Time Travel: How Do You Think It Works?

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Permalink Reply by Greg on June 22, 2009 at 10:59am

There was a great Andromeda episode were even though the crew weren't aware of it there actions had already happened and effected the future they traveled from. Anyway if time travel works that's how I think it handles paradoxes..

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Permalink Reply by MDS on June 22, 2009 at 11:55am

Honestly, let's just assume that you have a machine that is capable of calculating all the motions and places of every known atom of the Universe so you don't slam into a wall.......

Time Travel IF possible can only happen in 2 ways.

1) To the future. You build your machine and can only go forward from that instant your machine works. NEVER backwards in time. The ONLY point in "history" that you can travel is the instant you machine works. Because there is NOTHING available to receive your arrival, NOR is there anything that will allow you to return to the 'present' except your machine. And therefore your ONLY "ability to jump in time" is the existence of your own machine.

2) In your OWN mind. No matter what, TIME is relative to everyone. What might go on for 3 long boring hours for me, can pass in a blink of an eye for someone else that is enjoying it. Doubt me? Then go to a birthday party with a bunch of kids (Like around 25-50) and see how the parents of the kids don't seem to be able to believe how long it takes and how much the kids bitch about it being "over so soon".

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Permalink Reply by Meddle on June 22, 2009 at 1:14pm

2 has nothing to do with actual space-time, just individual perception of it. Time travel would involve traveling space-time.

1 assumes space-time is linear.

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Permalink Reply by MDS on June 22, 2009 at 1:29pm

Right, so let's assume that YOU perceive that you had traveled in time. Does that automatically mean that everyone one else in the known world is UNAWARE of a time traveling effect? Does everyone you run across assume that there isn't a noticeable aspect of YOU traveling in time? You arrive, people interact with you, you leave, people are fully aware of you and your actions. You go back in time, people suddenly become aware of your presence, they deal with you, you return don't people still understand that you went from Future-to-pass and they have a knowledge of it? See, time's all sorts of fucked up when dealing with other people. . It's a badly executed concept, because "Time" itself is a man-made construct that we can alter as we see fit.

Even assuming that time is NOT linear, it's still impossible to go further back in time than the creation of your device. You build a time Machine at 12:01pm on a Sunday afternoon. The time machine ITSELF isn't in existence until that point, and therefore has NO REFERENCE of time-space prior TO that 12:01pm. Because, before it was built, there WAS no time for the machine itself, so therefore can't travel backward beyond it's activation because to the machine there IS no time to travel to. Now, it can travel FORWARD just fine, until the time-date-stamp that particular machine ceases to function properly.

Live I've said before in another thread, there are so many "holes" in the time-travel concept that I personally hate it and wish that it would stop being used as a crutch to tell a story.

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Permalink Reply by Meddle on June 22, 2009 at 1:36pm

Time is a man made concept. Space-time solves that problem.

The biggest problem with time travel isn't holes. There are entire fields of quantum physics that explain your problems with time travel. The biggest problem with time travel is that for it to be possible you would need to break the known laws of physics. The best idea we have of time travel involves faster than light travel, which as everyone knows, is impossible.

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Permalink Reply by MDS on June 22, 2009 at 1:43pm

And yet, is faster than light travel actually TIME travel, or just the perception of time travel? You still require the TIME of traveling from point A to point B, so there isn't really a "Instant" jump that is thought of as "time-travel" at all. You require a moment of your personal experience TO travel in time.

Like I said, somewhere else a long time ago. There are 2 camps. Those that believe it is a possibility, and the other believes it's impossible.

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Permalink Reply by Meddle on June 22, 2009 at 1:47pm

FTL travel isn't the time traveling itself, just what's required for it to work. It has more to do with energy.

We're not exactly disagreeing here, but it is more complex than you're making it out to be.

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Permalink Reply by MDS on June 22, 2009 at 1:52pm

Of course it's more complex, I'm trying to keep it simple for others.

Personally, I believe that any attempt to do "time travel", be it machine-based, FTL, or even quantum physics is bound to fail for the simple reason that no matter how you ATTEMPT to do it, you can't go BACKWARDS from your starting point. The only possibility open to you is attempting to go forwards from your starting point, (ONLY) to the point where the 'device' you are using stops working. If the method is available for 10,000yrs of existence (I.E. light traveling that long) then you can only go within that 10,000yrs of travel..... not 10,001yrs and not -1yr. You are sort of stuck within that time of "Parenthesis of references." Now, you personally COULD bounce back in forth all you WANT to do from year 0 to 10,000... but you can't go BEYOND those points.

Provided of course you are capable of knowing where everything is in that "travel" that you don't smack into a sun or wall, or even that tiny little problem of "appearing" 100,000 feet about sea level. =)

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Permalink Reply by Meddle on June 22, 2009 at 1:54pm

Some theorize that you can go back further than your starting point and it diverges into an alternate reality for your present self.

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Permalink Reply by MDS on June 22, 2009 at 2:05pm

And that I disagree with. You can't do an "alternate" reality for your present self becuase that's the Reality you are facing regardless of anything else. You don't have an 'alternate' reality without having an alternate YOU. Your adventures and events of time-traveling might happen, but YOU observe them on a linear basis of minute-by-minute as it happens. You can't have an "alternate reality" because it's impossible to assume that one "reality" is right or wrong, it's the reality that you are "IN" that you must face. Sure, you can land in some "alternate" time-line where 1 event is changed, but you (As the traveler) have to face that event as a FACT, not an ALTERNATE.

Permalink Reply by Wolf Remington on June 22, 2009 at 3:08pm

It is possible to go faster than the speed of light. It just hasn't been invented yet.

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Permalink Reply by Wolf Remington on June 22, 2009 at 12:42pm

Time travel could work if you realize one little thing. Time itself does not exist. It never has nor it ever will. Time was invented as an organizer and as a mesurement for every day, month and year. So if time travel was to work we would be only be traveling through space that was previously occupied ( the past), space that is being occupied (the present), or will soon be occupied.

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