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Time travel without the paradox?
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Time travel without the paradox?
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abrooks051
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Time travel without the paradox?
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10/08/2021 19:38:01 »
Hello, long time no contribute. However, I wish to rectify that with this post. A thought experiment. Now, I do not know if this subject has been broached previously but if so I hope I am approaching it from a different angle.
Time Travel.
We all know about the Temporal Paradox but this seems to concern the traveling to the past to effect the present or future. My idea offers a different take.
Let’s say I create a time machine. My machine can move any distance into the future. However, my machine can never move into a past further back than my original launch time and date. I can travel from, say, 1/1/2021 at 12:00 Noon to 1/1/2050 at 12:00 Noon, look around, take a leak and then return to the present but only to 1/1/2021 at 12:00 Noon plus one second.
The “Paradox” prevents my affecting “past” events but let’s say when I arrive in 2050 I find World War Z. I sneak into the remains of a library and I find a history book that completely outlines the specific details that eventually lead to World War Z. It seems that the failed assassination of a specific World leader on 6/1/2021 led to his/her seeking revenge which leads his/her children to initiate the World War in 2049.
Knowing this I return to 1/1/2021 at 12:00 Noon plus one second and I make sure that the attempted assassination, in June, does not fail and thereby I prevent World War Z.
There should not be a Paradox because I have not actually changed the “Past” but rather the “Future”.
Thoughts?
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Halc
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Re: Time travel without the paradox?
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Reply #1 on:
10/08/2021 21:28:30 »
You seem to have a sort of moving-spotlight interpretation of time: That 'the past' and 'the future' is something that exists, but are ontologically distinct in that only the latter is malleable.
It still seems paradoxical. You have memory of a war (or a memory of a memory of war to be more specific) that never exists. How did you manage to see that in the future if your actions in (what you're calling) the present prevented it? Why didn't you see the actual future?
From a physics standpoint, you have information being passed to the past, which isn't allowed, but for this thread, we're ignoring that. Maybe you're trying to break just a few less rules with some fictional story.
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Kryptid
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Re: Time travel without the paradox?
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Reply #2 on:
10/08/2021 22:27:06 »
If the assassination had succeeded, then that's what the book you found would have said. Since it didn't, then any successful change that allowed the assassination to actually take place would mean that the book contradicts what actually ended up happening. So it's still a paradox.
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abrooks051
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Re: Time travel without the paradox?
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Reply #3 on:
10/08/2021 23:13:09 »
Kryptid: Thanks for the feedback. Good point. Perhaps the only way to prevent a paradox is to be "omnipotent" and thereby cover all sides. Thanks again, stay healthy and safe.
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puppypower
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Re: Time travel without the paradox?
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Reply #4 on:
11/08/2021 15:00:34 »
Time is connected to the second law and entropy, since both move in one direction. Entropy has to increase and time moves to the future. Time does not propagate like an energy wave or clock that cycles. This assumption created by cyclic clocks is what creates the paradoxes. When clocks slow due to relativity what changes is not time, since time is not a cycle.
The clock is a poor representation of the nature of time, since it implies time cycles each day allowing us to come back to noon, each day, as though time is a wave. But since time always moves to the future, noon each day is not the same each day. We still get older. The true nature of time is superimposed upon the clock cycle, due to the flow of time. However, we may create time illusions using the clock by eating the same lunch, at the same time, each day. The clock is a designed to help humans budget their time but it does not reflect how time propagates. This is a conceptual problem for physics and it creates various paradoxes.
A more realistic clock that mimics the flow of time to the future would be an entropy clock such as the dead fish clock. We buy a fresh fish and place it on the table. Entropy will take over and it will start to spoil. When it starts to stink to a given level we have a unit of time. Like entropy and the flow of time we cannot un-stink the dead fish. The change in the future is clear cut, since like time, the dead fish clock does not cycle.
If the room was to get warmer, the dead fish clock will speed up and the fish will spoil and stink sooner. Warmer adds thermal energy to allowing both entropy; decay, and time to speed up. In the twin paradox, the moving twin ages slower because his entropy slows. It still increases to the future; some aging, but the flow of time is slower. In this case, it is like placing the dead fish clock in the refrigerator. Dead fish clocks create the problem of no fixed standard for time, since no two fish are exactly the same. This is how the second law works since entropy increases even if we try to cycle since there is no perpetual motion.
In the case of time travel, since the second law is in affect at all times, and there is no machine that can do perpetual motion, entropy has to increase and the flow of time has to move forward. Even if we go backwards or forward in time, time will have changed. We would need to fully chill the dead fish clock to absolute zero so the entropy increase and time propagation is minimized.
Say for the sake of argument space-time became dissociated so space and time are no longer connected. One can move in time without the constraints of distance and move in distance without the constraint of time. This would be a state of infinite entropy since all combinations of complexity can occur, simultaneously; omnipresent and omniscience. Since entropy is maximized, the flow of time, connected to space-time, would stop. Time would no longer have the vector; to the future. Th Rather time could jump around, so the future can appear before the past; omniscience. One can know the outcome, before it happens, thereby allowing one to reverse engineer the past. This creates potential in time; past flows to the future.
For example, we see data from the future of the original BB. We live 12 billion years in the future compared to the original BB instant. We use our data from the BB's future, to reverse engineer the BB and thereby define its past from its future. The place where space and time become separate is connected to the imagination. Space-time places practical limits on time via the second law.
Innovation often sees the answer before the solution; future before the past. You need to go back and find the solution to the answer, that is consistent with the limits of space-time and the flow of time to the future; practical reality. If that occurs, time potential is created for the vector to the future.
The iPhone began as a vision of what could be. The engineering took time to develop and upon its release, the vision from past and future overlapped. This created great energy release; excitement and money. It appears the human imagination is connected to the place where space-time breaks down; no vector of time. However, this can cause problems since we physically live in space-time where time has a vector to the future. The lower of entropy; narrow down the complexity, needed to go from the no vector of time, to a vector of time, will release free energy; human progress within time and space.
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abrooks051
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Re: Time travel without the paradox?
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Reply #5 on:
11/08/2021 15:58:31 »
Puppypower: Thanks for the response, I really needed that severe headache creator. :-) Seriously, Thanks you made some great points. It seems that, to have any control over time and space, we would need to "leave" this Universe, as you note, and essentially look in from "outside". Shades of "Flatland". Stay safe, stay healthy.
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