Time Travel

[Nighthawk]

You guys ever thought about it? How would time travel work?
For instance, if you time traveled into the future and killed yourself in 10 years, then went back and continued your life, in 10 years, would your past self be back for you... again? Feel free to ask questions, state hypotheses, and have friendly debate. I'm interested to see what you all think.

Oh, and people. Notice how I had an interest in a subject, so I started a thread? If you have any sort of interests like this, make a thread! Seriously! It'll make the forum a lot more fun.

[mastert20]

It's an interesting topic... If you travel through time, travel back, and live out those years you skipped, would you meet yourself meeting you? I would say so. Not the first time, though. When you travel through time, you haven't yet traveled back and so you can't encounter yourself. That's essentially like fast forwarding the ten years. All you did was skip that time. It seemed like you were gone for ten years to other people.

However, when you do travel back and live out those 10 years, you meet yourself. What would yourself, the one who time traveled to skip the ten years, do? Would he kill you (the example that nighthawk gave)? That would mean he would do a different action when he encounters you than last time that you went around. Last time you went around, all you did was look around and then leave. This time he would kill you. So could that possibly change the history of the circuit you have created, or would it ultimately remain the same? Or could something else happen?

Tell me if that makes any sense. To me it did, but that doesn't mean it makes sense to you. It's hard to explain things we're not sure about. These are just some questions to consider and I'd like to hear your thoughts on them. Ask me about any flaws that you may find and I shall engage in debate. Debate is fun, it makes you think.

[Nighthawk]

Of course, the FUTURE self of you would only bring his own doom upon himself if he killed his past self. If his past dies, he does not exist, giving the past self the obvious position of power. But then again, why would you kill yourself? And, if other people could travel back in time, they could always stop you from killing you, but that would be really confusing and stuff.... geez.

[mastert20]

If your future self killed you, that would essentially be like delayed suicide. If he could still travel back in time and live out those 10 years, of course. Who knows, killing your past self may not allow you to exist... Anyway, killing yourself and traveling back ten years, you would know exactly when and where you would die. Creepy.

[Adam]

I am thinking when you time travel backwards, after you get done with whatever you did, you get thrown into an alternate reality where whatever you did, happened.

[Nighthawk]

By alternate reality, do you mean a different situation than the one you're in? If so, that's right. If you went into the past and set off a bunch of nukes all around the world, then went back into your previous time, it would most likely be completely destroyed. That's one of the simplest ideas of time travel, Adam....

[Nighthawk]

Sorry, Levi. That wouldn't work well. If you lived FOR your past self each day, and were actually successful, then you would age twice as fast as any natural person because your future self takes over your past self's life at the end of the day. So, basically, your life expectancy will be reduced to about... 46 years old. If you eat healthy and stuff. If you eat McDonalds all day... well, it'd be about 33. That's just a rough estimate.

[Thomas]

here it goes. i was too lazy to read all these. all i know is time travel is impossible. every so often i think about it and think of a different way it could work all i know is if it ever was possible some evil guy from the future woulda already came back from the future and killed everyone or something like that. also i invision a future boy named stephen who tries to time travel and accidently electricutes himself to a crisp. simple as that

[mastert20]

I understand that time travel is impossible. I mean, the ability to bend the most stable thing we know, time, like a toothpick? No way. Plus, as you said, if someone invents the time machine in the future we would have already seen them travel back, no matter what era they travel to. We would have evidence and we would know time travel is possible. Has that happened? No. But thinking of what it could be like is still fun. So even though I know it's impossible, I still toss that fact to the side and think of what it would be like. Sigh, if only.

[Nighthawk]

Thomas - That doesn't have much of a basis on fact, more just your personal opinion. And very few people will listen to your personal opinion when you don't capitalize and have poor sentence structure.

@mastert - You underestimate the human race. Look how far we have advanced in the last few years. Who is to say that there isn't technology from the future that is able to erase an entire population's memory of a time traveler from the future? This kind of thing could have happened a hundred times with our time having no idea, seeing how far technology could advance in the next hundred years alone.

[mastert20]

WARNING: The following is a very long rant to defend my view on time travel and is meant to be serious and considerable. I believe this is a worthy topic to debate on and I don't wish to tell jokes right now. I'm very interested in this topic and want to find the true answer of whether time travel is possible. Personally, I believe it is not. Unfortunately, I get the feeling I won't be alive to find out whether I'm right or wrong.

I can see where you're coming from. One lifetime ago, just before we were born there was no such thing as "the internet". Now it is one of the most used commodities in the entire world. We even created touch screens, motion sensors for video games, advanced satellites that help track your exact global position (GPS) We have been advancing fast. (If you ask me, a bit too fast, but let's not talk about that now)

But even if we get to the point where we think time travel is possible, how are we going to do it? Just insert a little black hole here, push a button, and presto- you're in a period that has already been defined? Doesn't make sense. To be able to just bend time like that seems impossible.

Unless you can come up with a logical hypothesis that can describe to me the mechanics of how such a venture into the past could be accomplished, I am not convinced. Of course, we don't know the resources or technologies that could be available if the ability time travel is ever achieved, which can severely limit a reasonable hypothesis. But how is traveling through such a solid (yet imperceptible) material even possible? No matter what you do, yell, shoot someone, blow up the earth, time still moves on. It is a common commodity that we cannot even touch. We use it every day, whether we like it or not. We are forced to put up with it, and we can't even do anything about it. It keeps moving. We can't just close our eyes and all of a sudden time moves backwards. If a line was drawn and a dot was placed on the line, the dot would keep moving towards the end of the line (no pun intended) NO MATTER WHAT. Here's an analogy: a Mac Truck cruising down the highway and you're a bug riding on the windshield. Well, when you think about it, you're merely a cell on that bug on the windshield. You're just going for a ride. But there's no way whatsoever that you can just hop up and start pushing the truck backwards.

Time is a definite thing. It moves from the past, which we define as things in our memory, what we know, and what has happened, to the future, the unknown. We do not move from the future to the past, it just can't happen. We don't have memories of the future.

"We remember the past but we don’t remember the future. There are irreversible processes. There are things that happen, like you turn an egg into an omelet, but you can’t turn an omelet into an egg....So, if you neatly stack papers on your desk, and you walk away, you’re not surprised they turn into a mess. You’d be very surprised if a mess turned into neatly stacked papers." -Sean Carroll

We grow from young to old, that is sort of an analogy to represent time. As the scientist I have quoted from above, Sean Carroll, has also said, "It’s like the universe is a wind-up toy that has been sort of puttering along for the last 13.7 billion years and will eventually wind down to nothing."

If you are still following my ongoing rant, please look at the picture I have provided for you. I found it on the same site that I quoted Sean Carroll on, and is very interesting.

www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2010/02/multiverse_2-660x266.jpg

This represents our universe, another thing that shall remain unknown for a very long time. According to Sean and many other scientists that I have searched for, the flow of time only flows in one direction. As you see, the arrows move in opposite directions. I don't know if this means there are parallel universes that use a mirror image of our "time" but they still record "time" as the same or what, but if you drew a line connecting these two arrows they would connect at one point. The middle is the point they intersect. It's like a tug-of-rope with exactly equal forces pulling it... the center will not move. And since there is no time to move it, nothing occurs. Think about it. If there was no time, could you read this, walk breath, do anything? No. Because you need time to do anything that you do. Without time, you would be frozen.

So this leads to my temporary conclusion. The flow of time, as it currently is (and hopefully always will be) is sort of a plus sign. +. It keeps adding up, keeps going, etc. The middle of the picture you just viewed has no flow. +-. Nothing happens. There is no time for anything to happen. Traveling back is negative. -. So if having no time is sort of like being frozen, traveling back through time gives you no control. You have no time to do anything, because time isn't flowing. You can't do anything if time isn't flowing. And how long would time travel take? 2 seconds? Seconds are a measure of time. Time that flows forward. So while you sit in your comfy time machine, time flows forward just so you can make time flow backwards? It doesn't make sense. As I said, (unless you skipped to this part, and I don't blame you) feel free to question this. I want to get to the bottom of this. I don't care if I'm right or wrong, I just want to know what truly can happen.

Maybe that's the whole point of my life. To take on the role of a philosopher and discover the whole reason why we are born, lent time, only for it to be stolen from us long before we want it gone.

[Nighthawk]

I read the whole thing. Your arguments are very convincing. I'm basing the fact that time travel is possible off of the hope that someone in the future will find out how.

But perhaps it is something we shouldn't meddle in. If time can be controlled, if have no doubt that the human race will find some way to damage it beyond repair. At least, as of now.

If any of your have watched movies depicting the far away future, there is one mistake they always make. They do not depict the advancement of the maturity of the human race. They depict us as we are, and stick us in the future to make a bunch of mistakes. And that is wrong. Our maximum level of maturity is only relevant if our race has a lifespan. What I mean by that is this: If a human lived 1000 years rather than an average of 80, our level of maturity would only be at 15% of what it's maximum is when we are 150. So, in theory, you could relate that age to the maturity of a teenager. But our entire race will live for a very long time, or at least we hope so, so as of now, the human race COULD only be through 0.0001% of its lifetime. That means we could have a lot of maturing to do, people. And as we mature, maybe we will become more fit to handle the powerful thing that time is. And hopefully, we will not discover its secrets until we are.

So, as some kids say, "When I grow up...." maybe our race should be saying the same thing.

Nighthawk out.

[mastert20]

Yes, if we ever find some breakthrough discovery that could allow us to control time, we have to be very careful. The slightest, tiniest, fraction of a mistake can send the planet and everything in it into a fight to survive, due to the trouble and utter chaos that will ensue. I've noticed many people on this earth are not mature enough, as you've said, to handle the responsibility of controlling time. The possibilities of what time travel can offer could get to the head of that person and the next minute we're all dead, thrown into an alternate universe, frozen still. I just hope no one discovers time travel. Let's just say no good can come from it.

[Nighthawk]

I feel like flexing my admin powers and locking this thread, since it seems we've reached some sort of conclusion. Who agrees with me?

[Thomas]

Nighthawk: look out jews there's another grammar Nazi in town c'mon its a forum not english homesork jeeze. Also it wasnt so much stating opinion as it was just stating the obvious. And in most cases the obvious is... obviously a fact.

@adam: Adam i respect your opinion but i dont respect the man that you quoted he, is what i call, an idiot. if u want to know why i think he is an idiot ill gladly talk to you about it later at school or on the phone.