If you could travel through time, what would you do? Is it possible?

One thing you are forgetting is that when you "go back in time" you're not really going "through normal space".

It won't necessarily look like you are going faster than light to any observer.
(Although the statement needs a good deal of qualification)

To go back in time, you need forces exerted on you from either the past or future, not the present moment. Think about the analogy of leverage.

You are basically right, but it might be more accurate to say you need to travel with a force greater than light, rather than a speed greater than light.

 

My whole point was sort of that you can't travel faster than light in our universe. You basically have to exit it to do so. Which means either using a wormhole of some description or else using some derivation of an Alcubierre warp drive, either of which means you aren't interacting with normal space/time when traveling from point A to point B.

 

Imagination being as "real" as memory, what one wishes to visit in the past can be consoled by the fact that somewhere, sometime, things were probably very similar to that image.

 

Marxism has never been implemented becuase the world wasn't ready. Marx was an aristocrat, Debbs was an industrialist. Marxism was futurism, not actionable policy. What you're thinking of is Vanguardism.

Marxism requires an advanced, wealthy, educated capitalist society to work. The 'revolution' isn't an active movement (unless the powers that be are actively resisting change) but the natural evolution of economics. Marxist socialism is a result of capitalism becoming obsolete and scarcity becoming a minimal if not nonexistent concern on the large scale. Marxism will happen when human labor is irrelevant and the cost of production falls so low as to make goods and services so cheap as to be effectively free (provided you can get away from the profit motive).

We've only just now (and barley) reached a point where Marxism could be implemented. Prior Vanguard movements may have been ideologically inspired by Marxism (thus all the '-Marxist' terminology) but required far more active measures than envisioned by Marx and Debbs. Had you asked Marx, the revolution would have come during the 21st century in North America or Western Europe, not the literally medieval Russia and China just a few decades later.

 

You finally got something right that is related to science. It is a start. Now back to those vehicles from outer space.

 

You can access the timeline since it's just part of space but actually entering it is doubtful. You cannot change something that already happened, you just can't because, well it already happened. If it were possible though I would go as far into the future as I could, there is nothing in the past that would hold my interests for more than five minutes.

 

Let me start by saying that I realize that this isn't meant to be a science-thread but, rather, a fantasy one; or, one could say, a different way of talking about which periods in history (or post-history, relative to today, for those who would choose a future time) interest each of us most. But, since you brought a, "scientific," article into it-- and,
WARNING TO ALL, THIS IS pretty DRY COMMENTARY--
the article you cite really doesn't support your summation. For one thing, it was only a computer simulation, w/ bits of info, seeing if small changes would, after the simulated passing of time, make the original info no longer recoverable.

Beyond that-- if the way that Stephen Hawking explains it in his brief, & awful, series How to think like a Genius (or something like that) is the prevailing view-- most physicists who opine about time travel contend that one could, hypothetically, only jump forward, not backward. But that kind of ruins the whole fantasy.

 

Interesting argument. Though I am no proponent of the possibility of Time travel, myself, have you considered the obvious counter-argument: that you would merely have to use WORMHOLES of the correct length and/or positioning so as to bring so back to your starting place (since the conversation is already so hypothetically speculative, anyway)?

 

This sounds a little like the idea, presented in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (by far, my favorite of his works), that we are a product of our environments & our beliefs. Was there more to it than that?

 

I feel I was born a little too late, myself (or maybe a bit too early?) and see the 60's as a time that, had I been 10 or 20 years older (I was actually born in '65) I would have thrived in; and I wouldn't have minded being a bit more mature in the 70's, either!

Our own proximity to those decades, no doubt, affects my impression of their appeal. In another way, distant points of time, due to our lack of familiarity with them, can have their appeals augmented. There are aspects of the 1920's, 30's, & 40's that also hold an attraction for me, but the Great Depression & 2nd World War, I definitely count as big drawbacks.

If you would be interested in knowing any of the theories surrounding time travel & alteration, Stephen Hawking-- who I am NOT a fan of-- embraces the idea of multiple universes equating w/ multiple timelines. That is, every time you make a decision, he postulated in his (terrible) series, How to think like a GENIUS, you begin a whole new timeline, leaving another, "you," back, continuing the timeline in which you didn't make that most recent choice... Yeah, sounds like B.S. to me, too.

But, to another of your understandings, I think physicists have begun proposing (Einstein's beliefs notwithstanding; numerous have proven to be false, after all-- some even during his lifetime) that even solar sail technology, which is the least remote, could potentially push a craft a little bit beyond light-speed (provided it held together).

 

LOL! You did manage to post some really creative nonsense there!!!

 

There is a wonderful thought experiment considered by Igor Novikov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_loop

that considers a time machine mounted on a billiards table. If a ball is hit and falls into a pocket, it enters a time machine and reemerges on the table to hit itself and deflect it's path, causing it to miss the pocket, before it enters the pocket. So it would create a paradox. By falling into the pocket the ball prevents itself from ever falling into the pocket.

But as it turns out, you can't deflect the ball enough to make it miss the pocket. There seems to be a built-in safety to prevent a paradox. This suggests that while you might go back and change minor events, you could not do anything that would violate your timeline.

 

If one reads your post quickly enough, it can produce a not altogether unpleasant head-rush.

But in considering what I inferred to be your point-- that your understanding of our present time would inform your trip's appraisal of how things turned into that future-- I only wish to point out that it is possible both that: 1) our collective journey from here to there might be dependent, or highly-sensitive to, events occurring in-between (so not assured), and; 2) that many crucial factors in that transition may have their origins in our current past, but are based on things that have not presently been recognized or come to fruition, so are not yet reflected; therefore, will be, in essence, sharp turns that would seem out of character with the way a contemporary driver would yet be able to perceive our roadway. If my analogy is not working, let me try another. Have you ever heard of that reality tv show about women who give birth unexpectedly, because they had no idea that they had ever been pregnant?

 

Benjamin Franklin invented time travel in 1784, and it was first achieved in Canada in 1908. Time travel has been a common occurance in the US since at least 1966. Most of us time travel a couple times per year now.

 

I acknowledge the Zen of your spirit.

However, I am as yet unsure of whether you were partaking in the flow of the Tao, when you picked your point of entry into this thread.

 

Perhaps...?
The past never exist in physical reality, only as a memory. Were we there? Sure but now we are here and it's impossible to be there. Quite the conundrum!

 

If you choose to believe that the past, as you/we knew it, never existed for us (or for you, if I am merely a figment of your imagination), then the only consistent view would be to see the present, as well, as only a later part of that same, "memory," a progression of the Echo.

 

I'll need some shrooms and a day of solitude in the woods to figure this out. LOL

 

Or you did not understand it, and I did not fully explain it enough because it was too complicated.

 

Or we can buy into an extended theory of relativity, where nothing really exists definitively, and it all depends on the perspective of the observer at any particular moment in time.

Yes, I know that's completely non-intuitive, but being non-intuitive doesn't automatically mean that's not the reality.

 

You can travel faster than light if the space is moving with you. You just can't travel through a section of space faster than the speed of light.

This isn't completely fictional, cosmologists (scientists who study the universe) already agree that very distant things are moving away from us faster than the speed of light, as the space in the universe expands. That's what causes the visible universe to be limited in size.

 

Ironically, the most meaningful comments in this thread will most likely seem like unintelligible gibberish to most of the people reading here.

 

Did you ever read, "The Robe?" When I was a teen, & a Christian, I remember finding it had a sense of immediacy, written w/ an evocative believability.

It won't give you that, but Allen Drury's books about Egypt are an impressive accomplishment: A God Against the Gods, & Return to Thebes. I didn't find them as compelling as The Robe, but they were a much different type of novel, about a much different place, if the depiction is at all accurate. Again, I was still a teen when I read them.

They are focused on the Institutional power & influence of the Priesthoods of the various, hierarchical gods of the Egyptians, coming up against the will of the Pharoh Akenaten's goal of replacing them with only one God, Aten, the Sun-God (a specific aspect of Ra, aka Aten-Ra). He tells the story through shifting, written entries, from the perspectives of each of the many characters. His perception of the interplay of all these different viewpoints, & putting himself into those ancient mindsets, as I said, is impressive in itself.

Though I believe they were best-sellers at the time, I honestly found them pretty slow-going, especially the first one. But perhaps that era & place will strike more of a chord with you than with me at that time.

Two other historical works that use a similar multi-perspective device, that I would recommend, are Aldous Huxley's The Devils of Loudun, & Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible.

Though Huxley's is actually non-fiction, it is by far the best writing I've seen of his. And talk about impressive: he went back & read the diaries & official documents, etc., of all those concerned in the story of one of the last cases in Medieval Europe of a person being burned as a witch--a priest!-- even though those papers were written in Latin & OLD FRENCH, which I'm sure current French-speakers wouldn't have much luck with. And Huxley really brings that story to life. The only thing I didn't care for was his occasionally sticking in a quotation in Latin, w/o a translation. None were at all needed to follow the story, but they struck me as a bit elitist, as they were only for those who read that language ("what did I just say?" Oh, you don't read Latin? Nevermind, it wasn't important). Anyway, the intrigues within the story-- all true and extremely-well researched-- more than make up for that nitpick: they're both fascinating, & compelling. A great book!

Kingsolver's happens a lot more recently, yet is about something, of which, most of we Americans have less awareness than of those medieval practices. It is a fictional story of an American family, who are sent to Africa as missionaries, placed within the context of the actual events of Belgium's hasty exit from the Congo, & that newly- liberated nation's initial democratic experience in electing a leader, who the United States, through its CIA, helped to have removed.

The story is told through revolving turns between the 3 daughters of the American family, dragged to Africa by their father, against their wishes. The author very convincingly creates three distinct & very different personalities among the 3 young ladies, each at her exclusive place in the arc that swings a young girl into womanhood.

The personalities are so individualized, in fact, that I found myself frequently counting the pages to go, to reach the next of the eldest girl's segments, because I found her so amusing. Through the first half of the novel, which details the period of the family's adjusting to their new reality & then, tangibly evokes the percolating social dynamics, intensifying with the growing political tensions, Ms. Kingsolver's narrative device very effectively conveys the lead-up to this historical eruption.

It occurred to me, as I was writing about this novel, that it might not be something you'd care to read, based only on the vague impression I'd developed of you as a cultural, "conservative," from seeing some of your posts. Then again, if you have a Native American heritage, maybe you wouldn't be averse to reading about America in an un-mythologized way, especially in regard to its interfering in the affairs of a foreign people.

For any reading this: I found out from the book that there were actually quite extensive Congressional hearings on this, back at the time, which are all part of the public record. So if you are eager to see the records of that testimony in this thread, you only need post the all too common claims that things not fitting with a desired perspective are all fabrications & lies.

But back to my train of thought with respect to you, Injeun: my sketchy impression had also caused me to be surprised at how very poetic had been your post, from which I'd quoted those more mundane lines, for the purpose of book recommendations. And this is not the first time I've discovered, here at the Forum, that assumptions about other posters can sometimes be embarassingly, even shockingly, mistaken. So, thank you for your post. I hope you will find something worthwhile among my recommendations.

 

Bring Terrance McKenna's book about Hallucinogenic (Psilocybin) Mushrooms being the original Tree of Knowledge, and stay out there for a week.

 

I'm familiar with his work, though not sure if I read that one. My mushroom eating days are likely over. In my early 20's I ate hundreds of large doses. Overall, I think it was beneficial though some experiences were very uncomfortable. His "stoned ape theory" is intriguing.

I just love hunting for others once in a great blue moon now. Aint they beauties? (not my pic but a nice typical pic of P. Cubensis) Was riding in a friends truck in the county today, I was looking out the window as we drove by pastures, I have a real eye for them, I can spot them at quite a distance Wow, just saw this and could not resist, lol.