Time travel....does the future already exist?

Hi.

I should probably take more time to express my thought but its 8:56 am and it’s going to be a beautiful day in Phoenix so I’m going on a picnic with a few friends in a little bit.

I’ve been reading a book by Stephen King it’s called “11/22/63”. So far it is one of his best books in my opinion.
For those who don’t know the story is about a guy who goes back in time to prevent the JFK assassination.

It really got me thinking about time travel.

I can see the theory of going back in time because the past happened but how could you go into the future? Wouldn’t you have to assume that everything from now until the end of time has been predetermined? I mean how can you go into the future if it hasn’t yet happened?

To be honest the thought makes me a little depressed. If you believe we can go into the future then I was destined to sit at my computer and type this post. It was decided hundreds or thousands or millions of years before I was born that on this day at this time I would type these words.
Also if you reply to this thread or if you don’t reply to this thread it has already been decided. You don’t have free will because in the future you have already done what you will now do.

So I don’t think we can travel forward in time simply because it doesn’t yet exist. Anybody have thoughts on this?

reply to post by cavalryscout


Nothing is predetermined considering we cannot and may not ever have the capability to time travel at all...just a possibility.

If aliens can do it, so can our government's military

reply to post by cavalryscout


From the current understanding of the scientific community this is trully the case. Past present and future all exist at the same "time" in all locations simultaneously.

Think of it this way, what are dimensions really? They are just a way of measuring certain things, from our perspective there are only 4 proven dimentions, because we live in the 4th dimention. We can not see or interact with any higher dimension, but we can readily see and interact with all the lower ones, as we can make measure and interact with a 1 dimensional object or 2d object or 3d object very easily, because we are in a higher dimension. We can see the 4th, and measure it, and even interact with it, but cannot see past it as it is the one we are in, we can't go outside of it to see it the same as we would a 1d 2d or 3d object.

Now imagine your a 5th dimensional being, for you the 4fth dimension would be just another object that could be measured and I teracted with at you leasure. The 5th would be around you but not leavable, only measurable.

Now for a higher dimensional being, the 4th dimention "time" would be just like any lower dimentional object and measurable with a "ruler" so all one would have to do is look at the part of the object in question to see what transpires at a given point.

For example we will say time is laid out like a tape measure. For a being inhabitting the space of the tape they would see it as their entire universe, and believe nothing exists beyond it, as from their perspective it would be the entire universe, but for a being on a higher dimention, this would only be a tape measure, and one could easily look to the 5 foot mark and see what was there, or back to the 1' 5" mark, no big deal for them.

So yes technically that is true, all things have already happened and all things are alreay written down, however ( this is where it gets tricky) it is believed that "choice" is also a possible dimension and could be a major part of space time, and as such could be measured, as you either did or didn't make a choice or not, or choice A or B or not.

Which has lead some to think that the reason we even experience "time" is that we have to make the choices or not, from here to the "end" as they can't make themselves, we conscious beings must do this for ourselves, other wise there wouldn't even be "time" it would have all just happened in an instant and been over with.

Sorry to get all metaphysical on you, I don't like it much either, but it is at present the only rational expression of this line of thought, possed by scientists.

reply to post by inverslyproportional


Thanks. That was by far the most interesting post I have read on this site in a very very long time.

Time 4 me to go get some fresh air.



peace. tc.

reply to post by cavalryscout


The true nature of reality itself is a subject that interests me to no end, I have dedicated a significant portion of my adult life researching it and trying to understand its true nature.

For some reason I just have a nature afinity for this subject, and take to it like a bird does to flight.

I try to avoid all of the "religious" philosophical type explanations as they seem more like good stories instead of proveable facts to me.

How ever the more I learn the more it seems that there are a lot of sense to the teachings of religions and spiritual thinkers. Like somehow they devine the answers the same way some people claim to be able to find water and natural resources with devining rods, there is no logical explanation for this phenomenon but there are plenty of scientifically produced findings that say it is actually happening somehow.

The reasons to me are inexplicable, but they are there, so what does one do but file it away for later and keep searching?

reply to post by cavalryscout


I was watching one of those Discovery channel-type shows about space/time and such, and one of the physicists said that since all of space already exists, then all of time must exist as well.

reply to post by MissSmartypants


okay but that is a huge assumption! I thought space was expanding all the time....

p.s.- I like your screen name. (they call me Mr. Dick not sure Y.)

Originally posted by cavalryscout
So I don’t think we can travel forward in time simply because it doesn’t yet exist. Anybody have thoughts on this?

All we CAN do is travel forward in time.......no past, except a memory, no present, as it's already the past....

Below from Stephen Hawking-

We are all travelling forward in time anyway. We can fast forward by going off in a rocket at high speed and return to find everyone on Earth much older or dead. Einstein's general theory of relativity seems to offer the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that we could travel back in time. However, it is likely that warping would trigger a bolt of radiation that would destroy the spaceship and maybe the space-time itself. I have experimental evidence that time travel is not possible. I gave a party for time-travelers, but I didn't send out the invitations until after the party. I sat there a long time, but no one came.

Time travel....does the future already exist?

I believe it does and that it transmits to the past.

I think you'd have to freeze yourself to travel to the future.
Travelling to the past would be impossible.

reply to post by inverslyproportional


I enjoyed your 'infinite tape measure' metaphor. I never really thought of it that way. Then I got to thinking about choice, how it would be a 5th dimension. Then I imagined tape measures arranged side by side, one stretched out right next to to other, lined up as far as you could see, each mark representing the same absolute time, each tape is the timeline of each outcome of each choice at any given moment. But then the idea fell apart, because any given timeline would stand alone, until and only until time had brought everything to a choice, and that choice had been made. Then I imagined that timeline would fan out into all the subsequent possibilities, and so forth, until time brought a new choice on each subsequent timeline. So time starts as one line of all 3d space moving at a constant speed (for the sake of simplicity) - who knows what variable time would do to my model. Like the Original Tape Measure model, Adam and Eve, if you will, arrive at their First Choice. At the moment that choice is made, this timeline fans out to all possible outcomes and further choices and outcomes of that moment of choice. So time looks like a family tree on a flat plane. Notice that this model is nice, in that each outcome is connected back to that point where one makes the choice, but notice also that we are imagining a 5-dimensional idea in 2d, by simplifying the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd dimensions into a point, by simplifying the 4th dimension, time, into a line, and by simplifying choice into a 2d plane. So what can we imagine the 7th dimension to be like? What would cause our simplified model to be 3d, where reality would look like a box, or would it look like a bush without leaves? Would there be an origin, a center of the snowflake/bush and all outcomes fanning outward from each choice? Would there be a finite or infintite number of origins? Could the "vector" of each timeline be affected?
How would we expand this model to account for higher dimensions? Parallel universes? Quantum bits? If we follow our current understanding that time affects all spaces permanently, and choice affects all time permanently, then what would affect choice permanently? I have a feeling that that reasoning may have logical flaws or that it may be way too simplistic. Any ideas?

Hey all. I just happened across this forum this morning after randomly searching about Time travel and why no one from the future has visited us - and I partially came to the conclusion that it was due to the fact that the future hadn't happened yet so how could someone visit from there - just one theory of course.

But then I saw your interesting posts about dimensions and was immediately reminded of a video animation that helps explain the multiple dimensions concept, all the way up to 10 dimensions. It's animated in such a way, and explained in such a way - that we lowly 4 dimensional beings can understand it (mostly).

www.youtube.com...

Anyway, hope you like it. And cool forums. Will definitely stick around!

Regards,

Scott