'Different Timelines' Nonsense

T

Twighlight

Quantum Scribe
\'Different Timelines\' Nonsense

I've got so tired of hearing the ' time traveller always arrives in a different timeline ' lame excuse....that I've decided to once and for all lay it to rest.

You see, the 'diverging timelines' explanation has an incredibly simple flaw. One that is so basic and simple that many have missed it.

So.....you reckon I cannot travel back into the past of my own timeline...huh ? Well, of course, I have to travel to a 'different' timeline. OK, let's go along with that....

I hop in my time machine. Mmm. I think I'll pop back to 1966....summer of love and all that. Lots of scantily clad wenches all eager to make love not war. But wait....this is a different timeline ! Scott McKenzie is a Southern Baptist preacher in this timeline....1920s music is all the rage.....and baring of ankles in public is banned. Drat !!

Hmm. Where can I go ? MUST be a different timeline. Oh....I know....how about the REAL 1966 ! I mean, from where I am in the phoney 1966......the real 1966 IS a different timeline. Duh !

So, I'm off to see all those scantily clad girls. I'll send a postcard.
 
Re: \'Different Timelines\' Nonsense

NOW I see where the misunderstanding in the other thread is between us!
To clarify: With DIFFERENT timeline after travelling back I don't mean that everything already is different when you arrive.

But it is merely different in that where you came from there wasn't another you arriving there.
So, originally there wasn't you arriving from the future, then you invent a time machine and go back.
Now the past you arrive in is EXACTLY the same as the one you departed from UNTIL the moment you arrive.
I'm not saying that from that moment on the president suddenly changes or all the stuff you talked about. Only that now, you are in a past that is different in you being there.
And when you step on grass, then this grass is grass, that was stepped on by you, whereas in the past you originally come from it wasn't stepped on by you. etc.

You took DIFFERENT timeline a step too far but I guess that has to do with my ability to express myself accordingly.^^
 
Re: \'Different Timelines\' Nonsense

W I see where the misunderstanding in the other thread is between us!
To clarify: With DIFFERENT timeline after travelling back I don't mean that everything already is different when you arrive.

But it is merely different in that where you came from there wasn't another you arriving there.
So, originally there wasn't you arriving from the future, then you invent a time machine and go back.
Now the past you arrive in is EXACTLY the same as the one you departed from UNTIL the moment you arrive.
I'm not saying that from that moment on the president suddenly changes or all the stuff you talked about. Only that now, you are in a past that is different in you being there.
And when you step on grass, then this grass is grass, that was stepped on by you, whereas in the past you originally come from it wasn't stepped on by you. etc.

You took DIFFERENT timeline a step too far but I guess that has to do with my ability to express myself accordingly.^^
Click to expand...

Yes but some of your responses fail to perceive a fundamental dilemna.

Let's say ( for the sake of simplicity ) that there are 1000 timelines and it is 04 September in all of them. Now, the 'me' that exists in all those timelines has a past no less sacrosanct than the 'me' in this one. ALL those timelines have their own specific past..they are all 'equivalent' in that sense.

Here is something that people keep on missing :- ALL those other timelines have a NOW that is equivalent to our own now. If I travel back to 1966 in another timeline...I am travelling back to the 1966 of a timeline that already has a 2009.

So....the entire basis of ' you must travel to a different timeline'......the infamous Grandfather Paradox ( going back in time and shooting your own grandfather ) is NOT solved by differing timelines. It is a 'cop out' to be allowed to go back to some other timeline and shoot THEIR grandfather instead....when from THEIR perspective their own past is no less sacrosanct than we perceive ours as being.

What is more, if you allow time travellers from 'other timelines' to come here and ( by definition ) change OUR past..then I see absolutely no logical reason why I should not be allowed to change our past too. All I have to do is travel to 2275 in another timeline.....hop on board with a time traveller from that timeline....and travel right here to our timeline with him.

Hmm. I feel a meeting with grandfather coming on......
 
Re: \'Different Timelines\' Nonsense

I agree with everything you just said, and I DO see that our sense of here-and-now is not universal.

But when I say going back to CHANGE something in that timeline then I don't mean I really chagne something. Me being there IS part of the past of that timeline and can never be made undone, since it always was a part of it.
When I talk about making changes then that's just semantics. I merely mean that from my perspective it "looks" like changes, because what I perceive is different from what I remember from that time when I was young.

EDIT:
I'm not saying you can change ANY timeline, since - like you - I believe all past AND future events are already there.
I just view "change" as that what the traveller perceives from his POV.
 
Re: \'Different Timelines\' Nonsense

The whole timelines thing is a logistical nightmare.

One effectively has to create an entire new universe....for every single quantum fluctuation that occurs. Given that there are 10^40 atoms in our universe....that means that every trillionth of a second ( or some tiny period probably defined by the Planck Limit ) there must be at least 10^40 entire new universes created !!! AND.....every trillionth of second...each of THOSE will generate an entire new universe. So after just a trillionth of a second you have 10^80 universes. The whole thing increases exponentially !

At a rough estimate....that means there must be around ((465*(10^27))^(10^40)) timelines. That is a number so mind bogglingly large as to be incomprehensible. Even the 10^40 atoms in our universe, a number in itself staggering, is miniscule as the number of timelines would be gazillions of times more. I think this may be the largest number ever thought up.

I'd hate to be an engineer designing the 'timeline selection indicator'....LOL !
 
Re: \'Different Timelines\' Nonsense

You two are both hopelessly enmeshed in the unfalsifiable BS that time traveler hoaxers love to use as cover. Remember, it is not ONLY "multiple timelines" that the hoaxers use to try and make their warez sound buyable...

I'd hate to be an engineer designing the 'timeline selection indicator'....LOL !
Click to expand...

As for me, I would hate to have to be the engineer who has to design either a "divergence detector" or, worse, a "divergence controller". :D This is the other unfalsifiable part of the story. And I am sorry, Twighlight, but nothing you can ever do or say can ever truly debunk the idea of multiple timelines and "divergence" because it is simply not Popper Falsifiable (anything that includes "infinite anything" always is!). It is a cover story, not scientific, because this plot tactic is constructed in such a way that it makes no claims that can be properly falsified. In other words, they never say WHAT IS NOT POSSIBLE in time travel across "multiple timelines with varying divergence."

The reality is that all physical processes are irreversible.. you lose something to entropy in each energetic exchange. Hence, there must be limits on time travel, yet we never hear of any that can be falsified because "infinite timelines with varying divergence" is the answer for anything that a person testing a time traveler's claim puts before the TTer. It is a one-size-fits-all debunker deterrent....or so they think! /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif

And let's not forget the other part of the TTer creedo "I am not a scientist, I am just driving the time travel bus." /ttiforum/images/graemlins/confused.gif

RMT
 
Re: \'Different Timelines\' Nonsense

I agree with RMT that "time lines" are bs. And you're all missing the obvious (which has surely been discussed before): if you go back in time, then you had always been there. You just might not have known. It's like a rope that's all knotted by twisting through time and space. Think of the movie 12 monkeys. For that matter, people always assume it's an instantaneous jump into the past. What if it's not? You don't teleport to work do you? As far as physical processes not being reversible, I disagree. But then it really depends on what you're talking about. Frictional losses and such things are hard to reverse, but if you're using parametric equations with time as the independent variable then the math doesn't care if t is positive or negative. But that's not really a meaningful argument.
 
Re: \'Different Timelines\' Nonsense

You two are both hopelessly enmeshed in the unfalsifiable BS that time traveler hoaxers love to use as cover.
Click to expand...

Well, my point here was to demonstrate why it is BS............to show ( regardless of what science may or may not say ) that 'timeline divergence' as an excuse is a logical fallacy. Primarily the fallacy of the idea that one 'cannot' travel to one's own timeline...or return to it.

Sure, it is all unfalsifiable. So the best one can really do is look at that BS and find a major logical loophole that saves one the bother of ever having to verify anyway.
 
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