Time Travel

[E-bo Obi]

Ok. Jaminos desire to have the ability to manipulate time in all directions has brought up a debate that has been raging in my mind for some time.

This particular debate only is an issue with me when people talk about altering past events.

Some event happens in history which consequently causes other events to happen in the future. Some plague wipes out most of the planet or what not. Then at some point a person or persons create a device to go back in time to stop the plague before it starts.

Now the person goes back in time to stop the plague. IF they stop it then here is my problem. As time progresses there is no reason for the future to have sent anyone back to stop it so it really would have happened anyway? I don't think we could effect our own past that way.

Say you change an event that causes you to never be born. Then what? You changed something but you don't exist. I find time travel to be an interesting topic but I don't see it as being plausable if we assume that there is only one dimension we can exist in. If there are multiple dimensions on top of each other that mirror our own. If we can exist in it is possible to say we could go back in time in another dimension to stop the cataclysmic in their timeline.

What do you all think?

[Lok'i Vidaar]

It totally depends on which time travel theory you believe in.. In order for time travel to work at all their would have to be an infinite number of alternate dimensions, we just happen to travel on this timeline.

Here is a site with alot of information.. I am also very interested in Time travel paradoxes.

http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/newtt.html

[Dwilah]

Time bugs me. It creeps me out that if you go like, fast enough you could go back around the world into yesterday? Or forward into tomorrow? And like, thanks to time zones we live like in Britain's past? /Sheen voice SO CONFUSING!!! Give me Ultra Lord. /puts on Ultra Lord mask.

[Yggdrasil]

Ok. Jaminos desire to have the ability to manipulate time in all directions has brought up a debate that has been raging in my mind for some time.

This particular debate only is an issue with me when people talk about altering past events.

Some event happens in history which consequently causes other events to happen in the future. Some plague wipes out most of the planet or what not. Then at some point a person or persons create a device to go back in time to stop the plague before it starts.

Now the person goes back in time to stop the plague. IF they stop it then here is my problem. As time progresses there is no reason for the future to have sent anyone back to stop it so it really would have happened anyway? I don't think we could effect our own past that way.

Say you change an event that causes you to never be born. Then what? You changed something but you don't exist. I find time travel to be an interesting topic but I don't see it as being plausable if we assume that there is only one dimension we can exist in. If there are multiple dimensions on top of each other that mirror our own. If we can exist in it is possible to say we could go back in time in another dimension to stop the cataclysmic in their timeline.

What do you all think?

My thoughts...

Your changing of a past event (like the plague) means it will not occur in one or more of many possible future timelines. In others it did still happen... mayhap because you failed to stop it or because the time machine was never invented or... or...

Multiple futures... split from points of decision large and small.

[E-bo Obi]

Interesting article Lok'i. I will have to sit down when I have time and fully digest it.

[Lok'i Vidaar]

That's it exactly split points of every descision ever, thus infinite dimensions, and infinite possibilities.

and Einstiens theory of relitivitey plays hugley on what Dwilah is talking about... (well all but the Jimmy Neutron Stuff ;))

If you have never done so I suggest you read what it is all about, VERY VERY FASCINATING!!!

http://science.howstuffworks.com/relativity.htm

howstuffworks rocks!

[Illbleed]

Time travel is all about paradox. I believe what you are referring to is referred to as "super string theory". Basically the solution to an outcome is infinite and branches out in infinite directions. Vibrations in the "strings" may cause a jump between possible outcomes which all exist at the same time in multiple dimensions. Conventional thinking implies that there are a limited number of dimensions, however nothing in science has denied the possibility that many, many dimensions really exist.

So in answer to your question, yes and no simultaneously or not at all.

[Dwilah]

What would Ultra Lord do? I want helmets like this in the game.

OKAY. Leaving this thread now before I get killed.

[TramelRaggs]

If you do something that affects your birth, you cease to exist. Remember when Marty had to get Lorainne and George together, and he started fading out of existance during "Earth Angel?" That's all the proof you need.

[Jaminos]

Well when I first posted about time change it would be less on chaging world events. I mean think about it. Our world has shaped by the events that have taken place. Lets say someone wnet back in time and killed Hitler at a yuong age. It would effect our world alot but would it be for the better? I do not think so. I think things all happen for a reason and to change them would destroy that reason and effect many. No if I really could go back in time the max I would go would be to the age of 10 when I started making my own choices. But I would never go and actualy alter time.

[Yggdrasil]

What would Ultra Lord do? I want helmets like this in the game.

OKAY. Leaving this thread now before I get killed.

Ultra Lord would answer the question of

"What's that smell?"

with

"Is it his salami leg or her salami leg or his salami leg or HIS salami leg?"

/meanders back into his own little future

[Krusshyk]

Come on guys didn't you see that documentary "The Butterfly Effect"?

God...all of your questions would be answered if you just watched educational films like that.

Actually, I had a point to make, but it has since slipped my mind. Ummm...will remember eventually.

[Keer]

Yay! Again someone has started a Thread that I was afraid would go over my science geek "quota". ( I too had a "break off thread" from Del'tar's "Super Power Post" that I'll save for another time).

Gladly accepting the fact that we truly have no concrete idea, my imagination takes me here:

Quantum Physics. In short:

1. if we went "sideways" in time to a similar dimension with a similar past, one which we could not distinguish from our own (the only difference was, say, one less fly was born on a day 30 years ago. You'd never know the difference), then...

2. changed some event in that other past, then...

3. travelled forward through time in yet another quantum "branch" where you had left from in the first place which ALSO had experienced the effect that you changed in the past (once again so similar to your own "native" time that you couldn't tell the difference), finally...

You'd have basically travelled through time (from your own point of view) but really just hopped quantum "instances" that were very similar to your own.

And there's the solution! Remember, you heard it here first...(from some guy on the internet :lol: )

[Krusshyk]

That doesn't sound like any fun at all, Keer.

Another Documentary you should all check out is "Time Cop". Even though it sounds like a ride at a Disney themepark, I think JCVD does a great job of outlining the basics of time travel...while doing the splits in hanes briefs...on 2 chairs.

You can't argue with facts.

[Seret Sajet]

I had this talk of going back and changing one thing with my wife not long ago. I said I would not change anything out of fear that I might inadvertedly cause something else bad to happen. She said she would go back in time and prevent a good friend of hers from High School from getting shot, which in turn paralyzed him from the neck down.

Now this is a very noble cause but I would still not do something even as simple as this. Why? Because how do I know what I might change down the timeline?

For example. What if my wife went back in time and stopped this tragic event. Her friend grows up with a normal life and everything is good. But then down the line he drinks and drives and in a terrible accident kills a family of 4. If time was unchanged he never would have been driving but she would have to live with the fact that she saved one person from life as a parapalegic while killing a family of 4 innocent people.

Now I'm not saying the guy is drunk, I'm just saying that is one of hundreds of thousands of changes you could do to a timeline, no matter how you think time travel might work. Can you handle that?