The entire reason changing the past is impossible

[Teotihuacan]

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Nobody knows how causality really works, so untill we build a time machine its just people arguing with no evidence to support anybody's claims.

 

That would be like saying we didn't know anything about coefficients of heat expansion untill the steam engine was built. Yes, we learned a lot about it afterward, verified theory etc. But that machine would not have been invented unless the effect was already noted in natural phenomena - the rattling of the lid on a boiling pot. The certain knowledge that a vapour could force actual movement of a heavy object.

 

Yes, many myths did include a "horseless carriage" or similar mechanical vehicle over the many millenia before, but all were driven by some magical, unworldly process as part of the myth, not an evidenturary truth.

 

Likewise, your point, time has very few known objective benchmarks. But, being in this world, everyone developes a subjective relation to it. Blind men will agrue about an elephant untill they listen to what the other is saying, and begin to realize the complexity by considering closer to full perspective.

 

Time travel does exist, though. We do seem to transist in a forward motion. Whether or not it is at a fixed rate, determined direction or even contiguous is still a matter of subjective perception.

 

If accordance to the pathways theory of time- every decision made breaks time into several different pathways (One for each possible outcome). Each one of those pathways then split at the next decision.

 

If this is analogous to a Flow Chart, then it is a "map" of a moment's potentials in all cases, and not neccessarily imutable. Yes, we can /trace the actual path in a specific trial, but, the next run of the same program can deviate significantly from any given point, still within (pre)determined "flow" pathways.

 

My emerging question is that perhaps we are too stuck on a linear concept of time, when in fact, time often appears to occur in cycles. A circle is a two dimensional object at least.

 

Also, looking at some of the science fiction elaborated bafflegab contained here and obtuse explanations, it is as if one has tried to determine plausibility factors - a time line on a surface, without lifting the pencil from the paper. What if worm holes or wrinkles existed in time? Or time was even more multi-dimensional than our "vision" allows?

 

Again, on an analogy: That a line is drawn, and then partly erased. Does that mean the line never existed? Or, has merely changed form by some "present" method, that doesn't alter the past at all, but simply continues to change(trans) form, as time has wont to do.

 

I think we can do better with this, if we concieve time in three distinct dimensions - as past, present, future coordinates. Where all of time is the "container" of any given action. And each dimension, certain aspects of that.

 

But now, I run a foul. By expounding my subjective flux, rather than respect or seek confluence with yours or universal intuition as self evident.

[Gilded]

If you had a device that would reconstruct the universe to the exact state it was 100 years ago, wouldn't that be time traveling, since time (as we currently know it) is just change and the way we observe it? :|

 

And Sayo, the SkyNet has already begun!

http://www.skynet.cz ! Ayieee, run for the hills!

[daedelis]

Combine the chaos theory and the grandfather theory for some interesting effects. If everything that happens can be slightly altered by any single presence within a certain range, your very presence in the past would cause irreversible side effects ranging from negligible to catastrophic.

 

Take a time out and really think about this next point. Consider the complexity of events that have lead up your existence. Not just on a scientific level, but also on a social one. You are one sperm in a million, on one day, released in one act of passion, perhaps caused by a single instance where one man fell in love with one woman through an unfathomable chance that they happened to meet and become attracted to one another. ANY chaotic change that would affect that situation would affect your presence, therefore causing an unresolvable paradox.

 

You would not just be having this effect on yourself, but on every person that the chaotic variations caused by your mere presence in said past had reached.

 

Another thing to consider would be negative time travel opening up access not to the past of the current universe, but a parallel which could be altered by your presence at will. You would simply cease to exist in this universe. Anything you do in the parallel would not affect this one in the slightest. Your father would probably be wondering where you are, as well. This is all, of course, relative to your perception.

 

Yet another alternative would be any attempted breach of the natural flow of time being met by instant collapse of said breach due to the imminent chaotic effects of any presence from this strand of time being introduced into the other. Wondering just what is inside of a black hole? Maybe infinite time breaches instantaneously collapsing in on themselves.

 

Yes, I am a newbie. No, my IQ isn't 180. This is born of my imagination. If there are obvious defects in my logic, please feel free to let me know.

 

PS. I am not convinced that reverse time travel is possible in actuality, much less changing it.

[RICHARDBATTY]

What of the energy required. If you changed something in the past that means a large amount of matter was not moved or was moved instead of staying put.

[ydoaPs]

Yes' date=' thank you. I actually meant to go past that with FTL. Lightspeed should be reachable then by matter, but once hit, that matter would instantly be turned singular.

 

Perhaps the black hole causing factor in super novas then?[/quote']

 

why would you go backward in time with ftl? wouldn't your time just be imaginary?

[Sayonara]

why would you go backward in time with ftl? wouldn't your time just be imaginary?

The way he explains it, it sounds imaginary enough to me.

 

Ba-dum.

[philbo1965uk]

the grandfather paradox is not a paradox anymore.because you exist in the first place,and have got in your time machine.

The answer is when your grandfather was younger some idiot dressed funny attacked him but he thwarted the assasination attempt,thus your father was born and you also..

[Sayonara]

the grandfather paradox is not a paradox anymore.because you exist in the first place' date='and have got in your time machine.

The answer is when your grandfather was younger some idiot dressed funny attacked him but he thwarted the assasination attempt,thus your father was born and you also..[/quote']

No, the grandfather paradox is a paradox, a paradox being a non-resolvable and non-linear logical trap that can't actually exist in a real sense.

 

Your answer to the problem makes no sense, because there is no paradox propogation involved whatsoever.

[philbo1965uk]

perhaps im not putting the point across properly or your misreading my statement.I know a paradox is non-resolvable.what im trying to say if time-travel were possible in the sense of the grandfather paradox,and you were able to travel back to the event.By your very existence you could not kill your grandfather.Your alive now so from your grandfathers perspective someone already tried to kill him(you in your ellese shell suit) but he thwarted the attempt,and lived so allowing your existance.But this throws up the loop effect and thats another conversation.

Anyway if time travel were possible, and science is proving this could be a probability it will not be in the way we are discussing.

[Sayonara]

perhaps im not putting the point across properly or your misreading my statement.I know a paradox is non-resolvable.what im trying to say if time-travel were possible in the sense of the grandfather paradox,and you were able to travel back to the event.By your very existence you could not kill your grandfather.Your alive now so from your grandfathers perspective someone already tried to kill him(you in your ellese shell suit) but he thwarted the attempt,and lived so allowing your existance.But this throws up the loop effect and thats another conversation.

No, you're not getting my point. If you're talking about a real-world scenario, then you haven't resolved any paradox there - it's not a paradox at the end of your reasoning because it wasn't one at the start, not because of any processes you carried out.

 

 

Anyway if time travel were possible, and science is proving this could be a probability it will not be in the way we are discussing.

That's fairly useless speculation seeing as we don't even have a mechanism yet.

[philbo1965uk]

see i get along just fine with your comments and you have to add crap ,useless speculation,..when you know its been discussed by even the likes of Hawking...Time travel was a joke but is now being considered to be probable just not in the way were talking about

[Sayonara]

I would be very cautious about taking Hawking's word as the final say on time travel.

[mattd]

If "matter cannot be created nor destroyed" then wouldn't traveling backwards in time violate this rule? If the sum of all the contents in the universe = x, and you sent n material back in time, wouldn't x + n make the universe pop in some manner?

 

And even if it were possible, wouldn't sending something backwards in time, even if it were on atom, cause a paradox because that one atom would interact with the older universe?

 

These kind of questions have always led me to believe time travel backwards is impossible.

[chadn]

If "matter cannot be created nor destroyed" then wouldn't traveling backwards in time violate this rule? If the sum of all the contents in the universe = x, and you sent n material back in time, wouldn't x + n make the universe pop in some manner?

 

Hmmm, very interesting, perhaps this problem is solved by E=mc2? Perhaps by sending someone back in time the energy in the past is reduced because of an increase in matter. But I have no idea, physics is not something I've delved in to to much.

[Sayonara]

Depends.

 

Say you 'leave' at F₁ and arrive at P₁, and you stay in the past for 100 hours, so when you return to your time you are 'leaving' the past at P₁₀₁.

 

If you arrive back at F₁ you may have duplicated matter for 100 hours. However you can get around this by going back to F₁₀₁.

[chadn]

Depends.

 

Say you 'leave' at F1 and arrive at P1, and you stay in the past for 100 hours, so when you return to your time you are 'leaving' the past at P101.

 

If you arrive back at F1 you may have duplicated matter for 100 hours. However you can get around this by going back to F101.

 

What then if you dont return? Or say you return to F1 or F102? Or is this impossible? Are you only capable of returning to your starting point at an equal amount of time that you spent in the past? I know that last sentence is confusing, its hard to express such things in words.

[Sayonara]

I know what you mean: variations on the theme of "period absent in native time equals period spent in foreign time".

 

I have no idea if it would be the only way to do it, or even how it would work, but it does show that the conservation argument can be broken.

[mattd]

When matter and antimatter collide, do they not mutually annhilate each other? Doesn't this null the law of conservation?

[Ophiolite]

Large bang. Lots of energy. Conservation saved.

[mattd]

So there is nothing that breaks that law.

[Ophiolite]

Nothing has ever been observed to break this law. It is arguably a key cornerstone of physics. (But I'm speaking as a geologist, so what do I know?)

[Ophiolite]

Nothing has ever been observed to break this law. It is arguably a key cornerstone of physics. (But I'm speaking as a geologist, so what do I know?)

[gib65]

So on the subject of travelling into the past when an object travels faster than light: I don't get it. I mean, even though the speed of light is very, very fast, it is not instantanious displacement from point A to point B. If an object travels one light year through space at 300,000 km/s, it will take it one year (relative to a stationary observer, at least). Even if it were possible to breach the universal speed limit, a slight increase in its speed should only mean taking less than a year to travel that distance. To suggest that an object appears at point B before leaving point A means that there is a discontinuity in how the rate of elapsed time changes as a function of speed. That is, as something speeds up, the time it takes to travel a fixed distance decreases continuously, up to the point when said objected reaches the speed of light, after which point the time it takes makes an instantanious leap from a positive value to 0, and then becomes continuous again taking on more and more negative values with greater and greater speeds.

 

But who am I to say this is not the way it works. Maybe these experiments which show particles travelling back in time are more than just hearsay, and I should just accept that at a certain point, this decreasing of elapsed time DOES make a discontinuous leap.

 

What WOULD make sense, however, is if the object in question ended up travelling back in time in its own frame of reference. That is, suppose you had an astronaut on a space craft who had a pocket watch, and who intended to break the universal speed limit (with whatever technology he figure would provide the means). Time on the space craft would slow down as indicated by the slower clock (which only stationary observers would be justified in surmising). Once the space craft reached the speed of light, the clock (along with everything else in the space craft) would freeze in time. If thereafter, the space craft continued to accelerate (if that were somehow possible) then we could say that the clock and all else aboard would reverse their tarjectory through time... maybe. But as you can see, this only applies to the happenings and going-ons aboard the space craft and has NOTHING to do with the speed of the space craft itself.

 

But again, I'm no astro-physicist, and maybe the whole scientific community is laughing at me right now

[gib65]

So on the subject of travelling into the past when an object travels faster than light: I don't get it. I mean, even though the speed of light is very, very fast, it is not instantanious displacement from point A to point B. If an object travels one light year through space at 300,000 km/s, it will take it one year (relative to a stationary observer, at least). Even if it were possible to breach the universal speed limit, a slight increase in its speed should only mean taking less than a year to travel that distance. To suggest that an object appears at point B before leaving point A means that there is a discontinuity in how the rate of elapsed time changes as a function of speed. That is, as something speeds up, the time it takes to travel a fixed distance decreases continuously, up to the point when said objected reaches the speed of light, after which point the time it takes makes an instantanious leap from a positive value to 0, and then becomes continuous again taking on more and more negative values with greater and greater speeds.

 

But who am I to say this is not the way it works. Maybe these experiments which show particles travelling back in time are more than just hearsay, and I should just accept that at a certain point, this decreasing of elapsed time DOES make a discontinuous leap.

 

What WOULD make sense, however, is if the object in question ended up travelling back in time in its own frame of reference. That is, suppose you had an astronaut on a space craft who had a pocket watch, and who intended to break the universal speed limit (with whatever technology he figure would provide the means). Time on the space craft would slow down as indicated by the slower clock (which only stationary observers would be justified in surmising). Once the space craft reached the speed of light, the clock (along with everything else in the space craft) would freeze in time. If thereafter, the space craft continued to accelerate (if that were somehow possible) then we could say that the clock and all else aboard would reverse their tarjectory through time... maybe. But as you can see, this only applies to the happenings and going-ons aboard the space craft and has NOTHING to do with the speed of the space craft itself.

 

But again, I'm no astro-physicist, and maybe the whole scientific community is laughing at me right now

[PersonCube]

I just had an idea.... *grins at his stupid thoughts* Okay listen to this:

 

What if one clones his or herself and /then/ goes back in time. Would that not mean that there /are without a doubt/ one still in the future and the other that is still 'changing the past.' Now I know how people think about cloning, etc. etc. but let us just say that for a moment that there is nothing wrong with it and that we did it and no one cared. (Please, like that would ever happen) But seriously, if one was to have two, one being able to destroy itself without a care or, of course, go back into time... would that not solve things such as stated above?

 

I like time travel, but I am starting to see where Einstein was coming from...

~Cubes