Time travel is fantasy

[magg0t]

No matter how much we enjoy the metaphors of "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" and the like, one thing is certain: time travel is a fantasy.

We will never travel in time.

The concept of time travel states that somehow we can go "backward" or "forward" in time.

For example, a person living here in 2006 could travel not just to a place but to a time, like to the year 2050 or 1950, according to the fantasy of time travel.

But, of course, that is a fantasy.

And the reason it is a fantasy is because of the misuse of the word "time" travel for the word more applicable to the matter: clock travel.

And when we appropriately replace the word "time" with the word "clock", we immediately see the fantasy in the concept.

A clock measures motion in increments of time, just as a yardstick measures form-substance size in increments of space.

An object so measured has dimensions of space according to the standard measuring device: the yardstick.

An object so measured has dimensions of time according to the standard measuring device: the clock.

An object can change in yardstick size through space over clock time as it moves.

When we say that an object travels we mean that it changed. Change is measured by the standard yardstick and clock in increments of space and time.

We say that the object, in changing, traveled through space and time.

We say "traveled" as a metaphor for the object's change.

But the intervals of time measure, like the intervals of space measure, have no "forward" or "backward" quality to them.

The concepts of "forward" or "backward" in either space or time is a human constructed relational, existing only in the mind of the observer.

Outside of the mind, there is no such thing as "forward" or "backward" with respect to space or time.

There are only interval comparisons which we use to assign meaning in a number of ways.

That meaning is only meaningful to us in our mind.

Thus, since space and time intervals only exist outside the human mind in a holistic instance sense, without a "forward" or a "backward" quality to them, there can be no "time" travel "forward" or "backward" through "time" outside of our mind.

Only in our mind can we turn the clock forward or backward ... and once we look outside of our self, we find that our changed clock within us does not match the standard clock outside of our mind.

Thus there will be no escape of death by traveling "back" to the "past" and being a kid again.

And there will be no escape of death by traveling "forward" to the "future" for some fountain of youth medicine.

"Time Travel" "forward" or "backward" remains merely an error of logic, a fun science fiction metaphor for "a second chance", ... and a sometimes lovely thought when the real moment leaves a bit to be desired.

[Liquidtruth]

Proof! The laws of nature do not say that time travel is impossible... So, how are you so sure?

Time is not a clock. A clock is something we devised to measure units of time that we devised.

It is not an error of logic because the laws of nature do not deem it to be impossible.

[What'sThatSmell]

But I believe the universe is a creation of my mind.
Everything that is stems from the processes of my mind.
Even my own body.
History before me did not happen, it is simply a construct of the billions of AI's I've created.

So, time travel is possible.

If I die the world ends..(at least from my perspective, and really, what other perspective should I be concerned about).

[AlphaQ]

Liquidtruth is correct. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle for time and energy actually allows for negative energy and negative time. Particles can actually travel back in time, in accordance with the principle.

Of course this applies only at the quantum level, not so much for macroscopic objects such as humans or the Planet Express spaceship.

[Liquidtruth]

*Turns himself into a sparticle to go hang out with Genghis Khan*

[magg0t]

Originally Posted by Liquidtruth

Proof! The laws of nature do not say that time travel is impossible... So, how are you so sure?

What laws of nature?

Originally Posted by Liquidtruth

Time is not a clock...

A clock is the measure of motion we call time, it is a measure of all possible universal change.

Originally Posted by AlphaQ

Liquidtruth is correct. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle for time and energy actually allows for negative energy and negative time. Particles can actually travel back in time, in accordance with the principle..

How could you ever "travel" "backward" to the clock year 1950 or "forward" to the clock year 2050 on "time" if there is no "forward" or "backward" dimension to motion the phenonmenon that exists in time that a clock measures?

The scientific "theory" of time travel is a science fantasy born of linguistic semantical error.

[g0pher]

My wild guess, is that time travel isn't possible, Surely we aren't at a point in our understanding of physics yet to be real sure either way.

Some of the greatest minds in 20th & 21st century physics have argued over this, sometimes switching sides every now and then.

However, The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics seems to discourage time travel. Though, it is not fair, to say physicists fantasize about time travel out of a fear of mortality, Time travel is a metaphor for a real phenomenon.

[Digit]

Originally Posted by magg0t

No matter how much we enjoy the metaphors of "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" and the like, one thing is certain: time travel is a fantasy.

We will never travel in time.

The concept of time travel states that somehow we can go "backward" or "forward" in time.

For example, a person living here in 2006 could travel not just to a place but to a time, like to the year 2050 or 1950, according to the fantasy of time travel.

But, of course, that is a fantasy.

And the reason it is a fantasy is because of the misuse of the word "time" travel for the word more applicable to the matter: clock travel.

And when we appropriately replace the word "time" with the word "clock", we immediately see the fantasy in the concept.

A clock measures motion in increments of time, just as a yardstick measures form-substance size in increments of space.

An object so measured has dimensions of space according to the standard measuring device: the yardstick.

An object so measured has dimensions of time according to the standard measuring device: the clock.

An object can change in yardstick size through space over clock time as it moves.

When we say that an object travels we mean that it changed. Change is measured by the standard yardstick and clock in increments of space and time.

We say that the object, in changing, traveled through space and time.

We say "traveled" as a metaphor for the object's change.

But the intervals of time measure, like the intervals of space measure, have no "forward" or "backward" quality to them.

The concepts of "forward" or "backward" in either space or time is a human constructed relational, existing only in the mind of the observer.

Outside of the mind, there is no such thing as "forward" or "backward" with respect to space or time.

There are only interval comparisons which we use to assign meaning in a number of ways.

That meaning is only meaningful to us in our mind.

Thus, since space and time intervals only exist outside the human mind in a holistic instance sense, without a "forward" or a "backward" quality to them, there can be no "time" travel "forward" or "backward" through "time" outside of our mind.

Only in our mind can we turn the clock forward or backward ... and once we look outside of our self, we find that our changed clock within us does not match the standard clock outside of our mind.

Thus there will be no escape of death by traveling "back" to the "past" and being a kid again.

And there will be no escape of death by traveling "forward" to the "future" for some fountain of youth medicine.

"Time Travel" "forward" or "backward" remains merely an error of logic, a fun science fiction metaphor for "a second chance", ... and a sometimes lovely thought when the real moment leaves a bit to be desired.

"one thing is certain: time travel is a fantasy"

u-huh. where does your certainty come from?

because i have seen ALOT of evidence to the contrary.

we cannot not travel through time. we are ALWAYS traveling through time.

"time has many scales and many densities"

even when using your memory, this is a form of time travel. when you imagine potential futures, this is a type of time travel. next time you see someone tell you it's certain that you'll never time travel, you have my permission to punch them in the face. raa! *


forward and backward, and all the other directions you negated to mention, are but the navigational language we were given as children. i see no need to denounce them so strongly as you have.



if you can travel through space, then you can travel through time. if you want to claim that such traveling is an ilusion and thus it is only "change" and no "travel" took place, then so be it, call it that. it is little more than variation in the depiction of the same eventing. George and Gracie all over the place here.

How could you ever "travel" "backward" to the clock year 1950 or "forward" to the clock year 2050 on "time" if there is no "forward" or "backward" dimension to motion the phenonmenon that exists in time that a clock measures?

The scientific "theory" of time travel is a science fantasy born of linguistic semantical error.

i prefer not to think of time as one dimension of forwards and backwards as you depict it. if space has three, why not time? my uncle has some very interesting models and theories on this and the super structure which defines which dimensions come about. there are alot of known unknowns here... and even more unknown unknowns here. like in the "imagining the tenth dimension", if you are to consider the 5th and 6th dimensions as the depth and height to time. we can do such things in the low density masslessness of spirit (obviously) and thought easily, it's having the mind over matter, the follow through, that makes what the character Hiro (in Heroes) does possible.
if you're in this section you'll likely be at least aware of the idea that "thoughts become things", or at the very least have heard someone say "careful what you wish for... you might just get it". its the same vein. if you "believe with every rudiment of you being", then it become's so. it goes both ways. you tell yourself with 100% certainty, it's not gonna happen, viola! you're right! you tell yourself with 100% certainty that it is so, then it is so. there are few things simpler than certainty.



keep time traveling (i'd like to see you try to stop***).


* no of course that was a joke.

*** light speed anyone? faster?

gopher say:
My wild guess, is that time travel isn't possible, Surely we aren't at a point in our understanding of physics yet to be real sure either way.

Some of the greatest minds in 20th & 21st century physics have argued over this, sometimes switching sides every now and then.

However, The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics seems to discourage time travel. Though, it is not fair, to say physicists fantasize about time travel out of a fear of mortality, Time travel is a metaphor for a real phenomenon.

i reccon that second law of thermodynamics has already been blown outta the water. i mean seriously, if it were true... wouldn't the universe have gone kaput waaaay sooner than us still being around to yack about it? and what of the "over-unity" machines constantly being supressed by the energy giants, what ofzero point... doesnt even magnetism fly in the face of it.... how did it ever come into being in the first place!? scientists making up imaginary closed systems then seeing what the most uninteligent matter will do inside it? hahaha. yes, had they looked further to the WHOLE, rather than "closed systems" (which dont exist btw), then perhaps, just perhaps, they might have twigged onto some of the other great feilds of interest, like the "timewave zero" in which is describes an organisational process of ever increasing complexification, not mere complexification, but "novelty" where things are ever more "new", as the whole thing is geared for self improvement, and there comes a tipping point where entropy is no longer a problem, and there comes new challenges, just the same as there comes a tipping point where scarcity and survival are no longer the challenge and new challenges can be risen to and met, just how inhibitions fade to memory only and conciseness and choice become the prominent issues... it's progress. you stick some reactive material in a small box and watch it run out of steam, sure you're going to come away from that with evidence which supports the conclusion that there's a formula depicting how we all run out of peef in the end. bollocks.


so anyways, my point is simple.

i'm not going to say anything cannot be done simply because i have not seen it done. anything is possible.

[Visine!]

Physics has always been a hobby of mine (and its now my college major) and i my favorite stuff is special relativity and the consept of time. I really want to write a bunch on this right now but i should probably start my 7 page paper due tommorow for college comp. class...

[CosmicSerpent]

It may seem impossible when you think about it, but it's undoubtedly a little more complex than that. I understand what you're saying... time is an abstract idea with little relevance other than human perception of the universe. But I don't think that's any reason to say time travel is entirely fantasy. There's too much we haven't discovered and don't understand... at the most, you could say time travel in the basic sense of the idea is improbable, but not entirely impossible. There's lots of different ways of looking at it.

If you accept the idea that our future isn't predetermined, that we're capable of affecting what will happen a minute, an hour, or a century from now, then time travel into the future seems fundamentally flawed... you can't witness something that hasn't been determined and carried out yet. But I'm sure you've heard of the twin paradox... it's the idea that if a person travels in space at a distance close to the speed of light, when they come back to Earth, what will have seemed like a short amount of time to them would in actuality be a much longer period. They will have aged much slower than their hypothetical "twin" on Earth. This is caused by the time dilation effect of relativity.

So I think it's safe to say we'll never be able to step into a machine, turn to the dial to any year we want, and instantly travel there. But time travel on a much smaller scale does seem entirely possible if we can learn to manipulate certain aspects of quantum mechanics, for example use this time dilation effect to our advantage. Where there's a will, there's a way.

[magg0t]

Digit, Since time travel can thus only occur in the mind, only in the mind can we travel in time.

So the only shot we have at time travel is if we are a manifestation of the mind of God.

The trick, then, is to get God to think of us in another time.

So Let us pray.

[SCraps]

And in fact time travel is possible 100% and sure to come. It is, by the way one of the easiest things to do. Now in the future, maybe after reaching the technological singularity, man (or man - machine hybrids) will have learned how to manipulate their own minds, their neural circuits and their memories. It won't be too hard to simulate a complete lifetime in these mind machines. Then you just have to simulate a person having a mental configuration like ours in one of these lifetimes and simply set him back to the world as he knew it 30 years earlier. Since the manipulated mind wouldn't know it is in a simulator, it will have the exact same experience and mental shock of a real time travel. But even the real time travel is only confirmed and assessed, measured by the mind experiencing it. So we will have 100% real time travel since the simulated or real thing is totally indistinguishable, what is really being measured is the mental - emotional experience.

In fact you can create time travel if you imagine that you are coming from the past or the future right in the moment you are. You manipualte and falsify your memories, since real and false memories are in the end exactly the same.

"So if self-identity is a software structure I can manipulate it as I want. So I can invent a memory and say I was once dead and now alive. So I resurrect an imaginary person but it really doesn't matter if the person was real since all our perception of reality is a software structure, an information, and as such has its reality based only on information. I can also self program my memories and say I travelled through time or anything else."

"In a sense this justifies creating false memories and complete false lives and complete delusions, since there is a you where what you invent is true, and even if it isn't the experience is what counts and is the only thing we really measure. Invent your own life."

[Toke'n Girl]

People can already use their minds to 'travel' in time. I honestly believe this. Some people just have a much easier time then others.

I think Shamans have been doing this for many many years, and that they could both look into the past and the future in the early days.

Drugs help too ;p

[Digit]

Originally Posted by magg0t

Digit, Since time travel can thus only occur in the mind, only in the mind can we travel in time.

!!! STOP! where are you getting this "only" from. were you only skim reading my reply. or are you one of those people who havn't quite learned yet how to test the "thoughts become things" idea yet, prefering to cling to the familiar world you've drawn for yourself where time travel is impossable?

Originally Posted by magg0t

So the only shot we have at time travel is if we are a manifestation of the mind of God.

um... yeah, you're closer to truth there anyways. though again, you say things with an "if" when we already are. :P duuuh.

Originally Posted by magg0t

The trick, then, is to get God to think of us in another time.

the trick then, is to see past the centuries of religious middlemen convincing us we are somehow seperate from this thing we label "god" and reccognise the truth in "atman is brahman" and know that we are one with all, and that seperation is an ilusion. ... or at least, that's one way of putting it.

Originally Posted by magg0t

So Let us pray.

had you read cosmic serpent's post when you posted this? it depicts very well the "we already are time traveling and we cant very likely ever manage to stop time traveling" point i was making also.

[Digit]

ooh, cant believe i forgot to make mention of this:
Terrence McKenna's Timewave Zero, from the horse's mouth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu6WFr61I-g


2012 as a navigational marker in time?