Is time travel possible? (vis a vis the Grandfather Paradox)

[cwes99_03]

I personally like the multiple different timelines theory. That the only way time travel would be possible is if we were actually traveling between time-space dimensions. The idea goes as follows.

 

If one were to set his time machine to travel back in time, he would have to specify which exact time-space event he wanted to travel to. Namely he would have to specify all the parameters, including his presence in that time-space point.

 

This takes into account the parameter that for this to happen, all possible time-space possibilities exist. For every decision/event, all possible outcomes/choices actually occur. Whichever time-space dimension you exist in is just one of the possibilites, and you don't actually control which one you are in (we live in the most complex what if book ever written that has no beginning or no end).

 

I'll stop here because you can probably see where this goes. Think Sliders.

 

(For fun, let's say the machine can be set to travel to one of the billions of possible solutions at random, given just a few constants of time position and major events to go on. Thus you can say Dallas 1965 JFK was killed, Lincoln was killed, WW2 ended with Germany and Japan losing. But if you don't specify anything about the Bush family, your timeline may take you to an Al Gore presidency because you didn't specify that part of the future, and that's assuming that it didn't chose any timeline where say aliens landed just shortly after 1969, or even before 1900, as long as all the other events happened as you said they had to.)

[xersan]

We have many alternatives of theories. In my opinion, it is closer to absolute reality which has smallest excitement and happiness.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

xersan:

We have many alternatives of theories. In my opinion, it is closer to absolute reality which has smallest excitement and happiness.

If you mean that our happiness doesn't determine the truth, I agree. Or, if you mean that our wishes don't determine the truth, to that I would also agree. Or, if you mean that the truth isn't related to how hard I grunt or how hard I really, really believe well, I would also agree with that.

 

On the other hand, I would think that identifying the truth is the only road to successful life and happiness.

[Qfwfq]

Xersan that's all obvious but it doesn't mean that we are travelling into the past.

 

If we couldn't remember past events or see recordings of them, we'd have no notion of "past" and even one second ago wouldn't exist for us. We would be unable to even ask whether or not travel into the past was possible.

 

Without memory we would have no notion of time.

[xersan]

xersan:If you mean that our happiness doesn't determine the truth, I agree. Or, if you mean that our wishes don't determine the truth, to that I would also agree. Or, if you mean that the truth isn't related to how hard I grunt or how hard I really, really believe well, I would also agree with that.

 

On the other hand, I would think that identifying the truth is the only road to successful life and happiness.

 

 

 

If an investigator prefer an idea which it has not some exciting component, probably it is closer the truth; for example “Cold fusion declaration”.

 

If you read an exciting conclusion/suggestion, you may find paradoxes or some inappropriateness in it. Einstein had has the passion of mystic explanations. This passion had started in his childhood by a compass. And the theory of special relativity has also exciting conclusions and paradoxes. If you analyze this theory enough, you may see that it is a primary approaching for the problem of space-time. The theory has well-known paradoxes too, but it is still sanctified. We embrace it by sympathy because of high interpretation of its conclusions. Usually we neglect to comprehend its paradigm/proceedings. We read only, without scrutiny.

 

An investigator must like the science, but must never look for excitement and happiness at the meaning of mysticism.

 

The idea of time travel and SRT have mystic elements. The truth is cool, clean and spare, free of nonessentials and affections.

[cwes99_03]

I can only imagine that what is meant by travel to past and observe would be like an aparition. You would be wholely unable to affect change because of timeline causality, but otherwise you would actually be transfered mentally, and possibly physically to a time-space just slightly off from that moment in the past, so that you don't exist in their time-space.

 

The interesting conclusion is then, do you have to travel back to the time you left, or back to some time in the future from whence you left because time has continued to move on while you were absent. If you don't calculate this exact amount of time spent in the past, do you become permanently unstuck in time.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

xersan:

The truth is cool, clean and spare, free of nonessentials and affections.

Then why, my friend, does it elicit such emotion? We search for truth passionately. I love truth. So how could we think so differently? We don't. We are referring to different things. I suspect that what you refer to is the nature of existence and that whatever its nature is, we can only identify it. The emotional attachment comes when we evaluate a particular truth. If it is beneficial to us, then a positive emotion is generated. Not beneficial to us, a negative emotion is generated. But even in that case I'd still consider a negative truth to be a good thing. I'd rather be aware of danger than not.

So perhaps what you are saying is that we should be careful in evaluating a theory because our emotions will tend to accept a positive theory and deny a negative theory.

I've seen that happen with respect to the history of humanity and the very probable violence we've survived. Huge, huge tsunamis are a fact of history and have happened a lot more often that we've been led to believe. Only now after 1/4 million people died before our eyes are we starting to accept that the world is a violent place.

That an astroid hit the earth and killed the dinosaurs and helped in their extinction was fought tooth and nail because people wanted to believe that our solar system is like a clock and has been and always will be a certain way but mostly, that it is safe. The truth is that it isn't. Until we understand exactly what is going on and how to control it, we aren't safe.

So perhaps what you're saying is that if we could take the emotions out of identifying the truth, we wouldn't reject an observation just because it was uncomfortable to do so. Is that closer to what you mean?

[goku]

time travels?

what sensors detect time?

is a watch a sensor?

what particles form time?

 

i'm thinking time travel isn't possible

[rockytriton]

time travel is only possible in a really bad movie.

[xersan]

:) absolutely

[xersan]

Is that closer to what you mean?

 

 

Of course, it requires the passion for learning. Even philosophy can be identified “the passion of comprehension”. I am agree with you for this meaning. Excitements for learning/investing are significant, useful and better.

 

I want to say that, if the conclusions of theories have sensational elements, this case must be signal for us to suspect. And we must analyze again and deeply.

 

Einstein had grasped the idea of SRT and declared, Poincare had been at similar position (Poincare had had some suspicions). But SRT has powerful paradoxes.

 

Eventually, I have a simple solution for the problem of space-time without excitement/sensation/mysticism. Also, new model has not paradoxes. And it has not a chance to be popular as SRT.

[ingannilo]

To travel through time as a medium would be to waltz freely through the dimensions that make up our individual experience, and by killing grandpa we would negate the existence in our particular being from which we came, leaving us any of the infinate multitude of existences to return to. Minus one.

 

inevitability taking it's course, pulling our consciousness through different dimensions.

 

my .02 bits.

 

EDIT-- reading that after posting tells me that perhaps I've had a bit too much to drink to post outside the watercooler :)

[Kayra]

Sorry folks, another long post :)

 

Number 6, but not necessarily just because of time travel. Every time I consider these things I am left with an unsatisfactory feeling about it, however some other rather interesting effects can fall out of the “Novikov self-consistency principle” are consistent with how I perceive the universe.

 

Every time I think on this subject i get a feeling about what is going on. Unfortunately, I have neither the vocabulary, training, nor mathematical aptitude to properly frame or accurately describe what I think is happening. Never the less, I am going to try to get my intuition across in plain words and see how far out there I really am :)

 

To start with, one of the most aggravating things for me (sort of like a grain of sand stuck between my teeth) is the seemingly miraculous concurrence of numerical values that nature has assigned to her fundamental constants, the remarkable uniformity of all matter combined with the rate of expansion allowing for the formation of galaxies, and all of the things in the universe that have to be "Just Right" in order for it (and us) to exist at all.

 

It veritably smacks of design or intent, unless you subscribe to multiple universes. Infinities like the multiple universes concept are painful for me to intuit, and so I disregard the concept until someone describes it in such a simple, visual, and palatable manner. (not very scientific, I know)

 

I am currently trying to visualize a universe that came into being at it's end. That the result of the universe is what came into being (possibly through M-brane collisions? Deific will? Mad scientist with a cosmic barbeque?) including all the possible timeline paths to get there from any arbitrary beginning. The only thing this universe enforces is that we get to the required end result. All possible timelines that could not result in the end state of the universe would disappear as they can not exist in this universe.

 

The beginning (what a misnomer in this view) of the universe would require what exactly? Only a time line(s?) that started with a confluence of events that resulted in a big bang, with properties that allowed it to result the correct amount of mass so that it expanded at a particular rate? Had all the needed cosmological properties and constants to get it to its goal?

 

This universe would allow for a forward arrow of time, and still leave room for time travel and free will. Any event that could not conceivably result in the end universe is the only event that could not exist, including a timeline with time travel that resulted in a paradox.

 

Could the quantum wave function represent all remaining possible paths to the end result? Could the wave function collapsing simply be the loss of all timelines no longer available since one path was taken?

 

Were we just lucky enough that our universe required a semblance of structure in order to exist at all?

 

I am not certain there is enough scientific validity in this viewpoint to even make a decent sci-fi book, but at least I can visualize it easier them most theories :eek:

[Moontanman]

time travels?

what sensors detect time?

is a watch a sensor?

what particles form time?

 

i'm thinking time travel isn't possible

 

Actually goku, there are people, who are supposed to know about these things, that say that time it's self isn't real. To them what we see as time is just us trying to measure movement. A watch doesn't measure anything real. the concept is kind strange to think about, I'm not sure I grasp it completely.

[Isomotopes]

I feel backwards time travel is possible but if you went into the past you couldn't change anything because it has already happened therefore you would alter the "true" version of the future and essentially corrupt the data (in computing terms).

However travelling forward in time is impossible because the future hasn't happened yet and you could set the time too far forward and destroy yourself affecting said future. To prevent you from doing this the universe has a self preservation feature which will stop you travelling in time.

There is also the possibility that if you meet yourself in the past you can affect time that way so like the film Time Cop (the one with Jean-Claude Van Damme) you cannot be in the same place and time as your past self or you will get screwed

[Jay-qu]

But time travel into the future is possible. We are doing it right now. And if that is to slow for you, just go take a trip on a rocket at .999c and you will get there faster ;)

[CHADS]

Hi Guys ,

I Remember reading somewhere that two events can't happen simultaneously. I think it was Lorentz and Einstiens Special Relativity (I'm Slow at Math i dont understand the sums).

 

But veiwing an event before it happens can be computed , Presumed ....

 

Actually transporting mass/energy ,or opening up a window, to veiw a future event Would be impossibe Becuase The Event and the Veiwing would Happen Simultaneously ..... The Window would allow a veiw of the event in our universe and become real in our universe from our point of veiw.

 

But the actual veiw through the window has not yet come into being yet ,its a future universe .... so it would be two universes ..... two simultaneous universes. Two independant simultaneous events of the exact same event!?

 

The Veiw of the future event would allow new information into the earlier universe ... I dont know what ramifications this may have?

 

Thats my take Querry anyway.

 

Im about to read a book by J. Richard Gott ~ "time travel in Einsteins's universe" ... Not sure what the content will reveal but il post as i read.

 

Amazing subject.