✳ This is it ... the scientific topic we always wanted to discuss ...

[bobbooo]

 

[cathodeb]

Everyone who talks about time travel might be putting the carriage before the horse.

I don't remember a single thing as a philosophy major in college. Early on I came to the conclusion that every single philosophical question was the result of the lack of defining the terms. Once you define the words you use, all questions are easily answered. Does time exist? Easy. Define time. Philosophical discourse needs the absence of/obfuscation of definition in order to thrive.

 

[lashto]

I don't remember a single thing as a philosophy major in college. Early on I came to the conclusion that every single philosophical question was the result of the lack of defining the terms. Once you define the words you use, all questions are easily answered. Does time exist? Easy. Define time. Philosophical discourse needs the absence of/obfuscation of definition in order to thrive.

That's a fair POV.
However, you might be asking too much from philosophy, after all it is not the same as science. IMO, philosophers only need to pioneer into those big/unclear questions and keep asking them. Otherwise how would you know which terms need better (scientific) definitions/measurements/etc? For me philosophy does not have to be precise or clear or to provide good answers, it just needs to be interesting. Somewhat like music.

As for time and time travel, it'll be wonderful to have clear definitions. OTOH, someone might (more or less) accidentally do a successful time trip without knowing much about how it worked. Or while trying to do something completely different. Like wasting time on forums

 

[mansr]

Like wasting time on forums

The best place for wasting time is the dock of the bay.

 

[cathodeb]

For me philosophy does not have to be precise or clear or to provide good answers, it just needs to be interesting. Somewhat like music.

Philosophy as you describe it (somewhat like music and lacking precise definitions) is a wonderful thing. As you describe it, philosophy is the extension of our natural curiosity about things which we cannot readily test. But in my experience, philosophy in practice is very different. Philosophy as subject of study is more like playing chess, where one is a winner or a loser, sort of like many of the somewhat heated "discussions" here, despite the best efforts of the hosts and others. And like many heated "discussions" here, the winner and loser is ultimately decided based on political-type affiliations. In the world of philosophy, believe it or not, there is so much pettiness, viciousness and celebrity. It's very much a game, as I said like chess, and dependent on a lack of definition of the terms used in order that the game can be played.

 

[Wes]

The great thing is that science is steadily chewing away at philosophy, limiting its reach

 

[lashto]

The great thing is that science is steadily chewing away at philosophy, limiting its reach

That's the whole idea I guess. Loooong way to go, though.

And at the end of that road there is another giant question. Say we are finally able to calculate/predict every particle, every thought, every piece of music..everything. What then?!?!

The only way to have some fun in that scenario might be to go back in time

 

[mansr]

And at the end of that road there is another giant question. Say we are finally able to calculate/predict every particle, every thought, every piece of music..everything. What then?!?!

42

 

[cathodeb]

The great thing is that science is steadily chewing away at philosophy, limiting its reach

Science is just as prone to politics and blight as is philosophy and is much more dangerous. Censorship is now a working part of science (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...s-fury-over-attempt-to-censor-covid-19-advice) and in fact self-censorship along the same lines is gaining momentum quickly. Same with chicanery (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext). Science is almost always propelled by ideology and money. And let's not forget about vivisection in the name of progress. But yes, science is its pure form, wonderful, just like philosophy.

 

[Wes]

You seem to be confusing science with the uses scientific discoveries are put to

science is a method, and is self-correcting: if there is censorship or chicanery other experiments will show it up

your whole post, esp. conflating vivisection into some weird mix inside your head, tells me you know nothing about science

 

[MRC01]

No, your sensation of elapsed time would be reduced. Cross the Galaxy in a few minutes, though "time" back on Earth would progress 100,000 years or so.

Correct. If you get close enough to the speed of light, you can travel to any point in the universe, in as little time as you want -- from your own frame of reference. The Andromeda Galaxy that you see your telescope is about 2.5 M light years away. If you travel there at 99.99999% something the speed of light, you can get there in 1 minute, or 1 second, or 1 millisecond, from your own frame of reference. But for people on Earth your trip will take something over 2.5 M years. Taken to its logical conclusion, this implies that in the photon's own frame of reference, traveling at the speed of light, every point in the universe is 0 seconds away, which means it exists simultaneously at every point in the universe. Of course, Einstein showed that simultaneity itself is also relative to one's frame of reference.

One way to resolve the various contradictions of time travel is to imagine multiple parallel universes. If you travel in time, at the moment you arrive you branch off another "thread" or parallel universe. So if you go forward, you can create a new future but it doesn't change the future of the past from which you came. And if you go backward, you can make the future unfold differently, but it won't affect the future you came from.

 

[StefaanE]

One way to resolve the various contradictions of time travel is to imagine multiple parallel universes. If you travel in time, at the moment you arrive you branch off another "thread" or parallel universe. So if you go forward, you can create a new future but it doesn't change the future of the past from which you came. And if you go backward, you can make the future unfold differently, but it won't affect the future you came from.

But that introduces the problem of how the “branching” happens. Naively, does everything get duplicated instantaneously? If so, where does the matter come from?

 

[cathodeb]

You seem to be confusing science with the uses scientific discoveries are put to

science is a method, and is self-correcting: if there is censorship or chicanery other experiments will show it up

your whole post, esp. conflating vivisection into some weird mix inside your head, tells me you know nothing about science

Don't have time for it, buddy.

 

[MRC01]

But that introduces the problem of how the “branching” happens. Naively, does everything get duplicated instantaneously? If so, where does the matter come from?

Good question. I don't have the answer. The parallel universes concept is also used to explain quantum mechanics. Some people think every possible outcome actually does happen, but we only observe the one outcome that happens in our universe. Alternately, that the observation we make which tells us what the outcome was (measuring it), actually determines which universe we are in.
So your questions would apply to that theory as well, or more generally to any parallel universes explanation.

 

[lashto]

Philosophy as you describe it (somewhat like music and lacking precise definitions) is a wonderful thing. As you describe it, philosophy is the extension of our natural curiosity about things which we cannot readily test. But in my experience, philosophy in practice is very different. Philosophy as subject of study is more like playing chess, where one is a winner or a loser, sort of like many of the somewhat heated "discussions" here, despite the best efforts of the hosts and others. And like many heated "discussions" here, the winner and loser is ultimately decided based on political-type affiliations. In the world of philosophy, believe it or not, there is so much pettiness, viciousness and celebrity. It's very much a game, as I said like chess, and dependent on a lack of definition of the terms used in order that the game can be played.

Luckily for me, I did not have to study any of that formal "philosophy in practice". I can see how that could become a seriously annoying bore. Particularly those discussions/debates in terms of who's right/wrong, winner/loser, etc. IMO, it's all just a philosophical POV, it may give you a different perspective on things, might put some OOTB thoughts in your head, etc. It doesn't have to be 'right', just to expand your brain/thinking/universe in some way.

And yep, philosophy/science/etc are all beautiful things in their pure form. But we live in a society and us humans tend to think of ourselves as more important than anything else.

 

[lashto]

I've been thinking about time and some of the readings of time. I'm sure some of you have heard that our reality as it is is one computer simulation . Suppose that it is, then time is just many rendering of reality at many instances and we are moving from one rendering to another in a proper manner. What actions and choices I and all others take will render the next instance in this "computer". Our memories or "soul" move from one rendering to the other in a linear manner from past to present to future. Let's assume that this computer/simulation does not erase past renderings and assume that we can move our memories from present rendering to the past, then essentially we "travelled" to the past and our actions may change the rendering thereon depending whether we did things differently before. This change starting from the "past" will be instantaneous in the computer world and when we move our memories to the present, the changes will already have occurred. Think of the rendering as avatars of ourselves in infinite renderings of instance and when we move our memories from present rendering to past rendering we are basically inhabiting our past avatars with memory from the present and living it in the past. Now comes the question if we want to go far back in past rendering where we do not exist, then we have to "ask" the computer to insert our avatars into that past, then we can essentially move to a time before we were born. That is traveling to the past but to the future, perhaps rendering of the future is already done in the computer based on the actions we take presently. Anyway this is my take on time. Thanks for taking time to read it....

The Simulation-Universe is a nice theory. Get access to that "computer" and time travel and all superpowers are yours. Might be a bitter red-pill though

The Simulation-Universe reminds me of the (somewhat related) Holographic Universe which I find even more interesting.
The gist of the Holo Universe (assuming that I got that head-scratcher right):

• based on the Information theory, i.e. it's all just information and matter/energy/etc are various forms of perception/illusion.
• the universe is a sort of gigantic, empty balloon and all the "real stuff" happens on the 2D surface of the balloon.
• the 3D universe that we 'see' is also perception/illusion: just a 3D-hologram generated by the 2D-stuff on the balloon's surface.
• time is another perception/illusion: as we keep gathering more information, the 3D-hologram becomes 'denser' and 'clearer' and we feel like advancing/moving through it.

All that stuff might sound like 'outrageous' SF but it actually has (some) chances to be true/real. It plays surprisingly well with various measurements/observations and other current theories.

And going back to the OT, time-travel in the Holo/Info Universe seems quite tricky or even impossible: e.g. due to conservation of energy(=information). But if the whole Holo thingie is a "computer" simulation, then we can just save and reload 'as usual'

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

Just think for only one second; being able to master time travel we could fix our past mistakes. We could get rid of this pandemic just for a start.

Am I unrealistic, or are we simply not advanced enough, or both?

You do realize that, by it's very nature, any temporal incursion would have MASSIVE side effects that could not be foreseen/simulated yes?

To use such technology for something as much of a non-issue (on a human species level, mind you) as this tiny virus would do more harm than good.
There is a reason why everyone in sci-fi usually regards temporal incursions as a bad idea and time travel is strictly limited to observation and research.

 

[mansr]

The Simulation-Universe is a nice theory.

Not really. It doesn't explain how the "real" universe hosting the simulation came to be. Perhaps it's simulations all the way down.

 

[tomtoo]

Simulated universe is the same like god. Not a explaination for anything.

 

[tomtoo]

You do realize that, by it's very nature, any temporal incursion would have MASSIVE side effects that could not be foreseen/simulated yes?

To use such technology for something as much of a non-issue (on a human species level, mind you) as this tiny virus would do more harm than good.
There is a reason why everyone in sci-fi usually regards temporal incursions as a bad idea and time travel is strictly limited to observation and research.

At the end you stuck. Lets imagine there was a reason why you travelled back. Than you changed the timeflow so that there is no more reason. You would not have to travelle back. Sci-fi movies dont like this, its boring. Couse what ever you have done in the past leadet to the situation in the future.