Do temporal paradoxes really exist???

trevor2002

Temporal Novice
Yesterday it occured to me that time is like a movie. I was also using this statement to justify the non-existance of temporal paradoxes. Each cange we would make is like a rough cut of a film in the midst of editing. However all we see, like the theatre audience, is the 'final cut' of the movie (or the timeline). Therefor, there can be no change to the timeline as a result of time travel because those changes will have already taken place and therefor not have been changes at all. Basically, you can not change the past, even if you go back in time because those changes have already taken place. Again, all we see is the 'final cut' in which all changes have already taken place. This is my theory on the ability to change events by going back in the past.

What are your thoughts? If there is any theory that contradicts me please let me know what it is and why. I am just starting to explore time travel and I am not to familiar with the theories.
 
A counter-theory would be that if you are living in this timeline, and you go back and assassinate Hitler, your timeline would change. But since a reality in which that has already happened exists, you would not be in your own timeline anymore.
 
Is it really a counter theory because if you are able to go back in time, then you would be visiting another reality independent from the one you left. You would not go back in your timeline and would therefor not be able to change the past realitive to what you saw it as. So again I ask, do temporal paradoxes really exist?

You can get around every paradox by justifying its implications in another timeline, not the one you have experienced. But if you could go back and alter A timeline, would you ever go back to the one you initially came from?
 
So again I ask, do temporal paradoxes really exist?
My answer: Down through the ages, science has often resolved things that appeared to be paradoxes. A paradox is typically not a condition of something violating the "laws of physics", but rather a condition of NOT having a complete understanding of something such that you observe a paradox.

Take for instance: The "dual nature" of light, as it can be perceived as a wave or a particle. Methinks most scientists would not claim that "light is acting in two different ways at the same TIME", but rather they would claim "there is something about light that we do not yet understand, the lack of understanding which causes us to perceive an apparant paradox."

If we do finally achieve time travel, my put is that we will also come to understand how and why there can never be any paradoxes. Multiple worldline theory is one such answer.

RMT
 
Well, I don't think you can ever really go back into your own timeline's past. I think it is only possible to go forwards in time.

If anyone did go "back in time" they would be readching an alternate reality, ie a timeline that differs ever so slightly from their own, so therefore they would not actually be going back in time merely taking a sideways leap into a different timeline. I think it is impossible to exist in the past in your own timeline and yes it would be a paradox if you did.

If time travel is possible there must be certain laws of physics etc which would inhibit time travel into your own past on your world line.

I suppose we could debate this one all day because the truth is that no one knows the answer to these questions yet, all we can do is speculate.

No Carrots
 
Well, I don't think you can ever really go back into your own timeline's past. I think it is only possible to go forwards in time.


Before we get to the main topic question, I'm curious why you believe you can't go back, but only forward? That's counter to most accepted theories.

If anyone did go "back in time" they would be readching an alternate reality, ie a timeline that differs ever so slightly from their own, so therefore they would not actually be going back in time
merely taking a sideways leap into a different timeline. I think it is impossible to exist in the past in your own timeline and yes it would be a paradox if you did.


Why? I can understand if you change the past, then your future would change accordingly and your return to the "present' would differ depending on the level of change.

If time travel is possible there must be certain laws of physics etc which would inhibit time travel into your own past on your world line.



That's a contradiction in terms. There may very well be barriers of some sort to prevent travel closer than a certain period, say the Arbatove Barrier, an effect analogous to the "potential barrier" around
the atomic nucleus. But that's not written in stone.

So, the question is - "are there temporal paradoxes?" And from my experience, I would say "no".

History is constantly trying to find its own channel and to move in its own way. Recall the theory of time as a river - if you drop a twig in a river, the water is momentarily disrupted, but it continues to flow
around the anomaly. And the anomaly begins to flow with the stream until it is, in effect, part of the stream.

So, you could postulate that while you went back and killed Thomas a’ Becket at the base of the high altar at Canterbury (rather than the four knights just outside the Mary Chapel), the timestream could adjust so that the end result (death of Becket, martyrdom, canonization and even the presence of four knights who were subsequently despised) would be the same. And historians looking at the incident would record it the way we are told it happened. And perhaps it didn't happen that way in
the first place!
 
Well, I don't claim to have any great sceintific insight into time travel or anything its just something that has always interested me. I don't think we can go back into our own past as I believe what is done is done. Plus I don't think you can exist in two places at once. If you went back to your own past there would effectively be 2 of you there, you as the time traveller and you as the person in the past. I just can't see how that would be possible in any respect. I'm not saying its impossible it just seems to be pretty unlikey to me.

I believe travel into the future is possible but that it would be one way. No return. I think this would be pretty simple if you had a craft capable of near light speed and used it to travel away from the earth, zippo a hundred or maybe a thousand years would have passed on Earth. Hence you would effectively be in your future and become a time traveller. Of course i know even this theory has its flaws, there's the little matter of the craft for instance but it just seems more plausable to me. Whereas i don't know of any plausible theory as to the mechanics of actually how it would be possible to go BACK in time. How would that work?

And call me a dreamer but i firmly believe in fate. I think that if you try to change things in the past and then skipped to the future things would turn out just the same, as if nothing had been changed. Dunno whether that's fate or sod's law actually now i read that back!

Oh yeah, this puzzles me too, if time travel into the past was possible wouldn't we already know it? Assuming we'd found a way of course.

As for paradoxes. Here's one, could you go back in time and shoot your own grandfather? If you could then that would be a paradox surely.

No Carrots
 
Plus I don't think you can exist in two places at once
I agree with you there.

Oh yeah, this puzzles me too, if time travel into the past was possible wouldn't we already know it? Assuming we'd found a way of course.
Not necessarily. Many things occur daily that we have no knowledge of. And its quite possible a Traveller from the Future would not want to advertise the possibility. That kind of knowledge could cause too many ripples in the timeline.

As for paradoxes. Here's one, could you go back in time and shoot your own grandfather? If you could then that would be a paradox surely.
Not necessarily. That's the old school paradox question. Perhaps the person you believed was your grandfather wasn't. And perhaps the flow of time simply absorbed that ripple
 
About the Grandfather paradox, would it not be correct to asssume that by going back in time, you already exist and if you therefor kill your grandfater, it does not matter, again, because you already exist? You could also look at this from the prospective your earlier post took. If you go back in time and change something, you therefor no longer exist in the timeline you had initially left from. Killing your grandfather has no effect on you, just the new timline you created.

Also one more thing. If you go back in time and change NOTHING... would it be possible to return to the timeline you initially left from?

Trevor
 
What does this have to do with anything??? If you have nothing to say about temporal paradoxes, or the subect of the discussion for that matter...

DO NOT POST ANYTHING!!!

Nobody cares about your stupid pictures of dogs! Stop wasting peoples time and do something productive with your time, LIKE PLAY IN TRAFFIC!
 
If you go back in time and change something, you therefor no longer exist in the timeline you had initially left from. Killing your grandfather has no effect on you, just the new timline you created.

I would disagree, as stated above. Unless the change was major, I believe History would absorb the change and there would be little notice.

Also one more thing. If you go back in time and change NOTHING... would it be possible to return to the timeline you initially left from?

Just going downtime changes History. Again, it depends on the size of the change, or the "timing" of a number of subtle changes.
 
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