Why don't we see concrete evidence of time travel?

[Num7]

If time travel to and from the past were possible... And if time travel to and from the future were possible... Wouldn't we see concrete evidence or traces of time travel?

Like remnants of time machines? I mean, sure, there are things like misplaced artifacts and strange helicopter hieroglyphics that come to mind. But shouldn't we be able to find remnants of time machines or other futuristic devices?

Or are we missing something? Something science doesn't want to see?

Maybe time travel doesn't work that way.

What do you think? Is the evidence all around us and we are not seeing it?

 

[Classicalfan626]

I'd agree with you that there is nothing in plain sight that is evidence of time travel beyond reasonable doubt.

But I do think time travel is very secretive, and any evidence that we can see is by no means beyond reasonable doubt. And if there's any concrete evidence of time travel that already exists, it's guaranteed to have been covered up by the powers that be. That's my overall gut feeling.

 

[Num7]

I agree that the powers that be probably don't want us to know that time travel is possible. It would open up so many possibilities, so many ways for them to lose their power over us...

I like that you suggest that time travel is very secretive. What if it is so secretive that there are literally organizations whose whole purpose is to clean up after time travelers who have left traces from their missions? That sounds pretty awesome.

 

[Darby]

The problem with the "it's a secret" proposition is that it is set to our current perspective. It's how we see the thinking of a would be time travel enabled society. The problem is "forever" is a long time. Once two-way time travel is invented all bets about secrecy are off. From "that" instant you have time traveling ability at all times going forward and into the past. What's the biggest secret the US has ever had? Arguably it was the Manhattan Program to develop and deploy a uranium/plutonium nuclear device. How long were we able to keep that a secret? Zero. General Groves took the entire R&D team to the middle of the desert, isolated them, put a fence around them and stationed military police to monitor them yet the secret was being leaked to the USSR during the entire program. In the case of time travel you have forever for just one time traveler to spill the beans.

I put scare quotes around "that" in "From 'that' instant..." because there is no possible way to identify the moment when time travel is invented. In fact there is no incentive to even try to invent time travel. Do we see anyone trying to invent boats today? Of course not. They were invented long ago. The same would be true of time travel with the exception that today's technology could have been invented in either the past or the future; it would be a technology that just is. Such a society wouldn't question the situation because it understands and is familiar with the implications. It seems to have never actually been invented. See Robert A. Heinlein's short story "All You Zombies..."

Once the secret is out you have forever for the technology, and all other associated technologies (electricity, metallurgy, solid state physics, special relativity, general relativity, quantum physics, etc.) to be leaked into the past. Again, forever is a very long time for hundreds of billions of people to further spill the beans. If two-way time travel is possible as we envision it why don't we have our own time machines? If two-way time travel is possible why are we still confined to Earth instead of exploring the galaxy? A time travel machine itself is sufficient to explore the galaxy. As Minkowski told Einstein, "From henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, have vanished into the merest shadows and only a kind of blend of the two exists on its own right." Travel in space; travel in time. The choice is yours.

Why wasn't Hitler assassinated by a time traveler as a teenager? Why wasn't he saved by another time traveler? Assassinated again by a third time traveler? Saved by a fourth time traveler? Et sic in aeternum.

 

[Traveler 25042]

I think there could be several reasons.

1. No evidence left behind. Take for example, a device built using materials that melt. Mercury as an example, is a superconductor when solid--but melts at room temperature. A device using similar materials would just melt into the ground once it's turned off or disabled.
   • Assuming what I've been saying for a while is true, when a person travels--they're really leaving their universe behind. Thus, there would be no physical devices because they're constantly taking the evidence with them & we're just seeing the footprints.
   • Anyone with the technology and understanding would also take great care to cover their footsteps.
2. Evidence of traveling in ancient times would have been poorly recorded (if at all) as they wouldn't understand what was happening, nor would they have the vocabulary to fully explain.
   • A bit of modern technology in ancient times would cause them to write about gods and heroes.
3. Evidence in more modern times could be right in front of everyone. As Darby mentioned regarding Hitler--give people time travel and inevitably someone may try it. Then, realizing WW2 was the best possible outcome, others would step in to ensure the best outcome.
   • There would be many universes spawned, and the frame of reference from any given one may be hard to discern if / when / who / what was done.
   • People could encrypt future messages under the guise of fiction.
   • Technology we see and take advantage of today could have first been invented in a future alternate universe.
4. Evidence is deleted. In addition to the rogue travelers trying to off or save Hitler, others may step in to minimize damage (intentional or unintentional) and remove physical traces of devices--or just integrate those devices into their arsenals.
   • Spooks snatching people and their devices up falls under this category.
5. Evidence his hidden. This would be things like machines buried deep in the ground or ocean that can remain untouched for thousands of years. We're still finding tombs and cities even thousands of years later.

In general I think society could no more function as an everyday time travel society as it could a nuclear weapon society. Time / multiversal travel is a super weapon to end all super weapons, which the usage would be highly guarded.

Finally, I like Darby's other point about space. A device capable of moving through time must also move through space. Once you unlock the ability to go anywhere else, the probability of finding the physical devices on Earth at any one point in time grows exponentially smaller.

 

[Darby]

No evidence left behind. Take for example, a device built using materials that melt.

That's not the issue. The issue is having a commitment by an infinite number of people to keep a secret forever both in the future and the past. It's irrelevant that one person or a group of persons makes their gadgets from melting materials. It's that one person or a group that simply doesn't care to keep the secret or by some set of circumstances or omission lets the secret out of the bag. Again, they have forever for that one slip. Once that happens the game is over.

Take Titor for instance. He said he would not give away information that could be used to alter history. It was a secret and he was committed to keep the secret. Slick answer, yes? But the logical is irrevocably faulty. There weren't all that many people posting on the threads but there were a couple dozen people regularly posting.

Now, in the "Titor Posts" reality among the people posting with him is "Rick" who in the "No Titor" reality would otherwise have gone out with friends and met a woman who would become his wife instead of posting with Titor. But Titor did post and Rick chose to stay home and participate.

In the "No Titor" reality there is no Titor with whom Rick would post and he therefore goes out, meets and marries the woman and they have two children who grow to adult age and have two children each. The two children meet and marry someone and have two children each. Those four children also meet and marry someone and have two children each. At this point in the "No Titor" reality about 40 years have passed and there are already 14 people and four marriages that don't exist in the "Titor Posts" reality.

Next we go to Rick's spouse. In her "Titor Posts" reality she lives a completely different "No Rick" reality. She meets and marries someone other than Rick and after the same period of time, assuming two children per marriage, there are 14 people born. In this reality her children and grandchildren do not exist in the her "No Titor" reality.

The growth per generation is 2^n where n is the number of generation in the person's line. To get the total population you sum each generation into a single total.

It gets worse because this only accounts for Rick's and his "No Titor" spouse's line. It does not account for the sons and daughters in law's family lines in each reality. In each reality those children meet and marry people and create new realities that don't exist in the "Titor Posts" reality.

It's not 14 + 14 = 28, it is (14+ 14)^2 = 784 people who are divergent from the two realities after only ~40 years. We've now combined the two divergent realities. The next generation will be 784^2 = 614,656 (round it to 614,000 because at these numbers not everyone has survived). At this point we're only ~60 years down the pike. One more generation, 80 years and not a single on earth in either reality would match the expectation value one might have had in 2000. 614,000^2 is ~377 billion people (obviously far, far, far more people than have every existed since the earth formed).

And this only considers Rick. It does not consider any other person who was posting with Titor on this site and/or Post-2-Post.

In less than a century history has spun out of control (at least for the omnicient who can "look down" and see the different permutations). All because Titor appeared and said, "Shhhhh....it's all a secret and I refuse to tell you the secret because that would alter the 'timeline' which is a big no-no even though I'm mavericking this visit without authorization because I want to have fun, drink orange wine and get drunk while posting on a public BBS...and my handlers will never know." His handlers, at least the ones he knew, likely no longer exist. The fact that a time traveler appeared at all alters reality.

See Ray Bradbury's short story, "A Sound of Thunder" for details.

In short, the situation created by a Titor would-be time traveler is called a boundary condition. The future evolution of a system is, in principle, determined by the initial boundary conditions of the system.

 

[Traveler 25042]

I like where your heads at, Darby. Language easy enough for me to understand ^_^
What you've described is indeed a boundary condition. You're also correct in your assumption regarding the future evolution of a system intrinsically tied to its initial conditions, which all discussions would be relative to w/e "it" is. The scenario you laid out is a good extreme example, but still within potential probabilities. All still within the realm of a layer 1 multiverse.

What really seems to cook people's noodles are infinity, and how not all infinities are the same or share the same cardinality. Superpositions and probabilities play into exactly what you described. A similar boundary can be found by taking the opposite assumption, that non-titors are maidenless & would not have procreated (effectively zero'ing them out in the calcluations). Between those two boundaries, you can probably guess, is infinity again.

You also lightly touch on the Ripple Effect (or butterfly effect w/e you want to call it). I like the ripple analogy because they're effectively circles that grow from the origin.

Again, they have forever for that one slip. Once that happens the game is over.

Feels like something people have been saying for years. The multiverse is uncountably infinitely stacked against travelers, yet people still want to change things. Many reasons why not to change anything, or why one should take every effort to minimize their impact, but never as much discussion on how quickly even a small change (I used punching Presidents as an example in a different post) can quickly ripple into extreme levels of divergence when someone metaphorically "re-nocks" time arrows & fires them off with different trajectories.

Still not impossible, just highly improbable (for good reasons!)

Some more thought experiments:
-If Rick posted frequently on TTI and missed out on wife and kids because of Titor, how would anyone know & does it mean anything if nobody knows? Wife, kid, and grandkids would all be in superposition relative to Rick so he wouldn't even know. Takes at least a third observer to resolve a dispute between two people disagreeing on something. Rick would be in superposition to all TTI members unless they engaged.

-If you have a thought and do not write it down, can it be said that the thought is "real?" If you remember to write the thought down, is it any more or less real than the first thought? A thought transcribed on some medium can potentially be considered "realer" than a thought by itself. I propose the thought transcribed has greater "weight" or "realness" to it than those that remain as thoughts.

Similarly, our interactions here on TTI can have different weights that would need to be factored in as well. As an example, I would wager mine are a bit weightier than say, a guy who wants you to send him $5mil in bitcoin to build a time machine in like 20 years no guarantees. All of which if we start factoring in events outside of TTI...the weight diminishes significantly. A lot of messiness can potentially be avoided by zeroing out trivialities and dealing with the margin of error.

 

[wanderer]

Imagine that the government of a country gives you access to military facilities, what do you think will happen? A vivid example of the fact that one of the worst-case scenarios would simply be a big explosion of the information field, not to mention the physical actions of specific individuals or groups. There are such concepts as military secrets, classified documents, and there is such a thing as access to them, we are shown to ordinary civilians and even ordinary military and other government employees only what we can see, remember area 51, when someone (perhaps just jokingly) said that he is going there to pave his way inside the zone, a lot of people gathered there and as a result, the military made it clear that anyone who enters this territory alive will not leave there

 

[The Real McZero]

Why don't we see concrete evidence of time travel?

If time travel to and from the past were possible... And if time travel to and from the future were possible... Wouldn't we see concrete evidence or traces of time travel?

Like remnants of time machines? I mean, sure, there are things like misplaced artifacts and strange helicopter hieroglyphics that come to mind. But shouldn't we be able to find remnants of time machines or other futuristic devices?

Or are we missing something? Something science doesn't want to see?

Maybe time travel doesn't work that way.

What do you think? Is the evidence all around us and we are not seeing it?

It's abundant, IF you know what to look for. (Few do. ) But it's not as simple as presenting evidence to a scientific peer reviewed approval process and making a public spectacle so people can ooh and ahh over it.

For starters, it's work to present and is complicated. It entails doxing people and exposing things of a private or extraordinarily controversial nature, taking a huge personal risk and basically causing a lot of people to rethink reality. It'd probably do more harm than good and make a big mess because people are greedy selfish nosy violent territorial and stupid.

Think "Pandora's Box".

 

[Darby]

It's abundant, IF you know what to look for. (Few do. )

And that's the real issue. People actually do look for signs and generally see no concrete evidence of time travel. But time travel to the past, if it is actually possible (which is doubtful based on the known laws of physics), has implications that cannot be glossed over. Even though this is a time travel forum the advocates of time travel fail to realize that in supporting the idea they get stuck by describing time in such a world as plodding along linearly. For some reason they don't see what such a world implies.

I've asked this question a dozen times (at least) over the past 25 years on this forum and the advocates never answer. They assume that time travel is a secret in a world where time travel exists. Yet once time travel to the past is introduced it becomes all but impossible to keep it a secret from anyone. In such a world time travel wasn't invented yesterday or tomorrow. In such a world it is impossible to determine when it was invented because a time traveler can always say, "Time travel was invented in 2036? Hold my beer for a tick. I'm going to time travel to 1975 and set up shop." In such a world you would have to keep the secret of time travel a secret forever. Yet between today and "forever" time travelers are visiting the past. Eventually (which translates to instantly) someone will slip and let the cat out of the bag...an infinite number of times. But that isn't actually what is implied. What is implied is sometime, somewhere in the past the secret got out and today time travel is SOP. No one questions its existence because it appears to have always existed in the past regardless of what era the person making that statement lives in. In such a world there is no ancient Classical Greece, no middle ages, dark ages, Renaissance, or Classical period. Every era known to mankind has developed technology to the most advanced level allowed by the laws of physic. Not only does time travel technology find its way into the past, all technology finds its way into the past. Nothing is actually invented. It's just there but no one can define when or by whom it was invented. It's the time travel Bootstrap Paradox.

But that is not the world in which we live. What does that imply? We see no evidence of time travel to the past because there is no time travel to the past.

Now someone will reply that we don't see all of the technology because there hasn't been enough time since time travel was invented. If someone is going to post that I suggest they first go back and re-read the first paragraph of this post.

 

[The Real McZero]

And that's the real issue. People actually do look for signs and generally see no concrete evidence of time travel. But time travel to the past, if it is actually possible (which is doubtful based on the known laws of physics), has implications that cannot be glossed over. Even though this is a time travel forum the advocates of time travel fail to realize that in supporting the idea they get stuck by describing time in such a world as plodding along linearly. For some reason they don't see what such a world implies.

I've asked this question a dozen times (at least) over the past 25 years on this forum and the advocates never answer. They assume that time travel is a secret in a world where time travel exists. Yet once time travel to the past is introduced it becomes all but impossible to keep it a secret from anyone. In such a world time travel wasn't invented yesterday or tomorrow. In such a world it is impossible to determine when it was invented because a time traveler can always say, "Time travel was invented in 2036? Hold my beer for a tick. I'm going to time travel to 1975 and set up shop." In such a world you would have to keep the secret of time travel a secret forever. Yet between today and "forever" time travelers are visiting the past. Eventually (which translates to instantly) someone will slip and let the cat out of the bag...an infinite number of times. But that isn't actually what is implied. What is implied is sometime, somewhere in the past the secret got out and today time travel is SOP. No one questions its existence because it appears to have always existed in the past regardless of what era the person making that statement lives in. In such a world there is no ancient Classical Greece, no middle ages, dark ages, Renaissance, or Classical period. Every era known to mankind has developed technology to the most advanced level allowed by the laws of physic. Not only does time travel technology find its way into the past, all technology finds its way into the past. Nothing is actually invented. It's just there but no one can define when or by whom it was invented. It's the time travel Bootstrap Paradox.

But that is not the world in which we live. What does that imply? We see no evidence of time travel to the past because there is no time travel to the past.

Now someone will reply that we don't see all of the technology because there hasn't been enough time since time travel was invented. If someone is going to post that I suggest they first go back and re-read the first paragraph of this post.

I try not to over-think it or explain from a position of ignorance. I don't know much about how time travel ops are conducted and I'm not a physicist. What I do know is that time travel is real because I've discovered conclusive evidence thereof. It has to happen somehow.

I've read a lot of your posts over the years, Darby, and can appreciate that you're a voice of reason who challenges people. IMHO, scrutiny serves to legitimize the legitimate. That said, you're mistaken in your assertion that "there is no time travel to the past.". It's very real. Evidence is in the form of cryptic or encoded information from the future embedded into various mediums in the past.

Are you familiar with the Baron Trump novels written in the late 1800's and all the fuss people make about the similarities? It's nothing more than an interesting coincidence. But imagine finding the names and birthdays of the whole family encoded within the text of the books? That's a good hypothetical example of how they do it. It tells you nothing other than what you can conclude with facts and logic. All you really know is that it came from the future and someone would have had to deliberately place it there. It would qualify as proof of of time travel and not much else.

 

[TrapperND]

I try not to over-think it or explain from a position of ignorance. I don't know much about how time travel ops are conducted and I'm not a physicist. What I do know is that time travel is real because I've discovered conclusive evidence thereof. It has to happen somehow.

I've read a lot of your posts over the years, Darby, and can appreciate that you're a voice of reason who challenges people. IMHO, scrutiny serves to legitimize the legitimate. That said, you're mistaken in your assertion that "there is no time travel to the past.". It's very real. Evidence is in the form of cryptic or encoded information from the future embedded into various mediums in the past.

Are you familiar with the Baron Trump novels written in the late 1800's and all the fuss people make about the similarities? It's nothing more than an interesting coincidence. But imagine finding the names and birthdays of the whole family encoded within the text of the books? That's a good hypothetical example of how they do it. It tells you nothing other than what you can conclude with facts and logic. All you really know is that it came from the future and someone would have had to deliberately place it there. It would qualify as proof of of time travel and not much else.

Have you read the baron books?

 

[Darby]

Are you familiar with the Baron Trump novels written in the late 1800's and all the fuss people make about the similarities

What do you mean by "similarities"? In Lockwood's novel Baron Trump’s Marvellous Underground Journey "Baron" is not the character's name. His name is Wilhelm Trump. Baron is his aristocratic title in the Kingdom of Hanover (now a German state). So the coincidence between having the same first name isn't. The Baron and the President's son do not share a common first name.

The Baron is a rich aristocrat. The President is rich but we don't actually know one way or the other what the President's son's financial status is. We can guess but that isn't the same as knowing. He's not an aristocrat because we don't have a king. People might say that he looks and smells like an aristocrat...but how many of those people have actually met an aristocrat? I'll just toss it out there and say, fewer than 1%. The other 99% don't know what they are talking about.

The story of Baron Trump is about a boy and his dog (sound familiar to other 19th Century novels, maybe substitute Girl for boy?) who travel to the interior of the earth and meet strange creatures (sound like any other 19th Century novels about such Journeys...?). Hint: The Wizard of Oz, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Lord of the Rings (early 20th Century).

Unlike Baron Trump of Hanover, who is an ethnically German aristocrat, Donald Trump is a first generation American of Scottish immigrant parents who were of equal Scot and German ethnicity and commoners, not aristocrats or royalty. His son Baron trump is a second generation American and grandchild of Scottish commoner immigrants.

So tell me again what is "all the fuss people make about the similarities" about? What similarities?
------------------------------------
McZ,

As before, I'm not trolling you or belittling your opinion or thoughts. Your opinions are valuable and you have the absolute right to post them without anyone's approval or permission.

I'm pointing out that I made a career of looking at information (intelligence) and questioning its veracity and the reliability of its source. I rarely accept information on its face. I look at. I dissect it into its parts. I analyze the parts. I reassemble the analyzed parts and then analyze the whole. Call it "trust but verify" on steroids.

 

[The Real McZero]

@Darby

No need to go on a debunking tangent. I was just using that as a hypothetical example in an attempt to explain how it's done, hence my use of words "Imagine" and "hypothetical".

Forget the book. Start over. Imagine you found the names and birthdays of any family encoded into any book written and printed a century before any of them were born. All you really know is that it came from the future and is deliberate. It's not going to be a sheep dog in a freezing Delorean with flaming tire marks. It's subtle and hidden with just enough information to conclude time travel. While provable, it can come at a cost, hence the motivation to not present it.

If you were to openly demonstrate such a thing, it would entail proving the status of said family and doxing them. Someone would end up harassing them or worse. Why do that?

 

[The Real McZero]

Have you read the baron books?

No, I just used that as a loose example. Whatever isn't significant about it, if it had the whole family's names and births encoded into it, it would be.

 

[The Real McZero]

I'm pointing out that I made a career of looking at information (intelligence) and questioning its veracity and the reliability of its source. I rarely accept information on its face. I look at. I dissect it into its parts. I analyze the parts. I reassemble the analyzed parts and then analyze the whole. Call it "trust but verify" on steroids.

And that's how it needs to be approached, IMO. You have to be very thorough to qualify everything, which often means a lot of research and analyzation of even the most obscure.

It's a logic puzzle.

 

[JudasTitor]

If time travel to and from the past were possible... And if time travel to and from the future were possible... Wouldn't we see concrete evidence or traces of time travel?

Like remnants of time machines? I mean, sure, there are things like misplaced artifacts and strange helicopter hieroglyphics that come to mind. But shouldn't we be able to find remnants of time machines or other futuristic devices?

Or are we missing something? Something science doesn't want to see?

Maybe time travel doesn't work that way.

What do you think? Is the evidence all around us and we are not seeing it?

The C204 matches the dimensions of the Ark of the Covenant. Early Pharoahs were described as reigning for thousands of years / time travelers.

 

[Darby]

how would anyone know & does it mean anything if nobody knows

You're absolutely correct. That's why I tossed in the caveat about the omniscient point of view. It's used in novels but isn't possible in the real world. But it serves a purpose when explaining. Only the god-like being having that omniscient POV would know.

Using the Many Worlds Interpretation doesn't really fix anything. Once something (a person, a speck of dust or a time machine - what it is isn't all that important) interacts with the quantum system that's when decoherence occurs. The situation resolves to what appears to be the classical deterministic outcome. The world "branches". But the idea that in that new world "time marches on" and everyone lives a new reality there for an extended period of time isn't quite right. No one would know.

In the next instant a Calcium-34 in your bones decays (CA-34 half-life is 35 nanoseconds) and the world splits again, a speck of dust hits your shirt and the world splits again. An air molecule hits your body and the world splits. A photon of sunlight hit you - same result. And in those splits the decay products of the calcium and the dust particle zoom away in as many directions and with as much momentum as are possible. Every possible path is taken. Every path is a new universe that is completely and utterly isolated from all other universes. By definition as a core component of Many Worlds there are no "roads" that connect these universes, not even in theory. Every second based on just one of the 8 billion people interacting with the environment (disregarding everything else on the planet) results in trillions of splits . Those new "universes" have lives lasting nanoseconds before their existence ends with a new split.

In the time travel scenario, using real physics and the real implications of Many Worlds there are no stable parallel worlds to which a time traveler can travel. The situation is probabilistic following the Schrodinger Equation to solve for Psi, the universal wave function. The idea that an "observation" has to be made for this to occur is a popular science meme. No observation is necessary in the sense that one has to experience the interaction using one of their senses. "Observation" in this case simply means an interaction by the particle with the environment/system. Particle and system can be photons or stars or anything else. The terms are just labels.

 

[The Real McZero]

The C204 matches the dimensions of the Ark of the Covenant. Early Pharoahs were described as reigning for thousands of years / time travelers.

Ark = 2.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 cubits, or 45x27x27 inches, or 131x79x79 centimeters

Do you mean cubit?

Hebrew 17.5 in
Egyptian 17.6 in
Babylonian Long 19.8 in
Hebrew Long 20.4 in <------
Egyptian Long 20.6 in <------

 

[Darby]

The C204 matches the dimensions of the Ark of the Covenant

Maybe. You can only estimate the size of the unit. It fit comfortably where the passenger's seat of the Corvette was removed as depicted in one of the photos. The only dimension that Titor ever gave for the unit was it had a mass of "about 500 lbs."