NationStates Jolt Archive

The infinite-you complexity states that if you went back in time a certain amount of time, you would have caused an infinite amount of perfect clones of you to appear, since you would technicly have went back in time an infinite amount of times. If you affect the past, like kill the other you before he or she could go back in time, you would have destroyed time itself since you created an impossibility since you killed yourself both directly and indirectly, thereby making your presence there a happened impossibility. Such an event could permanantly crippled time.

Didn't you ever see the movie Back to the Future? It doesn't work like that.

A----------------B

If you could theoretically time travel from B to A and the change the past, it would create two distinct timelines:

A--------------------B
|
--------------C

The infinite-you complexity states that if you went back in time a certain amount of time, you would have caused an infinite amount of perfect clones of you to appear, since you would technicly have went back in time an infinite amount of times. If you affect the past, like kill the other you before he or she could go back in time, you would have destroyed time itself since you created an impossibility since you killed yourself both directly and indirectly, thereby making your presence there a happened impossibility. Such an event could permanantly crippled time.

Says the expert:rolleyes: . Watch some star trek, geez. They have every 'time travel' possibility on there.

I'll stay with the miraculous portals of the distant future to explain time travel. I favor Einstein in the meantime.

Indeed, it's like a fractal. And cause of all the crazy uncertainties, there are an infinite number of seperate timelines. Simply by going back in time you create a new one.

I have actually studied time travel theories, and come up with a couple of my own (which I lack the resources/technology to test.) That being said, I'd like to pose 3 possibilities to explain a little about time travel.

Possiblity 1 dictates that if you go into the past and change something, you create a paradox and all of existence unravels (sounds a lot like what you pose.)

Possibility 2 looks at a timeline more like a river with different tributaries and branches (which correlate with alternate dimensions.) In P2, you could get out of the river and go back up to a point you have already passed, then navigate down a different branch. There would be infinite branches for every decision and twist of fate imagineable. If I flip a coin but don't look at it, much like shroedinger's cat, there exist both possibilities at the same time. When I look to see how the coin landed, I learn which path of the river (timeline) i went down. You could also get out of the river and go into the future, but the problem become which future? How do you control which of the possible (and according to this theory equally valid) futures you travel to?

The third possibility is that travel backwards in time is impossible, while changing the speed at which you travel forward through time is possible. You are currently traveling through time at a fixed speed. If you could change the speed at which you travel through time, you would, in essence, jump to a point in the future. The problem here is, you could not come back to tell us about it. We might notice your absence, and when you appear you could tell us where you've been. But would we believe you?

I actually have more theories of how to accomplish P3 (forward) and a few on P2 (forward and backward). I've also come up with some interesting problems and possible solutions. I don't really feel like posting them all here now, but maybe in the future. ;)

I just want to add one more thing. It is currently believed that the sum total of all mass + energy in the universe is a constant. You can change matter to energy and vice versa, but you cannot create or destroy either. So, if that is true, how could you travel to a time where you did not exist, or a different version of you exists, without violating that constraint? You would bring your mass/energy sum with you... maybe some kind of transporter technology that would construct you out of energy available in that time?

If you go back in time, you will have always gone back in time. I don't think it's possible to change the past; you merely make it happen through your choices. That way, there's only one transition and only one outcome.

Indeed, it's like a fractal. And cause of all the crazy uncertainties, there are an infinite number of seperate timelines. Simply by going back in time you create a new one.

how can you create a new one if there are already infinite numbers of them? Surely anything you come up with will have already been done.

If you go back in time, you will have always gone back in time. I don't think it's possible to change the past; you merely make it happen through your choices. That way, there's only one transition and only one outcome.
But if you go back in time and kill your mother before you are born... how did you come to exist to travel back in time?

But if you go back in time and kill your mother before you are born... how did you come to exist to travel back in time?
You can't kill your mother in the past because the mother was alive at a later point in what is then the future. If you ever intended to, you would fail, change your mind or whatever, and we might even know about it by looking back in the papers for failed assasination attempts.

You can't kill your mother in the past because the mother was alive at a later point in what is then the future. If you ever intended to, you would fail, change your mind or whatever, and we might even know about it by looking back in the papers for failed assasination attempts.
That sounds a lot like predestination.

That sounds a lot like predestination.
That theory, which I subscribe to, is exactly that.

My Time Travel Theory:
You can speed up time but you can not reverse it

Time isn't recorded.
You can't sift through events of the world.
It's impossible to go back to the past.
Time flows, in its wake is nothing.

My Time Travel Theory:
You can speed up time but you can not reverse it

Time isn't recorded.
You can't sift through events of the world.
It's impossible to go back to the past.
Time flows, in its wake is nothing.
Too simple for me.

Time travel is all about time.
If we build a machine to go faster than the speed of time, then realistically the person could blast off at 3:30 PM but the person inside the ship is moving so fast that seconds to him would be minutes to people moving normally. When you arrive you would be older than the people by a few minutes.

If we build a machine to go slower than the speed of time. Well, that's impossible, the slowest you can go is a complete stop. You can't go a negative speed even if you did, it would be you who would be in the past and when you stop, the people would be the ones who are a few minutes older than you.

But if you go back in time and kill your mother before you are born... how did you come to exist to travel back in time?

By doing so you create a time line in which your mother died before you were born. You will not cease to exist because there are timelines in which she did not die. But that's just a guess, I'm no theoretical physicist.

By doing so you create a time line in which your mother died before you were born. You will not cease to exist because there are timelines in which she did not die. But that's just a guess, I'm no theoretical physicist.
I really dislike this theory. I think that if you can go to the past, you can't do anything that hasn't already been figured in to the past.

Time travel is all about time.
If we build a machine to go faster than the speed of time, then realistically the person could blast off at 3:30 PM but the person inside the ship is moving so fast that seconds to him would be minutes to people moving normally. When you arrive you would be older than the people by a few minutes.

If we build a machine to go slower than the speed of time. Well, that's impossible, the slowest you can go is a complete stop. You can't go a negative speed even if you did, it would be you who would be in the past and when you stop, the people would be the ones who are a few minutes older than you.

you can move forward and backwards in the 3 dimensions most people think of. If time is just another dimension like that, only your movement through it is at a constant speed, some people theorize you could go backwards, or faster forwards.

One of the problems I didn't mention about time travel, but relates directly to the ship you suggest is this. If you move forward in time, you also have to move in space to wherever the earth is in that time. I shouldn't just build a machine to bump me forward in time 10 years, because the earth, moving through space in more ways than just around the sun, would not be here when I arrived. In a ship, you would assume you were accounting for that, but would the earth seem to move faster in its orbit to you?

Travelling to the past makes no sense.
How can you go so slow that time goes backwards?
You can't, there is no way that could ever happen.

Travelling to the past makes no sense.
How can you go so slow that time goes backwards?
You can't, there is no way that could ever happen.
Unless time is a dimension, in which case travelling back in time would be equivilant to moving into the background. Only a hell of a lot harder to do.

Travelling to the past makes no sense.
How can you go so slow that time goes backwards?
You can't, there is no way that could ever happen.
I'm not talking about going so slow that time goes backwards, I'm talking about going backwards through time. Just because you can take 2 steps N, doesn't mean you can not take 2 steps backwards to arrive at the place you were before. This does not mean that after you take 2 steps forward, take 2 more forward very slowly to go backwards. That WOULD be silly.

Explain to me this time dimension.
Does each second create a new world in a still frame, like an animation booklet?

I really dislike this theory. I think that if you can go to the past, you can't do anything that hasn't already been figured in to the past.
If the past can't be changed then to travel back 10 years you would have had to arrive there(10 years ago) from 10 years in the future, because if the past can't be changed then you travelling back to it must have already happened.

The demension of time is like the other 3 dimensions, but we cannot easily visualise it and humans so far have only figured out how to go one way through it.

With that said, I think that it is highly unlikely that there would be multiple clones of you dragged throughout the timeline if you go back. An example- Do you leave behind clones in the dimension of length when you walk? No, so you wouldn't have copies when you move through a 4th demension either.

I'm not talking about going so slow that time goes backwards, I'm talking about going backwards through time. Just because you can take 2 steps N, doesn't mean you can not take 2 steps backwards to arrive at the place you were before. This does not mean that after you take 2 steps forward, take 2 more forward very slowly to go backwards. That WOULD be silly.

Fine, you can believe in whatever you want.
I'm talking science here.
You're talking magic.
Time is constantly flowing, it's like you have a constant wall pushing you forward, you can't just break through the wall, walk back a few paces and have that wall of time re-appear and start progressing through the 50's again.

Fine, you can believe in whatever you want.
I'm talking science here.
You're talking magic.
Time is constantly flowing, it's like you have a constant wall pushing you forward, you can't just break through the wall, walk back a few paces and have that wall of time re-appear and start progressing through the 50's again.

The idea that time is the fourth dimension is science silly boy. Your problem with the 'wall of time' doesn't exist in that idea of time as a dimension, just as there is nothing forcing you into the positive directions of the x, y, and z axes.

Hmm... I was gonna pull out the whole "Infinite probability. Infinite Realities" theory, but then I realized that it would require explaining what happened to the other realities, and it occured to me that I didn't have the century or so required to adress that issue, let alone the resources with which to proove it.

I like the Austin Powers theory of time travel: "I suggest you not worry about it and enjoy yourself."

:)

I chose 'horrible'. I understood it enough, I'm fairly sure, but thought it was so inelegant.

Which is not to say it is wrong, just that it's far more complicated than it needs to be, given current (i.e. pitiful) knowledge about [practical] temporal mechanics. (If we improve on that situation, who knows.)

My full views are on that other thread, over there ------>

<------ Or is it over there?

Somewhere...

The idea that time is the fourth dimension is science silly boy. Your problem with the 'wall of time' doesn't exist in that idea of time as a dimension, just as there is nothing forcing you into the positive directions of the x, y, and z axes.

Can somebody explain the fourth dimension to me?
I'm only turning up dimensional analogy and that has nothing to do with time but rather with the boundaries of the third dimension breached.

.....

If we build a machine to go slower than the speed of time. Well, that's impossible, the slowest you can go is a complete stop. You can't go a negative speed even if you did, it would be you who would be in the past and when you stop, the people would be the ones who are a few minutes older than you.

i think time travel is possible, based on a bit of warped physics and endless hope. sure, you cannot travel at a negative speed, but technically, velocities can go negatively, because they are vectors. the same way you can travel a negative displacement when you retrace your steps. all you need is a way of retracing your steps in the dimension that time is in.

but it probably has something to do with the constancy of the speed of light. ie. that time and space are relative. so i spose all you have to is travel faster, [or just really close to?], and in the opposite direction to the velocity of light. not necessarily just really fast towards the sun, because im assuming there are dimensions we dont know about yet. but in my mind, this would make time go backwards, depending on your frame of reference and all that

if you only traveled a little bit into the past, yes, the people in the real world, the 'normal' frame of reference, would be a few minutes older, relatively, but going faster and for longer, they could become much older than that, ie. you get younger, and further back in time

*snip*
I just want to add one more thing. It is currently believed that the sum total of all mass + energy in the universe is a constant. You can change matter to energy and vice versa, but you cannot create or destroy either. So, if that is true, how could you travel to a time where you did not exist, or a different version of you exists, without violating that constraint? You would bring your mass/energy sum with you... maybe some kind of transporter technology that would construct you out of energy available in that time?

Well, if you consider that time is just another dimension, then this is not a problem. Much like moving matter from one point in space to another, moving along a time axis would simply displace the matter, not change the fact of its existance. I suppose you could argue for some sort of gravity disturbance if a great deal of matter were moved to one spot in time, just as if it were moved in space, but again, you are not creating or destroying, simply moving.