My own time travel theory

[Jayb]

Hey guys I'm new here and that's my first thread.

To begin with please let me clarify that I don't come from a scientific background but I nevertheless think deeply about all the scientific theories and come up with my own.

For this topic I will tell you about my own theory about time travel:

First, in the theories created so far (at least the ones I've read) it is implicitly assumed that traveling time means altering time itself, while I firmly believe that universal time is constant and can never be changed, what can be changed however is one's PERCEPTION of time...

This assumption and the explanation that follows, will automatically eliminate the possibility of traveling back in time, as my theory implicitly assumes that time perception can be changed on an individual level, but it can only happen moving forward in time (never back in time).

So my theory begins by saying the following:

Each organism's perception of time is governed by our own biological structure (which in turn is affected by the physical world around us, but that would be a more complicated topic to go into), having some type of "biological clock" (possibly our nervous system) dictating how much time we experience at any given moment (or second). To have a better understanding regarding this, think of our perception of time as something that is not continuous, but rather chunks of "in" and "out" of existence moments. In which every time we are "in" existence we perceive time and every time we go "out" of existence time disappears for us. And so our biological nature has a certain frequency of this "in" and "out" phases that we experience, and at the moment it goes at such a speed that makes us experience time the way we currently do.

Let's say for the sake of simplicity as an example, that given our biological structure, this happens at a frequency of 50 times per second. So that means that each second, we go in and out of existence 50 times (to give you a simpler example think of how our vision works, although it seems continuous to us , it's merely static visions glued together at a very high rate that gives us the perception of seeing the world on a continuous basis). Note that if this frequency was to be increased to let's say 100 times per second, time for us will be twice as fast as to an average person who's frequency is 50 times per second (because we'll be experiencing life twice as much per second...we'll be "in" existence more frequently). And if it goes as slow as 1 time per second, time for us will become 50 times slower than the average person. Note that this biological clock, doesn't merely change our brain's perception of time, but also our whole body's perception of time (including the time it takes for example a cell in our body to duplicate itself).

What time travel does in my opinion is merely change the frequency of this biological time clock we possess by either slowing it down or making it faster. The reason why this happen is because this biological "clock" is governed by physical forces affecting our body that gets altered as we approach the speed of light or as we approach bodies of massive masses (black holes).

I am nearly 100% confident of my theory, and it would actually explain many things around us. I noticed that the smaller an organism is, the faster its perception of time, and this is because the world around it exerts physical forces on its "time perception biological clock" that are different than those experienced by more massive bodies (it's all relative...).

If we want to take this theory a little further, it implies that as a body reaches a mass of infinity, time for it totally disappears.

Hope I was clear in my explanation (I found it hard to express myself as the concept is a bit complex).
Comments are appreciated

 

[vodkafan]

Hi Jayb, new members and theories always welcome.
Let me get this straight though, by slowing down or speeding up the rate of "existence" you are actually slowing down or speeding up the rate of aging too, as your "existence" rate is contiguous with the metabolic rate...

"I noticed that the smaller an organism is, the faster its perception of time, and this is because the world around it exerts physical forces on its "time perception biological clock" that are different than those experienced by more massive bodies (it's all relative...). "

This above needs more evidence....are you saying a small adult is experiencing time at a different rate than a very large adult? We might well suppose that a flea or a mouse may have different perceptions of time (if they had enough brain) but where to draw the line?

Some research has been done on the perception of time in people's brains. Also people lose all sense or perception of time when they switch from the cognitive left brain (which counts) to the emotive right brain...and also when we sleep. Heat affects our perception of time (we feel it going slower when it is hot) as it changes the amount of electrical resistance between the synapses (throws the counter out)

Also you make no proposal of how a change in rate is to be acheived..only external forces can effect the change? So yours appears to be a theory of the nature of time.

 

[Jayb]

vodkafan thank you for your input, I got very excited by reading your reply as it actually further confirms my theory. Below are my answers:

Hi Jayb, new members and theories always welcome.
Let me get this straight though, by slowing down or speeding up the rate of "existence" you are actually slowing down or speeding up the rate of aging too, as your "existence" rate is contiguous with the metabolic rate...

That is correct, as I mentioned, this rate governs your whole body and not just your brain. It actually affects the whole time passage that your body experiences.

There has been a study done in the Hydron Collider showing that particles that reach a speed near that of light live on average 30 times more than static particles.

Now the question becomes: Is it our "biological clock" that sets the rate of our perceived passage of time or is it external physical forces that sets this passage for our whole body, including our brain (and biological clock).

My observation says it's a mix of both, and here's where some complication kicks in, please bare with me:

Physical forces around us, including the force of gravity, sets up the speed at which our bodies can move (including our metabolic rate and our "biological clock"). If you look at a fly which has a mass much smaller than us, you will notice that its movement rate is much faster than that of humans (same for mice as a matter of fact), this is because their body mass makes it possible for them to move at such a fast rate (a fly flaps its wings much faster than a bird does, and much faster than how fast a human can move his arms).. This example shows how external forces might be the cause, and it also suggests that the perception of time is totally relative, it is actually relative to one's body mass relative to its surroundings (which is governed by the rules of gravity etc...). In such a situation, your whole body including aging is affected. The reason why going at high speeds is one factor responsible for this change is because the faster one goes the less effect gravitational forces exert on it (please correct me if I'm wrong) and part of my theory says that relative gravitational forces are one factor affecting the speed at which our bodies function (including our biological clock).

Another type of time perception is experienced by a change in chemical balance in our brains. Take for example someones who consumes lots of alcohol, or someone at rest etc....
I once got drunk so bad that my perception of time was totally messed up, I would stay in the club for an hour and I would think it's 5 minutes (I'm not even exaggerating). This type of change only affects our biological clock and not the aging of our body, as it mainly tackles our nervous system (which I believe is the main setter of our perception of time).
I loved the fact that you mentioned that when our logical brain is shut down and only our emotional one is working our perception of time changes, because it confirms my hypotheses. Notice how emotional you get when you are drunk, this is because your logical brain shuts down and only your emotional brain is at work, and this is exactly why your perception of time also changes (time is sensed in your logical brain).

Now going back to my earlier discussion of time relativity that is affected by external physical forces, notice how much faster tiny particles move in relation to planets and stars. If you were such a tiny organism living on those particles, and the size of each particle was to you the size of a planet, the speed at which your surrounding will be moving will be no different than the speed at which planets are moving around you now, and this is because you perception of time will be much faster. The change will only be noticeable to an external observer that is looking at the scene from an external point of reference. As another example, suppose that the whole universe (and all that is in it) is shrinked to the size of a basket ball, how will this affect your perception of time? it won't. Everything will be moving at a much faster rate BUT ONLY to an external observer (someone who was never part of the universe to begin with). I hope this makes sense.

"I noticed that the smaller an organism is, the faster its perception of time, and this is because the world around it exerts physical forces on its "time perception biological clock" that are different than those experienced by more massive bodies (it's all relative...). "

This above needs more evidence....are you saying a small adult is experiencing time at a different rate than a very large adult? We might well suppose that a flea or a mouse may have different perceptions of time (if they had enough brain) but where to draw the line?

Yes that is correct, and you can use your own experience as a reference. Didn't you perceive time slower as a kid?
I bet you did. And smaller organisms definitely perceive time at a much slower rate than bigger ones. A study has been made (well after I came up with this theory, which was like 10 years ago) suggesting that flies perceive time 4 times slower than humans, and I would argue they perceive time even much slower than that.

Some research has been done on the perception of time in people's brains. Also people lose all sense or perception of time when they switch from the cognitive left brain (which counts) to the emotive right brain...and also when we sleep. Heat affects our perception of time (we feel it going slower when it is hot) as it changes the amount of electrical resistance between the synapses (throws the counter out)

Exactly, this is my point regarding how changes in chemical reaction changes your perception of time (but not necessary your body's aging).

 

[Darby]

I am nearly 100% confident of my theory, and it would actually explain many things around us. I noticed that the smaller an organism is, the faster its perception of time, and this is because the world around it exerts physical forces on its "time perception biological clock" that are different than those experienced by more massive bodies (it's all relative...).

All is not relative . That's Special Relativity. Real bodies move in real space - a space that has energetic fields where bodies are under constant acceleration. In such a space it is theoretically possible to determine if one body is being accelerated without reference to another body.

As to the assumption that all "small organisms" (an absolutely relative term unless completely defined) have any perception at all, let alone temporal orientation, is a stretch. You need some (no - a boatload) of evidence to back up that statement.

I'm sorry, but what you posted isn't a theory. A theory needs a hypothesis that is subject to experimental verification. Starting a theory with an assumption that is unsupported by evidence is just an opinion. Theories, in the language of science, are not simple opinions. There are specific criteria set forth in the Scientific Method that set apart opinion and theory.

Give us some physical science to back up the claim.

Now I will accept the statement that neuro-chemical processes can alter one's perception of time. But if I set out a block of radium (Ra-224), get you drunk and measure the rate of decay, about half will be gone in 3.6 days - your perception of time notwithstanding.

 

[vodkafan]

Jayb said "Yes that is correct, and you can use your own experience as a reference. Didn't you perceive time slower as a kid?
I bet you did."

Jayb, I agree I did feel time going slower as a child. That is certainly a real phenomenon that everybody notices. But there is a popular alternative answer to that phenomenon. It may be a function of memory storage. 1 year as a baby (your first year) seems a long time because it equals 100% of your experience. When you have two years in 1 year now represents 50% of your memories. When you have lived 5 years each year will be 20%, and so on. That is the best explanation I have heard of why the passing of years seem to accelerate as we get older. I am 53 now and the years do whizz by. But I waste less time now and fill them better. Or at least I try!

Body aging and lifespan is set by something in our genes. It's preset. Given optimum nutrition during our formative years, etc etc, we will each have a certain potential. But even with optimum conditions, cells will die after a certain number of replications. But we can certainly shorten our lifespans by not looking after ourselves. Oxygen is actually one of the things which wrecks our bodies, believe it or not.

 

[Jayb]

All is not relative . That's Special Relativity. Real bodies move in real space - a space that has energetic fields where bodies are under constant acceleration. In such a space it is theoretically possible to determine if one body is being accelerated without reference to another body.

This is probably true if both bodies belong to the same "system".

So then the accelerating body is moving relative to this system, but what if the whole system is moving relative to something else. Or in other words, what if our whole universe is moving all by itself relative to a second system, then the accelerating body inside the universe might be static to a body outside the universe. No?

As to the assumption that all "small organisms" (an absolutely relative term unless completely defined) have any perception at all, let alone temporal orientation, is a stretch. You need some (no - a boatload) of evidence to back up that statement.

I don't have a scientific proof regarding that, nor do I know how to construct one. As I said I don't have a scientific background.

But this conclusion merely comes from observation. I noticed that the smaller the bodies relative to me, the faster they tend to move and the bigger the bodies, the slower they tend to move (exceptions might occur, but let's ignore it for now). So we agree here that size, affects movement speed? it seems universal.

So I took it a step further and said to myself, each one of those organisms should feel that his rate of movement is the "normal" rate and that everything around, is moving either faster of slower than him. So each one of those organisms should be experiencing a constant life experience rate. That is, if we take two organisms one 10 times the size of the other (btw the relationship might not be linear, but I'll consider it linear for the sake of simplicity), and call the smaller one A and the larger one B. A can do 10 moves per human second (the time the elapses for a human to experience a second worth of life) and B can do 1 move per human second, but according to each of those organisms they can do they same number of moves in each second "they experience". This means that when 1 second elapses on an average human's clock, A would experience life 10 times more than B.

To give you another extreme example look at atoms and planets. Atoms move relative to me at a very fast rate whereas planets move at a very slow rate. When I talk about the moving rate here, I don't mean the absolute distance they cover per hour, but rather the relative distance they cover per hour. Think of relative distance as how many times they cover their own body length per hour. So when an hour passes on my clock, an atom has perhaps covered millions of times its body length whereas a planet has barely moved relative to its size. So in a human hour an atom has experienced the passage of time much much than the planet. This is to say that a human hour is equivalent to perhaps 100 years for an atom, and 1 millisecond for a planet.

I also like to give the example in the movie "the matrix". When Neo is getting shot by the bad guys, he sees the whole world moving slower, so according to his time of reference he is moving at a normal rate and the world around him is moving slow. But according to the bad guys they are moving an the normal rate and Neo is moving very fast. So each second Neo experiences, is like a millisecond for the humans around him.

Now I will accept the statement that neuro-chemical processes can alter one's perception of time. But if I set out a block of radium (Ra-224), get you drunk and measure the rate of decay, about half will be gone in 3.6 days - your perception of time notwithstanding.

3.6 days according to the clock humans have built when they were sober. Let he same human build a clock when he is drunk and his clock will be different than yours. Do you see what I mean?

Humans have set their own constant time and we all take it as a given now and describe the passage of time according to this universal clock we've built. But it doesn't describe how each of us experience time. It's like the paradox of colors. We both know what the color red looks like, but we cannot know if we both experience it in the same way.

Half a block of radium might decay in 3.6 days according to the passage of time the clock "we invented" measures, but this passage of time is already experienced differently to each one of us. To a drunk person, the decay might happen in 2 hours according to his perception of time during his drunk state of mind.

Jayb, I agree I did feel time going slower as a child. That is certainly a real phenomenon that everybody notices. But there is a popular alternative answer to that phenomenon. It may be a function of memory storage. 1 year as a baby (your first year) seems a long time because it equals 100% of your experience. When you have two years in 1 year now represents 50% of your memories. When you have lived 5 years each year will be 20%, and so on. That is the best explanation I have heard of why the passing of years seem to accelerate as we get older. I am 53 now and the years do whizz by. But I waste less time now and fill them better. Or at least I try!

I'm not referring to memories. I am referring to the actual time passage you experience as a kid vs. as an adult.

When I was a kid I remember I used to feel time more than I feel it now. For example, we used to go visit our relatives and half an hour later (according to the clock) I would feel like an hour has passed. Reasons being what I explained earlier in this post (mainly because I could move faster, I could experience time more).

Body aging and lifespan is set by something in our genes. It's preset. Given optimum nutrition during our formative years, etc etc, we will each have a certain potential. But even with optimum conditions, cells will die after a certain number of replications. But we can certainly shorten our lifespans by not looking after ourselves. Oxygen is actually one of the things which wrecks our bodies, believe it or not.

But how is this time set? we all assume it is a constant passage of time described by the clock we invested. In other words, we all assume we will age when 80 years have passed according to the clock we invented, but if it was different?

As I described earlier, this might be governed by the number of times we are "in" experience, which is not constant anymore. So let's say that on earth with the current condition we go "in" and "out" of existence 50 times per second, so then according to those rules we will age after (50x60x60x24x365x80) = 126144000000 "in" and "out" of existence.
But if this rate was changed from 50 to 25 times per second, then we will live twice as much according to the clock we invented BUT we will still experience the same passage of time during our lifetime (that is because we will "exist" the same number of times.

I hope this was clear.....

 

[vodkafan]

Hi Jayb, I can see some problems with your relativity and atoms comparisons but I will let Darby come back on those...but just bear in mind we all inhabit the same universe and our bodies are made of atoms too!

Jayb said: "I'm not referring to memories. I am referring to the actual time passage you experience as a kid vs. as an adult.
When I was a kid I remember I used to feel time more than I feel it now. For example, we used to go visit our relatives and half an hour later (according to the clock) I would feel like an hour has passed. Reasons being what I explained earlier in this post (mainly because I could move faster, I could experience time more)."

Your contention here is that you are getting more time in for a given time. Even if it felt like an hour to you it still was half an hour for the rest of the world. I appreciate that we are taking about your perceptions, but perceptions are only a subjective reality. Let's get away from the drunk analogy you have used a couple of times and think about a drug that goes the other way. Suppose you took an amphetemine. That would certainly speed up your metabolic rate and make you feel like you are moving real fast and everybody else is slow. I mean, that's really interesting the effect it does have on your brain but it's still only your subjective internal perception that has changed. That good old chunk of radium is still losing particles at the same rate.

Jayb said: "As I described earlier, this might be governed by the number of times we are "in" experience, which is not constant anymore. So let's say that on earth with the current condition we go "in" and "out" of existence 50 times per second, so then according to those rules we will age after (50x60x60x24x365x80) = 126144000000 "in" and "out" of existence.
But if this rate was changed from 50 to 25 times per second, then we will live twice as much according to the clock we invented BUT we will still experience the same passage of time during our lifetime (that is because we will "exist" the same number of times."

Yes some animals do exactly this. It's hibernation. But it's probably a boring way to live a long time.

 

[vodkafan]

First, in the theories created so far (at least the ones I've read) it is implicitly assumed that traveling time means altering time itself, while I firmly believe that universal time is constant and can never be changed, what can be changed however is one's PERCEPTION of time...

Jayb, I am cycling back to your first post which crucially says it all....you are saying that time TRAVEL is not possible (although time is NOT actually universal and constant- the speed of light is the constant. Time changes )
But you are saying you can change your own perception of time, which I agree with. No argument there.

 

[Jayb]

Hi Jayb, I can see some problems with your relativity and atoms comparisons but I will let Darby come back on those...but just bear in mind we all inhabit the same universe and our bodies are made of atoms too!

I don't see how can this pose a problem... Also bare in mind that the sum doesn't necessarily behaves like its parts....

Your contention here is that you are getting more time in for a given time. Even if it felt like an hour to you it still was half an hour for the rest of the world. I appreciate that we are taking about your perceptions, but perceptions are only a subjective reality. Let's get away from the drunk analogy you have used a couple of times and think about a drug that goes the other way. Suppose you took an amphetemine. That would certainly speed up your metabolic rate and make you feel like you are moving real fast and everybody else is slow. I mean, that's really interesting the effect it does have on your brain but it's still only your subjective internal perception that has changed. That good old chunk of radium is still losing particles at the same rate.

Just to make it clear, I mentioned previously that the drugs that change your perception of time have a different effect than the external physical world that changes your perception of time (i.e. gravitational forces).

But anyways, yes you are correct, the chunk of radium will decay at the same rate when you always calculate it in terms of days, a day being a constant (the time it takes earth to rotate around itself). But my point is a little deeper than that. Suppose you get an average sized humans: Jack, and you perform some magic on him so that his size becomes 100 times bigger (i.e. 100 times taller etc...). My hypothesis is that if you give this bigger Jack the same clock he was wearing when he was smaller in size, he will notice that it will be going at a much faster rate, in fact not only his clock will be ticking faster, but everything around him will seem to be going faster (his friends, the planets, the cars etc...). This is not because everything is going faster in the absolute sense, but it is because Jack now has a much slower frequency of experiencing life. So now if you tell this bigger Jack to construct his own clock, in such a way that he experiences each "second" now (as bigger Jack) as he used to experience it when he was smaller (so that perhaps now a day on Jack's new clock is less than 24 hours, maybe something like 5 or 6 hours...[assuming each 60 new seconds add up to 1 new minutes, and 60 new minutes add up to 1 new hour]), it will move slower relative to smaller Jack.

And this is what I mean by the chunk of Radium might decay slower or faster depending on how you experience the passage of time. So for bigger Jack, if he now experiences a slower passage of time, he might witness the chunk of Radium decay in 9 hours according to his newly constructed clock.

Now this brings us back to my previous point regarding the universal timing we now use to describe the passage of time. We both know what a second, a minute and an hour is. We know because they've been constant for years, and we've learned to describe time in those units, but this doesn't mean that a second to me is equivalent to a second to you! By that I mean we may experience the passage of time differently. A second for me might seem longer that a second to you, although we will both agree as to when a second had passed. The same way we both agree what color is red, although we might each see it differently, and this is because we've learned to label this particular color "red".

Jayb, I am cycling back to your first post which crucially says it all....you are saying that time TRAVEL is not possible (although time is NOT actually universal and constant- the speed of light is the constant. Time changes )
But you are saying you can change your own perception of time, which I agree with. No argument there.

No, I think time travel IS POSSIBLE, but only going forward. You can travel through time if you manage to change your perception of time. You can do that in many ways.

 

[Mylo.X.]

I noticed that the smaller an organism is, the faster its perception of time, and this is because the world around it exerts physical forces on its "time perception biological clock"

It would seem that research suggests that time passes by more slowly for flies.

"Research suggests perception of time is linked to size, explaining why insects find it easy to avoid being swatted."

"Research suggests that across a wide range of species, time perception is directly related to size.
Generally the smaller an animal is, and the faster its metabolic rate, the slower time passes.
The evidence comes from research into the ability of animals to detect separate flashes of fast-flickering light."

"Critical flicker fusion frequency" – the point at which the flashes seem to merge together, so that a light source appears constant – provides an indication of time perception. Comparing studies of the phenomenon in different animals revealed the link with size.
"A lot of researchers have looked at this in different animals by measuring their perception of flickering light," said Dr Andrew Jackson, from Trinity College Dublin in the Republic of Ireland. "Some can perceive quite a fast flicker and others much slower, so that a flickering light looks like a blur.
"Interestingly, there's a large difference between big and small species. Animals smaller than us see the world in slo-mo. It seems to be almost a fact of life. Our focus was on vertebrates, but if you look at flies, they can perceive light flickering up to four times faster than we can. You can imagine a fly literally seeing everything in slow motion."

The effect may also account for the way time seems to speed up as we get older, said Jackson, who led the research. He was inspired to conduct the study after noticing the way small children always seem to be in such a hurry.
"It's tempting to think that for children time moves more slowly than it does for grownups, and there is some evidence that it might," he said.
"People have shown in humans that flicker fusion frequency is related to a person's subjective perception of time, and it changes with age. It's certainly faster in children."
Your theory sounds very much like this study.



Metabolic rate and body size are linked with perception of temporal information

 

[vodkafan]

That's really interesting Milo !

We can call this "quick-seeing"

 

[Jayb]

Thank you Mylo.X for your contribution, and for confirming part of my theory.

I said that insects experience time faster than us, by that I mean that each second to them is worth more than a second to us so this just confirms my theory. Also if you look at the example of Giant Jack you'd know that this is what I mean as I said that the bigger we get the faster everything seem to move around us.

What's interesting is that I came up with all those pieces of my theory long before those scientific research come up with their own explanations, and it seems that every time a scientific research come up with a finding about time, it only confirms my theory further.

 

[Mylo.X.]

Thank you Mylo.X for your contribution, and for confirming part of my theory.

I said that insects experience time faster than us, by that I mean that each second to them is worth more than a second to us so this just confirms my theory. Also if you look at the example of Giant Jack you'd know that this is what I mean as I said that the bigger we get the faster everything seem to move around us.

What's interesting is that I came up with all those pieces of my theory long before those scientific research come up with their own explanations, and it seems that every time a scientific research come up with a finding about time, it only confirms my theory further.

Yes, I remember being taught something similar in school many years ago. The theory you are proposing and the link I shared about the scientific research reflect what I learnt at school; i.e. that flies perceive time differently to humans. It's all very interesting.

 

[Mylo.X.]

As to the assumption that all "small organisms" (an absolutely relative term unless completely defined) have any perception at all, let alone temporal orientation, is a stretch. You need some (no - a boatload) of evidence to back up that statement.

When I was at school, I was taught that flies perceived time at a different rate than humans (and that was the reason why it i'ts difficult to swat a fly). I'm assuming that some form of research has to have been done in regard to that hypothesis in order for it to be taught in British schools.

Here is a link to recent research, concerning the relationship between size and the perception of temporal information.

Metabolic rate and body size are linked with perception of temporal information