Time traveling?

Question

So, I was watching Heroes the other day and I started thinking about time travel. We live in the present. Do you think that the past no longer exists and the future doesn't exist yet, or do they both currently exist but we just haven't learned how to travel between them yet?

Answer 1

you can only travel between it in another dimension.the 3rd dimension is like a movie already made.we are only seeing it now for the first time.

Answer 2

Truthfully, no one knows the answer to this question objectively so it's good that you added "do you think..."

Here's the current state of things (note the use of the word "current" :D):

There exist at least three viewpoints about time.

One viewpoint is that time is a part of the structure of the universe, like space, and therefore our measure of it is the imposition of our mathematical language upon this structure. This is kind of like saying that there really is no North or South, East or West on the globe. There just is a point on the globe and we impose an arbitrary coordinate system to it.

A second viewpoint is that time exists ONLY as a measure of the universe's changes. In other words, the universe changes and we take that change as occurring through something we call time. This is still a physical viewpoint but it connects our own observations OF the physical world with a process - the changes *in time*. This is an intermediary viewpoint between the first one above and the third one below. It was long thought that this viewpoint was objective - that, given the same types of measurements of time we would all agree on how time flowed. However, Einstein demonstrated that this is not always correct because it depends on the speed with which we can receive information - which, in turn, depends on our frame of reference.

The last viewpoint is the purely subjective viewpoint. This is an individual viewpoint that simply attribute the notion of time to changes in ourselves: our surroundings, our minds, our experiences, our sensations and perceptions etc. This is sort of a "psychological time" and is associated with our notions of "the past no longer exists" and memories, etc.

So you see we have to define what time is before we can answer your question. From the first perspective, the answer is "yes, why not" because time is simply a dimension in the space-time of the universe - with an arbitrary coordinate system. You can go left OR right so why not past OR present. That sort of thing. The second perspective, especially with Einstein's special relativity, is more restrictive. From this perspective we can likely only go forward in time. I won't go through all the scientific mumbo-jumbo here but let me just say that it is related to both the entropy in the universe as well as the speed requirements (greater than lightspeed) under special relativity. Both of these are empirically (and theoretically) based so it's possible that there exist laws that we have not thought of or that we have not observed that allow "backwards time travel". From the last perspective I don't know if it's possible to travel back in time. From this perspective there are many possible paradoxes (as with the second). For example, if *you* go backwards in time to, say, when you were 12 do you retain the memories you have today of the time since you were 12? From a physical standpoint you are likely simply reversing the aging process including your own experiences so the answer would be "no" but what about from a psychological/metaphysical perspective? Is there such a perspective that is distinct from the physical processes of your brain? In other words, are *you* different from your physical self, perhaps more? THAT is why this question belongs in R&S. I don't claim to know the answers, only some of the questions.

I hope this helps your understanding. Feel free to IM or email if you'd like.

Answer 3

I don't know. I was reading this book a few years back that was explaining the static and the dynamic views of time. One is called the A theory, and the other is called the B theory. In one of the theories, the entire spectrum of time exists simultaneously, but we experience it by moving along time in one direction. The other theory says that only the present exists, even though the present is not an interval, but just a point.

There seem to be a lot of difficulties with the idea of only the present existing. It seems to make tensed statements meaningless because tensed statements would refer to things that aren't real.

But even if the past exists, I don't think it'll ever be possible to travel backward in time. It produces too many paradoxes. Besides if there'll ever be a time in the future when people are able to travel backward in time, we should expect there to be people here already who are from the future. But there's no evidence of that.

Answer 4

Interesting question, not sure why it is in religion but still interesting.

I guess this is a hard one to answer. does Time exist on a straight linear line always moving forward or decaying so to speak or could one actually bend that fabric of time and space such as in Dr Who or Heroes and travel to the past or future? We know the past is said and done and cannot be changed, or can it?

some say you can predict the future or that they are just possible futures. Again maybe.

I think we have a better chance at finding parallel worlds like in Sliders before we ever learn time travel, i think it is more scientifically probable. I'm no scientist though just a sci fi lover too.

Id love to go back in a Time bubble and watch people like Alexander the Great, Socrates, and so many others from the past. That is why they always make such great stories.

If we ever learn to do it I would definitely sign up to do it!

Answer 5

Not only do I think the past no longer exists, but I think the person that you were, even five minutes ago doesn't exist. I do remember reading on live science that scientists have found markers suggesting that time travels in only one direction and going back is not possible. But I think when it comes to that part of physics, we are still in infancy so who knows what we'll discover in the coming years.

I do think, however, that if the past, present, and future do exist at one time, that there isn't just one of each. I believe that there will be multiple versions.

Answer 6

When we look at distant stars, in a sense we're looking into the past: hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years. Some of the stars that we see today may no longer exist, yet we cannot know which do and which don't because the light they emitted takes so long to travel such immense distances.

So, while we can't *go* back in time, we can *look* back in time.

Answer 7

If time travel was possible why nobody ever came from future in today's time or in the entire known past ( history).

Think about it.

If we consider that in future people will be able to achieve time travel then understand this fact that for `time in future' our `present' will be a past...then why no one from that future has come back to this `present' which is past for them?

has there been any evidence that someone from the future visited this present or a collective past. I do not think so...because some one would have come and said ...well, guys now i have come from your future to my past....and i do not think that has happened.

Answer 8

I think the past has been written and relives itself only in that history has been known to repeat itself. (Eccl.3:15) Yet I don't believe it's a time or place to travel to because no one can go back to any time and "re-do" what's already been done. We just have to keep moving forward in life. That's the way I believe God has designed it because God has set eternity in men's hearts. (Eccl. 3:11)
I do believe however, that our future has been written because I believer everything has been ordained and foreordained by God. (Psalm 37:23) He knows all things because He is not only the beginning, but the end of all things.(Rev.22:13/Rev.1:8) And He knows not only the beginning, but the end of all things. (Isa. 46:9-10;11) Because He is the first...and the Last. He is the only author of life, and everything He has made to exist...he has made to exist forever. (Eccl.3:14) So the future does have a beginning. It's now. And the future is something we can travel to if we don't live in the past but in the present.

I used to have a saying when I was younger...."People who live in the past have no life in the present or future..."

So, no my friend. I do not believe in time travel, but I do believe in eternity. In which there is no end to time. And we (God's children) will spend out the rest of our days in His in his eternal life which He has prepared for us. But, of course..in due time....lol
This was an awesome question my friend! Take care and God bless!

Answer 9

What are the physics regarding space and time?

What we know by observation is what the physical can do. Given the present scientific theories, time travel is not physically possible.

It does matter what I think about the past and future, linear time is one thing (and maybe the only thing) that we can't back.

Answer: Heroes is a TV show about powers, powers that are beyond our understanding. Will we ever understand? Nice ideal, but I doubt it.

Answer 10

The whole spacetime continuum exists at once. Present is just an illusion, the future is fixed but this doesnt negate free-will because it was still constructed of the choices we make.

How could the past not exist and us still be here? If backwards time-travel ever becomes possible (forwards travel is straight forward and boring) then the 'many worlds' theory of quantum mechanics will take care of any supposed paradoxes. eg if you go back and kill your grandfather as a child, you will still be there, you can travel back to your own time but your parents wont have ever existed - it will be a new universe you created by changing the past - you will still exist because you're from the other universe.

What bugs me about time travel movies is how ill-thought out they are in terms of these concepts. They're not even self-consistent.

*Hey! People who say that time is not a dimension you can travel in are wrong. You can't help but travel in it, its part of four dimensional spacetime, if you travel at lightspeed your travel through it stops. Time travel in to the past may be possible. Time travel in to the future is easy - just putting yourself in suspended animation would effectively do that.*

Answer 11

At one time, it was a scientific fact that the Earth was the center of the universe.
At one time, it was a scientific fact that the Earth was flat.
At one time, it was a scientific fact that traveling faster than 28 MPH would put so much pressure on the body, that a person would die.
At one time, it was a scientific fact that it was physically and scientifically impossible to build a vehicle that would travel faster than sound.
At one time, it was a scientific fact that the coelacanth had been extinct for millions of years.
Currently, it is a scientific fact that it is physically and scientifically impossible to build a vehicle that will travel faster than light.
Currently, it is a scientific fact that it is physically and scientifically impossible to travel through time.

I, too, wonder how many of the things that we hold to be absolute truths will, in the future, be talked about as, "At one time, it was a scientific fact that [x] but we know, now ..."

Scientific breakthroughs are created by people who wonder, "What if we could....?"
Dogmatic adherents who would lynch the "heretics" will always say, "You can't!" and "It can't happen!"