Time Travel

[freezerman2000]

If,one could go back in time,I hope the one could come back..If that is the case,I would like to take some evolutionists and creationists from this site to when life began,and making small jumps,see the transition to what we are now,just to clear things up..then,the "were you there"argument would be moot...better yet,why not go all the way back to Gen.1:1?
As Spock would say,"Fascinating!".

 

[Grandpa4]

I would like to go back to when I was 21 with a list of things to give to myself--hoping I would use that list to change my life and not make the same mistakes. However, I have never believed time travel is possible and would probably think my older self was a nutcase and toss the list.

 

[Wgw]

I would like to go back to when I was 21 with a list of things to give to myself--hoping I would use that list to change my life and not make the same mistakes. However, I have never believed time travel is possible and would probably think my older self was a nutcase and toss the list.

Alas, the problem with this is you would create a paradox; modifying the past to alter the present negates the reason for altering the past.

That said, SF does offer us some elegant possible solutions to this for literary purposes. I myself am inclined to present a "wobbly universe" cosmology, in which closed timelike curves, when they result in paradoxes, result in oscillation between the original state (0), the altered timeline (1) and various intermediate timelines. People experiencing these oscillations would not neccessarily be aware of them, or even be able to be aware of them.

 

[Wgw]

Its Bradbury's gift for writing short Sci-fiction vignettes I think has rarely been surpassed. CS Lewis was an admirer of Bradbury's The Silver Locusts.

Take this excerpt from it for example - its really well written, but not technical:

"The ship came down from space. It came from the stars and the black velocites, and the shining movements, and the silent gulfs of space. It was a new ship; it had fire in its body and men in its metal cells, and it moved with a clean silence, fiery and warm...Now it was decelerating with metal efficiency in the upper Martian atmospheres. It was still a thing of beauty and strength. It had moved in the midnight waters of space like a pale sea leviathan..."

I find it a bit heavy and sentimental. Frank Herbert offers a similiar respite from technobabble without subjecting us to bis own personal emotional affectations about spaceflight. James Blish and Cordwainer Smith are better yet in this regard.

Prose blocks in general are unpleasant, stylistically.

 

[Wgw]

You might want to give The Past Through Tomorrow' by Heinlein. Not recent and parts rather dated, but offhand I think if Robert were still alive he could very quickly rewrite most of it to still work today. It is huge, but it is not one story and they all pretty much stand alone.

I hadn't realized the reason why there isn't that much short stuff. Or perhaps I should say good short stuff. The problem is with science fiction for just about any story you need to create the entire world and that is as much work for a short story as a trilogy, and in practice authors get paid by the word or at least by the page count.

There is actually a lot of good short material. See The Good Old Stuff, edited by Gardner Dozois. Most of this material (with the exception of the Cordwainer Smith story) did not take place in an overarching universe.

Also, I would argue that some of the best "larger worlds" are better described through short fiction. Heinlein comes to mind; among more recent authors, Peter F. Hamilton springs immediately to view; his short fiction is much livelier than his rather drawn out novel sequences.

 

[Wgw]

But we are not talking about real back in time travel surely even if some of these hypothetical notions are correct? I mean I don't mind discussing it as science-fiction, or science-fantasy, but not as real science.

With regard to films I haven't come across a major film that seriously attempts to explain time travel - even the Back to the Future trilogy only make a fairly comic explanation. The reason being that it is the potential paradoxes that are more interesting in this sort of story, and also the culture clash elements provide a big part of the interest - a theory of time-travel less so.

Obviously we are not discussing it as real science. However, science fiction, to avoid being vacuous, when it treats upon speculative realms like time travel, should seek to do so in a non-arbitrary manner; the plot must be driven by some imaginary scientific concept or regulative principle. Otherwise you don't have science fiction per se.

This is particularly the case when it comes to time travel; there are too many silly stories of this sort which use plot-driven pipedream narratives; see the risible 2003 romantic comedy Kate & Leopold for a case in point.

 

[Wgw]

LOL IM SENDING A TELEGRAM STOP
SEMICOLON RIGHT PARENTHESIS STOP
HASHTAG TIME TRAVEL

 

[Lily_o_valley]

I love time travel, obviously, one of my favourite sci-fi topics. But in real life... I just wish that I could reverse my own aging so I could be young again. But the 70s were good. But then again I do like costumes, so it might need to be the Victorian age or a prior era. But I would want to make sure I could go back and be rich or at least comfortable. Being poor in the past would not be fun. That would be easier to arrange if you were going forward in time, but you'd never know what kind of a world you were heading into.

 

[Radrook]

The idea that moments in time can be revisited or that people are really never dead but are still well and alive somewhere in the past reminds me of what Satan said to Eve: "You will not die!"

But if indeed it were possible I would go back and speak with Jesus.
There are many things I need to ask him personally about existence.

 

[dms1972]

The idea that moments in time can be revisited or that people are really never dead but are still well and alive somewhere in the past reminds me of what Satan said to Eve: "You will not die!"

Yeah, I would rather discuss proper conceptions of time, eternity, past, present, future etc. than fantasise about who I would talk to if I could time travel. Though people don't literally believe what is depicted in the films, nevertheless I think the notions in the films have to some extent ousted biblical thinking on these subjects.

 

[Radrook]

Yeah, I would rather discuss proper conceptions of time, eternity, past, present, future etc. than fantasise about who I would talk to if I could time travel. Though people don't literally believe what is depicted in the films, nevertheless I think the notions in the films have to some extent ousted biblical thinking on these subjects.

There are serious implications which those films convey. Is Christ forever in a crucified condition in time? Is what Satan said true, we really never die but are alive somewhere in time? The Bible tells us that Christ died once and for all time. These films would have Christ being repeatedly put to death in a preserved eternal moment. So the insinuations, though subtle, are there.

Actually, there is a certain scientist who is working on a way to see his father again by building a machine to take him to the past. So these concepts are taken very seriously not only by common folk but by the scientific community itself which provides mathematical equations indicating that under certain conditions involving a black hole's gravitational effects time travel into the past might indeed be possible.

Travel into the future is less problematic since the only thing necessary is to increase the velocity at which we travel until it significantly approaches the speed of light-186,000 mps.

BTW
Some years ago I wrote two short sci fi stories about a disgruntled, persecuted Christian scientists who traveled back in time. One destination was the Garden of Eden in order to record the creation of man and prove his atheist scientist colleagues wrong.

 

[dms1972]

No one has a clue were or how to start building a time machine - we don't know that its possible to start with. I don't know quite how to explain it but I think the films present a misconception.

So these concepts are taken very seriously not only by common folk but by the scientific community itself.

I would disagree that the scientific community takes it very seriously - as its one maverick 'scientist' attemping this - how do you think other scientists view it? Would serious scientists not be more likely to want to protect the reputation of science?

And I think a lot of common folk take it with a pinch of salt also.

I have read Stephen Hawking says he thinks we will learn to time-travel (in a manner of speaking) but I don't think he means into the past, he means something like by travelling round a supermassive blackhole were time is supposed to pass more slowly. In a sense he has to say something like this otherwise it would look like he didn't believe his theories. But IMO this is looking at things very, very, optimistically - looked at more realistically the likelihood of it ever happening is very small (for instance where is there one we could get to?) and it would be very dangerous.

Other ways people think it might be possible - expanding a 'wormhole' and travelling through it - well scientists will have to find one for us to know they exist - but if it turns out they do how you going know where you are going to come out - theoretically they only would provide travel through space, not time. And how would one go about expanding it anyway? There is a large element of fantasy in it all IMO.

 

[keith99]

No one has a clue were or how to start building a time machine - we don't know that its possible to start with. I don't know quite how to explain it but I think the films present a misconception.



I would disagree that the scientific community takes it very seriously - as its one maverick 'scientist' attemping this - how do you think other scientists view it? Would serious scientists not be more likely to want to protect the reputation of science.

One unnamed maverick 'scientist'.

 

[Radrook]

No one has a clue were or how to start building a time machine - we don't know that its possible to start with. I don't know quite how to explain it but I think the films present a misconception.



I would disagree that the scientific community takes it very seriously - as its one maverick 'scientist' attemping this - how do you think other scientists view it? Would serious scientists not be more likely to want to protect the reputation of science?

And I think a lot of common folk take it with a pinch of salt also.

I have read Stephen Hawking says he thinks we will learn to time-travel (in a manner of speaking) but I don't think he means into the past, he means something like by travelling round a supermassive blackhole were time is supposed to pass more slowly. In a sense he has to say something like this otherwise it would look like he didn't believe his theories. But IMO this is looking at things very, very, optimistically - looked at more realistically the likelihood of it ever happening is very small (for instance where is there one we could get to?) and it would be very dangerous.

Other ways people think it might be possible - expanding a 'wormhole' and travelling through it - well scientists will have to find one for us to know they exist - but if it turns out they do how you going know where you are going to come out - theoretically they only would provide travel through space, not time. And how would one go about expanding it anyway? There is a large element of fantasy in it all IMO.

I personally don't think it's possible to travel back in time at all. Of course the conjectures they brandish enthusiastically about aren't based on one solitary, maverick' scientist's frantic efforts to see his deceased dad again. They are based on what you mentioned concerning wormholes and their effect on space-time. But to be honest, many things are possible mathematically but that doesn't automatically translate to their practical application in the "real world".

Excerpt
Could time travel soon become a reality? Physicists simulate sending quantum light particles into the past. Einstein's theory suggests the possibility of travelling backwards in time by following a space-time path that returns to the starting point in space but at an earlier time - a closed timelike curve (CTC)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...icles-travelling-past-time.html#ixzz42oDjLd67

Find out how one NASA mission is doing some very clever space-time experiments to test Einstein's theory of relativity using the International Space Station.
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/momentum3/

 

[dms1972]

One unnamed maverick 'scientist'.

Good point.

So would it have to be regarded as an urban legend then?

 

[Radrook]

Good point.

So would it have to be regarded as an urban legend then?

I never claimed that its viability depended on one maverick scientist.

 

[dms1972]

But if indeed it were possible I would go back and speak with Jesus.
There are many things I need to ask him personally about existence.

What's not in the Bible? As far as the Gospel and christian life is concerned its all there. Its just sometimes we have to stop asking and thinking about some things, or ask ourselves is this really important to me, do I need an answer to this?

This is this the downside of internet forums, people raise all sorts of questions, sometimes ones they are not all that interested in, sometimes questions that make little sense.

Someone said to me on another thread I would always be in doubt on internet forums. I think this is true, and the only way to really find some clarity is by not using them. The internet is a funny thing. Unless you know what your looking for, and why you came on the forum you get bombarded with questions / opinions / views.

What I don't like about this time-travel thing is that its not proper science IMO, its science fantasy.

But I can't be bothered thinking about it right now and need get away from pondering over one thing after another that is irrelevant to where I am at.

 

[dms1972]

-

 

[Radrook]

What's not in the Bible? As far as the Gospel and christian life is concerned its all there. Its just sometimes we have to stop asking and think about some things, that are not really important.

This is this the downside of internet forums, people raise all sorts of questions, sometimes ones they are not all that interested in, sometimes questions that make little sense.

Someone said to me on another thread I would always be in doubt on internet forums. I think this is true, and the only way to really find some clarity is by not using them. The internet is a funny thing. Unless you know what your looking for, and why you came on the forum you get bombarded with questions / opinions / views.

What I don't like about this time-travel thing is that its not proper science IMO, its science fantasy.

But I can't be bothered thinking about it right now and need get away from pondering over one thing after another.

Sorry that my response inflicted that kind of severe distress It was my intention only to respond to the thread question to the best of my ability. In any case, you claim that there is nothing that the Bible doesn't explain about God? I disagree. There are plenty of things that are left unanswered. They might be non-salvational issues, but they do pique the imagination of most people. But since this causes you distress I won't mention them. Peace!

 

[Dave-W]

Its just sometimes we have to stop asking and thinking about some things, or ask ourselves is this really important to me, do I need an answer to this?

Some people do not believe they can TRULY be saved if they do not understand EVERY LITTLE DETAIL of doctrine.

Like were Adam and Eve naked in our sense - or were they obscured by that ball of golden light that covered them from shoulders to knees?

Did the snake have legs before the fall? If so, how big were they?

What happened to all the fish when God killed everything in the Flood except the occupants of the Ark. Did they die too?