Time travel.

[Werty]

Here's a topic that can be extremely simple or one of the most complicated ever, depending on how you look at it.

My basic question, is time travel "real"? In other words possible? If so, would we as humans theoretically or possibly be able to use it?

There are a complex multitude of theories that can be used to either confirm or deny time travel; although mounting research from all fields of science slowly etch their way into the possibilities of time travel, and not way from it. A vast majority of the theories disagree with each other, the major players being quantum theory and the theory of relativity, henceforth, where the “theory of everything” or “superstring theory” comes into play.

You've got two major scientific modes of thought that come in play here - Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Quantum Theory; both of which are opposites of each other, and yet each has been proven true, at least to our feeble observations.

I personally and for the existance of radiant time travel, and it is perhaps occuring every Planck second.

You've got wormholes, black holes, white holes, backwards causation, the theory of everything, many worlds theory (this specific theory, generally used to counter against arguments like the Grandfather paradox against time travel, is flawed in many ways, unfortunately), special relativity, general relativity, quantum entanglement, among many other phenomena that show forms of what we perceive to be time travel and teleportation.

Your thoughts?

 

[Felidire]

I've never really stopped and thought about it, (and I don't really intend to), but yeah I think it'd be possible (to some extent). And if it ever happened I think it would either be through guessing, or by accident.

And we'll never know, because our initial reaction to the person who tells us they traveled through time would be "take your medication.."

 

[Dave Strider]

Well, Saying that time works as we see it, just continuing, one single stream of time (like the time vortex from doctor who), then I'm Guessing we'd need some sort of device/occurence that takes us back through the aforementioned stream of time. But as some people may argue, what if time works like a movie, With lots of little frames that everything in the universe hops into when due? Well, in my opinion, we would need to find out how we do the hopping thing, and do it in reverse.

 

[Harlequin]

If it's possible they're already here. o.o

 

[Valerunner]

If it's possible they're already here. o.o

Not necessarily.

It could be the cloning problem all over again. Time travel disrupts the whole flow of the universe, hence it's unethical to do, just like how cloning disrupts the whole point of sentience.

 

[Harlequin]

How does cloning do that, exactly? And what do you mean "all over again?" As far as I know there's been no definitive solution to a "cloning problem."

 

[Zeph]

Well, the future hasn't happened yet. Surely, theoretically, it doesn't even exist? Every single little decision, every tiny movement, does in some (even minuscule) way affect what will happen in the future. The future isn't defined, logic certainly tells us that.

And before people come here and start bugging me with all that stuff about travelling at really high speeds makes your body age slower and makes it seem to you that you're travelling into the future, I know. However, technically you aren't time-travelling; rather your mind and body are operating much more slowly thus making it seem like you are. While you're 'travelling', anything could happen around you. I don't pretend to be a genius in physics or whichever area of science this concerns, I'm merely basing my claims on logic and common sense.

 

[Harlequin]

From our perspective the future hasn't happened yet. Someone from 1999 would think the future hasn't happened yet, either.

 

[Valerunner]

How does cloning do that, exactly? And what do you mean "all over again?" As far as I know there's been no definitive solution to a "cloning problem."

It might be outlawed, the same way as any attempt of human cloning is today.

 

[Murkrow]

Well, the future hasn't happened yet. Surely, theoretically, it doesn't even exist? Every single little decision, every tiny movement, does in some (even minuscule) way affect what will happen in the future. The future isn't defined, logic certainly tells us that.

It hasn't happened to us, but to people even further in the future, some of our future has already happened. By your logic the past doesn't exist because is has happened, but isn't happening now.

But our past has already happened, and the way I see it is; that past was always going to happen. If you watched the past happen again, then it would probably happen in the same way. So the whichever way the future happens was inevitable. I'm not going on about fate or anything, I just believe that the future does exist, not /exactly/ predetermined but you could argue that it is.

And before people come here and start bugging me with all that stuff about travelling at really high speeds makes your body age slower and makes it seem to you that you're travelling into the future, I know. However, technically you aren't time-travelling; rather your mind and body are operating much more slowly thus making it seem like you are. While you're 'travelling', anything could happen around you. I don't pretend to be a genius in physics or whichever area of science this concerns, I'm merely basing my claims on logic and common sense.

*bugs*
It doesn't make you age or operate slower, it would just seem like you are to people who aren't travelling that fast. We're all travelling into the future all the time. At really high speeds you just reach that future sooner than anyone else from your perspective. You'd be ageing at a normal speed, and everything else would look like they're ageing/operating faster than usual to you..

 

[Werty]

Yes, Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Also the Twin Paradox.

The problem is both of those, while dealing with the same thing, have their own flaws, ends, and weak spots. ToR doesn't work anyone when dealing with black holes, the twin paradox, while making more sense, is also aptly, a paradox in that since time is relative, there is no "outside" way to look at it, very much like the Double Slit Experiment.

Point being, by traveling at intense speeds near the speed of light, time is dilated (same effect happens in extreme gravity). Wild, isn't it? Question is utilizing it.

 

[GalladeMaster]

Time Travel will not, is not, and was never possible. If it was real people from the future will be visiting us right now.

 

[Felidire]

This may sound kind of weird, but if someone from say 1995 travelled 14 years into the future, I just can't see them actually appearing into our timeline. Suspended animation for a number of years, perhaps, but that's predetermined and would change nothing because it's not actual time travel.

Also, I -can't- imagine people going back in time, but I -can- imagine them going forward. This I don't understand. Back in time doesn't seem possible to me but forward does.

 

[New Mudfish Doctorate]

the real problem with time travel is grammar....

often during dreams of the past it would be confusing as you would say "was" even though if you were there it woulde be "is"

 

[Werty]

Time Travel will not, is not, and was never possible. If it was real people from the future will be visiting us right now.

I'll just let my friend Carl Sagan do the talking here.

I can think half a dozen ways in which we could not be awash in time travelers, and still time travel is possible . . . First of all, it might be that you can build a time machine to go into the future, but not into the past, and we don't know about it because we haven't yet invented that time machine. Secondly, it might be that time travel into the past is possible, but they haven't gotten to our time yet, they're very far in the future and the further back in time you go, the more expensive it is. Thirdly, maybe backward time travel is possible, but only up to the moment that time travel is invented. We haven't invented it yet, so they can't come to us. They can come to as far back as whatever it would be, say A.D. 2300, but not further back in time.

Then there's the possibility that they're here alright, but we don't see them. They have perfect invisibility cloaks or something. If they have such highly developed technology, then why not? Then there's the possibility that they're here and we do see them, but we call them something else—UFOs or ghosts or hobgoblins or fairies or something like that. Finally, there's the possibility that time travel is perfectly possible, but it requires a great advance in our technology, and human civilization will destroy itself before time travelers invent it.

I'm sure there are other possibilities as well, but if you just think of that range of possibilities, I don't think the fact that we're not obviously being visited by time travelers shows that time travel is impossible.

Also, Felidire, it is generally accepted by a large amount of scientists that backwards time travel would be impossible. This is, however, counter argued by things like retro causality and quantum entanglement. Basically, you've got two photons of light lightyears away, and when one vibrates, so does the other instantaneously. It is impossible to do so without, say, traveling faster than a Planck second which means traveling hundreds of times faster than the speed of light - but even that takes a form of time. Quantum mechanists seem to think that the photons imitate or become tachyons and travel backwards in time.

^ That explanation, however, can also be counter argued by the bilding paradox. Ah, lovely, isn't it?

 

[Blastoise Fortooate]

Probably, as long as we didn't move one single atom on our little excursion.

Intangibility would have to be a factor.

 

[xkze]

For once I am going to take the skeptic's side and dismiss time travel in any form (other than the technical linear traveling through time we experience every moment) completely impossible.

I've thought about it and I can't see any way for it to be feasible at all.

 

[Felidire]

Also, Felidire, it is generally accepted by a large amount of scientists that backwards time travel would be impossible. This is, however, counter argued by things like retro causality and quantum entanglement. Basically, you've got two photons of light lightyears away, and when one vibrates, so does the other instantaneously. It is impossible to do so without, say, traveling faster than a Planck second which means traveling hundreds of times faster than the speed of light - but even that takes a form of time. Quantum mechanists seem to think that the photons imitate or become tachyons and travel backwards in time.

^ That explanation, however, can also be counter argued by the bilding paradox. Ah, lovely, isn't it?

To me it's just a heap of theoretical physics (where I have extremely limited knowledge of the actual physics itself), so I have no hope of backing up (or even explaining) my opinions. Science gets it wrong to many times it's not even funny.

Could you imagine me as a scientist?
*pulls out gun* i'm right, you're wrong. stfu..
Nope, all I have are meaningless theories. ,xD

Interesting arguments though, at least there's some smart people agreeing (and disagreeing) with me. ><;
Also, imo, no matter how smart anyone on this forum tries to act, I sincerely doubt that anyone here is truly capable of grasping the complexity of what it is that we're actually talking about. ,xD

 

[Werty]

I doubt anybody alive can grasp it.

Scientists don't play around with this world. The world plays around with us.

But nonetheless, here we are, trying to make meaning, because that is simply human nature. :)

 

[Mercury]

If Time Travel became real, I would get scared that some idiot would go back in time and change everything. But Time Travel is extremely unlikely, unless everything that has happened in the past is still happening now, which would be really weird.