I was goofing around on the net and I came across this article that the author paradigm-shifting the theories behind time traveling within your own time line. He was against the theory on twin paradox and felt that it was a load of crock... but is it. If you were to travel in time and meet with your younger (or older) self, would there be a disruption in the space time continuum? What do you suppose would happen in that instance?
Matter cannot exist in two places at once
- Thread starter kimberlyd
- Start date
The most I can think could happen is either both will go into shock and the site of themselves or neither will believe what they are seeing. I doubt there would be a major issue that would happen like a space time rip or explosion or anything like some theorist have suggested.
Another of the many confutations enmeshed in TT. I think the bigger concern will be for the self that goes back in time. Quite literally, you are what you eat. All the food you have eaten in the past several years has been the building blocks for your physical self. Going back to a time before that food existed, you might cease to exist too.
The " you are what you eat" is an interesting theory! I've never heard of that before, perhaps we could go around that problem and theorize that time travelling in the past would cause a different parallel time line such that your original past still exists and you just went on a parallel universe instead.
I think the idea of "meeting your past self being disastrous" is an interesting plot element for shows and books, but when I think about it, it doesn't seem like it'd be that bad. How's it different from anything else, really?
But... that doesn't make sense. If I time travel from 2015 to say, 1985, which is a few years before I was born, why would those building blocks disappear? I'm not going back in time to destroy the things that I would later eat. They're already in me.
Ah, but they are not. Especially in your own circumstance since you aren't even born yet. All the matter that makes up your body and the energy produced by the cells within you, do not exist in 1985, in the form they are in your body.
Let's say tonight I'm having a delicious porterhouse steak. I get my beef from a rancher friend of mine. I know the beef I'm having was 18 mos. old when it was slaughtered. My steak, the matter that makes up my steak, has not existed, as my steak, more than 18 mos. During the 18 mos that my steak was being formed, the matter that makes it up was, grass. The grass, before the steer ate it, was formed by the reaction of sunlight, carbon dioxide, and everything else needed from the soil it grew in. The energy from the sunlight used to produce the reaction also wasn't here on earth in the 9 minutes prior to that reaction.
Everything that "you" are was something else before. 1st Law, Conservation of Energy
Poppycock! You have eaten it and your past self's will have eaten it so regardless of the time line you had traveled in. Unless you go back and destroy all those foods (and it would have to be a significant number of foods) it will have no effect on you what so ever. Now if you really want to worry about something, how about altering the timeline?
I watched a movie once (can't remember the name, bad memory), time travel was a like a little vacation into the past. People paid to hunt dinosaurs. Anyway, a woman stepped on and killed a butterfly while in the past and their entire existence changed. Man changed into a different form of life, the planet changed into more of a primordial state... it was a crazy movie. In order to stop the change, they had to travel back and prevent her from stepping on the butterfly.
So what are you thoughts on that?
AskLaplace
Temporal Novice
Two theories: Causal loop or multiverse theory.
Causal loop: Everything works out fine, but this is somewhat absurd since for example if you teach yourself how to sing a certain song int the past, then you learned the song from the future. Therefore, the song came into existence without the original creator of the song.
Multiverse: if you go to meet yourself, you will not change your history. You will change the history of the version of yourself in that universe but not yours.
Causal loop: Everything works out fine, but this is somewhat absurd since for example if you teach yourself how to sing a certain song int the past, then you learned the song from the future. Therefore, the song came into existence without the original creator of the song.
Multiverse: if you go to meet yourself, you will not change your history. You will change the history of the version of yourself in that universe but not yours.
When you travel back in time, it is time and space that is moved. Not you. So if you had Bran Flakes for breakfast and go back in time to visit with Prehistoric man before lunch, You still had the Bran Flakes so regardless it is still in you. There fore, even if it had not been invented, it is still there.
kana_marie
Chrono Cadet
I don't think there would be any disastrous consequences at all. Depending on how far back you went you are not the same person at all. You are constantly changing, your thoughts, beliefs, knowledge... All the way down on a molecular level.
Your method is one of the methods for single universe/timeline TT. And yours is the hardest. If the world moves and you don't, when your travel stops, you will be standing in "no where". Even Johnny boy thought to keep himself fastened to the physical earth. Transporting just you (and a time machine if you use one) backward or forward in " some form of a substantive medium of time" would require reversing a substantial amount of entropy. To move the earth and universe... an extraordinary amount. Neither of which will happen, BTW.
The only way you might go back in time and not disintegrate is, if you could somehow separate yourself from the universe, in which case you could no longer interact with the universe. You might view it, but not alter it. I can see you do not understand entropy, the state of change in energy (I know, that's a very simplified definition), but that doesn't mean you can ignore it.
The only way you might go back in time and not disintegrate is, if you could somehow separate yourself from the universe, in which case you could no longer interact with the universe. You might view it, but not alter it. I can see you do not understand entropy, the state of change in energy (I know, that's a very simplified definition), but that doesn't mean you can ignore it.
Darby
Epochal Historian
First, none of the above has anything to do the the Twin Paradox. So it doesn't cast any light on that situation.
Second, why would meeting yourself have some sort of cataclysmic effect on the space-time continuum (whatever that means)? Both the older and younger self are made of protons, neutrons and electrons. One proton (neutron, electron) is exactly the same as every other proton. They interact in a specific and predictable way. They don't care that they are part of Old or Young Johnny, they have no philosophical objection to situation and they don't react to public opinion polls or paradigm shifts. They just follow the rules of physics. :X3:
Re special Kimberlyd: Yes you can.You can go forward as you say and meet yourself. You've got to exercise some caution here, because of your root memory atomic resonant signature.However if you don't become too chummy, the body just tallies this up to another strange appearance.
On Matter as being in two places at once, that is of the same root or beginning, you can phase a copy of this to any destination, but with the understanding that it is not fully phased, but apparent within that time destination, but not fully phased.
Only a copy of say yourself would be in the future to see you yourself, but more than likely would be by the investment of borrowed or double rhymed similar, but in quality dissimilar matter.
I hope that this helps you.
On Matter as being in two places at once, that is of the same root or beginning, you can phase a copy of this to any destination, but with the understanding that it is not fully phased, but apparent within that time destination, but not fully phased.
Only a copy of say yourself would be in the future to see you yourself, but more than likely would be by the investment of borrowed or double rhymed similar, but in quality dissimilar matter.
I hope that this helps you.
I know this is something that has often been debated can we actually meet ourselves in time travel. Unfortunately at this point this is only something we can ponder, it hasn't actually been proven one way or another. For me I don't see the actual problem in meeting say a younger version of myself. After all, this younger version wouldn't actually know who I am, and maybe that could be a key right there, not letting the younger me know that I am them only older. Now when it comes to alternate realities, which I also belive in I don't think it is poosible for the alternate me and this me to be in the same time line reality, because we are more or less one in the same person at the same time in their lives. But then again I have nothing to base that one just a theory.
RainmanTime
Super Moderator
The possibility of you going back in time to meet yourself can be logically reduced to a highly unlikely probability if you just stop to realize that the matter that makes up your body has followed an evolutionary timeline to get to where you are right now, here in the present.
To give an example of what I mean by this: Consider your heart. It is the same heart you had in your 30s (if you are in your 50s like me). The same heart you had in your 20s, and in your teens, and right back to the time you were an infant....and even before. Now yes, the cells in your heart have exchanged molecules as part of our energetic, biological processes. But now imagine that here you are, in your 50s, and you are planning to use the new technology of time travel (which I claim is BS because Time, as a separate dimension is an incorrect view, and in reality Space-Time is a complex, integrated fabric). You are going to go back to the year when you were 22 and some special life event occurred. That means that the heart beating in your chest, right now as a 50-something is going to be thrust back into time..... and pre-supposing that you COULD meet yourself, who's heart would that person have beating in their chest? Certainly, it cannot be yours because you carried your heart THROUGH that period of your life, and on through your 30s, 40s, and into your 50s to be THE HEART that sustained your life so you could go back to the past.
So indeed, this simple thought experiment, backed up by the conservation of energy (where matter...the matter in your heart... is a form of energy), does seem to tell us that we should not expect to be able to travel back in time and meet ourselves. Now, of course, some "fruitbat"
will want to jump in here and say "but....alternate timelines....alternate universes..." as if that is a scientific answer. While science has not POSITIVELY ruled out that alternate timelines/universes MAY exist, anyone who wishes to offer that as some sort of indication that my analysis may be incomplete would FIRST need to establish (scientifically, not merely through emotional argument) that matter from this universe/timeline could cross over into another universe/timeline, which would certainly be a VIOLATION of the established law of conservation of energy.
So....it is not enough for you to wave an unproven, pop-sci belief of alternate universes in my face and think you have refuted my argument above. You need to do a LOT more work, and substantiate that, somehow, in crossing over to another universe/timeline, you can readily violate a conservation law that we have seen over and over as being validated through experiments.
RMT
To give an example of what I mean by this: Consider your heart. It is the same heart you had in your 30s (if you are in your 50s like me). The same heart you had in your 20s, and in your teens, and right back to the time you were an infant....and even before. Now yes, the cells in your heart have exchanged molecules as part of our energetic, biological processes. But now imagine that here you are, in your 50s, and you are planning to use the new technology of time travel (which I claim is BS because Time, as a separate dimension is an incorrect view, and in reality Space-Time is a complex, integrated fabric). You are going to go back to the year when you were 22 and some special life event occurred. That means that the heart beating in your chest, right now as a 50-something is going to be thrust back into time..... and pre-supposing that you COULD meet yourself, who's heart would that person have beating in their chest? Certainly, it cannot be yours because you carried your heart THROUGH that period of your life, and on through your 30s, 40s, and into your 50s to be THE HEART that sustained your life so you could go back to the past.
So indeed, this simple thought experiment, backed up by the conservation of energy (where matter...the matter in your heart... is a form of energy), does seem to tell us that we should not expect to be able to travel back in time and meet ourselves. Now, of course, some "fruitbat"
will want to jump in here and say "but....alternate timelines....alternate universes..." as if that is a scientific answer. While science has not POSITIVELY ruled out that alternate timelines/universes MAY exist, anyone who wishes to offer that as some sort of indication that my analysis may be incomplete would FIRST need to establish (scientifically, not merely through emotional argument) that matter from this universe/timeline could cross over into another universe/timeline, which would certainly be a VIOLATION of the established law of conservation of energy.So....it is not enough for you to wave an unproven, pop-sci belief of alternate universes in my face and think you have refuted my argument above. You need to do a LOT more work, and substantiate that, somehow, in crossing over to another universe/timeline, you can readily violate a conservation law that we have seen over and over as being validated through experiments.
RMT
Wow you're true... BUT, IT IS ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE IF PAST-TIME TRAVELLING MEET CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS. That's because Titor's time-travel theory says that stretching the space between two blackholes, it's possible to travel to the past. I think that would cause energetic fluctuations, that meanwhile the requirement of an Anti-Universe, would make possible the added matter.
Edit-
And with my Space-time/matter relation i can be sure that the cause-consequence isn't violated at all when time travelling.
Edit-
HAHAHA. Interesting. I read this after publishing my reply to the post.The possibility of you going back in time to meet yourself can be logically reduced to a highly unlikely probability if you just stop to realize that the matter that makes up your body has followed an evolutionary timeline to get to where you are right now, here in the present.To give an example of what I mean by this: Consider your heart. It is the same heart you had in your 30s (if you are in your 50s like me). The same heart you had in your 20s, and in your teens, and right back to the time you were an infant....and even before. Now yes, the cells in your heart have exchanged molecules as part of our energetic, biological processes. But now imagine that here you are, in your 50s, and you are planning to use the new technology of time travel (which I claim is BS because Time, as a separate dimension is an incorrect view, and in reality Space-Time is a complex, integrated fabric). You are going to go back to the year when you were 22 and some special life event occurred. That means that the heart beating in your chest, right now as a 50-something is going to be thrust back into time..... and pre-supposing that you COULD meet yourself, who's heart would that person have beating in their chest? Certainly, it cannot be yours because you carried your heart THROUGH that period of your life, and on through your 30s, 40s, and into your 50s to be THE HEART that sustained your life so you could go back to the past.
So indeed, this simple thought experiment, backed up by the conservation of energy (where matter...the matter in your heart... is a form of energy), does seem to tell us that we should not expect to be able to travel back in time and meet ourselves. Now, of course, some "fruitbat"
So....it is not enough for you to wave an unproven, pop-sci belief of alternate universes in my face and think you have refuted my argument above. You need to do a LOT more work, and substantiate that, somehow, in crossing over to another universe/timeline, you can readily violate a conservation law that we have seen over and over as being validated through experiments.
RMT
And with my Space-time/matter relation i can be sure that the cause-consequence isn't violated at all when time travelling.
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