Time Travel Theory

[Ryan]

I have this pretty awesome theory about time travel and I'm interested in hearing peoples thoughts about it.


Theory: If we ever discover that time travel is possible, and we find a way to travel through time, then those people who travel back in time, already have.


support for this theory:

Suppose someone goes back in time and 'accidentally' changes something (or thinks they do). The butterfly effect would say that the change of events leading back to their 'present' would be so great that the possibility of them being born is negligible. If the change of events does not affect their birth, it would change the conditions of the world they were born in. This would mean that the version of the person who went back in time and 'accidentally' changed something, wouldn't be the same version that would exist. Thus that person would not go back in time to accidentally change something.

So if someone decides to go back in time, then they already have. The timeline that leads up to their point of decision is a result of them having already gone back in time.



This theory would lead to the debate that all of time happens simultaneously. It also reduces the ethical complication of time travel. Another corollary to this theory is that, though we have free will, we have already made every decision that we will ever be faced with. This last corollary would provide massive philosophical debate. How is it that we have choice, if we've already made it?

please post your thoughts

[Lex]

You're thinking too linearly. I believe that time branches ala multiuniversality. You can't really change the present by going back to the past, since it would split the timeline into at least two different possibilities.

[RamblinReed]

I think the problem is the fact that people consider "Time" as a tangible object, or idea.


When people say they're learning to go back or forward in time, they say it like they're learning how to get to a mall. Maybe time isn't a tangible place that we have some way to go to. In my eyes, time is just a way for people to organize events and occurrences.

[Ryan]

Einstein's theory of the universe actually provides that time is part of the fabric that holds everything together. It is not a stretch of the imagination to say that one day we could 'learn' to go back in time via a wormhole.

Also using Einstein's theory, any method that we chose to use to get back in time, would only rip a hole in our own space-time continuum, making it impossible to make a new universe by multi-verse theory. Inter-universe travel would be impossible to create using any of Einsteins' theories and if a multi-verse wormhole were to open up, it would be the biggest fluke, for it would require that the space-time continuum's of each universe were close enough together to build a tunnel.


Multi-verse time travel theory is not backed up by Einstein's theories, but is backed up by someone else's (I currently cannot remember their name). Multi-verse time travel theory requires that every universe's space-time fabric is parallel to every other universes. In this theory, every single action builds at least one bridge between multi-verses, sometimes several, depending on the consequences of the action. In such a multi-verse theory, the butterfly effect would not only change the timeline drastically, but would send the original person who stepped on the butterfly through several different universes until the final result would be so far away from the initial universe that it would be impossible to go back to the original.

I'll consider drawing a picture to demonstrate the difference. If I get a chance to work on it.

[friendoftheood18]

I have three theories.

1. going back into the past would put you into a new reality or a parallel world and it wouldn't change the reality you came from originally.

2. everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen is already set in stone. you can go back in time, but everything you do was supposed to happen, so nothing changes.
ex. a bank is robbed in 1987. i am born in 1993. in 2050 i go to 1987 and rob the bank. the bank was always robbed. the flaw with this theory is the grandfather paradox, so I like the first better.

3. backwards time travel is impossible.

[halfthecarbs]

/puts nerd glasses and pocket protector on.
The way I see it, and if I can quote Dr. Who, time is made of a big ball of 'wibbley, wobbley, timey, wimey... Stuff.'

As obscure as it sounds, it makes the most sense in my eyes. If you dive into the topic of time travel, I'm sure nothing is linear (our definition of linear, anyway). If that was so, then there wouldn't be any space for time travel, because doing so would alter the line so much that in fact it wouldn't become a line anymore. And if you think about time travel, it wold seem impossible to keep that line the same way throughout.

I can almost guarantee that if humanity discovers the ability to time travel, there would be protests for horrible events to be avoided, such as Haiti, the Holocaust, 9/11, etc. With that power, someone somewhere is bound to abuse it. 100% of us can't be 100% responsible with such great power all of the time, it's just human nature, along with curiosity.

I agree with part of the 'butterfly effect', but in the sense that simply by going back in time, you'd alter it. One theory I have is however you try to change something, in doing so will make said thing happen. For instance, you go back in time to change the outcome of a bet, then time will correct itself to make the outcome stay the same as it was in your future.

Another theory I have is that BIG events could not be tampered with, or risk completely altering reality, and possibly creating a rift, or tear, or infinite loop in time. Nobody would know what would happen if Armstrong never landed on the moon, or if the Bay of Pigs turned sour, or if the Cold War turned into something much more substantial than stockpiling. In this effect, I think that there are multiples upon multiples of realities, such as in the Multiverse theory. And that these 'verses' could collide and tear a hole in all, or some, creating mass chaos and confusion, and nothing good.

Another theory is that perhaps time IS in fact a line, in the sense of line being an infinite plane in both directions, and that this line starts before the Big Bang, at an un-imaginable figure, and proceeds forward in the same fashion. We are living in one portion of this line, but a future version of ourselves is simultaneously living 5 minute ahead, 5 years ahead, 50 years ahead. Like in Back to the Future, I think it would be very unwise to try and contact your former self, in any way, as doing such may fluctuate the timeline to an extreme that it stops, tears, or leads to SOMETHING bad. I also believe this line has set events that will never be tampered with, that effect huge numbers of people, and that changing said events could be catastrophic, such as in the multiverse theory, where time could literally end.

BUT, we may never know the true outcome of time travel, and seeing as how many horrible things have happened, in our future I think it's safe to say we've either not discovered it, or we know not to tamper with things we don't understand, or can't control.

That's my 2 cents... Or 5. More like 5.

[Ryan]

Thats my theory, if we stay in our own universe, and go back in time, then - we actually needed to go back in time in order for the events to occur the way they were supposed to. So inessence we never can possibly screw anything up.

[RamblinReed]

Apr 18, 2010 22:27:35 GMT -5 Ryan said:

Thats my theory, if we stay in our own universe, and go back in time, then - we actually needed to go back in time in order for the events to occur the way they were supposed to. So inessence we never can possibly screw anything up.

So what would be the point of going back in time?

[Ryan]

b/c you already did?

You assume people do everything for a purpose. What if you went back in time without realizing that you can't actually change anything, just to see if you could fix a mistake. You go back in time and do something and it 'fixes' the mistake, then you go back to your present, but the mistake was still made. Its like whatever you went back in time to change, was supposed to happen originally.

[halfthecarbs]

Apr 18, 2010 21:57:48 GMT -5 friendoftheood18 said:

2. everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen is already set in stone. you can go back in time, but everything you do was supposed to happen, so nothing changes.
ex. a bank is robbed in 1987. i am born in 1993. in 2050 i go to 1987 and rob the bank. the bank was always robbed. the flaw with this theory is the grandfather paradox, so I like the first better.

If I didn't say so in my above post, this is probably what I mist firmly believe. That you're doomed to repeat history, whether the act starting the cause may be different, the end result will always be the same. Like in The Time Machine, where he tries to save his wife over and over, only to be thwarted by time, which repeats itself, no matter what he tries.

[rialvestro]

We do have choice because the future is not set in stone. We haven't made any choices beyond now. It simply hasn't happened yet.

Now I believe that time travel is possible however I don't believe it's possible to change events that have already happened because time does not move in a straight line.

This means that if you prevent your own birth you will still continue to exsist because you're from an alternate time line where you never prevented your own birth. After preventing your birth you didn't replace history with a new history, you just created what I call an artifical universe.

A natural universe is one that follows the natural flow of time. Every choice you make though you don't know it sprouts off into an alternate time line continues to move forward. Natural time lines effect everything in the universe.

An artifical universe is where the personal time line of an individual time traveler branches off to travel backwards into pre-exsisting point in time. This means the invidual allready has knowage of how his time line branched off before. I believe you can only travel backwards on your own branch but by doing so you create a new branch.

It's kinda like having kids. Naturally we can't choose what our children will look like or their gender but we can adopt a children of our chooseing.

When it comes to moving forward in time, the future was never set in stone. It doesn't really matter what you know about the future because there's no garantee that it will happen the same way when you get back to your own time.

You only get to see one possible branch of the future, not the future.

To support this idea... if time travel was possible and time did not branch than we would of heard about time travel long before it was ever invented. So either time travel isn't possible or we're simply on a natural time branch. The moment we see a time machine that hasn't been invented yet is when the branch is no longer natural.

Exspanding into the idea of psychics. Assumeing there are real psychics in the world, this is why they can never predict an accurate future for us, because there is no one future, Psychics just tell us the 1 future we want to hear.

[Engesa Green once more]

I'm sorry Tyme, but I don't agree with that theory.
Infact it's not as much as i don't agree as I refuse to believe in it, since if your theory is true, we have no free will, and everything we will ever do is planned already.

I'm against believing this since it robs life of it's purpose and that's just sad.

my conclusion is: I don't think your theory is right.

[Ryan]

My theory does not disagree with free will, so much as not only do you always have a choice, but you've already made every decision you ever will. You don't know what choice you've already made until the time comes to decide, but ultimately - you've already chosen.

[The Doctor]

Haha funny! I allways thought that way to! I allways argue that if time travel were possible, the changes would already be done! Sure multiverse and stuff like that. If that were to exist, free will wouldnt be either, cause every choice possible would already been taken, which means you dont have a choice anyway....

Anyhow, I just wanted to say that Im glad someone else thinks the same way as I do! haha
Btw, Timey Wimey wibbly wobbly ball of yarn hehe Right!

[G. D. Baker]

what if time travel is different than what we think...maybe throughout the universe there are places were time goes backwards (to us) but it's normal to the organisms that live there...so actually we could be going back in time...
just an idea...

[Johncoyne]

Here's my theory: If time travel is ever readily available to me, I will come back and edit this post. It's not edited yet, is it?

[apack]

I've always felt that Back to The Future described it best, as the changes we make in the past create alternate realities all different from one another. For example, if someone goes back in time, and sets his/her house on fire, there would then be the original reality in which the house wasn't burnt down, as well as the new reality in which the house was burnt down. This would also support the whole "multiverse" theory in that all eventualities have and will happen, only in their separate and appropriate reality.

[rialvestro]

Apr 19, 2010 19:50:11 GMT -5 apack said:

I've always felt that Back to The Future described it best, as the changes we make in the past create alternate realities all different from one another. For example, if someone goes back in time, and sets his/her house on fire, there would then be the original reality in which the house wasn't burnt down, as well as the new reality in which the house was burnt down. This would also support the whole "multiverse" theory in that all eventualities have and will happen, only in their separate and appropriate reality.

That's not how Back to the Future exsplained it all. That's what I said a few posts ago.

According to Back to the Future there is only one reality hence the reason why Marty started dissapearing when he prevented his parents from meeting.

If the Multiverse theory is true than preventing your own birth would not change your future as your future has allready happened in a different universe. Thus Marty and the picture of his family would never be altered as they came from an alternate future.

[rialvestro]

Apr 19, 2010 15:31:12 GMT -5 Johncoyne said:

Here's my theory: If time travel is ever readily available to me, I will come back and edit this post. It's not edited yet, is it?

If you're trying to prove that time travel will never be possible all you've really proved is that time travel won't be possible in your life time.

[apack]

No. Marty was disappearing in that universe as it was the universe he created when stopping his own birth. Hence the explanations of tangents in the next movie. Changing the past means opening new, unopened doors and being forced to enter said doors unless you can somehow prevent them from being opened in the first place. It's all centered around whatever universe you're currently dealing with and altering.

Either way, it's just a movie.