If you traveled back in time and killed your grandfather would you cease to exist in the future thereby creating a paradox of if you did not exist in the future how could you have traveled to the past and killed your grandfather. Or would it create a separate timeline one in which you existed and one you didnt. Or would it cause the utter destruction of the time/space continuity?
2007-10-23 08:49:21 · 8 answers · asked by shewhosnameshallnotbespoken 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Mythology & Folklore
Thinking about time travel confuses people. Traveling back and changing the past, seems to be impossible and to lead unavoidably to a paradox. The apparent existence of such paradoxes has triggered the arrival of many new theories like multiple world and multiple universe (Multiverse) theories, that avoids such paradoxes. Most of the confusion is related to physical time travel theories which would allow travelers to 'really' go back to the past, having more copies of themselves, or even killing their ancestors.
One of the basic objections against time travel is, that it is against our intuition that time is a single straight line without break or branching point and against our common-sense belief that a thing is occupying a single place at a moment in time and it cannot be in two places at the same time.
Thinking about physical time travel almost unavoidable leads to the dreaded "Grandfather Paradox":
You go back in time and kill your grandfather before your parents were born. Thus, if your parents are never born, you could never be born. But if you were never born, you couldn't have killed your grandfather. But if you hadn't killed your grandfather, you would've been born. And so on.
Bottom line, however, is that paradoxes do not exist: they are the product of our mind. In our case, it might be the consequence of trying to apply time travel to the wrong theory on time. Our current theory does not allow for time travel. If we however insist using the classic model and imagine the consequences of traveling to the past, paradoxes will immediately pop up.
The multiverse theory presumes that every change in the past, creates a new universe and is one of the theories that evades the obvious time travel paradox. However since paradoxes do not exist they do not need not to be avoided.
A multiple universe theory, allowing travelers to alter the past, without risk of endangering their own history time line, would be an open invitation for an invasion of 'experts from the future' who know it all better, without them having to bear the consequences of their own actions. There is no evidence in our own history that something similar ever happened.
2007-10-23 09:21:05 · answer #1 · answered by hairdryerdog 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
depending on wether or not you killed your grandfather before or after he 'did' your grandmother. if you killed your grandfather before your grandparents 'created' your father/mother you would instantaneously cease to exist at either the exact moment in time he died, or before that; because if you did that, it may just have destroyed the chances of your grandparents getting together or the time it takes could have [this is a little gross] swished all the sperm around thus creating a different person! which you would cease to exist a little before killing him. you you couldnt kill him. so thinking logically, you are talking about killing him before they 'did' anything, and not letting him know anything. think about it. if one were to see a man going to kill oneself, you would be scared, and your day/week/month/life could be effected drastically or not at all. theoretically, by the time he sees you coming to kill him, you may just disappear, but if you came at him from the back, or from a way that he could not see you then you could possibly kill him. but only if you killed him immediately. because no matter which way you do that, his life will be effected, wether or not he dies is irrelevant. now if your grandfather was a perv and would 'done' her anyway, then you would cease to exist at the exact moment he dies.
but i do see what you are saying. it may just cause the 3rd and 4th dementions to combine in pure chaos destroying all matterr instantaneously. but then again, so would going back in time. i do understand that you are saying that matter cannot disappear or appear out of nothing, only God has that ability. thinking on all grounds of logic, you can argue any way that you want. matter cannot disappear or reappear, and nothing can exist without a begining. therefore the only thing you can do is get yourself further into a paradox.
this is one of the aguements for a God/Creator. something has to come from something greater than itself [grandfather] and nothing can exist without a bigining [killing grandfather].
essentially, you cant come to a conclusion, only logical and illogical speculations, on something that is already a paradox.
think of this, in the end of the movie "Back to the Future", Marty, the main caracter, sees himself nearly getting shot by Libian terrorists. this is impossible, illogical, irrational, and creates a paradox that should destroy the entire universe [but sure makes for a hell of a movie], what just happened is that something that already exists is doubled out of nothing and there is 2 at the same time, which would destroy the entire universe.
time cannot change. it is in a demention all of its own [4th], and cannot be broken or branched or split. doing so, may just cause the end of all that is. if one were to go back in time it would cause a small loop like branch in something that is a straight line; which is impossible.
save yourself some brain cells and dont even begin to start thinking about this. you could go on for millenia and never come to a conclusion.
2007-10-23 10:35:40 · answer #2 · answered by conservatives welcome 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You would create an alternate universe like in Back to the Future II, one in which you did not exist.
2007-10-23 08:53:16 · answer #3 · answered by Cubs39 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A parallel universe where you would not be born. A separate timeline, like you say.
2007-10-23 12:16:29 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hmm. Very interesting. Star for you. I think it would be a very confusing cycle....it would be so much easier if someone else killed your grandfather.......
2007-10-23 09:14:29 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
An illogical time loop, something that is impossible. It violates the laws of logic and continuity. But just to be safe, please don't try it.
2007-10-23 08:52:28 · answer #6 · answered by Steve C 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm pretty sure this is why we haven't discovered how to time travel. :)
2007-10-23 09:20:29 · answer #7 · answered by Cat 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Wow...that's confusing.
I guess you would disappear, but then...no. I have no idea. I guess we will never know until someone tries it.
2007-10-23 08:54:16 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋