No you can't go back and kill your father.

[mr d]

Hello

 

Having fun trying to figure out a way to handle that pesky problem of time travel where you go back and kill your father.

 

Most ideas put into solving this the idea of multiple timelines co-existing, which seems a bit over complicated so tried to think of a way less complicated.

 

So how about this; not Time Travel but Time Displacement. You can go back in time, but in doing so you do not become matter in that timeline, but are matter from your own time displaced into the other timeframe.

 

You may be in the year 1907 but your matter is still existing in 2007. Hence the energy that is, or will be you can share the same space, because you are not sharing the same time.

 

Also you can not kill your Father or really change history in any way because though you are in that time, you are not part of it. Any action you are taking is not occuring in 1907, but in your displaced time of 2007. You could not shoot your father then because the act of you shooting is occuring in your timeframe,100 years in the future.

 

What do you think, what other ideas have you got?

 

Mr D

[ecoli]

I've heard ideas that time travel is more like "time veiwing." Not sure about the physics behind it, though.

[TriggerGrinn]

I do not agree time is linear in the physics of the universe.

 

There is states of change. Births and deaths in the micro 'quantum' if you will world. Each death is gone, and each birth is the present.

 

Our memory capability can organize this in a linear fashion, but in relation to the universe it happens in a repeditive cycle, billions of times per second, far to fast to notice without precise measuring equipment. And the direction of these changes goes in all directions 9(emr), for an average null result in linear direction.

[Royston]

You may be in the year 1907 but your matter is still existing in 2007. Hence the energy that is, or will be you can share the same space, because you are not sharing the same time.

 

It wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference in a time travelling context, the fact your displacing time in the past is all you need worry about concerning the effect that would have on future events...that is of course if events are determined (which is still open to debate.)

 

However, if there was communication between your past self and present self (somehow) now that 'would' be interesting...paradoxes aside.

[mr d]

Hello again

 

Well perhaps co-existing, but non-intermingling time, would be a better term. Both times 1907 and 2007 existing at the same point in time physically, but the matter each existing in its own time frame.

 

Mr D

[ydoaPs]

Hello

 

Having fun trying to figure out a way to handle that pesky problem of time travel where you go back and kill your father.

It isn't a problem. It is impossible. The problem only comes about when analyzing the situation anachronistically. Most people follow the person instead of the time line. What most people do is essentially repeating the events, but the events are different the second time around. If you analyze the problem correctly, the problem disappears. The time traveler doesn't appear in the past after he or she decides to travel back in time. The time traveler was in the past when the past happened the first(and only) time. Any future time travel to the past has already effected the present. If any travel to the past(specifically, a point previous to now), and the traveler left any marks, say a picture, then they would be in the picture now(possibly even before their birth). So, it is impossible to go back in time and kill your father before you are conceived, for if you do, then you won't exist ever(in the past or future).

 

I did a fantastically horrible job explaining it, but you can probably get the idea. Basically, if you draw a time line with how most people analyze it, then you get a loop. However, if you do it correctly, you get a straight line and the problem is non-existent.

[mr d]

Hello

 

Got how basically you have all instances of past time travel already occuring, therefore they did not change time but created it to form the present.

 

But trying still to figure out how matter or energy, in his case you, could exist in the same location. Example you go back 1 minute and try to occupy the same location you are in now ( we'll fore go Earth rotation, orbit, galatic spiral all that stuff where you'd actually have to travel quite a ways to be in the same spot).

How is it that the same energy can compose both you and the minute ago you? How does the energy that is you now co-exist with the energy that is you then? Could you both occupy the same space?

Still figure the only way to carry that out is same space and energy but in different times, or at least the energy is existing simutaniously as seperate times within the same time line.

 

Mr D

[Ndi]

Sorry to be hacking the thread (hope I'm not really off) -but- Has anyone shown time to actually exist? I always thought of it as a human measurement, a perceived notion when the need to express something that has already happened. It's vital to our communication so it's almost impossible to express ideas without actually using time in any way, but - for the heck of it, does it REALLY exist? (I used three time references at a minimum in this paragraph, plus another few implied presents or references. Another in the previous sentence)

 

Is there any proof of a "timeline" in any way? Why the heck can't I kill my own grandfather? Objects interact. What's keeping me from displacing myself to the full coordinates of my grandfather at uniformly noted age of 25 and shoot him? Nothing (minus the physical impossibility ). We try to re-fit the events in a standard way of thinking. I shoot him, fine. I don't die or paradox because there is no timeline to rebuild.

 

If I kick a ball from A to B, the ball moves. Right, where do we set NOW as? Current time. Can I set NOW as when the ball is half way? Sure. Can it be when the ball is to its destination? Sure. So if I can set an arbitrary NOW, I'd like to set it before I kicked the ball. I can do that. Does that mean I kicked the ball in the future? No, actually, since future is arbitrary. Does that mean that I can really NOT kick the ball? Seems unlikely that if I set NOW to T0 I can "not kick the ball" but if I set it to T1 I must/already have.

 

We insist that time is just another coordinate, yet if we move along side it we insist that everything must be rebuild to fit. If a coin is on a paper (in 2D) and I move the coin through the 3rd dimension over some other place, does that mean that I have to rebuild the whole 2D universe to make everything fit? No. Why? Because we see a third coordinate as it is, another coordinate. Moving the coin from point A to B and then from B to A does *not* make the coin new again, nor does it imply that the rest of the paper rebuilds. If the coin leaves a smudge as it moves and we lift it and reset it at some point it will start a new smudge. It can even re-trace its old smudge, but it does NOT rebuild the smudge to fit its new location. Heck, I can even set it before it first appeared. It does not implode the universe. Then why would shooting grandpa not allow me to be born? 3 out of 4 coordinates have no lines and no reverse causality yet the 4th has? There are laws for two smudges intersecting, so there must be for two me-s as well. Maybe me walking into me has a more dense matter, just as the smudge thickens when double-walked.

 

Even as I write this I'm trying to imagine my grandpa duplicating as I shoot, so he will go on and have my father. It's hard to be clear when so tightly bound to time causality.

 

I'm not sure I'm being clear. I'm not sure how to make it clearer either, it's just that we consider time as a rolling drum, always rolling. Since we defined it that way, no wonder we come across issues trying to jump on the roll. It's just like we thought we are actually moving across the X axis at 1 meter per second, and the whole universe slides continuously. How do we get back 10 Km? We can't because there is no line, no scroll, no drum. And if we do believe we are on a constant slide and everything we do has an X, and Y, a Z and an index in meters, is it far fetched for us to also believe that if we jumped in the roll we'd have to do the same again? Would we have the misconception that if we unrolled the drum to before we were born we would not be there? Most likely.

 

VCR tape rewinding gives people all kinds of ideas.

[bombus]

It isn't a problem. It is impossible. The problem only comes about when analyzing the situation anachronistically. Most people follow the person instead of the time line. What most people do is essentially repeating the events, but the events are different the second time around. If you analyze the problem correctly, the problem disappears. The time traveler doesn't appear in the past after he or she decides to travel back in time. The time traveler was in the past when the past happened the first(and only) time. Any future time travel to the past has already effected the present. If any travel to the past(specifically, a point previous to now), and the traveler left any marks, say a picture, then they would be in the picture now(possibly even before their birth). So, it is impossible to go back in time and kill your father before you are conceived, for if you do, then you won't exist ever(in the past or future).

 

I did a fantastically horrible job explaining it, but you can probably get the idea. Basically, if you draw a time line with how most people analyze it, then you get a loop. However, if you do it correctly, you get a straight line and the problem is non-existent.

 

I disagree. The question is not whether you can go back in time and kill your father (I'd say yes), it is whether after doing so can you go forward in time to the same place you left (I'd say no!) If you went back in time and killed your father, you would live in a universe where you went back in time and killed your father, who would never live and never have you, but you'd know that he did once and you were born, enabling you to go back in time, except that all the necessary events would no not occur, but you would still exist as you would know the true 'history'.

 

I see time and events like branches of a tree - infinite branches on an infinitely long tree!

 

Time travel would be a totally personal experience. You'd know the truth but of course wouldn't be able to prove a thing!

[Whynot?]

Hi all, I'm new here.

 

I thought Einstein more or less proved that time exists and that it may be the fourth dimension.

 

If you have any love for Occam's Razor theory, isn't it logical to say that if information can move along the 3rd Dimension, couldn't it move along the 4th?

 

Anyways, I'm a huge science fan, yet I know next to nothing. Hope to learn form you all.

[JohnB]

Just a thought. How would time travel effect conservation of energy?

 

From the POV of the "recieving" time, energy (mass) has suddenly come to exist where it hadn't before, a net increase in the energy mass of the Universe.

[Royston]

Just a thought. How would time travel effect conservation of energy?

 

From the POV of the "recieving" time, energy (mass) has suddenly come to exist where it hadn't before, a net increase in the energy mass of the Universe.

 

There's no more energy in the future as there was in the past...so there would be no violation.

 

EDIT: I see what you mean, but as the scenario is impossible i.e the person was already in the past (see yourdad's explanation), then there would be no exchange going on.

[mr d]

Hello

 

From the POV of the "recieving" time, energy (mass) has suddenly come to exist where it hadn't before, a net increase in the energy mass of the Universe.

 

Was trying to take the 'Energy can neither be created or destroyed, but merely change forms' sort of idea into my time displacing. Thus you still occupy your time, even though in another, so you are neither removing or adding energy/mass in either time.

 

Also was looking at the problem of time looping, as if I were actually to join the past time line. That would loop time as I actually removed the mass/energy that was myself. Time would keep going up to when I left, go to the past, time goes up to when I left then loops back to the past.

If I take my time frame with me there is no loop, just that bubble of time, as it were, went with me and continues in its timeframe just located elsewhere. Meaning I could still rejoin my timeline.

 

Mr D

[ydoaPs]

I disagree. The question is not whether you can go back in time and kill your father (I'd say yes), it is whether after doing so can you go forward in time to the same place you left (I'd say no!) If you went back in time and killed your father, you would live in a universe where you went back in time and killed your father, who would never live and never have you, but you'd know that he did once and you were born, enabling you to go back in time, except that all the necessary events would no not occur, but you would still exist as you would know the true 'history'.

 

I see time and events like branches of a tree - infinite branches on an infinitely long tree!

 

Time travel would be a totally personal experience. You'd know the truth but of course wouldn't be able to prove a thing!

Hoo-ya unneeded complexity!

 

 

 

Just a thought. How would time travel effect conservation of energy?

 

From the POV of the "recieving" time' date=' energy (mass) has suddenly come to exist where it hadn't before, a net increase in the energy mass of the Universe.[/quote']Hello

 

 

 

Was trying to take the 'Energy can neither be created or destroyed, but merely change forms' sort of idea into my time displacing. Thus you still occupy your time, even though in another, so you are neither removing or adding energy/mass in either time.

 

Also was looking at the problem of time looping, as if I were actually to join the past time line. That would loop time as I actually removed the mass/energy that was myself. Time would keep going up to when I left, go to the past, time goes up to when I left then loops back to the past.

If I take my time frame with me there is no loop, just that bubble of time, as it were, went with me and continues in its timeframe just located elsewhere. Meaning I could still rejoin my timeline.

 

Mr D

Looks like some people can't accept the simplest explanation.

 

 

 

Just a thought. How would time travel effect conservation of energy?

 

From the POV of the "recieving" time, energy (mass) has suddenly come to exist where it hadn't before, a net increase in the energy mass of the Universe.

 

Just a thought. How would space travel effect conservation of energy?

 

From the POV of the "recieving" space, energy (mass) has suddenly come to exist where it hadn't before, a net increase in the energy mass of the Universe.

[mr d]

hello

 

Looks like some people can't accept the simplest explanation.

well I get the simplicity of your reply, but how does your explaination take into count time loops. You travel to the past, time advances till you traveled to the past. How does your system still manage to allow time to proceed forward into a future time beyond that of when you went back?

also under said system if from if you sitting at your computer went back in time 10 seconds, are there two forms of your present occupying the same space sitting at your computer? did you become the older state of your energy, meaning you are the person from 30 seconds ago?

 

And if that's true if you went back beyond a time you were born would you disperse into whatever form your energy occupied then? As in Theory the energy used to form you already existed then in a different state, so what is your explaintion for identicle particles of energy being able to co-exist at the sametime.

 

Or if you went instead to the future, does that mean the future already exists with you having gone there. If so would that not mean every action taken has already been predetermined, negating any concept of freewill or self determination?

 

Mr D

[ydoaPs]

hello

 

 

well I get the simplicity of your reply, but how does your explaination take into count time loops.

It makes them disappear. It's great when you analyze a problem properly, no?

 

You travel to the past, time advances till you traveled to the past. How does your system still manage to allow time to proceed forward into a future time beyond that of when you went back?

I'm not sure I understand your question, but I think you're still following the traveler instead of the time line.

 

also under said system if from if you sitting at your computer went back in time 10 seconds, are there two forms of your present occupying the same space sitting at your computer?

No.

 

did you become the older state of your energy, meaning you are the person from 30 seconds ago?

Why would you?

 

And if that's true if you went back beyond a time you were born would you disperse into whatever form your energy occupied then?

Again, why?

 

As in Theory the energy used to form you already existed then in a different state, so what is your explaintion for identicle particles of energy being able to co-exist at the sametime.

As in Theory the energy used to form you already existed then in a different state, so what is your explaintion for identicle particles of energy being able to co-exist at the same place.

 

Or if you went instead to the future, does that mean the future already exists with you having gone there. If so would that not mean every action taken has already been predetermined, negating any concept of freewill or self determination?

 

Mr D

Indeed.

[mr d]

Hello

 

well I get the simplicity of your reply, but how does your explaination take into count time loops.

 

It makes them disappear. It's great when you analyze a problem properly, no?

 

No as listed above does not quite explain it.

unless I take it, please feel free to elaborate as you said you first post is hard to analyze as to meaning in spots.

 

Time already exists at all moments as a single line, people exist on this single line of time and can not alter it as it has already occurred; and they are only aware of a referrenced point on this single line, our for lack of a better term their current timeframe.

 

Or do you imply time while it is a single line, time is not a single cohessive quantity and that time is attached to each individual components of the Universe. Meaning if a timeloop did occur it only occurs for the energy involved in the time loop and that all other energy continues in time.

 

Also if you could explain:

I go back in time and crush a can, I go forward come back to the exact same instant and do not crash the can. Then do the it again and this time throw the can.

Under your theory only one of those actions can take place. It is the one that already has to get time to the place that allowed me to go back in time. So do you propose some means that once and action occurs it can not be changed, as what would there be to prevent the other actions if they are occuring at the exact same moment. Unless you argue all three did occur, which I take it is your theory.

 

Mr D

 

out till next mondays at earliest so unforunately will not be able to view or reply anytime soon. But as to your Theory that's already been decided.

 

Must admit it'd be a damn bore if it is.

 

Enjoy your weekend - but you already have/or haven't

[AutomagSam]

It is to my belief, and beliefs change given time(no pun intended), that it would be impossible to go back into the past and "kill your father". Let me explain why I think this. Say Fred goes back wanting to kill is father. Only one thing stops him from doing this, the fact that his father exists in Fred's present. In order to kill some one in the past, It is to my belief that it would have already have happened in the past, thus Fred would not exist, making it impossible to "kill his father".

 

Now giving this explanation we find ourselves with several issues to look at in the means of time travel. The first, it is impossible to change the past, without there being a seperate time line, which in my mind a seperate time line cannot exist. Second, I would love to think I could travel to the past, but right now, I'm not all that certain it is possible, though I don't deny it, to me it is almost certain you can travel to the future, as it has yet to happen, but the past has already occured making it impossible to do without yet again, a seperate timeline. I DO NOT however think that it is impossible to travel into the past, but am merely speculating all the possabilities until I know the answer.

 

Ahh Time Travel is my favorite thing to talk about

[Edtharan]

I think of this kind of situation in terms of an interference pattern.

 

IF you were to go back and kill your grandfather, then you would not have been born and so you couldn't go back and kill your grand father. It would be a destructive interference and negate its self. It couldn't happen.

 

However, if a situation could occur that wouldn't prevent you from going back, then that would be possible.

 

If matter is a wave and can display interference, then this would have it's origins in Quantum Mechanics.

 

Think of it in terms of light. IF you have a laser that shines onto a beam splitter, then one of the two beams created is reflected back so that it would destructively interfere with its self, then that path is not taken by the light.

[JohnB]

Yourdad, sorry to take so long to get back to this.

 

By your rephrasing of my initial question can I assume that you believe the energy mass of the Universe to be constant independent of time?

 

As in, by moving physically along the line A-B doesn't change the total mass of the line A-B. Likewise moving along the line Past-Future doesn't change the total mass of the line Past-Future?

 

Not out to be argumentative, just trying to understand your point. If I've got it right. Hmmmmm. Hadn't thought of it that way.

[ydoaPs]

Yourdad, sorry to take so long to get back to this.

 

By your rephrasing of my initial question can I assume that you believe the energy mass of the Universe to be constant independent of time?

 

As in, by moving physically along the line A-B doesn't change the total mass of the line A-B. Likewise moving along the line Past-Future doesn't change the total mass of the line Past-Future?

 

Not out to be argumentative, just trying to understand your point. If I've got it right. Hmmmmm. Hadn't thought of it that way.

 

Time is just another dimension like the three spatial ones. Hoo-ya General Relativity!

[Gypsy Cake]

I understand the paradox of killing your grandfather or whatever; if you do that then the "new" version of the past does not allow you to exist.

 

{I'm going to struggle to put all this clearly}

However,

1) Is it possible to think that once something has happened it is then independent of the past?

 

From Ndi

Is there any proof of a "timeline" in any way?

 

2) If we don't think about a "timeline" and that the past, present, future are all sort of occuring simultaneously then surely they're sorta running parallel and then couldn't affect one another.

 

plus (referring to original comment),

3) I dont think the idea of parallel universes is that bad an idea. It provides a lot of opportunity to explain evolution, coincidence etc.

[Sayonara]

I did a fantastically horrible job explaining it, but you can probably get the idea. Basically, if you draw a time line with how most people analyze it, then you get a loop. However, if you do it correctly, you get a straight line and the problem is non-existent.

 

It was a much more concise job than the last time I tried it. You could have mentioned the specific causality requirements though

[JohnF]

But if you tried to go back in time wouldn't all the energy and matter that you were made of have to be back where it was at that point in time? In fact all the enrgy and matter in the entire Universe would be back where it was. This would mean that the only bit of you that existed would be in your mother to be, whilst your father wouldn't have made the other bit of you yet.

 

I suppose you could wait until he created the sperm that was to be you then get in to his blood stream and kill him from within.

 

But if you could go back in time then you must be made from something outside of this Universe so you could kill your father.

[Sayonara]

But if you could go back in time then you must be made from something outside of this Universe so you could kill your father.

 

False requirement. God we have been through this soooo many times on SFN.