As a layperson, time travel seems impossible to me. Prove me wrong!

Discussion in 'Science' started by Patricio Da Silva, Dec 25, 2021.

  1. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I think it would be better if you cited something.

    There is a possibility that your descriptions here don't match all the possible models of how time travel might work or might not work.
     
  2. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    fine, they are real, as anything else that does exist in the abstract.

    But it still exists in the abstract, as opposed to the concrete universe.

    If I talk abut the past, the past no longer exists.

    It only exists in memory, or on record. Both which exist in the abstract.

    Jsut as the meaning to the words on this computer, exist in the abstract.

    There really is no way around that point.
     
  3. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    As Einstein pointed out, time is literally a part of the space-time in which we live.

    I still think your "exist in the abstract" doesn't provide any value.

    We DO have the concept of abstraction I've pointed to, which is definitely important to both science and engineering.
     
  4. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    We never actually talk about the "now" in a strict sense. "Now" has passed BEFORE we even "see" it, as our eyes require time to interpret the neural signals from the light that hits our retinas.

    When we move our hands to catch a ball, we're definitely calculating the future based on multiple calculations of the past.

    I see nothing positive coming from suggesting that only parts of that are real.

    I don't see a justification for your distinction. It seems totally meaningless.

    And, I see an important use for the term "abstract" that certainly has nothing to do with how you want to define it.
     
  5. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    Yes, the now changes at the moment of observation. Like a dog that can never catch it's tail, it's impossible to nail down an absolute moment, this goes to show that time is an illusion of memory. If we talk about something that happened a moment ago, we are pulling a file from our memory. That memory, the mind continuing to take pictures on and and on, gives us the illusion of time. But, in point of fact, there is no time, there is only now, and even that is a pretty slippery little devil.

    The entire purpose of raising the issue of the 'past and future existing in the abstract' was to demonstrate, via logic, that a machine cannot travel to the abstract.

    Given that we were having difficult reaching a meeting of mind on that point, is the very reason this conversation on this point has lasted so long.

    As for defining 'abstract', that's not what I'm defining, what I'm defining is 'existing in the abstract'.

    All it means is 'in one's mind'.

    That's it. The past and the future exist as memory and imagination. If it's in print, the principle of 'exist in the abstract' is not changed.

    You can't travel to the abstract, because the abstract does not exist in the concrete universe. of sight and sound and space and matter/energy, etc.

    Unless, of course, someone can convince me of otherwise, maybe something to do with quantum whatever, which takes us right back to the purpose of the OP.
     
  6. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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  7. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Physicists have clearly shown that our universe is space-time.

    Newton thought time was separate, and Einstein showed how wrong that idea is.

    You can't refute everything that Einstein demonstrated with silly word games.

    For some of this stuff, you have to accept what physicists know.

    You can't just start making stuff up.

    Why do you think you can just ignore all the experts in this field in the entire world?
     
  8. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    I'm not refuting Einstein at all.

    Saying that past and future exist in the abstract does not refute Einstein.

    Saying that the meaning behind the number one exists in the abstract, does not refute Einstein, nor more than Shakespeare's 'a rose by any other name is still a rose' refutes Einstein.

    Were do you get this idea?
     
  9. Polydectes

    Polydectes Well-Known Member

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    Believe it or not you probably already are a time traveler and most people are. When you're in your car and driving you're actually traveling to through Time. It's the tiniest amount but it is time travel.

    As you travel through space you travel through time. It's why the idea of traveling at like speed or faster than light speed it's a bad idea. But see you travel one light year away from the planet and one light year back to the planet the amount of time passed on the planet will be greater than 2 years Einstein created some equations to figure out exactly how much but my brain isn't on math right now.
     
  10. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    I though I explained that I wasn't referring to Einstein's 'time dilation'.

    I was talking only about time travel in the HG Wells "Time Machine", sense, via a machine the could reverse time or fast forward it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2022
  11. Polydectes

    Polydectes Well-Known Member

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    Oh I don't think you can reverse time. You can definitely slow it down, perhaps even stop it.

    The only way I think you could possibly move backward in time and through a theoretical wormhole.
     
  12. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    It doesn't seem logical to me, that it is possible.

    The reason is, time doesn't exist. It's memory and record that gives us the illusion of time.

    What it is, in my view, is math. Ie., the measurement, based on arbitrary standards, of the rate of change of the 'now'.

    A ruler ( or similar device) is to distance what time (clocks, etc) is to the rate of change of the current ( the 'now')..

    When anything moves, the 'now' changes, and it's recorded (or could be recorded) in memory, or on film, tape, digital recorder, atomic device, etc. The recordings give us the illusion of time, but, in point of fact, there is no time, unless we are just calling time these measurements. But, as to no, there is no time, or yes, there is time, we are playing with words. I don't think my saying 'there is no time' because of how I'm using the term, conflicts with Einstein's theory of relativity, whom i believe uses the term 'time' differently. Are not these measurements relative things?
     
  13. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I'm not interested in this discussion anymore.

    I would suggest that you stop trying to invent your own terminology and start looking to what physicists say about time.

    Even if you just get to the point where you use accepted and established terminology for the fields of study that you want to discuss, it would make progress more possible.
     
  14. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I haven't seen any indication that you were proposing a scifi story line.
     
  15. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    You claim not to attempt to refute Einstein.

    Then you attempt to refute Einstein.
    We make measurements in the x,y,z part of space-time, too.

    That doesn't make the x,y,z part an hallucinations.

    Wherever you are, time passes at the rate of one second per second. The relativity aspect has to do with how your clock compares to the clock of someone else - that's the kind of issue that calls for the word "relative".

    Once again, when you discuss the standard model of physics you need to use the definitions that everyone else in the world is using. You can't just choose some other definition and then blame your audience for not guessing what you're talking about.
     
  16. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    I don't reject it, at all. I just don't know about it. But, I'll look into it.

    However, I've been on this earth long enough to look at something right in front me, see it, and describe it and know that my description is correct, even if I'm using terminology in a different way.

    But, this is a science forum and you do have a valid point, on that score.

    However, physics doesn't have much to say about a 'time machine' in the HG Wells sense, as I understand it.

    Right?
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2022
  17. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    I didn't propose it, I only suggested that time travel, in the HG Wells sense, is impossible. As I understand it, physics only allows for time travel in the time dilation sense.

    Wiki says: General relativity. Time travel to the past is theoretically possible in certain general relativity spacetime geometries that permit traveling faster than the speed of light, such as cosmic strings, traversable wormholes, and Alcubierre drives.
     
  18. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    One thing to remember is that the old grandfather paradoxes don't inherently make time travel impossible, only the actions that would cause the paradox. You could still see your grandfather, maybe even talk to him but if you went to kill him you wouldn't be able to.
     
  19. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    It's one of those things that can appear to contradict, but, not really.

    see, if you look at it this way:

    The past used to exist, and the future will exist, but these, which do not actually exist, per the description of each, give us the illusion of time. Therefore, time, in reality, does not exist,

    However, if you look at it from the perspective of it being a math metric for the change rate of now (seconds, minutes, etc), in that sense, it does exist.

    Does that refute Einstein?

    I don't think my assertion, 'time exists in the abstract' interferes with any discussion of time, by anyone.

    You said that things I've asserted as 'existing in the abstract' as real.

    I'm not saying they do not exist. I'm not saying they are not real (in the identification sense)

    If I said that the concept of 'dog' exists in the abstract, that would not interfere with any real discussion of dogs.

    Nor would the fact that dogs exist disprove my statement.

    That is why I don't accept your premise that my statement about time refutes Einstein.
    Ah hah! Now I see the problem.

    You are conflating 'existing in the abstract' with 'delusion'.

    No, that which exists in the abstract is real, though it exists in the abstract.
    Because the abstract is, indeed, a functionable place. The mind does function.

    Let's not conflate the two.
    Did we not get the actual duration of 'one second' from the Babylonians, who divided time into 60 minutes, and each minute, 60 seconds?

    Could not the number have been something else?

    Our number system is base 10, could it not have been base 6?

    But, these are metrics, units of measurement.

    But it remains true that metrics exist in the abstract, they are values, labels we affix to objects.
    But, indicating that all metrics exist in the abstract, like my above reference to dogs, doesn't interfere with any discussion of any metric, inches, meters, minutes, nor does it refute their reality.

    The concept 'dog' is an idea. If you didn't have language, the creature will remain there.

    With language, labels of objects allow us to function.

    Language is realized in sound, but it exists in the abstract, which is to say, the meanings of words exist in the mind, i.e., the abstract. They are not abstract in the sense of abstract paintings, or things that are vague, I'm using it in the sense of a mental image. A concrete mental image.

    The meaning behind 'dog'---the meaning of the term, it exists in the mind, in the abstract.

    So, when I say time does not exist, I'm saying the concept of dog does not exist.

    I am not saying the dog does not exist. I'm making a distinction between the lable and the object the label is affixed to.

    Similarily, I'm not saying time does not exist, I'm saying the term 'time' exists in the abstract, which is to say, in the mind, and by that measure, it's not concrete in the sense of a touchable thing, it's a clear image of measurement held in the mind affixed, as a label, to objects, just like 'dog' is, and any label to any object. Metrics are mathematical labels, we use them to function.

    "Dog" is a label, a name. it exist in the mind, which is to say, the abstract.

    Now, on relativity time dilation, my assertion about this doesn't really interfere with it.

    Time is influenced by gravity or speed, which vary in their respective rate of change comparing one to the other.

    But, when I think about it, nothing is occurring beyond 'in the now'.

    Someone is traveling at approaching speed of light, and they are aging much slower than we are on earth.

    At any given moment, they are in the now no differently than we are in the now.

    The only thing that is different is that they are in a place where the rate of change is slower than the rate of change on earth.

    They are not actually in the future or past, they are in the now at different rates of change.

    If they flew away at half the speed of light for four years, we advance 50 years (or whatever it is), then, did they travel to the future?.

    It's an illusion. They went to a place where the change rate aged them much slower, and when they came back, their four years equalied our 50 years ( or whatever it is supposed to be).

    They did not actually reverse, or fast forward, time. At any given moment, in their space or ours, all moments coincide with now.

    Am I right?
     
  20. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    Weena was a fracking knockout
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2022
  21. Pixie

    Pixie Well-Known Member

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    IMO time does NOT exist in the abstract other than we are not there at the moment.
    The OP seems to assume that physical presence is necessary to be "time" and that only "now" exists in reality.
    Logically that means that no one else's reality exists/is real.
    That nothing exists unless you are there...the old "does a tree fall in the forest if you aren't there" thing.
    The past was as real as the people who lived it. They (and you) didn't have to experience it, but it happened. And what happened was the outcome of hundreds and thousands of probabilities, from long term plotting and planning to whether an influential person went to the toilet at a crucial time. And these probabilities are all knitted into cause and effect.
    The same applies to the future. The future exists but we don't yet know the outcome of all the causes and effects plus the probabilities that one of them will happen because that changes constantly.
    and each probability rests on the almost infinite number of possibilities which all interweave and interact with each other. Each one changes as another one changes.
    So the past is real and known and the future is real and unknown. Not abstract but firmly tied to the passage of time which merely defines the template upon which things occur.
     
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  22. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    Yeah, I'd go anywhere in time with her, come to think of it.
     
  23. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Physics has a LOT to say about time. These are well defined concepts that can be and are constantly tested. These concepts show up in our solutions to various problems engineers have successfully approached - such as GPS.

    Plus, physicists have a model of how this universe works that has undergone a hundred years of testing. When you make up something of your own, you are pretending that your personal observations are somehow more significant that the tens of thousands of physicists that have worked in this field.

    I don't believe you have something better than Einstein. And, I'm continually astonished at your disrespect for those who have studied physics as their life work. It hits me as part of the pernicious social problem of Americans hating experts.

    Plus, theoretical physicists don't have models that suggest time travel like HG Wells is a possibility.
     
  24. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    However none of those have any significant agreement among theoretical physicists. Note that the first requirement is ftls - something for which there is no solution.

    Note that even wiki presents several serious problems with the Alcubierre drive idea. You need to do more than read a list of "theoretical possibilities" like that.

    You should actually go look at each.

    When you start presenting possibilities that include "negative energy", "negative mas", faster than light speed travel, more energy than exists in the universe, etc., I'm just going to say you haven't found anything. Even Alcubierre has seriously bad things to say about his conjecture - which he points out is a conjecture.
     
  25. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Einstein's major contribution included showing that time is an inseparable part of the space-time in which we live.

    Then, you say time doesn't exist.

    You tell me.

    I think you're having a problem with terminology, and you aren't even interested in what professional physicists have learned over the last couple hundred years.
    First of all, above you stated, "Therefore, time, in reality, does not exist,"

    After that, you come up with words that are your own and have your own personal definitions. Sorry. You can't just pretend your personal definitions cover the topic.

    There already exists terminology. You need to use that terminology and the existing definitions, or what you say isn't going to be communication.
    You misunderstood the point. It's not a matter of how long a second is. The point is the RATE of time passage. For every place in the universe, regardless of what a spaceship is doing, time passes at 1 second per second - at the same rate as for every other spaceship in the universe. This is a central Einstein principle.
    No, you're trying to refute Einstein.

    For that person, time is passing at the rate of 1 second per second, just like for all other objects in the universe.

    Remember that there is no single reference point in the universe from which velocity can be measured. That individual traveling at relativistic speeds has just as much claim to being the reference point of the universe as any other individual in the universe. If you're standing on Earth, that gives you no more right to claiming to be the center than does someone on a planet somewhere else in the universe, or on a spaceship in between.

    So, you actually have to explain yourself when you say someone is traveling fast. You have to explain what your reference point is. And, that is a choice that everyone else in the entire universe has just as much right to select as you do. So, your further analysis has to work regardless of where the "center" is.

    This is where the term "relativity" came from.

    You need to develop some level of respect for physicists before you start controverting everything they have found over the last couple hundred years of intense study.

    I think that would help you in your "aliens" thing, too.
     

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