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Richard and other thinkers
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3462
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Richard and other thinkers (in reply to Ruphus)
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Brian Greene covers this topic in his excellent book, "The Fabric of the Cosmos." In physics, nature is considered symmetrical, with the exception of the notion of "The Arrow of Time," which suggests that, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in a closed system time is asymmetrical and can only move forward, not backward toward the past. This touches on the notion of "irreversibility" and the phenomenon that entropy always increases with time (such as found in our expanding universe) but can not decrease. this would seem to suggest the impossibility of time travel to the past. But I think the most interesting and practical explanation suggesting the impossibility of time travel to the past comes from Stephen Hawking, who suggested that the absence of tourists from the future visiting our present is an argument against the existence of time travel. Of course, that in itself does not prove the impossibility of time travel to the past (in their case, our present), but I think the concept of "The Arrow of Time" would cover it, as well as our present inability to visit the past. Cheers, Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East." --Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 2 2014 12:16:58
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Ricardo
Posts: 14971
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Richard and other thinkers (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
Why ought a travel back in time require the active undergoing of the practical path of events? If there be thesis and hypothetical ways of going back, couldn´t it be only related to time with the practical aspect then unsolving self-evidently / just consequently? Without getting mathematical, scientific, or philosophic about it, remember the space AND time together aspects. For example let's say I invent a machine that can slice through the fabric of space and time so that I can "jump" backwards say several hours or a full day, in hopes to fix the mistake I made. Well, at the moment of my time jump I will be at once sitting on my pretty blue ball called "earth" and then suddenly find myself floating in empty space, or at least seeing my little blue green home flying out in the distance as I travel away from her at the same speed she is moving. See, I forgot that earth is spinning, and going around the sun, and even the sun is going around the galaxy and finally the entire Milky Way speeding toward Andromeda....so there is not a way to stay grounded in other words if you try to go BACK in time suddenly. You would have to literally experience time in reverse from this moment, and all else you already experienced bit by bit until you finally arrive at the time you wanted to jump to so that you can change things or otherwise re experience the event. But that rewinding is in itself YOUR forward movement.
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Date Mar. 3 2014 5:35:49
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ptmikulski
Posts: 14
Joined: Oct. 31 2011
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RE: Richard and other thinkers (in reply to Ruphus)
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The spring board for considering the possibility of time travel traces back to the interconnectedness of space and time in the theory of special relativity. For any observer of an event, that observer can give that event a stamp (x,y,z,t) but each observer marking the event would give a stamp based off of his frame of reference consisting of his spatial grid and his stopwatch. The mathematics of showing the connection between any two stamps of the same event (the rules for transforming from one frame to anothers) is pretty mind blowing for a few reasons that come to mind: 1) It requires that we abandon the notion of an absolute frame of reference (a kind of "God's point of view"). While we might be accustomed to working in different frames practically, most of us prior to Einstein had no problem with the idea of marking up the universe with one absolute grid and stopwatch with rules for connecting to that absolute frame keeping space and time separate. 2) The rules for transforming from one frame to another mix space and time together mathematically. The equations look so symmetric that we can make the misstep here of thinking that in some sense time is "just another dimension". That is very misleading, the connections between dimensions (the metric is the lingo) is very rich with unsymmetric structure in it). My view on this is that the way to wrestle with this new perspective is to shift ones center, meaning special relativity forces us to shift what one holds as a kind of understood assumption about things. In the past, the notion of absolute space and time was there, but now it is more about that metric: points of view are seamlessly, mathematically connected in a consistent way. Our universe is infinite set of events, all that has happend and that will be. While our universe is seamlessly connected: any entity be it an observer or a particle of light traces a particular and restricted path through space-time, paths that never wind back on themselves. This is not an edict, it is just what happens according to the rules when an entity can not travel any faster than light in vacuum. This puts restrictions on events that can have a direct effect on one another and pretty much shuts down the possibility of time travel. To put it all another way: While the space-time stamps that any individual may put on whatever events may vary from person to person, the essential connectedness between events is unaltered, you can stretch, compress, bend, rotate, translate, speed up, slow down according to the transformation rules of special and general relativity but you can not cut and restitch (or at least according to the rules that got our imaginations running wild to begin with). There is nothing to stop us from wondering if the rules are in fact the rules, that is the job of anyone with an imagination including physicists and this wondering has thankfully no end. But so far there is not anything that I am aware of that in anyway suggests I may need to consider the possibility of time travel in order to make sense of my world. It is still fun to think about though, but when I do, I think I quickly get tied in a knot because it actually is not possible. But then again maybe my mind doesn't see the new required shift of center.
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Date Mar. 3 2014 14:34:22
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gj Michelob
Posts: 1531
Joined: Nov. 7 2008
From: New York City/San Francisco
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RE: Richard and other thinkers (in reply to Ricardo)
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If you could travel faster than the speed of light, then you could "observe" the past unfold -images of the past, that is. To intervene and change any event, however, that appears to be impossible. However, yet, to untangle that conceptual knot could help explain the inexplicable, such as God, or other ideas we are still too primitive to conceive or grasp. On the other hand, I find the unpredictable future more fascinating, and I enjoy, each day, traveling through it...
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gj Michelob
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Date Mar. 3 2014 15:17:11
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3462
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Richard and other thinkers (in reply to Ruphus)
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Whether one considers the "Arrow of Time" as moving forward, not backward; or the Space-Time continuum in Special Relativity with its relative frames of reference; or if one imagines travel at faster than the speed of light (impossible, but imagines it) and looks back at images of events unfolding in the "past"; it would still be impossible to insert oneself (the observer) into the past and influence it to produce a different outcome. Think of our observations of images of events that occurred at the furthest limits of the universe millions of light-years away. What we see on earth is not the event itself as it is occurring. Instead, we see the light-image of the event as it occurred millions of light years ago. Were it possible to instantaneously travel to the point where the event actually occurred, there would be nothing there to see or influence. Cheers, Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East." --Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 3 2014 16:03:10
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3462
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Richard and other thinkers (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
But what about the question: However hypothetical TT = inevitably involving derangement / backwards unrolling of physical processes? Not sure I understand, Ruphus. Do you mean something in the real, physical world analogous to running a film backwards? So that instead of a man shown walking forward down a street and entering a pub, he is shown backing out of the pub and walking backwards to his point of origin? If that is what you mean, let's take the example of wanting to fry an egg in the kitchen. You accidentally drop the egg on the floor and it breaks and splatters. Are you asking if you could travel back in time five minutes ago, would it be possible for the egg at the same time to reconstitute itself as the whole egg it was five minutes ago, so you could put it in the frying pan instead of dropping it? I'm not sure if that's what you mean, but I don't think it would be possible under any laws of physics we know of today. Cheers, Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East." --Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 3 2014 17:52:41
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Ricardo
Posts: 14971
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Richard and other thinkers (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
However hypothetical TT = inevitably involving derangement / backwards unrolling of physical processes? Ruphus, you keep asking the same thing. Answer would be "yes" and the reason is as described (space coordinates not known relative to motion). So unrolling also means the "unroller" is also "unrolling" and thus not learning anything rather LOSING his info too...unless you accept the "unroller" is actually observing this unrolling whilst actually moving forward in time himself. being a "god" of sorts. So it makes no sense really, or rather, would serve no purpose. There used to be a theory of universe evolution that space-time might be slowing expansion and therefore might either slow forever never stoping, or it might stop and stay that way, or, because of gravity, REVERSE .... eventually coming back to a singularity. THey called this "big crunch". This process would mean "unrolling" as you say, experienced by everyone and everything. It is illustrated in Hawkings "brief history of time". Observation shows accelerated expansion, so that Big Crunch idea has been dropped by most. THe more complex metaphysical idea is that each event is a junction where ALL possible out comes actually occur in DIFFERENT universes, and THIS universe is only ONE Of the possible pathways. Quantum leap was a sci fi series where the main character jumps into this alternate path universes via those junction event points, and tries to "fix" things so that the pathways converge with "our" universe. Again, anything outside of OUR universe is the "god perspective" and therefore impractical. I for one am happy enough with FORWARD time travel.
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CD's and transcriptions available here: www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Mar. 4 2014 8:11:27
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Richard and other thinkers (in reply to Ruphus)
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You mean there would still be some around who consider a big crunch possible? I though that was clearly sorted out for everyone. - What my question is concerned, thank you all for trying to help. Either it is difficult to be understood, or much rather my English not sufficient to make clear what I meant. Anyway, even if I be right, there would remain still too many obstacles to realize any TT. - I am glad for your contentment in life. Mine is full with wishes to repair or prevent something, and I know that it is no healthy condition. Besides, be glad that I can´t travel in time. For you ( or me) would be living somewhere on another continent or eventually even not be around at all if I had a time machine. For, among the things I´d do if I had one would be to visit the America of the 16th century and tell my brothers of what white shippers are going to bring over them. Today that continent would likely be still rather naturally in tact with some of the tribes probably conducting some incredibly profitable tourism. - And we would likely have some hundred million people less, which would not be bad either. ... And as I might have visited some other spots in time and locations as well like for instance Cyrus ( which alone might well have prevented the later Iberian impoverishment / financing of Columbus / Cortez), could be some more of humane history would had come about and we´d now be hardly two billion heads anyway. ... And Paco might have been quitting cigs only gradually ( provided tobacco had made its way from America ) and taking up some well dosed fitness for to stay with his family, with us keep enjoying his presence. Yeah, the default estimation on thelike must trigger `no good / naive / better not touch´. But sometimes a better course is just that. A better course. Ruphus
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Date Mar. 4 2014 8:59:17
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3462
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Richard and other thinkers (in reply to Ruphus)
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Ruphus, yours is an interesting question and it brings up a whole "universe" of problems, speculation, and in some cases near-certainties that physics and cosmology have been grappling with and continue to grapple with today. I would suggest two books that you might enjoy and find interesting. One is Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time." The other is Brian Greene's "The Fabric of the Cosmos," subtitled "Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality." Both are excellent. Cheers, Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East." --Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 4 2014 12:08:10
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