say you went back in time to assassinate Hitler. The end result is that you would fail. One possible result - you would not do any better at getting to Hitler as the number of other assassins who tried. Another possibility is you do assassinate him, but he would be replaced by a look a like or his death would be covered up. Perhaps you would be instrumental in Germany’s down fall. Whatever happens, history would remain as we remember it today.

[Yeshua-Knight]

I just remembered something I read in a science book Hyperspace : A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension.

The book claims that there are several dimensions the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd everyone knows about (who hasn't heard the term 3-D?). Some scientists speculate that there could be a fourth-tenth dimension and that one of them maybe time. They even think they know what an "unfolded" 4th dimension would look like. The book explains this much better than I ever could, so I would advise you to take a quick look at it.

"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know." ~Saint Augustine

i remember hearing something about that 4th dimension discussed in the original movie that was done of the book the time machine, i mean the really old one, but keep in mind, even if time is the 4th dimension, we can only travel forward through it

[Steve Racer]

after reviewing what everyone has said, we now all understand that there is a looping problem, as JediSonic has shared, and to explain this looping problem we've resorted to excusing ourselves through an alternate universe, yes?

Its not an "excuse" its a widely established and accepted theory.

Bringing the soul into it is now mixing up theology and science. Though its not a conflict, per se, there is too large of a gap between our scientific knowledge of the material world, and our scientific knowledge of the spiritual world. So you can either discuss current scientific theory, or approach the problem theologically, but the gap prevents us from really discussing the two with any sense.

Since with God, anything is possible, time could be an illusion, all of our scientific measurements could be some kind of dream, God could be changing measurements on us when we try (think Heisenberg) so really, it just opens MORE possibilities and questions.

[olorc]

I think it's quite obvious. Anyone with real sense can see that the third option is clearly to correct choice. If we travel in time our heads will undoubtablely explode. This is because the little man who lives inside our heads (or is that the fridge...no matter though) doesn't like the word quantum or anything to do with it (at least mine doesn't) and so will push the self destruct button on his (or her, I don't mean to exclude our fine female population who may be reading) forehead. It's big and red (the button I mean) and will cause an explosion that will cleanly and efficiently expand the head until it's in little bits on the floor of whatever time your in.

Why didn't you people see that all along.

...and to think you thought it was some sort of jumping problem or what-not...

[mastersquirrel]

I've actually thought a good bit on this subject when I'm bored and have nothing better to do...
The whole idea of being able to change the past is false becuase of the simple fact that what ever happened in the past shaped the present, and since the past has already happened there's no way to change it.
The same goes for traveling into the future. If you go to the future and see that the entire world has been destroyed by, let's say, someone eating a bad burrito you would want to go back to your regular time and change it so that the world wouldn't end right? Unfortunately, since you've gone into the future, it's basically become the present time, since that's where you are presently. Thus, if you go back to your regular time, you are actually going to the past of the future you saw. Confusing yet? This means that the things that it took to get from your present to the future have already been laid out and can't be changed. Quite confusing...
Anyway, that's my take. I've also read Timeline and it did talk a good bit about it. It is very interesting.

[mastersquirrel]

EVIL!!!!!! DOUBLE POST! AHHHHH!!
Sorry...

[Shao Feng-Li]

I'm glad it's impossible to time travel.

[Scribs]

To avoid breach of the no-theological-discussion rules of this board, I would suggest we steer this thread away from the question of what yould happen to peoples souls in paralell universes.

It does seem that the majority of people here agree that (without considering paralell universes) it would not be possible to change the past.

Pascal... You simple lost me wiht your extreem use of physics, congratulations!

[Gypsy]

I'm pretty sure that my head would explode.

Actually, I have thought (just thoughts, no research) on the subject and I've come to a few conclusions for myself. As a human, my life is bound to time. God is an eternal being and is outside the domain of time. If changing the past was possible I think it would change the core of Christian beliefs. You can think on scale of "I'd go back and not tell that dirty joke" or "I'd go back and stop the fall of man," and I think you'll get my meaning. If you are interested in alternate dimensions and "out there" stuff from a Christian perspective, then I encourage you to check out Chuck Missler's teachings. I won't claim that they are right or wrong, but they are very interesting to listen to. For the sake of curbing a debate, I won't post Chuck's link here, but if you can't find his site online then PM me and I'll send you some links to articles and tons of streaming lessons/sermons.

Did I already mention that I thought my head would explode?

[Yeshua-Knight]

well, after read and taking into consideration all the things that have been posted in here on this topic i feel that at some point in the future someone is going to walk in to where the computer is in my house, and see a headless version of myself slumped over the keyboard 'cus at present i feel as though my head is going to explode

'nuff said

[Steve Racer]

Yes, I suppose after all is said and done, I must agree.

MY HEAD ASPLODE.

That is all.

[Fsiphskilm]

[quote="Steve Racer"]Its

[kaji]

Sorry I didn’t have time to read all of this thread but there were lots of good ideas. And a few silly ones.
Anyway, sorry if I repeat what has already been said. Consider it reaffirming if so.

And I have a feeling that's why time travel backwards won't be discovered because we'll always be in the time frame where our past wasn't altered, because it already happened. Least resistance of change, perhaps.

Indeed. For if time travel were to be invented in the future, we should already know about it in the past. In other words, your presence in history where it previously did not exist (from one perspective) would cause innumerable changes to the future. It would be impossible to conceal your presence from the preceding generations.

I don't think so. People seem to envision time as a stream, but I think it is a more like a wave. You cannot go back and forth] While I do not think traveling backwards in time is possible. I do not discount traveling forward in time (with no possible return). Since time is relative, sleeping for 300 years would essentially send you to the future.

There's also the idea from Issac Asimov that even stepping on one blade of grass, one bug in the past would drastically alter the future. He wrote a novel on it...something about light and dark, I think...and it had to do with people going on a dinosaur hunt but having to stay on this one path.

Ah yes, Asimov has arrived. I would agree with this theory. But my main concern lies more in matter.

Say you have two pretty fish tanks, and the tanks are exactly full. Fish, water, little pebbles, and that scooba guy who gets chased by the bubble shark. Anyway, its jam-packed-full.
Now lets cut out a 3 inch cube of space from tank A and put it into tank B… Take all the water fish and pebbles in that 3 inch cube and push it into tank B. Does it fit?
Well, no, it shouldn’t. Tank B was exactly full, no more room (if you forced it in, the tank should break). But Tank A now has less volume then it started with… So what happens? The water flows over and fills the space, right?

The Point: This universe is composed of matter, though God can create matter, as far as we know there is no more and no less matter now then there ever was in history. We cannot create it. We can change its appearance, but we cannot create new nor destroy. The tank if full.

Since the matter of this planet has always existed, that mean you are composed of matter that was around 50 years ago. If you ripped matter out of this time and shuved it into the past you would have over filled the tank… Right? (not only that but placed matter where the same exact matter already exists). While leaving your time short on matter (thus the matter around your ‘hole’ should try to fill the space).

I may have remembered this wrong, but over filling something (or building up pressure) is a great way to get something to explode. Like, hmmmmm, the universe.

There just seams to be WAY too many problems with time travel for it to possibly be implemented.

But keep dreaming Einsteins. ^_^

-kaji

[jesusfreakabc]

i would say yes

[Supersith]

There's also the idea from Issac Asimov that even stepping on one blade of grass, one bug in the past would drastically alter the future. He wrote a novel on it...something about light and dark, I think...and it had to do with people going on a dinosaur hunt but having to stay on this one path.

wasn't a novel, it was a short story, called "The Sound of Thunder", they kill the guy at the end when they come back and see what he did, its really good.