….it’s not possible[1].
I had a dream last night that a friend of mine from Church was trying to stump me on some logic questions in order to “prove” whether I had really been a math major in undergrad. He should have known, of course, that one could never “prove” such a thing but could merely induce that the opposite wasn’t true.
But Mr. K (to protect his identity) asks me the following:
“Because of the terrible events of 9/11, the future human race develops: 1) a technology that detects terrorist attacks with 100% precision, 2.) a time machine with which to go back and stop the events of 9/11. Is time travel possible?”
To which I respond:
“Assuming the future humans do develop such anti-terrorism technology and a time machine and in fact successfully travel to the year 2000, then there would have been no need to invent the technology and the time travel device. But clearly they have developed it. And thus backwards time travel is not possible as it must always lead to an inconsistent and conflicting history. QED.”
Mr. K then proceeds to ask me questions about limits and monotonic functions and other Calculus 1 level questions…
This might be the very first dream in which I can’t say, “Hmm…that was wierd!” (which is what follows 99% of dream recountings).
Although I must admit, it was kind of strange…
- backwards time travel at least [↩]
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Good post. The only part that has my brain in a quandary is the bit about the possibility of forward time travel. I would argue that forward and backward time travel are one in the same.
It is a matter of frame of reference. For instance, supposing that you are able to transport yourself into the future, could you then theoretically transport you and say the chair you are sitting on. If you can transport the chair, what about the whole room you are in. The whole building? A city block? For people of the future, this provides an insight into the past – which could be interpreted as backward time travel from the frame of reference of the future. A future inhabitant could then theoretically alter something about that past that would alter the course of history to make it impossible for them to be a part of the future.
Additionally, if you were able to travel forward in time, your knowledge of future events could potentially alter your behavior up to that point; thus, the future you witnessed would never come to pass. Therefore, you could never have witnessed that future in the first place.
Wait… in my rambling, I believe I have begun to understand how it might be possible.
My arguments are based on the assumption that after traveling to the future, you then return back to the instance in time from which you originally came. I guess the argument could be made that that would be considered backward time travel… Once you have traveled forward in time, you are no longer a part of the past. It would be similar to hopping on a spaceship and leaving earth for a period of time. Then returning. You are not able to go back to the time before you left.
Whew! I love these brain roller coasters!
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Theodore Van Rooy Reply:
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
yes exactly! as you go to the future you are never allowed to come back to the past… essentially time is a forward direction and there can be no backward communication.
It’s like hopping in a space ship and never returning.
Actually future time travel is even proved… asyou get closer to the speed of light your time slows down relative to other more stationary objects. Thus taking a space ship at the speed of light and returning puts you in the future, with no way to get to the past… it’s not really the future… it just is reality… you’ve only slowed your aging down
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This blog is like being in the middle of a Lost episode.
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