A brief moment back in time for a brief moment (read details)?

Question

If you would go one minute back in time, at the exact same location in space, where you were one minute ago.

Taking into consideration that we are moving in space, but assuming you would pop back not only one minute back but at the SAME location in space where you were a minute ago.

Would you meet yourself?

If you would meet yourself, then, would that mean that all events taking place in this universe are in some way "frozen" there and immuable?

Please share your toughts, elaborate, tell me what happens when you come back, would you meet yourself again?
:)

Dear McGreg C, pretend its possible, (for a minute...)

Answer 1

Virtual particles have this ability to "go back in time and collide with themselves". Just an extra layer of complication when doing computations in quantum field theory. They're able to do this because particles in quantum states already exist in many places and many times, which is why we have to use state functions to describe "their position". These state functions are, weirdly enough, complex roots of probability.

In theory, humans can be quantum objects too (although extraordinarily hard to prepare). If humans can be prepared to be in a superposition state of being in two different places, they can be in a superposition state of being in two different times, so that relative to the human existing in two different times, the world will appear to be a double image. Kind of like looking outside through a pane of glass that also partially reflects the inside.

However, as soon as the human begins to remember any of this, it loses its quantum superposition state, because memory involve irreversible processes, which involve quantum state function reduction. I suppose this is why when people being teleported in Star Trek shows don't remember being in two places at once? Quantum "teleportation" experiments have already successfully been carried out, and I believe it is possible to "teleport" quantum attributes "to the past", but we have no way of actually sending messages; only by comparing data from both the future and the past would show that "quantum information" has indeed been sent to the past.

Now, on the other hand, if you propose that a human "travel to the past" and be in the same place and time earlier in a Newtonian sense instead of a quantum one, then I think he might explode from the sudden increase in internal pressure, right? I think i'll pass.

Answer 2

I think our mind certainly meets the self in past time. Philosophically speaking, maybe remembering specific events and imagining how we could have played them out for a different result (for example) could be considered time travel. In this sense, the mind does meet the self in an earlier space and time. So, to take this further, we could (maybe only philosophically) argue, that the mind really is the real self, just not on the same plane as the self in time and space. In other words, the self does travel in time to meet self, just not in a perceptually equivalent sense....nor in the sense that we expect.

While we are engaging in recall, present events kind of do freeze. Sometimes, when we're heavily engaged in reminiscing, we kind of clue out to what's going on around us at the present moment don't we? And, when we finish reminiscing, reality begins again, the present self resumes functioning in the here-and-now, and the previous self (the memories) we were recalling just seem to fade away.

Have you ever encountered a situation where you were granted a second chance at making an alternate decision?? What about deja vu?? What about an encounter involving a replica of a previous situation, but different circumstances?? I can also see these as examples of whimsical, and perhaps would-be time travel.

Doubt any of this helps. Definitely none of it is scientific, but I couldn't resist your interesting question...

Answer 3

Uhm I think you'd die. If you're going back into the same position, there's already a mass there, your old body(granted old only because it's a minute old, or a minute in the past). All of a sudden your mass would double.

I think you may even disintegrate, because you're putting atoms which are from the future into atoms from the past, these atoms are the same, but there's still 2 of them in one place, so you'd probably start knocking them apart as 2 atoms try to work in the same spot.

But for the most part you'd have your mass increase, you'd feel pressure, and be dead.

It's like popping back into a wall, you'd be mingled with it, but dead, you'd be atomically fused, but your body isn't meant for fusion. Your blood can't pump wood. Likewise your body can't function at a higher density.

Plus even if it didn't kill you, you'd be twice as heavy, and be seizing really bad, because all of a sudden your brain from the future is in your brain from the past, that's 2 brains being used by 2 users at once. Every minute activity in the brain changes. Your brain is meant for a certain current level, heck so is the rest of your body, so you'd have a seizure.

Answer 4

Good Question, were There Be Two Souls? I Think Traveling Back In Time is Impossible.

Sorry CAT, but There is an Obvious Violation of the Conservation of Energy, but I Can Imagine, I Think There Would Be Two Souls.

Answer 5

I dont think you would meet yourself the way you have described it,, in reality if you went back for that one minute the rotation of the earth would prevent this because where you were one minute ago would have passed you already,, and when you come back you would be two minutes behind where you actully started from,, IE , you would always be a minute behind where you actually started,, if i understood you correctly,,

Answer 6

I went in time back by one minute,I found myself at a place where actually I had been typing some other answer.With me the room, computer,house,and everything else traveled backwards in time.

Answer 7

I have left Guam headed for Hawaii and got there several hours before I left Guam . The only problem was in filling out my expense report.