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Tue 12 Aug, 2003 12:12 pm
It became very popular and interesting topic in contemporary books and movies: TIME TRAVEL: actors travelling to the apst or the future...
Do you think it is possible? do you think we can travel to the past or the future???
Personally, I could not agree that it may be possible(even from the philosophical notion, not a physical)
How could we do that?
TIME is a measure of change! if there were no change there would be no time existing! so, time comes as a result of change?!
then, how could we go back in the past if the past is defined by certain, fixed!!! change that already happened? Philip Dowe(if interested, read his article'the case of the time travel') says that it is possible to go back into the past for it is not the way that we fall into 'contradiction with the fixed event' we can turn back like 'police box' is turning; so the time becomes reversable!
But, how could that be?? isn't that a fact that if we could go back, it would be more like math diafragm/scale, so we would simply reverse the fixed events not being able to change them; or being aware of them more than at the same moment when we were passing them some time ago?(what I mean is that if I could go back into my childhood , I could not change anything that happened from the fact how that had happened when I was a child? Moreover, while going back, I would not reverse back/ spin around like 'police-box' - I could not go back into childhood being a grown man like I am now, but I would go back by 'getting younger' - returning step by step without any extra qualities or abilities(knowledge that I posses now, awareness of someone's death etc.)
And how about the future??? how could we jump into the future that we do not know about??? how could we jump into 'unconsequential' change? how could we cause such change that we would 'overjump' the time?
According to the theory of Relativity(if we travel very fast) we can cause faster travelling into the future in less time; so, it seems that we are travelling into the future more quicly;
I, however, think that it is relatively: we do not travel into the future in litterary meaning of the word - we pass a change in less time, and that is all; While to travel into the future, would mean to be able to ahead the change; that, however, is not what really happens while travelling acording to the 'theory of realativity'?!
Or how could that happen?
What do you guys think or know about the 'time travel dilema'???
You can't format topic titles (e. g. font color or size changes). I've fixed the title of this topic.
Past and Future don't exist in the same way that the present does. As such, you cannot travel to them.
Past and Future are just the terms we use to talk about things we remember, or things we can deduce to have happened, or might happen.
The only thing that exists is the crest of the propagation wave called *Now*. Everything else is just a construct of memory or deduction.
My guess is that it is not possible.
To travel backwards in time, you would need to have a localized field around you that would be exempt from the laws of physics and entropy, because you can't just run the movie backwards without providing all of the material necessary for the body to un-excrete its byproducts. (Would you need props such as a cast to un-hael and unbreak a leg? Perhaps the neural pathways could simply dissipate without having to unexperience everything that happened to you.) What about all of the excess heat your brain and body produce over time? If you reversed biological processes you would be absorbing an incredible amount of heat.
If we live in a virtual universe, all you might have to do it change the date on your program. You could travel anywhere in the universe instantaneously as well, just by programming in new coordinates.
If you accept the quantum physics notion that the universe splits every time multiple outcomes are possible so that all of them occur, then even if you did travel back in time you would find yourself in an alternate universe to the one you left.
(this doesn't happen very often) i dissagree with Terry
I would say it is possible, since my concept of time is that of the relationships of objects in the universe, at the macro, and micro level.
But i feel at the quantum level such relationships don't apply; thus some manipulation of quantum physics would be required.
and i don't think it would be possible to escape 'causality'; i suspect the time traveller would only be able to experience the 'time' fragment they reach by such methods, and, upon their return to their starting point 'time' would cease to 'know' the other 'time' visited. And they could only affect one 'time' at a time, so to speak (or bable!).
(But for the sake of Science fiction 'speculation', don't hold me to that!)
thanks, Jespah, for a prompt and corection!
One of my favourite books is 'Time and Again' by Jack Finney. I like the theory he uses for the time travelling in this book. Time is like a river. You just need to find a way to get to the river's bank and walk back. The past - and future - is always there. So all the time travellers in this book have to to - more or less - is feel the time they are travelling to. I love that book!
A comment on the quantum physics and relativity things... Travelling at high speed does not move someone faster into the future. Actually, at increased velocities, the body in motion will experience time dialation - that is, time will slow down. Using this, you can *kinda* travel into the future. Say, if you were to position yourself only a few feet away from a singularity (like that in a black hole), the immense gravitational field would be sufficient to nearly stop time - for you. Space outside of the horizon of the black hole would continue as usual. You could, in theory, climb out of the black hole after a few minutes, relative to you, only to find that several years have past back on earth. But obviously, this isn't *real* time travel. That, is impossible. Travel to the past is rather tricky, but I imagine it is equally is impossible.
I'm travelling in the future right now, therefor it's possible.
USAFHokie wrote:But obviously, this isn't *real* time travel..
What is *real* time travel?
no... you're travelling in the present. and what i meant by "real" time travel, is the notion that we can access an arbitrary moment in the past and/or future.
USAFHokie wrote:no... you're travelling in the present. and what i meant by "real" time travel, is the notion that we can access an arbitrary moment in the past and/or future.
...but i'm travelling into the future.
lol... no... you are travelling, at most, *towards* the future, but you will always travel in and always arrive at the present.
and actually, the future, by definition, hasn't happened yet. and therefore is a non-existant destination. so really, you're not travelling to the future as you have to distinct destination. you are just travelling... and the future is just happening along the way.
Try thinking of it like surfing on the crest of a wave on an endless ocean. With no external reference from which to compare, you can't tell the wave is moving at all. The analogy is imprecise because ocean waves propogate through a physical substance, of which we are aware, whereas time doesn't, but it illustrates the point.
The present is the crest of a wave with no external reference which relates to itself. The only [external] reference point we have is memory and deduction, but these are not physical or temporal realities, only interpretations generated by our mind.
The past and the future are not instances of the wave which existed, or will exist, they are simply concepts used to describe something outside of the present.
There's a bar downstairs with a sign nailed in front
that says "Free Beer Tomorrow".
Tomorrow never comes.
Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today. (One of the Queens from one of the Alice books, but I forget which exactly, and the quote is only approximate.)
We are all travelling forward at the rate of one second per second.
.dnoces rep dnocs eno etar eht ta drawrof gnillevart lla era eW
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.
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>gasp<
for a brief instant I... I...
Mad! They said I was Mad! I'll show them! I'll show them all! MwuAhAhAhahahahah....
Beings on a planet one million light years away from us, looking at the earth through a telescope, would see the earth a million years ago. That's about as deep as I can think on this subject.
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