NationStates Jolt Archive

I know that this is an abstract concept, but what the heck?

Time Travel- the ability to travel foward and backward through time

Self-Consistancy- the theory that the time stream is inflexible, and cannot be altered, no matter what you do. Or, in short, free will is an illusion.

Everything that happens in the world happens because it is meant to, and has always happened that way. So, if time travel is possible, it has always been possible, we just haven't reached the point when it is discovered. And when and if it is, people would try to alter history, but would find that no matter what they do, the time stream would simply flow over their petty actions as if they had never happened. NOTHING CAN CHANGE THIS!!!!! Except....a paradox. Two identical bodies meet in time and space, creating a temporal distorsion powerful enough to derail history. History will not allow the introduction a paradox, so the time stream alters its course to accomadate the change from that point on. However, sometimes the change is too great to be accomadated, and whatever set the paradox in motion is expelled from the time stream altogether. Frightening huh. Try to alter history for the better and get your butt nixed from existence.

Anyone with some thoughts on this or arguements. Maybe have your own theories about time travel? I'll try to check on this thread everyday and respond.

Shouldn't this be in "General?"

Tadaa!

~ Tsar the (time travelling) Mod.

I'd have to say that all paradoxes were prevented already, and what's already happened cannot be changed.

The thing with self-consistency is that its basically that "hindsight is 20/20". You can just do something random and claim that that's what was supposed to happen.

I cannot believe that you are suggesting we go back in time, which is forbidden by god, (see bob-19:12'12) and creating a paradox, which is an abomination against nature.

Being a timetraveler is a choice. If we allow timetravelers to go back in time, killing their grandparents in a homosexual way, what is that but a self-abortion or suicide, but of which are immoral and evil. I refuse to be surrounded by your heretical baby eating rhetoric.

:D I cannot believe that you are suggesting we go back in time, which is forbidden by god, (see bob-19:12'12) and creating a paradox, which is an abomination against nature.

Being a timetraveler is a choice. If we allow timetravelers to go back in time, killing their grandparents in a homosexual way, what is that but a self-abortion or suicide, but of which are immoral and evil. I refuse to be surrounded by your heretical baby eating rhetoric.

What the hell?
Funny though :D

The really scary things are the causality paradoxes, for example: A man is working in his garage one day, trying to invent time travel, i.e. time travel being in this case free will of movement through time, and not our everyday perception of the passage of time, anyways...he's trying to invent that, when suddenly an older man from the future appears and shows him the secret. Well if this older man from the future just appeared, then the inventor must have been successful. (disregard other potential inventors for this hypothesis) Which he was. As he got older, he decided that his final act as a time traveller would be to go back in time and give this gift to...himself.

So you see, the question now becomes: who created time travel, for the older man had to have learned time travel from himself when he was younger. Thus this series of events had to have been predetermined unknowingly to the man, thus drawing support for self-consistency.

OKay, we all know that going back in time and killing your own grandfather is bad. But, what if you go back in time and are your own grandfather?

That's something to think about.

So, causing a paradox is another way of getting a "Darwin Award"??

I prefer to stay away from discussions where we discuss abstract and near-idiotic concepts. But, here's my idea: we are physically 3-dimensional beings, but we do exist in a 4th, non-physical dimension, time. While we can move, every-which way through our 3 physical dimensions, we are stuck on a forward track through time indefinately. Self-consistency is just too strange, because no matter what you do, someone can just claim that "THAT'S how it was SUPPOSED to happen, see. you played into the hands of fate". It sounds like pretty circular logic to me. Or something

if you are your own grandfather or similar cases then you start generating genetic information from no-where. where does this information come from?

Anyway the best primer on chronophysics anywhere is : http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/chrono.html

this guy also has a lot of other cool stuff on his site.

This is where it gets confusing: if you go back in time and kill your grandfather, it should mean you were never born, but if you were never born, how the hell could you kill your grandfather?

This is where it gets confusing: if you go back in time and kill your grandfather, it should mean you were never born, but if you were never born, how the hell could you kill your grandfather?

Perhaps he's not your real grandfather?

Actually, it depends on when you kill your grandfather. Just because you killed your grandfather doesn't mean you were not already concieved by your parents. So, no paradox there.

Now, I prefer the StarGate view: Events just change.

I've read many fictional hypothesis, of which only two have I felt were compelling. Both indicate that time travel is only possible backwards. (Disregarding suspended animation or relativity which is not quite the same as time travel)

Ine one example a person went back in time and killed his wifes parents. He returned to find her there. He went back in time and killed her grandparents. Returned, she was still there. He went back and killed more and more people and always found her there. When he finally went to speak to her he found she could not see him. Only HIS past had changed, not hers. He was so out of phase with her time line as to be invisible to everyone. Every individual has their own unique past.

In the other time moves not in a line, but in a spring-like coil. One can move from one rung to the next downward and straight only, moving backwards in time in fixed increments. (five years, ten years, fifteen years, etc. - whatever the 'diameter' of the coil may be) If the portal is closed the traveler may not return. Ever. Presuming the portal remains open changing the past will not change the starting point. Only five years into the future, if you jumped five years to the past, would you see a difference. Yet your start point is still unaffected by the paradox because time is still coiling forward at the same rate.

If I am not clear on this forgive me. IT is a complex topic and I've had some wine. now I must sleep. G'nite.

Actually, it depends on when you kill your grandfather. Just because you killed your grandfather doesn't mean you were not already concieved by your parents. So, no paradox there.

Now, I prefer the StarGate view: Events just change.

Kind of like Dave lister, who slept with his grandmother and became his own grandfather.

This is where it gets confusing: if you go back in time and kill your grandfather, it should mean you were never born, but if you were never born, how the hell could you kill your grandfather?

Feynman's Sum Over Histories principle can explain that. It's an idea that a particle takes every single possible route through space-time. In practical terms that means that somewhere there's a universe of chocolate and easy women, but anyways, in terms of the grandfather paradox, "you" in this universe go back in time to kill your grandfather. Already you have left the universe where you didn't go back in time. Now you kill your grandfather, so you've left another universe. You go poof because the universe you've arrived in by killing your grandfater doesn't have you in it.

Feynman's Sum Over Histories principle can explain that. It's an idea that a particle takes every single possible route through space-time. In practical terms that means that somewhere there's a universe of chocolate and easy women, but anyways, in terms of the grandfather paradox, "you" in this universe go back in time to kill your grandfather. Already you have left the universe where you didn't go back in time. Now you kill your grandfather, so you've left another universe. You go poof because the universe you've arrived in by killing your grandfater doesn't have you in it.

There's another theory that states that everyone has a temporal signature that says where in time they are supposed to be. When they travel through time, they become slightly out of sync with it. As long as you remain out of sync, you are not affected by temporal changes. However, the moment you return to your own time, you become affected by all of the changes wrought. Even worse is a variant that says you have to keep travelling through time, as if you stay in a period too long you become in sync with it and your temporal signature changes.

This whole paradox situation depends on the time continuum being passive and accepting travel to dangerous points in time, where alteration could lead to a paradox or a change in history.

A sci-fi author named Connie Willis wrote a couple of novels in which time travel was restricted by the problem of slippage. For a person to travel back in time, they set a pace and time, then step into the machine and get transported there. But, if they were going to screw with history, by killing Hitler for example, they could set the coordinates, but they would end up too far from their destination to affect change. The asassin after Hitler would be deposited years from Hitler's known location, or on the other side of the world where he couldn't kill him.

It assumes, basically, that no one could get near either their ancestors or important events in history because time wouldn't allow it. They're really good novels, and an interesting idea.

Play The Journeyman Project Triolgy. 3 games with time-travel as the theme where you work for the TSA (Temporal Security Agency), a sort of timestream police department which monitors the stability and historical accuracy of time, i.e. prevents distortions and the like. A bit old, but you'd be surprised what you can find on eBay.

I subscribe to something like a "time stream" theory. Every possible action that you can do becomes an alternate stream at the moment that you could do it. In effect, you could say that more than a googleplex of streams are breaking off every single nanosecond. From those streams, googleplexes more break off. Therefore, travelling back, or forward, in time is next to impossible. One would have to travel down one's own time stream and change an event, though one's changes would already be in existence in another time stream. It's only a matter of going to the time stream in which what one wants done is already done. Of course, you have to pinpoint the right reality among infinite others...

Eugh.

I subscribe to something like a "time stream" theory. Every possible action that you can do becomes an alternate stream at the moment that you could do it. In effect, you could say that more than a googleplex of streams are breaking off every single nanosecond. From those streams, googleplexes more break off. Therefore, travelling back, or forward, in time is next to impossible. One would have to travel down one's own time stream and change an event, though one's changes would already be in existence in another time stream. It's only a matter of going to the time stream in which what one wants done is already done. Of course, you have to pinpoint the right reality among infinite others...

Eugh.

That's basically the Sum Over Histories principle, although even the attempt to find and/or resolve alternate timestreams creates new ones, so it's really impossible to get back to the original one, without a paradoxal loop.

That's basically the Sum Over Histories principle, although even the attempt to find and/or resolve alternate timestreams creates new ones, so it's really impossible to get back to the original one, without a paradoxal loop.

Exactly. Even looking for those time streams would cause time streams to come into existence where you DIDN't find them... you'd be stuck among so many possibilities that you would simultaneously succeed and fail. It's best to let it be. And which of those 'yous' would be the one who succeeds? Probably not the 'you' that exists in this time stream.

I believe in time as a linear sequence of events. You cannot go back, you can only go forward. You cannot slow time, you can only slow your perception of time. You cannot hasten time, you can only hasten your perception of time. The way we perceive time is easily changed, we cannot change time itself though. Every even that has happened has happened. Every even that will happen will happen. It is alreay happening. IMHO, every infinitesimal unit of time, has already passed, we are reading a book that has already been written. We can look back in this book, but we cannot change what is written, we can look forward in this book, but we cannot change what is written.

This makes me think of the movie Donnie Darko which has elements that are similar to time travel.

We have free will, but what we will choose to do, we will choose to do, because there's no outside influence to make us choose otherwise. In this fashion, even though the time stream is unchangeable, we still have free will. As for time travel, the only possible way for that to happen is to somehow exceed the speed of light. Of course, that is impossible, unless we were to find some wormhole, which bypasses our own universe's boundaries to bring you immediately to another point, basically giving relativity the slip. If such a thing existed, it would allow for paradoxes to occur, which would in fact destroy the time line. Since the time line has not yet been destroyed, assuming that time is infinite, there must not be such a possibility as time travel. You can still travel forward in time using relativity or suspended animation, at least in a sense.

Truly a fascinating concept...makes me head hurt. Owww...

We have free will, but what we will choose to do, we will choose to do, because there's no outside influence to make us choose otherwise. In this fashion, even though the time stream is unchangeable, we still have free will. As for time travel, the only possible way for that to happen is to somehow exceed the speed of light. Of course, that is impossible, unless we were to find some wormhole, which bypasses our own universe's boundaries to bring you immediately to another point, basically giving relativity the slip. If such a thing existed, it would allow for paradoxes to occur, which would in fact destroy the time line. Since the time line has not yet been destroyed, assuming that time is infinite, there must not be such a possibility as time travel. You can still travel forward in time using relativity or suspended animation, at least in a sense.

But that assumes causality. Everyone takes causality for granted but there is sno real proof for it. What if everything is is actually self-caused and thus altering one event will not effect any other?

In reference to the beloved Grandfather Paradox:

You travel back in time and kill your grandfather BEFORE he sires your father, which means that you yourself are never born. But that means that you never travel back in time, never kill your grandfather. This is the beginning of the hellish cycle of the paradox. From here, the theories vary, but I personally believe that in this instance the time stream will not be able to alter its course according to the change and will expell you from itself altogether to avoid this Fatal Paradox. "History Abhors a Paradox," as the vampire Kain says. In any instance of a paradox, the time stream changes its course so that the paradox will alter as little as possible.

The movie 'Butterfly Effect' is an interesting way of viewing time travel and altering the future without some hyper-advanced technology.

Self-Consistancy- the theory that the time stream is inflexible, and cannot be altered, no matter what you do. Or, in short, free will is an illusion.
Sorry if this question has already been addressed (I didn't read the whole thread). Why is this theory pegged with the inappropriate misnomer "Self-Consistency"?

What's wrong with paradoxes?

This statement is a lie.

Sorry if this question has already been addressed (I didn't read the whole thread). Why is this theory pegged with the inappropriate misnomer "Self-Consistency"?

Actually, its not that bad a name if you know the basis of the theory. Most peoples' perception of time is that the future is not set in stone, and that with every action we take, we reshape the future. That people have free will. With Self-Consistency, the time stream IS set in stone, and no matter what the time stream follows the same course it always has, and always will. Unless of course a paradox is created; in that case, seeing as "History Abhors a Paradox," the time stream alters its course to accomadate the change taking the path of least resistance. You basically have to view Time as a sentient being that will do its damnedest to make sure that everything follows the role destiny has prepared for it.

The really scary things are the causality paradoxes, for example: A man is working in his garage one day, trying to invent time travel, i.e. time travel being in this case free will of movement through time, and not our everyday perception of the passage of time, anyways...he's trying to invent that, when suddenly an older man from the future appears and shows him the secret. Well if this older man from the future just appeared, then the inventor must have been successful. (disregard other potential inventors for this hypothesis) Which he was. As he got older, he decided that his final act as a time traveller would be to go back in time and give this gift to...himself.

So you see, the question now becomes: who created time travel, for the older man had to have learned time travel from himself when he was younger. Thus this series of events had to have been predetermined unknowingly to the man, thus drawing support for self-consistency.

My point exactly. Some things in the universe just ARE. There isn't any logical sense to it sometimes. The only thing that could happen is that destiny had always meant for this event to transpire the way it did. If you tried to tamper with it and alter it by lets say murdering the younger man before he tries to invent time travel, time travel is never invented and the stream descends into chaos. History would not allow such a radical change to the stream, so instead you are erased from existence.

Actually, its not that bad a name if you know the basis of the theory. Most peoples' perception of time is that the future is not set in stone, and that with every action we take, we reshape the future. That people have free will. With Self-Consistency, the time stream IS set in stone, and no matter what the time stream follows the same course it always has, and always will. Unless of course a paradox is created; in that case, seeing as "History Abhors a Paradox," the time stream alters its course to accomadate the change taking the path of least resistance. You basically have to view Time as a sentient being that will do its damnedest to make sure that everything follows the role destiny has prepared for it.
Ah, so the "self" involved is the "time stream". Thanks.

There's also a theory that you can only travel to a place where there is a time machine. Kind of the stargate theory. i.e. if it was invented today, one could travel to tomorrow, but no to yesterday!
That would explain why (if it is possible) that no one from the future has come back to us yet!! Or have they!

Anyone read "Timeline" by Michael Crichton? Based on the theory of infinite numbers of parallel worlds! I thought the book was good, I never saw the film though, it was a flop. The critics though that it was too far fetched..... and yet they accepted Jurassic Park (also by Crichton)!!

Time travel theory is fun. Most of it is just based on "what if" with no real logic applied. As in, what if Marty went back in time and dated his mother and she never married his father? Wouldn't he just disappear in front of our eyes? That makes no sense to me. If his mother had never dated his father, how could he have been born? And now, to some people, this seems a good time to make the world explode in front of our eyes. Paradox.
To me, it would make more sense that Marty never went back in time and dated his mother. Atleast not so that she never met and dated his father. He couldn't have. Otherwise he couldn't have been born. I think what is more possible is that if you had taken a picture of that prom date that she went to with Marty, he would be there, but the rest of the story is as it always has been. If you went back in time to the day President Kennedy was assassinated to see what happened and happened to pass through the Zapruder camera, your family would all remark how that guy in front of the camera looked like you. Then when it actually happened, I'm sure it would blow your mind. Deja Vu and all that.
To me time seems like it would be a river. If you piss in the river, it's going to come downstream. If you were to get out and go back upstream, it would whatever you did to the water would travel down. That's why I like the movie 12 Monkeys. I think it adds a little common sense to the fantastical time travel story.
Just a theory, no real facts involved.

So what you're saying is that time is flexible and we have the ability to alter it with little to no effort?

bump