I post in respondent text exactly as it is received.
NAME: Alex Comerford
E-MAIL ADDRESS: schwindyboo@yahoo.com
LOCATION: Liverpool(England)
DATE: June 19, 2002
i am 17 now and have always pondered on the idea of time travel. It never came down, for me personally, to reading any books or research, it is just
taking time out of ones day to sit and think. I often argue with my physics
teachers in school over such subjects as the possibilities of time travel, and
the boundaries of our universe, reaching no conclusions, and only speculating.
So my thoughts are not 'intelegently' based, they are just what i presume to be
true....
So, i have always thought about time travel, and was very interested whilst
reading your document in the section talking about creating our own timelines. I
have always fealt like i was the centre of the universe,*chuckles*. This may
sound big headed, but i do not mean it that way! My reasoning for this (now
after reading your document) seems to me that, if after each decision we make,
we create our own timelines. This now raises the question about, how do we
effect other peoples timelines as we make the decision? And, if we do not effect
someone elses timeline, do the people we see around us exist, or are they
constructed by us. Gosh, this is far to confuzing. I once had a concious dream.
The dream was that everyone in the world was a brain, and each single brain
created their own universe, but the brain did not realise it, call me crazy if
you will.
Also, i feel i must point out, or ask even...how would 'decision time line
creation' come into effect during films such as 'the matrix', yes, this is only
fiction, but it was just a thought, and what would i know, im only 17.
Im sorry if ive taken someone elses points that have already been raised in the
comments book, but i am yet to view it.
thanks for giving me the chance to write this down, it is such a releif.
Alex
Hi Alex. Please forgive my delay in getting your response posted up, as we were on vacation and this is my first chance to get back to the site here.
It is really good to see young people like yourself and Doug on page 23 who actually think! Your physics teachers argue with you??? I hope it's just constructive talk and they are encouraging you (I hope they're open minded, that is to say). I think lay people like ourselves ponder TIMETRAVEL more openly. Theory, conjecture, mathematics and speculation seem to be more the "lean" of professionals.
Your thoughts ARE intelligently based. For all we as a society know about TIMETRAVEL, it's all more questions than answers- even if the questions are EDUCATED.
Your "centre of the universe" talk is EXACTLY what I talk about when I say the ENTIRE experience HAS TO BE SUBJECTIVE! The only thing that matters is what you experience (and create). So, you "got" it.
Your question- and it's almost scary to answer (my opinion) is that we "construct" everything. Do they construct you? It may be so. I know how tough that sounds because we all have loved ones and I feel terrible just thinking this.
How do we affect the timelines of others? It probably doesn't matter. I'll give you an example. Some people just watch a show that involves TIMETRAVEL and enjoy it. I do as well, but some shows I look at a different way than others. If you watch STAR TREK VOYAGER; in the final episode, Admiral Janeway travels back in time to save the VOYAGER of the past several years and deaths. Captain Kim tries to stop her before she can travel back. Of course, Janeway's persuasion wins out and Harry lets her go. The instant she has traveled backwards in time (and is successful), she has changed the timeline where Harry tried to stop her. Does his timeline cease to exist? Does he cease to exist? No, he is unaware because he is in his timeline and it doesn't matter. He will return to spacedock (or wherever) and continue in his reality (one where Janeway will never be seen again). Janeway has only changed things for HERSELF and NO ONE ELSE. That's a short example, but does that make sense?
You mentioned "The Matrix". Yes, that was an EXCELLENT show, IMO! Reality could be nothing more (or less) than that. But again, even that doesn't matter- I know, I keep saying that. When you get a chance, read some more of the response pages. AND REMEMBER ALEX, you and I know as much as the rest of them- we may not have as many ideas or as good methods of verbalizations. Let me know if I've helped to confuse you more- HA!HA! :)
THE BOTTOM LINE is- It's yor life, your family & your friends- ENJOY IT!!!
Thanks a lot for your post. Stop back any time!
Chuck
NAME: Vince
E-MAIL ADDRESS: Waffemann@hotmail.com
LOCATION: Deutschland
DATE: JUNE 20, 2002
I do not believe in free will. If you are not able to tell the
difference between right and wrong, then you really dont have the free will to
make the decision..it is mearly a function of the mind. And all that the mind
is, is a function of your brain..which just computes information..you have
information which causes a reaction in your brain, which gives a response..just
like a computer, there fore it is not really free will.
Well, that's an interesting way of looking at the mind. If it's all a program- and I'm not saying that it isn't- is someone doing the programming? My take, the way you are perceiving it any way, is that we are our own programmer, hence there is free will. We're simply making it up as we go!
Dank für Ihren Eingang, Vince. Traurig nahm es so lang, um es bekanntzugeben. Wir waren auf Sommerferien! Stoppen Sie vorbei jederzeit!
Chuck
NAME: Dave
E-MAIL ADDRESS: buzzer@buzzle.com
LOCATION: UK
DATE: JUNE 30, 2002
I heard it said once before, and I do not remember where, "time is there
to stop everything happening at once". Having said that, I do believe time
travel, whether voluntary or not, is or rather will be possible and my gut
feeling is that it doesn't mean having to engineer impossibly large amounts of
energy to do so.
JUNE 30, 2002
Hi Dave! Glad to hear from you. That quote, I believe was made by John Wheeler, Prof. em. of Priceton. In fact, it is on my friend, Anthony Edwards, front page of his TIME TRAVEL site. Click HERE to see his site- It's a GREAT one that you and everyone should see!
I tend to agree with you on what you say, BTW. TPTB know it's possible, but speak of "exotic material". Maybe a small version of a tipler cylinder, maybe a person's mind.
Thanks for your post. STOP BACK!
Chuck
NAME: Jerry Amos
E-MAIL ADDRESS: spawnic@umpire.com
LOCATION: USA
JUNE 30, 2002
Hi Chuck and everybody!!
I have to disagree with your argument, which alleges to show that traveling to
the past is only possible if we can change it, based on the multiple universes
theory. Let me tell that the theory is proved, at least theoretically (see Hyper
numbers), but to travel to a parallel past, you would have to not only travel to
the past but also you'd have to be parallelly out of phase with your original
dimension. And I'd like to put more strongly what I've said on my other entry,
well, this time without the kiss format.
Ok, many persons think that traveling trough time entail paradoxes. Their
arguments typically are of this sort: "If you did have a time machine right now,
and you could step into it and travel back to some earlier time. Your actions in
that time might then prevent your grandparents from ever having met one another.
This would make you not born, and thus not step into the time machine. So, the
claim that there could be a time machine is self-contradictory". Ladies and
gentlemen, this argument commits a modal fallacy.
Since it is possible that someone should have prevented your grandparents from
having met one another, and since it is impossible for you to travel into the
past and to have prevented your grandparents from having met one another, you
conclude that it is thus impossible to travel into the past. Let "P" stand for
"preventing your grandparents from meeting" and "T" stand for "travel into the
past" (patched up as needed to be proper statements). Then the argument is:
#P
~#(T&P)
--------------
therefore ~#T
The argument is invalid. From the conjoint impossibility of P and T, and the
possibility of P, the impossibility of T does not follow. (Just to drive the
point home, now let "T" stand for "the coffee table is four-sided" and let "P"
stand for "the coffee table is six-sided".)
Such arguments have been around for years. They are especially tricky because
they involve what are called modal concepts, in particular the notions of
possibility and impossibility. Does the very concept of time travel entail
contradictions? Does the possibility of murdering yourself as a child show that
time travel is an impossibility?
The answer is: there is NO POSSIBILITY (note this point), if you travel into the
past, of murdering yourself as a child. The very fact that you are here now
logically guarantees that no one - neither you nor anyone else - murdered you as
a child, for there is no possibility of changing the past.
This notion that one cannot change the past needs careful attention. There is
nothing special about the past in this particular regard. For you can no more
change the past than you can change the present or change the future. And yet
this is not fatalism or determinism. I am not arguing that our deliberations and
actions are futile.
I cannot change the future - by anything I have done, am doing, or will do -
from what it is going to be. But I can change the future from what it might have
been. I may carefully consider the appearance of my garden, and after a bit of
thought, mulling over a few alternatives, I decide to cut down the apple tree.
By so doing, I change the future from what it might have been. But I do not
change it from what it will be. Indeed, by my doing what I do, I - in small
measure - contribute to making the future the very way it will be. Similarly, I
cannot change the present from the way it is. I can only change the present from
the way it might have been, from the way it would have been were I not doing
what I am doing right now. And finally, I cannot change the past from the way it
was. In the past, I changed it from what it might have been, from what it would
have been had I not done what I did. We can change the world from what it might
have been; but in doing that we contribute!
to making the world the way it was, is, and will be. We cannot - on pain of
logical contradiction - change the world from the way it was, is, or will be.
The application of these logical principles for time travel becomes clear. If
one travels into the past, then one does not change the past; one does in the
past only what in fact happened. If you are alive today, having grown up in the
preceding years, then you were not murdered. If, then, you or anyone else
travels into the past, then that time traveler simply does not murder you. What
does that time traveler do in the past? From our perspective, looking backward
in time, that traveler does whatever in fact happened, and that - since you are
alive today - does not include murdering you.
Time travel involves no intrinsic contradiction. The appearance of
contradiction arises only if one illicitly hypothesizes that the time traveler
can change the past from what it was. But that sort of contradiction has nothing
whatever to do with time travel per se. One would encounter the same sort of
contradiction if one were to hypothesize that someone now were to change the
present from the way it is or someone in the future were to change the future
from the way it will be. Now, suppose a visitor were to arrive here and now from
the year 2045. He shakes my hand, and then sits and chats with me about what is
in store during the next years. I take notes and record them in my diary. A year
from now, I even publish some of these notes. The visitor from the future (year
2045) has not changed the past (i.e. the past relative to the year 2045): he has
contributed to making the past just the way it was. By traveling back to the
year 2002, he caused certain events to occur in 2002 and in 2003. Nothing was changed from the way it was; but the past was
changed from the way it would have been if he had not traveled back from 2045 to
2002. Nothing true is made false; there is no logical contradiction.
Say there, Jerry & welcome back in! I recognized your name from earlier, but I don't remember your particular earlier response(s). As I begin writing this I haven't re-read yet, but will before I finish here. I've read your post twice over and I think, contrary to what you stated, that you agree with what's being said. You're just visualizing the TIMETRAVEL experience differently, IMO. As I say all the time; the experience MUST BE SUBJECTIVE! No, you or anyone else wouldn't be able to visit a past that you had experienced. Remember in my essay, I had talked about John (B) not having had a visit from a future version of himself (as John (A) had.
EXAMPLE: (this is really "tongue in cheek" here, just bear with it)
Steve is sitting beside his sister, Sara on Wednesday- October 2, 2002 at 4PM in his apartment awaiting the arrival of their friend, Sam. They are expecting to test TIMETRAVEL with Sam when he arrives. They visit for a while. Sam arrives. Sam has been working on a TIMETRAVEL device which he intends to test that evening with Steve and Sara as witnesses. FORGET ALL OF THE DETAILS OF THE DEVICE- I wouldn't know them & they're not important anyway. The agreement for the test is as follows: Sam will travel in time from 4:45PM to 4:43PM creating a situation for a period of 2 minutes where there will be 4 of them in the apartment. At 4:43PM, while the 3 of them sit there, Sam (2)does not arrive. Something's not right. At 4:45PM, Sam tests the device, anyway. Long story short- Sam disappears and never returns- He is missing forever. Steve and Sara don't know what to do. No one would believe them. Sara finally goes home at 6:30PM. They live out their lives never knowing what happened to Sam.
WHAT DID HAPPEN TO SAM???
Sam got fat fingers. He tuned his coordinates fot the TIMETRAVEL hitting a one on his entry calculations by accident instead of a four. He arrived in Steve's apartment at 1:43PM, before Steve was even home. Confused and disoriented by what had happened- thinking of all the implications, where the Sam of this time was right at this moment, how can he get back correctly, etc., caused some kind of temporal psychosis and Sam snapped. He reasoned (insanely) that no one should ever know what he had done. He waited for Steve to arrive at the apartment- killed him at 3:30PM, killed Sara at 3:50PM when she arrived. Set new time coordinates and disappeared forever.
From Steve's SUBJECTIVE experience- he was never killed by Sam at 3:30; he watched Sam dissappear at 4:45PM
Same with Sara.
From Sam's SUBJECTIVE (AND LINEAR) experience: He visited with Steve and Sara from 4:30PM until 4:45PM; killed them both at 3:30PM & 3:50PM respectively; was cured of his psychosis episode sometime in the month of June 2000; met them both for lunch at 12:30PM on October 2, 2002 and told them he had decided not to continue with the TIMETRAVEL idea- something had happened that he couldn't tell them about. All is well. Only Sam knows the difference. And the real kicker is... he really never had to fix anything. He could have went on with his life at any point in his experiences (ALTHOUGH THEY WERE EXTREME) as we all do.
I know that was a stupid little story, but do you see that it's all SUBJECTIVE?
Like I was telling a couple of the guys up above you- If you were a TIMETRAVELER, almost nothing would matter- you could manipulate the entire world to your choosing.
You would, at least, have to be your own watchdog.
Anyway, we all have our own opinions and I certainly appreciate yours. That's why I started this response section!
I'm off to check out your other post(s) now.
Good to hear from you again. Welcome in any time, Jerry!
Chuck
NAME: Debra
E-MAIL ADDRESS: Debbie629@aol.com
LOCATION: Louisiana
DATE: July 1, 2002
I would like to think that you could travel back in time. So many things
that I would do differently. If ever there was a slight chance, I think I would
take it.
Hi Debra, I think I speak for everyone when I say that I agree with you. It's why we're all so fascinated by the implications. What if you could go back & do it over?
Thanks for taking the time to post! We're all always here!
Chuck
