Confusing time travel question...

[GundamSentinel]

Nothing changes when you go back in time, except you go back in time.
Wich means everything that has happened still happens unless you make people make different actions.

Which you will not be able to do, because you will be exactly the same as well and will do exactly the same things in exactly the same situation.

Now, if we were talking about 5th or 6th dimensional time travel, things would be quite different, but just 4th dimensional is way more boring than people would imagine. Everything is just the same as it was and you can't do anything about it. In fact, you will not have realized you have traveled in time as your memories would be the same as well.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Well, time isn't a man made invention. It's a man-made measurement of an unmeasurable phenomenom, but it's definitely natural. It's based on the flow of entropy.

Random numbers though...it all depends how you create them, as there's no such thing as a random number (unmeasureable concept again) - however, most random seeds are based on time, so most of the time it would be the same.

However, given that you alter the time line by changing your position in it, going back before the number was produced has a chance of altering it.

Hope that's clear.

 

[Bakuryukun]

Time is a man-made measurement, time-space on the other hand.

But really if you went back in time, the random number generator would show the same number each time. RNG's are never truly random.

 

[darth.pixie]

Time paradox. It would depend on finding the precise moment you started interfering with the time line which would be a 'chicken and egg' sort of question. For the first you and those who went back, it would be Nietzsche, but if Nietzsche was always inspired by you, it would be you.

How could it be the time traveler? They weren't the authors of the anthology?

The proper answer is no one is responsible for the content.

Someone is, otherwise the anthology would never have been written. It all stems from who was the one original writer or inspiration. Hence the paradox.

 

[Iconoclasm]

Time paradox. It would depend on finding the precise moment you started interfering with the time line which would be a 'chicken and egg' sort of question. For the first you and those who went back, it would be Nietzsche, but if Nietzsche was always inspired by you, it would be you.

How could it be the time traveler? They weren't the authors of the anthology?

The proper answer is no one is responsible for the content.

Someone is, otherwise the anthology would never have been written. It all stems from who was the one original writer or inspiration. Hence the paradox.

One would think anyway... But it simply isn't the case I'm afraid...

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well in my theory it would be the same if the entire set of conditions was the same.
Let's say you are simply an observer that cannot tamper with the timeline, if everything returned to it's previous state then the continuing timeline must unfold in the exact same manner.

Or to go beyond one simple number, everything in the world is a huge bowl of random states, so if a random number were allowed to change then the entire universe would get the freedom to change at will and it would be a completely different timeline from where you came from.
And then you didn't just jump time, but jumped dimensions, to an alternate state of things.

*damn now I'm confused myself*

 

[darth.pixie]

One would think anyway... But it simply isn't the case I'm afraid...

Now I'm curious. Could you elaborate, please?

 

[Iconoclasm]

One would think anyway... But it simply isn't the case I'm afraid...

Now I'm curious. Could you elaborate, please?

The added assumption of an "author" is a constructed one. A necessity in the mind that requires a creator for a creation. But, should we take away the branching timeline notion, there simply isn't one.

The content is without an author, and to assume that someone (or thing) must have created it is unfortunately beyond the boundaries of the thought experiment.

One is welcome to take a more... faithful... solution, of course - but that issue is more ontological and less physical.

 

[Unspeakable]

Hey guys,
I just thought of an unusual time travel question that none of my friends can answer, so I decided to post it in these forums. Lets say I made a program or something that generates a COMPLETELY random number whenever I click a certain button. If I clicked said button and say the number was... I don't know.. 2381. If I traveled back in time 3 seconds and clicked that button, would it be the same number? Let me know what you guys think. I personally think so, but it depends on how you think time travel would be accomplished. By the way, time travel is BS, time is a man made invention. (my lousy opinion)

There answer is you would get the same number, and it has nothing to do with the impossibility of time travel. It's the impossibility of writing a computer program that generates a random number. You can't; that is, not a "truly" random number. Usually, functions pulled from a library [like rand() in C++ or whatever] are grabbing several seemingly unrelated factors and putting them through an equation (the number in a registry that has nothing to do with the current program, the number of times the program was accessed, the time of day, blah blah blah). It just appears random because usually the user has no idea what crazy algorithm the back-end is using to generate the desired "random" number. So, Marty, you hop in your Delorean and go back to re-hit that "random" key? All those other factors that the rand() function is using are all going to be the same if all the other conditions are the same, like the exact moment you hit the button, etc.

It's a programming problem. Computers cannot simply "make up" a random number.

EDIT: To Iconoclasm's question: Foucault.

 

[Iconoclasm]

EDIT: To Iconoclasm's question: Foucault.

I agreed with everything up to this point haha! Good show and a right proper solution!

 

[Karma168]

RNGs would probably spit out the same number due to not being completely random. Quantum Physics may give different results though, as it's impossible to predict when an atom will emit a photon (a small bundle of light) it might give different results if you went back in time. as things on the quantum level can be change by simply being observed then there may be a effect due to you being an anomaly in space time.