Simple explanation why I think Time Travel does/could not exist...just my theory

I believe, in the future, we will be able to see the past and the future, as if a movie, but we will not be able to interact with it.

a reply to: OptimusSubprime

Very awesome analogy. If you were in the middle of space with no sensation, after a while you would have no way of observing time or measuring action (which is time).

I told my wife years ago why I don't like to sleep. To me, avoiding sleep extends your life. From my perspective, if my wife and I both lived for the same amount of years yet she slept 8 hours every night while I only slept 6, I actually lived much longer. There is no universal measurement of the sensation of time or of time itself; only the measurement of actions taking place.

a reply to: OptimusSubprime

Very deep observation. I enjoyed it, thanks!

a reply to: thesmokingman

If Man could see there own future i imagine we would attempt to change said future and there lies the problem. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations and all that jazz.

Time exists regardless of how we choose to measure it be it in rotations of the planet, orbits of the sun, heartbeats or cycles of a monochromatic light source. All we're changing are the units used to express it but the actual time period is unaffected by our units. I could choose to measure my personal lifespan in terms of orbits of the planet Mars but it wouldn't make me any younger.

I can't subscribe to the idea of a multiverse which requires an infinite number of outcomes branching from every picosecond that passes as it all becomes an unmanageable mess so the idea of travelling physically in time in any direction other than forward at normal speed appears to be impossible.

However, there's no restriction on viewing past events because everything we experience happened in the past whether it's microseconds in the case of communications or eons when we look at the stars and distant galaxies.

a reply to: thesmokingman

Dear Mr. Smoker,

"So I guess my question is, how can the future already be happening,(and if time travel to the future DID exist, it would be), when there is so many variables that could indeed change that future? I guess that I am also saying that "time" travel can not exist if in fact "time" does not exist."

The past is cast in stone. What happened, happened. We may not perceive the truth of the past, but the past is fact.

The future does not yet exist.

The point is to create a future that reveals the wisdom of our presence.

Are we wise enough to meet the challenge?

I know that we are.

a reply to: MentorsRiddle

Good points. I don't think we can alter the past. It's possible, although highly unlikely, if time travel did exist, perhaps one can only visit and not alter events, because of the points you made.

As it stands now , the only alterations I can make is to edit my post and take it all away. We cannot edit life events. It could be in the future, humans might well be merged with machines or computers. Brains replaced with computers,AI's for example and edits may be made, but only able to go back to a point this was invented. As the world becomes more computerized and half human half robot exist, events may be deleted or edited. As books, printed on paper become obsolete, and replaced with digital versions, we can alter history by deleting parts. Until it's completely erased, never to be thought of, except for a few who have saved the proof.

I'm just making this up as I go along. My brain needs a good defragmenting.

a reply to: thesmokingman

In my pinion traveling to the future can not happen because it has not happened yet. Now when it comes to the past there is a possibility.

I believe scientists one day can evolve a way to capture the light that occurred in the past and then be able to see what happened. You could never travel or change things but light is a constant so itis always there. Maybe they will be able to see the light caught in an event horizon and look back through the light.

Of course this would require insane computing power but we will be there one day even if it is not in our life times. I feel this would be the way to go if it is going to happen.

It seems to me that time must exist. Take the expansion of the universe from a dense mass. There was a chronological chain of events that occurred for that matter to go from where it started to where it is now, otherwise it all would have occurred at once. Everything would occur at once without this series of intermediary steps. So I think that time keeping the way most people think of it is a human thing, but only in the sense of how we measure it. It depends on your reference system. It is also possible that we do not fully grasp the underlying structure of the universe or multiverse, and perhaps even though it may seem to us that our futures are not determined, we do not really know that for certain. Our free will itself could be an illusion, again because we don't really understand everything at this point.

It seems logical that the future is not determined because we appear to have free will to a certain extent. But I liken it to a person who hears voices caused by a psychological condition who says that these voices are real. Looking at it from the bigger picture, outside of that person's mind, we can conclude that these voices are not in fact real, despite the fact that they do not realize this. Maybe not the best example, but it is what comes to mind. But you could be entirely correct as well. Again, we just don't know enough in my opinion. We've made great strides in physics and science in general, but I still think we are a long way off from truly understanding what is going on and why it is going on in our universe.

Ok, so we cannot travel to the future, see what happens, then come back and tell everybody. But I believe the first form of "time travel" will be one way trips into the future. Some kind of cryogenic freezing could make 50 years seem like a short nap... or maybe it would drive you insane! Also, time dialation happens to the astronauts on a small scale. Surely man will someday find out how to harness and speed up that process. So you can step into a capsule that creates something called a temporal distortion field, so that 10 minutes for you, was 10 months, or years, for everyone on Earth.

But what would you do for that 10 minutes? Have you ever tried to just, do nothing, for 10 minutes? Im pretty comfortable with my own thoughts, but I remember they did a study and found out most people have a very hard time sitting still for even just 10 or 15 minutes with nothing to do. I guess most people will pass on time travel until they come out with the 2.0 version that allows you to do it in 10 seconds instead of 10 minutes.

Imagine you could put some money in the bank or into some investments, and then going 100 years into the future and collecting 100 years worth of interest and returns on your investments. Would time travel change the way that works or would they just leave it the same? If time travel, especially the type which enables a "return trip" became freely used by all, things like antiques, old comic books and baseball cards, would not be worth as much. Well, there would be a line drawn at the moment the time traveler device was invented and items from before that moment would still hold some value, but they can only be guaranteed to be as old as they were at the moment of the advent of time travel availability.

All of this talk about time travel and scientists able to "peer" into the future got me thinking. I have ONE simple reason that this is not possible. The FUTURE can be altered based on decisions and actions committed by a person/persons. Time is NOT real.

That thread about scientists peering into the future is very misleading. It is very old research that has been going on for a long time. All they are doing is measuring the output of quantum RNG's and looking for statistical anomalies which line up with significant world events, and they only seem to line up when you look at a whole bunch of events over a long period of time. My point is, they can not use it to predict the future, the best they can say is "something significant might possibly happen some time soon", assuming it even works as they say.

originally posted by: boogeywoogey
a reply to: thesmokingman

Just my opinion but going into the future is almost impossible.

We may be able to go back in time then return to our current time.

Actually the opposite is true. You can travel into the future quite quickly if you can reach a high enough velocity, because the faster you move, the slower time flows from your frame of reference. On the other hand, there is no known method for travelling into the past at all.

Actually, when you reach the speed of light, time stops. So, no.

When I was in college, back in the early 70s I had a physics professor who claimed there was a particle that appeared to travel backwards in time.

I wonder what ever became of that line of research?

originally posted by: MentorsRiddle
Ok, let's play the paradox game. I'll also give you my reason on why a paradox cannot exist.



A paradoxical time line, like in Back To the Future is bogus.

Only if we live in a single Universe. If this system is part of a multi-verse then it is possible, as all timelines diverge, and they may intersect again as well, but they diverge.

originally posted by: boogeywoogey
a reply to: thesmokingman

Just my opinion but going into the future is almost impossible.

We may be able to go back in time then return to our current time.


The past has happened so....

C ya.

Depends by what you mean by the future and perception of the future.

Spewing foolhardy thoughts :

A plausable one way ticket to the future (non quantum leap tv show style):
1. Some type of a Cryonics state that could let us go to the future hundreds of years or more. While it keeps us in in a sleep state we wouldn't have any perception of time and when we wake it would feel like it was only yesterday. There are already people betting on this.

2. Static Multiverse: ( quantum leap tv show style):
We discover that Multiverses exist and aren't alternate states of events but rather static events of all possible outcomes. We are the ones that dynamically traverse through those static moments in time. If so, it could also be possible to fast forward or rewind by bending time from point a to point b and vice versa. It could be a gamble, since you would not want to forward past your life expectancy as you wouldn't exist in that moment in time.

3. Virtual universes:
If we live in a Maxtrix like program we could predict the future based on algorithms to forward in time or reverse back into time.

How can you go into the future if it hasn't happened?

How could you go back in time if the past already happened? Does the past get stored in a harddrive somewhere?

So IMO The cheap mans DIY version that I see a possible for time travel is

To go to the future is a one way ticket via cryonics.

To go back in time it would be a form of simulation or static multiverses.

As a simulation you would need some machine that captures every existig form of matter,particles,waves,etc in the universe or earth (depending on ambitions) than replay the those events where you observe like star trek halogram.

Or perhaps we discover a mechanism that can trace the path of all matter and then we can observe the past. Maybe even to or past the Big Bang, cool I'm in.