How is Time Travel Compatible with Cause and Effect Theory?

Well the first question is “what is time?”
I’ve looked into this question before and I know all about Psychological Time; but frankly that subject bores me (never liked stuff to do with biology anyway).

I used to think physical time was cause and effect: “Once upon a time the universe was started and everything today is part of massive (in comprehendible) chain reaction starting from events since then.”
It would follow that so long as the rate of accomplishment caused by a given amount of energy doesn’t change; neither will the rate of time.

I also (vaguely) understand about things getting smaller and smaller as they approach the speed of light, till they eventually disappear at the speed of light where time itself slows down completely (from the objects perspective).

What I don’t understand is moving forward in time. Yet its one piece of physics I believe in above many others because it’s actually been proven….

“In 1975 Carol Allie of the University of Maryland synchronized two atomic clocks and placed one on a plane and flew it around for several hours and left the other on Earth. When the airborne clock was returned to Earth, she compared its time with the one that hadn't moved and found that time had moved a fraction of a second more slowly for the clock on board the plane.”
Source: home.comcast.net...

Ok so everything is a matter of cause and effect? Or is it? Because how does every plane, care journey and cyclist arrive in a world of cause and affect that has yet to happen?

If the plane had stayed stationary on the ground then it would have been subjected to the normal cause and effect things which cause it to flow with the rest of time (as you would expect).
So what “force-thing” has been “taken away?” from “outside-inside?” the plane that causes it to leap into cause and effects which haven’t happened as far as the real age of the plane is concerned?

I find this question very interesting. Because speed may cause the “something” holding anything in the present to go on leave; but if only I knew what that “something” was perhaps I could ponder at other ways of doing it?

I want to know how time travel into the future fits into the way I view the world as all a matter of cause and effect, or I want to know why my way of looking at things this way is at least slightly wrong.
I may be a little sketchy on my understanding of relativity but it’s a knowledge I can always resurrect with a little research to jog my memory. It’s understanding the comparison between Cause and Effect, and Relativity that bugs me.

Please help me.

Originally posted by Liberal1984
Well the first question is “what is time?”

Time is Entropy. Instantanious Time is one unit of time within a system undergoing entropy. Time is Relative.

I’ve looked into this question before and I know all about Psychological Time; but frankly that subject bores me (never liked stuff to do with biology anyway).

Why? I find the subject facsinating. Imagine being able to increase the amount of information gather by the senses and processed at extremely fast speeds, you could in effect, achieve a Slow-Time effect that is perceivable. Add in some artificial muscles and you could quite concievably dodge bullets or at the very least an out of control Car.

I used to think physical time was cause and effect: “Once upon a time the universe was started and everything today is part of massive (in comprehendible) chain reaction starting from events since then.”
It would follow that so long as the rate of accomplishment caused by a given amount of energy doesn’t change; neither will the rate of time.

Physical time is cause and effect, or a better way to say it is, for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. The rate of time is not constant either, it speeds up and slows down chemical reactions, clocks and biological processes depending solely on it's speed at the time of measurements. The closer to c, the slower time flows in relation to say an observer on Earth. When you get to about 3/4 speed of light time dialation really starts to kick in and it's quite concievable to build a spaceship and circumnavigate the entire galaxy within a decade of relative time. On Earth however tens of thousands of years will pass and when the traveller gets home, his world will be just as alien to him as the rest of the galaxy. Mind bending isn't it?

I also (vaguely) understand about things getting smaller and smaller as they approach the speed of light, till they eventually disappear at the speed of light where time itself slows down completely (from the objects perspective).

Objects don't get smaller and smaller, it's mass increases the closer it gets to the speed of light and it gets "squished down", so the object gets more massive, shorter, and fatter the closer you get to c

What I don’t understand is moving forward in time. Yet its one piece of physics I believe in above many others because it’s actually been proven….

“In 1975 Carol Allie of the University of Maryland synchronized two atomic clocks and placed one on a plane and flew it around for several hours and left the other on Earth. When the airborne clock was returned to Earth, she compared its time with the one that hadn't moved and found that time had moved a fraction of a second more slowly for the clock on board the plane.”
Source: home.comcast.net...

Time dialation, nothing more, nothing less.

en.wikipedia.org...

Ok so everything is a matter of cause and effect? Or is it? Because how does every plane, care journey and cyclist arrive in a world of cause and affect that has yet to happen?

Depends on how you look at it actually. Quantum Mechanics talks all about "Probabilities" of such and such an effect happening under such and such conditions. Strict Cause and Effect doesn't really work too well at the Quantum level which is why "What happened before the universes creation" and "How exactly do black holes work" are such hot topics in the Astrophysics community these days. In the macro world, with our limited senses, thinking about things having a Cause and Effect relationship to each other just works.

If the plane had stayed stationary on the ground then it would have been subjected to the normal cause and effect things which cause it to flow with the rest of time (as you would expect).

Light is the constant here, I say again Time is Relative to the Observer who is measuring it.

Take two people for instance.

Person A: Sitting at home staring at the clock due to sheer boredom.

Person B: Sitting on his rocket ship travelling 3/4 the speed of light, staring at the clock out of sheer boredom.

Person A's Clock Reads 12:00 PM

Person B's Clock Reads 12:00 PM

Fast foward to 1 PM in Person A's frame of reference. Here is how it would look like.

Person A's Clock Reads 1:00 PM

Person B's Clock Reads 12:46 PM

They cannot agree because their frames of reference are litereally travelling in their own "time bubble" which both travel through time at different rates.

[edit on 5-6-2006 by sardion2000]