could there really be a butterfly effect?

Question

if the year is 2020 and you go back in time to 2000 to kill yourself, then you would never have the chance to make it to 2020 to go back to 2000 and kill yourself. so you would still be alive. does is cause parelle universe or is the timeline preplaned? my theory is the timeline is playing like a cassette. everything is preplanned and time travel is possible, but no matter what you do in the past it will have the same outcome. this could be the theory that proves a God. please elborate and tell me your thoughts. please, intelligent answers only.

Answer 1

So mass murders could go back into time. Kill a few hundred people and it wouldn't change the future in the least because it's already written. So you say this would prove God exists. I'm wondering if there were a God would he allow this to happen? You'd need a second tape player. One that can play the past. Which has already gone by. So going back into the past you're going forward on the tape. So in that sense it wouldn't matter a bit what you've done to the past. It will never go by the original tape player again. Interesting. In that scenario you might be able to prove a master plan. Now all you have to do is prove that's how things work.
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As far as the butterfly effect goes. I say without a doubt it exists. I can personally change things around me. Anybody can change the social make up of their surroundings. If you're a positive person and say only nice things to people. This in turn changes their outlook on life. If I cause someone to not make a green light then they might be killed in a car wreck down the road. Or maybe I just saved their life. Every action has a result. Free will can change these results. So if you're basing your theory on the butterfly effect not existing then I guess it doesn't hold water and you haven't proved there's a master plan.

Answer 2

if you do go back to 2000 and kill yourself , then i believe you will not go back to 2020 since you already cease to exist.. everything will just ends at 2000 so why do you still bother whether you still have a chance to go back to 2020 (then to return to 2000 again).
Also, if you want to die in 2000, then why bother to live another 20 years just to return to kill yourself...
i don't see any correlatiion between a pre-planned timeline and God..what has God got to do with a pre-planned timeline??
well, if you died in 2000, then the outcome will be different in this case, then what you do in the past will alter the future..it will not be the same.. so things will not be pre-planned..if time travel is possible, everyone will go back to the past and change events, then history will be changed, outcome will be different.. if it is really a casette, people will re-record the songs and the entire content of the casette will be altered or even distorted...

Answer 3

no matter what you do in the past it will have the same outcome? If this is true, then it disproves the idea of free will. If, no matter what I choose to do, I end up murdering somebody, then how can I be held responsible for it? I don't know which idea of God you are trying to prove, but this theory, if true, would disprove large portions of most world religions. Most religions rely on some idea of punishment or reward in an afterlife, and such things are only morally justified if you can control your actions. If you cannot help but murder, steal, etc. then God could not send you to hell, unless he is a bad, unjust god.

One problem I see with this theory is that you can't prove it any time in the foreseeable future. You can't prove it logically, you would have to wait for empirical proof - somebody going back in time and being unable to change anything, but even if that were to occur, I don't see how it would prove the existence of a God, and if it did, it seems like it would have to be a God which did not judge human actions, since human would have been unable to do other than they did.

Answer 4

I'm not sure about time travel. I don't think it's entirely impossible yet I can't quite wrap my brain around the concept. The butterfly effect, suggesting that every little slight change affects everything else, I believe is true. This is why going back in time would be catastrophic -- your very presence there (a being from the future) would have to affect your surroundings and this could have a domino effect that would change other things and alter the future. You never know what one little thing could set off a catastrophic chain of events. Things unfold as they should, we shouldn't try to rewrite history. There have been many interesting movies that have played with the idea. There was one called Time Machine where the hero goes back in time to save his lover from being killed but she still keeps dying in various ways because it was her time to go & he can't cheat death. So maybe fate would have its way no matter what you did...

The movie "Butterfly Effect" really affected me. It was so sad. He kept trying to go back & alter the past for the best of every person but it always had a negative effect on someone. So he finally makes the ultimate sacrifice, realizing the world was better off without him. I bawled my eyes out! I used to wonder what the world would be like if I hadn't existed. If I could erase my existence, how would my family be? Would they be better or worse off? Each of us impacts others & the world in myriad ways. Perhaps there is a parallel universe going on. Perhaps we do travel back & forth in time (this would be one explanation for deja vus). Who knows? It's an interesting subject!

Answer 5

I am a firm believer in every single thing effecting everything else. I don't think that it is as complicated as it seems. If time travel were possible (as it may be one day) I think that if you were to travel back it would nullify the 20 years you are jumping backwards. It's like starting over, the suicide only has to occur once, and if you were to go back to do it, you wouldn't be there in 2020, but you technically never would have never been in 2020 to begin with. (okay, that sounded way more intelligent in my head).
I think that the theory in and of itself is important, because every action has an impact and even the slightest ripple could cause a tidal wave somewhere else.

Answer 6

Despite what QED tells us, time travel is not possible. The main reason is entropy. The total entropy of the universe is not to be taken lightly. It is roughly like swimming upstream from the base of Niagara Falls.

Time is really like a grass rope. Chains of events form the strands. The strands are tightly twisted about one another until the chain ends but by then new chains have been added and the rope of time proceeds on. You cannot go back because of entropy and you cannot go forward because the rope has not yet been made.

As for the "butterfly effect" - Chaos has moderating influences inherent in it because it is, well, chaotic. Therefore, a butterfly flapping it's wings in Australia, won't cause a storm in New York.

Answer 7

If you were 40 years old in 2020 and you travelled back in time 20 years and committed suicide, you would cease to exist as of 2000. So you would not not be alive in 2020 because your existence ended in 2000.

What you are talking about is, I believe, known as a singularity. If you want to read a great book about space-time, singularities, etc, read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.

Answer 8

I had a friend who explained this to me.

Lets say that God is above us and doesn't exist in our time. He has full view of our life, it is like a circle. He sees when we enter and sees when we exit. Between those two points we make decisions and choices. There is freedom of choice and just because God knows the fullness of our life doesn't mean that we lose free will or that no matter what we do we end up in a spot predestined.

It just means that the Creator can see the whole path of our life. We live it a moment at a time.

This explaintion conviences me that I have freedom of choice. I can't perdict what will happen. And the fact that God/Creator knows the start from the finish doesn't mean that we are destined one way or another.

Answer 9

This topic is probably being discussed by Harvard graduates probably right now, lol.

My thoughts on this topic are pretty complicated. You can't go back in time (like, say, how the Back to the Future movies do it), but you can reverse time, so you would actually make yourself (and the entire universe) younger. If it went back far enough, you would go back into your mothers womb, and even farther, if you wanted.

I totally agree about the cassette thing. You can reverse and fast forward, but the outcome is always the same.

Answer 10

it somewhat is called the Butterfly effect, because of the fact a chinese language Chaos concept, undemanding because of the fact the Butterfly effect, states that "the flexibility of a butterflies wings would be felt on the different area of the international." meaning that something somewhat minor like a butterfly flapping its wings, ought to effect in like a tsunami far away, and that each little thing is appropriate. it somewhat is quite lots what the action picture is approximately. The slightest substitute finally ends up changing each little thing.