Poll: The Time Travel Parardox

[matrix3509]

I'm pretty sure the universe is self-correcting. You could try to go back in time and kill yourself, but you would fail, because you would be stuck in an infinite loop of alive and dead. Since the universe doesn't allow a Schroedinger's Cat-esque existence, you wouldn't be able to change anything, even if you did, your actions would eventually cause what you were trying to stop in the first place.

I like theory one, makes the most sense. because if you didn't go back in time then you would have never changed the past to make yourself not go back in time which means you do.

What if you went back and killed yourself for the 'change'. Would you find it impossible, would you keep failing, what if you brought a nuke capable of blowing up the earth, would it break? There are things you can do that would change the future no matter what. How do you explain what happens then?

Killing your past self is no different from suicide. Therefore, if you are having suicidal thoughts, and then endeavor to kill yourself, you are still going back in time to cause your suicide in the first place, which is still in-line with your original intent. See? The universe is self-correcting.

 

[Kollega]

Maybe theory one (or time would be very unstable - Earth's history would either change daily,or the universe would have already imploded).

But i think that bringing yourself in the past is physically impossible. I suppose there are really no ways to change the timeline.

 

[gbemery]

What about a fourth theory , and lets take the old you go back and try to kill your grandfather paradox version. Say you go back and kill your grandfather, but then your dad or mother wouldn't be born (depending on which grandfather your killed), and therefore you wouldn't have been born. So in essence you couldn't have gone back in time and killed your grandfather. So lets say the theory is you doom everyone to a repeating loop where you go back in time, kill your grandfather, but since when you kill him you automatically weren't born then poof he lives yet again, just in time see you kill him yet again because you still had the thought of "hey, I am going to go back in time and kill my own grandfather".

Futurama, time loop fixes itself, someone else becomes your grandfather, or your grandfather was never actually your grandfather to begin with and no harm was done. Everything went according to plan. (theory 1 is this)

Yes you could try to argue that, but if the person you kill was your grandfather you can't just replace the genes you inherited from that lineage with another person's and be the same person. So no not everything would be just fine. You can't just sub a different grandfather.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

A mix of one and two--you go back in time, alter something, and it changes. But, since you're the only person who can go back to the future (assumedly), then you'll be the only one who knows. So, to everyone else, history has been as it always will be (until someone else changes it).

But I like to think about the parallel timeline theory--you go back in time, but it's a different timeline that you're affecting, not the one you came from.

 

[Shadow Law]

I ascribe to something along the lines of theory 2. When you alter history, you're not really altering your history. You're creating an entirely separate "universe" with a different Time Line.

All I know is that Time travel is, and forever will be impossible, because Hitler is still in existence.

Not necessarily. If my theory is correct, we simply occupy the original universe of Hitler's existence and rise to power. Think about it, there has to be at least one universe where this happens, and that will never change in that particular universe. You can create a new one, where he didn't exist, but you can't change the one we're in now.

Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of my head exploding.....also go sg-1

 

[Bofore13]

Theory 1 time is simultaneous and everything has already happened, the problem is figuring out how to use this.

 

[Jadak]

Theory 1, except I also don't believe in the concept that no matter what random stupid thing you did, it's already happened and nothing will change, and the only way for that to work is if you never actually had the chance to try; ie: time travel is not possible.

So..Other: Time Travel = Not Possible

 

[silicon avatar]

Where is the "time travel is impossible option"?

 

[Michael S. Azrael]

I believe Time Travel is completely impossible for the simple fact as you can not go back in time as it no longer exists and you can't go into the future as it is yet to exist. It would be like trying to mail a package to a building that has been demolished or a building that is to be built in 10 years time, it just can't happen because where your trying to go doesn't exist. The only that is left of the past is its history.

 

[Finnboghi]

Either 1 or 3 - 2 is totally impossible.

Though I prefer 3.

The reason 2 is impossible is that, if you went back in time and changed something, then you would alter the timeline, and thus you would no longer have to go back in time, but if you don't go back in time, then the event you changed would never have been changed, and thus you would have to go back and change it again; GOTO 10.

 

[randomsix]

My theory #4 is that time travel is only possible by physically(or otherwise) moving all particles of matter and photons of energy (and such) back to the states that they occupied at the time you wish to go to (except of course yourself). It is a truly herculean task, but it results in no paradox, no alternate universe, and no split timeline (in reality, you didn't really go back in time, you just made back in time happen again)

My #5 is that there are an infinite number of parallel universes, some of which are our universe, except in a state that existed however long ago you desire. Time travel would be simply inserting yourself into one of these universes.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Technically, the paradox exists because of the perception of time. If Einstein is to be believed (and nobody has given a reasonable argument that indicates he is incorrect), then you'll find that time and space are relative to one another. Simply put, your rate of motion relative to space changes the rate at which you perceive tiem to pass. This relationship is proportional, indicating that there is, in fact, a speed at which time would halt and then reverse. Unfortunately, that speed is that of light, and thus far all calculation seems to indicate that any object with mass requires an infinite amount of energy to accellerate to speed of light. As a result, time is arbitrarily consistant (or, to put it in a less conflicted way, the rate at which time is perceived to pass can change but the direction is always the same. As a result, time is always a scalar value on physics).

However, assuming time travel CAN occur, the problem of the paradox does arrive. In effect, you have a number of scenarios, most of which indicate traveling in time would be irrelevent anyway. Option one seems to be the most common interpretation of the paradox so I'll go with that one.

 

[saxist01]

I believe Time Travel is completely impossible for the simple fact as you can not go back in time as it no longer exists and you can't go into the future as it is yet to exist. It would be like trying to mail a package to a building that has been demolished or a building that is to be built in 10 years time, it just can't happen because where your trying to go doesn't exist. The only that is left of the past is its history.

Traveling forward in time is completely possible, is provable, and is in fact happening every day. All a body of mass needs to do is travel at speeds that approach the speed of light. Hasn't happened with humans yet, but it is done with atoms every day.

You're correct that traveling back in time is impossible. The only hope for that dream is multi-verse.

 

[Veylon]

I don't believe in time travel, but....

I'll take the second one, as it is the most elegant. You go back, you do something, it happens and that's that. It fits in with the way the rest of the universe works.

The first one depends on God or Karma or whatever playing pranks on the would-be history alterer, instead of simply walling them off from time travel altogether. Are you really going to tell me that if I scatter thousands of nuclear schematics across the length and breadth of 1930's Europe, that they'll all be lost/misplaced/destroyed somehow, negating the effect on history?

The third is pure looniness. Imagine the cliff that the ENTIRE UNIVERSE is sitting on if any sentient species anywhere in all the cosmos can inadvertently destroy it with small machine without even leaving home. No thank you.

 

[Michael S. Azrael]

Traveling forward in time is completely possible, is provable, and is in fact happening every day. All a body of mass needs to do is travel at speeds that approach the speed of light. Hasn't happened with humans yet, but it is done with atoms every day.

You're correct that traveling back in time is impossible. The only hope for that dream is multi-verse.

Not really, we do not move forward in time, we merely progress WITH time, if time stopped, so would we. To go forward in time as you suggested would mean going faster than light but that is impossible and thus a fabric of reality, in m y opinion, would be unable to handle it and collapse. If someone did deify logic and jump forward in time then they would not be in the future but in the present which is at a future DATE to the present they previously were in.

 

[Icehearted]

Futurama, time loop fixes itself, someone else becomes your grandfather, or your grandfather was never actually your grandfather to begin with and no harm was done. Everything went according to plan. (theory 1 is this)

Ridonculous_Ninja has summed it up quite nicely. If time travel was possible then everything that would have been done to alter the past will have already been done, which...
*goes cross-eyed*
Oh no, I've gone cross-eyed.

 

[Some Fella1]

I get the impression that option 1 would be the most likely, in accordance with your title and general idea.

It would be option 2 if it was a time dimension traveling machine, as you are effectivly creating (or rather continuing) that particular universe and all its' possibilities.

 

[saxist01]

Traveling forward in time is completely possible, is provable, and is in fact happening every day. All a body of mass needs to do is travel at speeds that approach the speed of light. Hasn't happened with humans yet, but it is done with atoms every day.

You're correct that traveling back in time is impossible. The only hope for that dream is multi-verse.

Not really, we do not move forward in time, we merely progress WITH time, if time stopped, so would we. To go forward in time as you suggested would mean going faster than light but that is impossible and thus a fabric of reality, in m y opinion, would be unable to handle it and collapse. If someone did deify logic and jump forward in time then they would not be in the future but in the present which is at a future DATE to the present they previously were in.

No, you don't need to break the light speed barrier. The faster one goes, the faster time moves around the object but not FOR the object. Effectively, this allows you to travel forward in time.

 

[anaphysik]

Traveling forward in time is completely possible, is provable, and is in fact happening every day. All a body of mass needs to do is travel at speeds that approach the speed of light. Hasn't happened with humans yet, but it is done with atoms every day.

You're correct that traveling back in time is impossible. The only hope for that dream is multi-verse.

Not really, we do not move forward in time, we merely progress WITH time, if time stopped, so would we. To go forward in time as you suggested would mean going faster than light but that is impossible and thus a fabric of reality, in m y opinion, would be unable to handle it and collapse. If someone did deify logic and jump forward in time then they would not be in the future but in the present which is at a future DATE to the present they previously were in.

Time dilation allows an object to travel farther into the future than the time it has experienced - it just needs to accelerate to some velocity relative to the starting frame, and then decelerate back to that frame's rest. (see Relativity)
Of course, you can't get back.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

One: If I went back and time and tried to alter something I would fail, as in the future I would have already done this and history aas we know would be the result. Basic the first theory is even if I go back in time there is nothing I can do to change it, as it has already happen and what I have done in an attempt to change it has already been attempted by my future, time traveling self.

Two: If I went back and time and tried to alter something I would succeed, creating a completely new time line and forever altering history.

Three: The Universe would be destory by the improbability of it.

Your missing a number of other theories as well

Four: You can do it if it's stopping doing something but not recreating something. Destruction, not Creation.

Five: It has no effect on your timeline, but affects the one you're in.

Six: It depends on which of your pasts you reach.

Seven: It stores both states independent of each other.

There's many. many differing theories on time travel; Einstein suggested that time travel is feasible simply by reversing physics, other luminaries have talked of 3d time etc. and these are all from "proper" scientists.

We'll see what develops, or rather, we'll already know.