Theology and the scientific method.

[Guest]

Time Travel- Can it be done by people?
June 24, 1999
Hi all,
I thought I’d write a little about my views toward time travel and see what comes back. First, and most importantly, I don’t think it is practical to think of manipulating time as a universal possibility. Which means that I don’t think we are ever going to be able to effect the rest of the universe by changing the flow of time. The universe is too massive and powerful for us to harness enough energy to effect it in any way entirely. In order to see a change in the displacement (or flow) of time we must, 1.) Stop ourselves for a period of time so that the universe can carry us forward, (travel into the future via stasis/preservation), or 2.) Pull the reality of the past from the material “fingerprints” left to us today, (that is recreate, from the ruins, the actual occurrence of the subject, i.e.- bringing something back to life). Neither of these ideas seems to be too far from reality given the advances of technology between the turn of the last century and the current. Actually they are the same things viewed from two different perspectives. I must admit I don’t see the real possibility in actually travelling back in time but it doesn’t seem to be too far from a position that we could bring the past to us in the present (in however small “chunks” possible).
Take, for instance, the possibility of reforming an ancient city of Egypt complete with the commoners, kings and tools used in that day. First the DNA of a person of that time must be cloned and harvested. Then the person’s identity must be restored in its conscious mind. That is assuming that it wasn’t destroyed forever by the creator due to its unwillingness to conform to the creators will. Of course the persons original creator would need to be contacted to establish the whereabouts of the identity in question. <This is so far in my future that it gets difficult just thinking about it>. Then their creator must be convinced that the project at hand is worthy of the extrapolation of said entity (identity) and its consent given. It’s safe to assume that our parents are not our creators since they know absolutely nothing about building a human being (just about raising them). This fact makes it obvious to me that time travel is not only possible but practiced all the time just to maintain the current world in which we live. {to be continued}
If these simplistic tactics are bypassed I think it would create a paradox in principles when the matter of the time traveler (A) enters the universe of the time traveled (B) causing an influx of additional matter not previously accounted for in the universe of the time traveled (B). Is it possible that this anomaly could be accounted for with a trade between times? Gram for gram, or erg for erg, or both? And would this material trade be a stoppable phenomenon? It’s possible that if we punch a hole in time an adverse affect could occur. Or maybe it’s possible that a stabilizing valve could be created to prevent a violent effect.
I guess my main point thus far is that in order to get anything done in this universe something has to actually do the work. Thus steps are created to formulate a comprehensive plan of action for getting the work done. Does anything of this nature exist for the study of “time” and “relativity” as applies to a persons manipulation of (or navigation within) time? If so, where can I find such information?
I must post this or I will reread it too many times and throw it away. I try not to partake in folly but it is sometimes difficult to find purpose in these discussions. I believe in miracles so I justify these times of mine as efforts to substantiate the reality of miraculous events and communicate that belief to others.

Good day and God bless.

 

[Guest]

1) Morally you may want to get the consent of an individual before you create him from scratch, but technically you wouldn't have to. Also, it would be impossible to ask someone BEFORE you created them whether or not they wanted to be created. This is the problem we all have with the current method of birth: I didn't ask to be born!

I believe that it will be possible to:
a) Determine the exact (or sufficiently accurate) representation of humans who lived in the past by analyzing scrapings from mummies, etc.
b) Recreate those humans through some in-vitro fertilization or similar process.

What you will most likely get will be humans who are on average shorter than current humans with maybe a few other differences in terms of shapes and sizes of different body parts.

However, as soon as that human is brought into this world, it will most likely start behaving like modern humans unless it is isolated.

I don't think that we will ever gather enough information to accurately recreate past civilizations. So much has been burned, broken, destroyed, and/or recycled. If we created a bunch of antique humans and placed them into an approximation of an ancient civilization, they might all die off because we forgot one or two important things that they depended on for survival. Also, would we want to recreate, for example, ancient Aztec culture which included pulling the still beating hearts out of unlucky victims? Slash and burn agriculture? Massive decimation of endangered species? Voting for Mondale in 1984?? Horrors!

2) The most reasonable models for creating time machines involve the discovery or creation of wormholes. It is possible that when someone works out the equations, that walking through the wormhole will cause or require an equal amount of mass-energy to surge through in the other direction, thus balancing the equations for both parts of space-time.

It is also possible that the area near a wormhole will be so distorted from a quantum mechanical perspective that the differences in energy generated by a person moving from one space-time coordinate to another will be less than the amount of uncertainty in the mass-energy measurements. So noone would be able to measure any difference, so none would have occured.

All of this will most likely (if it ever occurs) happen out in deep space, so any effects from energy imbalances will be dissipated before they have any noticable effect on Earth.

3) There are plans for creating time-travel devices, I imagine. I once went to a talk at Caltech where they were doing the calculations for a time machine. Unfortunately, being high-energy physicists they didn't answer any basic questions such as the general shape, size, energy requirements, etc. of the machine. But I imagine if they were pressed they could come up with some reasonable numbers.

Unfortunately it looks like time travel devices are still a matter for science fiction since they all seem to need "exotic matter" which has a negative energy in order to work. Noone knows how to create the exotic matter or integrate it with the rest of the machine without causing it to combine with the normal matter and cause a massive explosion, but there are people looking into these areas as well.

 

[Guest]

I meant to imply.......(consent)

.....that the consent of the creator may need to be secured before altering the timeline of one of it's creations.
In addition, I think our souls (identities) might be created from the remnants of those destroyed (recycled so to speak).
And thank you Nolo Contendere for your timely and comprehensive reply.

 

[Guest]

Re:I meant to imply.......(consent)

In order to get the consent of the Creator, we would have to be able to communicate with him. I believe this will only happen after we die. I believe that our souls are infinite and able to ultimately comprehend the works of God, but that being confined to our finite bodies, we are unable to fully communicate.

I imagine that a few folks (saints?) have been able to separate themselves enough from their body to see and understand God, but I'm not certain that they then went on to understand all of the works of God.

Thus by the time we are able to fully communicate with God, it will be too late.

I also don't believe in the recycling of souls. I believe that every soul is unique, individual and precious and is not converted into another soul or thrown into a big pot of soul-stew which is then heated up, stirred, and new souls spooned out from it.

So the Creator creates you as a soul, puts you in a physical body in order for you to fully interact with his physical creation, then when you die, your soul is freed to communicate (or not) with your Creator.

I'm not a big fan of all of the latest fertility research, especially stuff such as in-vitro fertilization, etc. At some point we will be creating new humans in a completely unnatural way on a daily basis. Will we then have become like God?

How long will it take us to create nano-machines that will be able to piece togeter exact strings of DNA to create exactly the people we want as perfect soldiers, perfect sex partners, or perfect consuming/producing sheep? Will we then be like God? Will God give these "humans" souls or will he deny them souls?

If we create a sufficiently intelligent robot out of steel and silicon, will God give it a soul? If we replace our entire race with sturdier and longer-living steel-silicon robots, will we lose our souls? If I transfer my consciousness to a robot brain, or a computer hard drive, will my soul go with it?

Is time-travel impossible because the soul grows in one direction (toward its Creator) and therefore can't go back? Is time the measure between us and our Creator or the finality of Creation?

Will we save our planet for our children? and our children's children? I hope we save it for our children, but NOT for our children's children because I don't think children should be having sex! <g>

Sorry, but it was getting a little too philosophical back there...

 

[Guest]

First let me say that it is nice to see you posting again and that a very interesting discourse is under way on this topic by several contributors here.

I agree with the logic of some of the hypotheses you offer regarding Relativity, energy and Time Travel. I know of no-one who is TRULY attempting to actually devise a realistic process in which Time Travel can be achieved since any reasonable and workable theory for how it may be possible has not been devised yet. "Kooks", con artists and the usual crowd of hucksters who CLAIM they are doing this notwithstanding.

As a thinking person I know you will not be offended by the fact that I do not share your religious beliefs, but in no way see those differences as grounds for dismissing an exchange of ideas. As a genuine Agnostic, I see valid reasoning and logic to support BOTH postulations that support AND conversly reject the necessity for a "Creator" in the process of the existence of the Universe.

On one hand, if one postulates a Creator, one then has no choice but to ask "Who or what Created the Creator"? This then becomes an ad infinitum recursive journey into the "chicken or the egg" ponderance.

On another hand if one postulates that The Creator has always existed and is indeed omnipotent, then it follows that once the very act of "Creation" (The Big Bang) has occurred, there is nothing else for Him to do. His omnipotence would have created a Perfect Universe (or process for one to evolve) from the outset with no further intervention necessary. Any thing else would be admitting that the Universe WAS NOT created perfectly and that He is therefore NOT so omnipotent after all. In which case he COULD NOT have existed for all time, and something else Created HIM. I for one have longe since rejected the idea that there is any Creator who is exercising some sort of "will" over my existence and constantly tampering with the workings and events of ANYONE'S daily life or any other matter in the universe. To accept that there is a Creator who does this would be a tremendous cause for despair in itself for one would be saying that even tho I enjoy being a free individual, to make my own choices, go my way, love others and despise bigotry and hate and greed, I must then surrender all these free thoughts upon my demise in deference to my "soul" becoming a slave to some higher power I must then forever worship, cow tow to and remain subserviant in for the rest of eternity.

Sorry, not for me thank you.

Finally we could postulate that there is not and never was a Creator. So far, all the laws of Physics we keep discovering show very clearly that they are running on their own, thru logical process all by themselves very well with no influencing force required to make them work or fail. This leads one to then ask "How could the Universe have begun on itself out of nothing then?" The answer to this then becomes, "Considering the options for a Creator as stated before, how could it be otherwise?"

I don't know the answers to these questions myself, but I also genuinely believe NO ONE else does either. I know some people THINK or even BELIEVE they do, but in reality they do not.

As I said, I am a TRUE Agnostic. I don't know. It is a moot argument for being unknowable. The Believer and the Atheist alike are comfortable in their individual confidence that they have the answers to these questions and can come up with all sorts of philosophical reasons for why THEIR belief (or lack of) is so. For me, the only REAL truth is that for humans, THESE things are unknowable.

One thing is for certain. Regardless of whether one believes there IS a God or that there IS NOT one, has absolutely no EFFECT whatsoever on whether there truly IS or IS NOT one.

... and a Good day to you likewise. Thanx.