Time threads

M

Mars

Temporal Novice
I was wondering what others thought of this:

Most times when speaking about time travel and it's possibilities, someone always mentions "paradox". You know...."If I go back in time and kill my dad, then how would I have ever been born, and then how could I have gone back in time in the first place", or something like that. Well that's only true if there is ONE timeline. In other words, let's say that you build a time machine, and you press the button to go back to 1960. The moment you press the button and go, you create a new timeline originating from 1960, that runs parallel to your own timeline. In essence creating a new "history" seperate from YOUR history. There, you could kill anyone you want and it wont matter because you did not actually come from this timeline, you came from another.
-Mars
 
I agree with the point,but I believe the alternate "timelines" or realities already exist, with or without your going to it. Your going there would indeed change the course of that dimension's history though. Good start, keep with your progress.

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<This message has been edited by The Doctor (edited 14 November 1999).>
 
It's hard to know whether as a reslt of your actions a totally new paradox accounting for your tampering with the past as you know it will be created or if there was already an existing paradox accounting for them. You might not change the past, only as you knew it before the incident. Time travel at the moment is all about theory, so all that tends to happen is that people go round in circles or come up with a number of possibilities rather than having a concrete answer for some questions posed.
 
Mars
I agree with you to a point. The one thing I don't understand is why you talk about a new time-line being parrallel. Why does it have to be parrallel? Why can't this new time-line assume the place of the original thus meaning the future you came from never existed. I know some-one is taking aim right now reading this and thinking of blowing a great big hole in this theory but bear with me. I don't see how it would be possible to go back in time in terms of a time machine idea. The entire matter constitiuants of the space-time continuum would be messed up. No I believe that should time-travel be realised it would consist of some-one traveling back within their own life-time over a very short time period. I believe the time traveller's molecules would assume the position of the original molecules which existed at the time the time-traveller entered.
This is why I mentioned only going back over a short time period, a few years ago you might have contained totally different molecules. This basis of time-travel would assume that the time-traveller must concentrate hard on his/her mission so that when he/she asumes his/her original body their mission is the first thing tht comes to mind. If the traveller went back too far then they would contain different molecules in their brain and hence memory would deteriorate over time.
Thanks for reading
 
On a similar topic to what you just mentioned, the brain does in fact grow over time. As people gain more knowledge, there are more directories and tubes built to house that knowledge. With this in mind, it would be arguable that if you assumed your old body you would lose all knowledge except that which you had at the time. If order to maintain any knowledge that you had gained since that point it would be neccesary to practically transplant your brain.
Of course, It is arguable that your soul will store the information that your brain won't but then the question would be wether you have access to the information stored in the soul.
That is just something to note.

Eagle
 
Eagle I wholly agree with you.
Which is why I say that it might only be possible to go back over a short period of time. The experience of time travel should give some sort of uncomfortable jolt to the original version of yourself and hopefully that should be enough to realise that you have gone back in time.
After all if it is your time machine you will know that time travel is possible and as you would still have the time machine built in the time you return to.
 
I believe if you went back and killed your dad before you were born, I don't think you would still exsist in that timeline. If you went back and changed something else, say making sure Bill Clinton was never elected, I'm sure that you would continue on that junction of track in time. Therefore you would be able to jump forward in time along that new track. Unless for some reason the change causes new events to occur which might lead up to your own death, which might not have occured if you hadn't gone back in time to change things. Ring around the rosies...geez.

<This message has been edited by Alpha Romeo (edited 08 January 2000).>
 
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