Is Time Travel Possible?

[rfahrytas]

A Layman’s View on the Possibility of Time Travel!!

My father once said to me:

“Son, the moment quickly becomes the past as it consumes the future. It would be prudent to keep a close eye on it!”

And isn’t that the truth? - How quickly time can seem to slip past us!

However, as it slips by, we can say that at any one instant the present is the past to an infinite number of futures – in fact to all the futures that ‘Old Man Time’ has to offer.

This being the case then we have the necessary proof before us that we never do invent a ‘Time Machine’. The fact that nobody from the infinite number of futures has ever visited us in our present (the past to the future) is clear proof that we never do manage to build a time machine.

Not as we imagine it to be, at any rate.

[Jay-qu]

I have thought this before.. but can you be so sure? What if one is invented, but because we know of the implications of its use, is never allowed to be used. Or perhaps it has been used, but we just dont know it, tell me how could you be sure that originally the human race nearly destroyed itself in a nuclear war, but a small group of scientists managed to send some people back in time to fix it just a hypothetical, but I hope you get my point.

[InfiniteNow]

Or maybe a time machine could only go back to moment it was created, not before...

Thing is, we barely have an adequate definition of time in our hands, so talk of travelling through it is mental masturbation until more specifics are pinned down.

[rfahrytas]

Originally Posted by Jay-qu

.... tell me how could you be sure that originally the human race nearly destroyed itself in a nuclear war, but a small group of scientists managed to send some people back in time to fix it just a hypothetical, but I hope you get my point.

Well of course I can’t be sure ….. all I can do is apply my unlearned logic to these issues (totally inadequate, I know) but if logic does NOT prevail here - if logic cannot run parallel with the Laws of Physics, then InfiniteNow is probably accurate in his description of these mental excursions being no more than ‘mental masturbation’ ….

… but I wont go there, as it has been a life long struggle of mine to suppress the eternal cynic in me, and of late I have been loosing the battle!

Even though I like to imagine the seemingly impossible, I do have a problem with your hypothetical that suggests maybe

a small group of scientists managed to send some people back in time

, and more specifically the bit about sending people back!

To me this is not logical, and something in my ‘layman’s gut’ tells me that the very existence of matter is linked to the process of time, as we know it. So remove matter from this time frame and it would cease to exist, in my humble opinion. But is it not one of the laws of Physics that matter cannot be destroyed or created (now some licence here please, totally out of my ground)

So I suppose what I am TRYING to say that the ‘traditional’ view of time travel, sending people and things back in time, a physical act, is, in my limited understanding, extremely improbable. Which, in a way, supports my earlier observation that there has been no record of the existence of a traditional time traveller in our midst.

[rfahrytas]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Or maybe a time machine could only go back to moment it was created, not before...

Is that not what a photograph sort of is?

Doesn’t a photograph, or series of them, capture time, or at least freeze the image of an instant of time, which immediately becomes the past to which anyone in the future can ‘travel’, simply by viewing it.

Take this photo. The earliest I can find in my ancestral lineage. Taken in 1896, showing my great-grandmother and her children posing outside the front of the family grocery store, just walking distance from the centre of the gold mining town of Bendigo, in central Victoria, Australia.

I have gone to that very location in search of evidence, but it no longer exists as shown in the photo – everything has been knocked down and modernised, and of course, the people have lived their lives and moved on.

But am I not, in some way, transported to a time, that before seeing the photo for the first time, was in the past and unknown to me!

I remember the shock of laying eyes on this photo for the first time – a brief moment of disbelief that I could see all these people I had known about from research, but until I laid eyes upon them, were just statistics on a piece of paper.

Maybe this is the type of thing that will eventually make ‘time travel’ a possibility!

Perhaps we will be able to ‘travel’ back to, but not interact with, the past.

Maybe there is a way to capture the light that was reflected from matter during the past, and replay or view it in our present? Similar to what is done now when viewing the past in the Universe, but without having to put all that distance between us and the matter.

Maybe there is a way to go to a location, like where my ancestor’s Grocery Store was, and use some sort of filter/device/technology to recapture reflected light from the past – and lock into a time frame that we could follow in real time, in the present!!

Now I would settle for that type of Time Machine! How about you?

[rfahrytas]

.... and further to my previous post - are we not looking into the past during every living moment of our present?

How far we look back of course depends entirely on the dimension of distance. Even as I watch the dog in the back yard, digging a hole for his bone, I do not REALLY know what he is doing right now, as I watch him, as what I see him doing he did in the past! I know, only a very short time ago, short enough that we can ignore it and say we are ACTUALLY watching his present actions.

However,

if DISTANCE is a dimension that allows us to see into the past, maybe there is yet an undiscovered dimension, one that will allow us to view the past and not be separated by distance?

[Southtown]

No. Time is a result of process, not vice versa.

http://hypography.com/forums/philoso...-variable.html

[Jay-qu]

I think you misunderstand me. I do see what you are saying as I have had the same thought, I am also think that the idea of the conventionally sci-fi time travel to be very sketchy, what I was trying to point out is that it is not irrefutable evidence, so your hypothesis requires further evidence and insight.

[rfahrytas]

Originally Posted by Jay-qu

I think you misunderstand me. I do see what you are saying as I have had the same thought, I am also think that the idea of the conventionally sci-fi time travel to be very sketchy, what I was trying to point out is that it is not irrefutable evidence, so your hypothesis requires further evidence and insight.

Sorry Jay, I only have questions! No answers! I come from the era BEFORE TV
(Who needs a TM?)


I used to believe that answers came automatically with age.
It ain't true!
(just in case you are banking on it!)

So unfortunately, most of what I have to say has no evidence and just a 'gut-feeling' sort of insight!

Maybe I should bannish myself to the 'Strange Claims Forum' as that is probably where a relic like I belong .

Still I don't mind, especially if you come down and visit me sometimes!

Cheers

[Jay-qu]

You are welcome to discuss things where-ever you like, but just realise that a 'gut-feeling' wont get you very far on a science forum.

You dont need credentials to participate here, many of the members dont, so dont place so much of an emphasis on your own intelligence and just get involved in the conversations. Dont be afaid of been wrong, its the best way to learn something.