Will Time Travel be possible?

[Zeph]

First, every choice leads to a parallel world.

I doubt that, seeing as nearly every single movement anything with a concious makes is based on a decision. I may not have decided to press the space bar when I did just now - would that create a parallel world where I hadn't pressed the spacebar?

Earleir, I may have decided to stop while waking for a single moment. Would that create a parallel world?

You get the idea.

 

[CNiall]

I doubt that, seeing as nearly every single movement anything with a concious makes is based on a decision. I may not have decided to press the space bar when I did just now - would that create a parallel world where I hadn't pressed the spacebar?

Earleir, I may have decided to stop while waking for a single moment. Would that create a parallel world?

You get the idea.

see: many worlds-interpretation of quantum theory

Championing it as fact is going a bit far, given that it is just an interpretation, but still. (I think that it says that a parallel universe is created when a quantum superposition collapses (or whatever the term is) but I could very easily be wrong)

 

[Cryssie]

I doubt that, seeing as nearly every single movement anything with a concious makes is based on a decision. I may not have decided to press the space bar when I did just now - would that create a parallel world where I hadn't pressed the spacebar?

Earleir, I may have decided to stop while waking for a single moment. Would that create a parallel world?

You get the idea.

Not that I'm a fan of the whole branching worlds idea, but if I were, I would say: "Well, yes. Why not?"

Sure, it's probably pretty much impossible to comprehend the sheer number of parallel worlds that that would mean*, but just because it's a little difficult to wrap your head around, doesn't necessarily mean it's less likely, does it? Would you be more comfortable with the idea somehow if it resulted in less parallel worlds?

But I don't believe in parallel worlds based on possible events in this one anyway, and this is a thread about time travel, so...

* It's an even more ridiculous number of parallel worlds that you'd be proposing if you thought it branched for every different possibility even on a molecular level or whatever (why do people tend to propose branching depending on human decisions?).

 

[EvilCrazyMonkey]

First, every choice leads to a parallel world.

I don't think that there would be any parallel worlds at all.
What decides one's actions? A combination of one's emotions, personality, and environment. So, we would only make one action, no matter what.

However, as a response to parallel worlds due to molecular possibilities: this makes more sense; iirc, quantum mechanics states there is a slight randomness to the universe, which could quite possibly affect anything.

And also, I thought time was a concept, therefore making time travel impossible.


However, I don't find anything to be impossible considering the fact that something may be omnipotent (though a very small chance), which can make anything possible.

 

[CNiall]

However, as a response to parallel worlds due to molecular possibilities: this makes more sense; iirc, quantum mechanics states there is a slight randomness to the universe, which could quite possibly affect anything.

atomic and sub-atomic possibilities if I recall correctly.

 

[opaltiger]

What decides one's actions? A combination of one's emotions, personality, and environment. So, we would only make one action, no matter what.

So we've moved on from time travel to destiny?

yeah sorry you're going to need to back that up a hell of a lot more than you've done

 

[Mirry]

I'm not entirely convinced by the arguments that "if people traveled into the past it would make the present so different from what it is now etc. etc.". Because if, for example, somebody from the year 3080 went back to the year 1500 and changed something in the past, well... even though the person was from the future, his actions in the past have /already happened/ in 2008. Therefore his actions in 1500 have contributed to the present we know; in fact, if he /hadn't/ changed whatever it was he changed in 1500 then the present might be completely different for us now.

So, assuming that time travel is indeed possible, every event in the past that time travelers will ever alter (before this moment in time) has already happened. Although I suppose that /does/ say something about destiny, eh?

Anyway, if my theory is correct then this would mean that going back in time to alter the present is actually impossible. Again with what somebody mentioned before by replacing the baby of Hitler's mother with another baby -- the replacement baby would have to be the actual Hitler that we all know of. Therefore, it would have been destined on April 20, 1889 that you would travel back in time in 2008 and switch the babies.

 

[Cyndaquil]

Time travel is possible I know how too! I just don't release it to the gereral public.
I don't think it safe to be around people who know how. It would take me a long time to get the money to do it too.

 

[Zeph]

Cyndaquil, do you expect anyone to believe that?

 

[CNiall]

Hey, Cyndaquil--you're not funny. Stop trying to make crappy jokes.

 

[opaltiger]

I'm not entirely convinced by the arguments that "if people traveled into the past it would make the present so different from what it is now etc. etc.". Because if, for example, somebody from the year 3080 went back to the year 1500 and changed something in the past, well... even though the person was from the future, his actions in the past have /already happened/ in 2008. Therefore his actions in 1500 have contributed to the present we know; in fact, if he /hadn't/ changed whatever it was he changed in 1500 then the present might be completely different for us now.

This depends on whether you're using Back to the Future I rules or Back to the Future II rules.

 

[Eevee]

Back to the Future I and II are consistent; it's just not explained well on-screen (for the sake of suspense most likely). 2015 changes around Doc, Marty, and Jennifer a little before Biff returns from 1955; they are just not in any position to notice.

Then again, BttF rules in general seem to be "time changes around protagonists but creates new timelines for everyone else".

 

[cheesecake]

I don't know, but if it does happen, the world will fuck up. x.x;

 

[zuea]

Yeah, time travel isn't possible really, and if it was some retard would go back in time and fuck up EVERYTHING.

true.

 

[shadow_lugia]

I believe so, but probably just because I want to. Also I have a couple of reasons:

I was watching a documentary on Einstein's theories on the History channel, and it once said that there is kind of a fabric of space-time (that's how they put it so that we could understand it, I guess) and how the larger an object's mass, the more space-time was distorted. They kind of had this diagram of a huge net, and then they put a giant steel ball in the middle, so the net sagged. Therefore if the theory is correct, if an object had enough mass, then it could distort time so much that it stopped, or even went backward. That's what I think anyway.

Also, it is expected that at the end of the universe (so-called "Big Crunch") (if there is one) then the universe will start to be compacted into a black hole, but in between that and the regular-old universe just doing its buisness, time will flow backward.

Plus there was this one TV show that is definitely fake, but it was talking about how a black hole had somehow exerted so much gravity on this one girl that she kept repeating one day in her life, except her concious state knew that a day had passed, but the same things were happening. Fiction but awesome to watch :D

 

[Lucas₇₅₅]

Traveling back in time is possible, technically, but it would involve moving so fast that you arrive before you left. Which is a theory (No, not by me). But that speed is faster than light, which is so far thought to be unattainable.

 

[shadow_lugia]

That's actually only possible by being converted into a kind of particle called a tachyon. They supposedly travel faster than the speed of light and therefore travel backwards in time. Like, if you sent a letter made out of tachyons, then the letter would arrive before you sent it. Tachyons have never been found, however.

 

[Zilc]

I dont think it will ever be possible. And if it was, and a time mashine was made, people would go back and screw things up.

 

[PK]

So, I think the point everyone's trying to make here is:

Time travel isn't all police boxes and wibbly-wobbely time-y whime-y.

It'll fuck you up.

 

[Linzys]

Police boxes.

First, every choice leads to a parallel world. If I hadn't ordered that burger, then someone else will get it and I would have to order one later and make me miss the Lotto numbers if my numbers came up, then I would be extremely gutted. If I had decided on ordering that burger, then I would be insanely rich.

I've thought about and believed this idea for a very long time.

But what about the choices of other people? It can't possibly be that every choice you make leads everyone else to go into the very same alternate world, otherwise theirs would have to do the same to you. That...Doesn't seem credible.