|
Post by Hec Scrivener on May 11, 2007 0:07:00 GMT -5
Suppose a man, let us call him H.G., invented a time machine. Let us consider the powers at his disposal. If anything at all is technologically possible, he has it; it isn't even required that anything like, say, the elixir of life actually be invented, only that it be possible, because if he'll just have received the recipe from himself, to give to himself. He can avoid any mistake or risk of injury or death by forewarning himself. He has all the time in the universe to think up clever solutions to problems, but he doesn't actually need to do it, because he just receives all the answers from himself.
I submit furthermore that it is quite likely that he is the only time traveler in the history of the universe. For if HG is malevolent, then surely he would seek to prevent all potential competitors from gaining such immense power - and, armed with the foreknowledge of all other attempts to construct a time machine, brought to him by his future self, he certainly has the power to effect this. And if he was benevolent, then just as surely he would seek to prevent all potential malefactors from gaining such immense power - and, for the same reason, he can do so. And if he is somewhere in the middle, then he has something of both reasons to keep this monopoly. The technology spreading is contingent on his being neither especially benevolent or malevolent but simply foolish: foolish enough to let his guard down, when he has all the time in the world to get it right, or more foolish still to share.
Now, we don't have a supreme immortal and all-powerful overlord, so HG, if he exists, is not malevolent. Nor is he foolish, for we don't have a war between several supreme all-powerful overlords. But is he benevolent or neutral? Some might say he cannot be benevolent, for if we don't have a supreme all-powerful overlord, neither do we have a supreme omnibenevolent being. But as it is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide that, despite a total lack of evidence, we do have such, I don't think we can rule HG's benevolence out. At any rate, he doesn't wish us harm, and he's bouncing around the timeline preventing anyone who does wish us harm from gaining the power to do so, so that's not so bad.
It would be an odd life, to be sure. He certainly wouldn't be omniscient; on the contrary, he might be the most befuddled man in the universe. "Go to April 4, 66,768,129 BC," the note says, in his own handwriting, no less, "and squash the rodentlike creature you find coming out of a hole at about nine in the morning at the place that will eventually become Four Corners. Mind the T. rex coming over the hill to your south about three minutes before the squashing; she won't see you if you hide behind the shortest, thickest tree." And he would go, and he would do this, and he would write the note and send it to himself, and unbeknownst to him at any time during this endeavor he killed the creature who would otherwise eat the egg of the bird who would make off with a certain offspring of another rodentlike creature that will just happen to be the ancestor of all primates and, therefore, humans. Or perhaps the note might explain all this; it would work the same either way. But can he really capture all the strands of causality in his still-mortal mind? No. He would display the practical benefits of omniscience without actual omniscience.
Now let us consider that favorite doozy of metaphysics, the problem of ultimate causes. For HG, at least in theory, this isn't a problem at all; we are already dealing with oodles of causality loops caused by time travel. While practically speaking sparking the Big Bang might be a little bit tricky, a nice, thick, and accurate instruction book entitled How to Create a Universe could well appear in his lap at any time; and remember, he has trillions of years and all the technology that could ever exist to work on the problem. And the universe being one big causality loop would answer a whole lot of questions.
But it would raise some more. There's the one I'm sure you're all expecting by now:
Is HG God?
Or is God the one who's really writing the notes?
Is there a difference?
|
|
|
Post by Lachryma on May 11, 2007 0:14:58 GMT -5
I invoke that grandfather clause thingy of time travel to prevent your theory from getting off the ground, thus saving me from actually having to think.
Interesting idea though.
|
|
|
Post by blue tigers on May 11, 2007 0:37:25 GMT -5
Having a time machine does not mean one has the age of the universe. One just gets to spend his short life sampling the vastness of the space-time with a rather limited number of attempts. These samples are most likely irellevant. Even by some miracle he gets his spatial navigation right, his experiences will probably be mundane.
'Hmmm, I should be 50 years in the future. I see I no longer live at the old address. Some five hundred families crowd now the place. Well, how do I even start tracking my fate?'
|
|
|
Post by Hec Scrivener on May 11, 2007 8:28:28 GMT -5
"Short life?" He's got the elixir of life, you know.
|
|
|
Post by Padre Romero on May 11, 2007 9:21:18 GMT -5
Well, I was wondering when you'd bring this up...(We've talked about this before)... There are a few reasons why I'm some folks might object to HG being god. The most obvious being one of the lesser-known criticisms of time travel:
HG is immortal, which means he'll be flickering through time for a good long time, removing all competition, bettering humanity, whatever he does. I'm not sure how he can avoid ALL mistakes. Eventually, he is bound by the laws of chance to make a desicision which will cause time travel is to not be possible. Then, all his changes will be "Locked in". In this case, his mortal imperfections may cause him to, say, destroy his time machine in a fit of rage or in an accidental repair...of course, since he built the thing in the first place, he may be able to build another one given an infinite amount of time.
HG is omnipotent, omniscient (kinda), and Omnipresent (sorta), but he's missing some other classic tenents of divinity...he's not "Simple" (what's the metaphysical term for that). I'm not sure why everyone thinks that is a big deal, but I'm sure someone would raise a beef. His lack of true omniscience and perfection also make him a poor anchor for morality (The primary reason I think most people need God) "Because the time traveller says so" or "Because that is what the time traveller wants" doesn't have as much weight...of course, I would say the same thing applies to god.
I have no doubt in my mind that we'll someday have a means of producing universes of our own. Technology may even throw us beyond the realm of God himself...we may become our own gods. Weather it may be possible to go back in time and trigger our own creation is a subject of some thinking (especially since the "time" in the wells story appears absolute, so you could concieveably go back "before" the big bang). In fact, Hec, if you wanted to make a story out of this, the time travellers final orders being a suicide mission to create the universe might be a killer ending.
I've long had a theory that god works in causality loops. A classic question you've raised before is that we don't have a mechanism to "show" the hand of god working in the real world. In teza's world at least (And now NO ONE knows what we're talking about), it's suspected that if one travels back in time and gives motzart the sheet music to "alla turka", the true "author" of the piece is god himself, or in this case, the Time Traveller.
|
|
|
Post by danr on May 11, 2007 11:04:23 GMT -5
Suppose a man, let us call him H.G., invented a time machine. Let us consider the powers at his disposal. If anything at all is technologically possible, he has it; it isn't even required that anything like, say, the elixir of life actually be invented, only that it be possible, because if he'll just have received the recipe from himself, to give to himself. There's no way to create an "elixir of life" that will make you inmortal in every sense of the word. The closest would be something that could allow your cells to regenerate without a loss of DNA therefore making you inmortal (i.e: un-killable by growing old). Even so, there's no way to prevent your death in a explosion, by a bullet to your brain, burnt alive instantly or whatever. Let's say you want to go one week ahead in the future to see if you've died: You find out that you are indeed going to die in a train accident, so therefore when you go back to your time you "feel like" travelling by car. Then there's a car accident and you die. Well, once you've died in an unexpected manner, it's too bad, you can't go back to the past and warn yourself about it. You couldn't know the outcomes of the infinity of elections you'd be able to choose from. Then again, if you go to the past and change some stuff, you might automatically disappear because you saved the life to this idiot who later killed one of your ancestors. It's IMPOSSIBLE to know all of the outcomes to your actions. A superior being should actually know all that stuff and not be limited to a mortal body that could disappear. So no, your time traveller is not god.
|
|
|
Post by Padre Romero on May 11, 2007 13:57:41 GMT -5
It's VERY dangerous to place absolute constraints on the limits of human accomplishment...it could be that the time traveller uploads himself into a time-traveller-robot made of indestructable material (think it's impossible...I'm not so sure). The time traveller might also have an army of time traveller copies through any number of fun replicating technologies. We're assuming this guy is awful smart, in fact, he has all knowledge that is possibly available to humans in the enitre history of history* .Keep in mind that he can see what is GOING to happen to himself as well, and possibly in every instance. he can also totally cheat entropy (I'm fairly sure) because he can always go back in time to a point where the overall entropy is lower and pick up some more energy. Someone want to confirm that for me?
Invoking the grandfather paradox (which a few people have done already) is dangerous because it is a paradox...it (presumably) wouldn't create an infinite chain of regressions like it appears to. It either A) Proves time travel is impossible or B) proves you can't go back in time and kill your grandfather. It is strongly suspected in some circles that you can't send a billiard ball down a wormhole with the speed and trajectory necessary to run into itself seconds before it enters said wormhole. It might be that the laws of physics stop the time traveller from persuing any course of action that will wholly whipe him and his historic journey off the pages of history.
*As an aside, this means our traveller is technically omniscient, and possesses a form of omniscience known as "Inherant Omniscience". He can know anything he chooses to know and is able to know. Those familiar with my escapades in Nexus War or some of my writings (read: Hec and possibly IRD) may be interested to know that the watchers are also inherantly omniscient. (Well, Inherantly Propositionally Omniscient, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of poo)
|
|
|
Post by danr on May 11, 2007 14:28:05 GMT -5
I doubt you can create something completely indestructible. Especially since we probably don't even know all the ways to destroy something yet xD.
Having a bunch of cloned copies of himself makes a bunch of people that look like him, but each one of them would have a mind of their own. They might even start killing each other due to their own different ideas of what to do with the world and the history, since I think the way the brain works is something we'll never undertand fully and therefore we won't be able to programme a completely set personality for each one of our clones. So if he's incredibly smart due to all these reasons you've mentioned, I think he'd be clever enough to not create people with the same power as himself (although I doubt this particular time travelling ability would be passed to his clones, but hey, he shouldn't have it to start with, so we are jus assuming he can pass it), and therefore would still be limited to his own "mortal body"
If what he did was to create some kind of time travelling robots, he might have a bigger problem. Robots can be programmed and all that, and if I were him I'd put in them some kind of self-destruction system I could activate if things went wrong, but if the robots had their own advanced AI they could still go on a revolt. Computers "think" faster than humans, after all.
Anyways, all of this stuff is more related to physics than it is to biology/chemistry, and the latter ones are the parts I kinda know xD. I have no idea about the entropy part you mentioned, though
|
|
|
Post by Padre Romero on May 11, 2007 14:36:36 GMT -5
I doubt you can create something completely indestructible. Especially since we probably don't even know all the ways to destroy something yet xD. Having a bunch of cloned copies of himself makes a bunch of people that look like him, but each one of them would have a mind of their own. They might even start killing each other due to their own different ideas of what to do with the world and the history, since I think the way the brain works is something we'll never undertand fully and therefore we won't be able to programme a completely set personality for each one of our clones. So if he's incredibly smart due to all these reasons you've mentioned, I think he'd be clever enough to not create people with the same power as himself (although I doubt this particular time travelling ability would be passed to his clones, but hey, he shouldn't have it to start with, so we are jus assuming he can pass it), and therefore would still be limited to his own "mortal body" If what he did was to create some kind of time travelling robots, he might have a bigger problem. Robots can be programmed and all that, and if I were him I'd put in them some kind of self-destruction system I could activate if things went wrong, but if the robots had their own advanced AI they could still go on a revolt. Computers "think" faster than humans, after all. Anyways, all of this stuff is more related to physics than it is to biology/chemistry, and the latter ones are the parts I kinda know xD. I have no idea about the entropy part you mentioned, though No no...not like, clones...They're EXACT copies of the time traveller, down to the atomic level. This is hard to do, naturally, but If the time traveller invented a way to travel through time, I'm pretty certian he'll someday come up with a quantum-duplicator. Only one is "online" at any time, stored in tiny space-squeezing containers in his time machine until the machine detects that he's dead. Then it opens one, and the traveller is born anew. the philosophy of duplicating oneself is an interesting question, but irrelevant here, the fact of the matter is that to an outside observer, they'd be identical to the time traveller.
|
|
|
Post by danr on May 11, 2007 14:48:20 GMT -5
No no...not like, clones...They're EXACT copies of the time traveller, down to the atomic level. This is hard to do, naturally, but If the time traveller invented a way to travel through time, I'm pretty certian he'll someday come up with a quantum-duplicator. Only one is "online" at any time, stored in tiny space-squeezing containers in his time machine until the machine detects that he's dead. Then it opens one, and the traveller is born anew. Even then, the copies wouldn't remember (as in having the memory of his death) that he had died somewhere nor the stuff prior to his death. There would be changes in the ideas/"to-do list" of the time traveller each time he died. He'd be "inmortal", but he wouldn't be "himself", if you understand what I mean.
|
|
|
Post by Padre Romero on May 11, 2007 14:53:25 GMT -5
Well, weather his personal identity keeps togather is indeed disputable, but keep in mind, he's got all the technology in the world, I'm certain he's got a video camera that records his voyage, and a post-it note on the interior of the machine that says "Hey, you're the new me, watch the damn videos". The ideas inside his replicas would change, but this is true of the time traveller normally, new experiences shift his perceptions, and he presumably forgets old experiences. you aren't the same You you were five years ago, but (I presume) if we warped you in from five years ago, we'd still call you you...
Basically, It doesn't compromise the time travellers ability to be "The Time Traveller"
|
|
|
Post by danr on May 11, 2007 14:57:49 GMT -5
Hey, but if he's a god he should have a defined mindset, a plan and all that xD.
But yeah, your point sounds about right
|
|
|
Post by Hec Scrivener on May 11, 2007 21:31:10 GMT -5
It's not even necesssary that he be indestructible. Anything that could possibly kill him he can always warn himself about. No crazy quantum cloning required - he's just this guy who always knows exactly where the bullet will go.
The problem with the grandfather paradox is that it rests on some assumptions that are sound in everyday human affairs, but invalid when discussing time travel. What's the timeline like "before" he travels through time? What's the timeline like "after" he travels through time? See the issue here?
Of course, if the paradox is somehow holds despite this, it could also explain why a benevolent HG isn't making his presence more known: nonintereference is the safest policy. But it's always safe to do what he tells himself to do, because he's "already" done it, and it didn't turn out so bad.
|
|
|
Post by Lachryma on May 11, 2007 21:55:01 GMT -5
Aaaagh, I can't take it anymore! Padre, it's "whether" not "weather". Also, I'm pretty sure "traveller" only has one 'l'.
Anyway, I say this HG person is not God. That position rests with the entity that gave him the ability to make said time machine. And no, I don't think he can give himself the ability to travel through time by having the ability to travel through time. That's circular logic, no?
|
|
|
Post by blue tigers on May 11, 2007 22:01:26 GMT -5
"Short life?" He's got the elixir of life, you know. Quick to dismiss, quick to dismiss. The crux of the problem is that he has limited abilities to store and process information. Assuming he is human, he only has the human brain and human senses. Which are taylored for a short live span, not for sifting through billions of years of data. Padre touches the topic, but does not realize its significance: "I'm certain he's got a video camera that records his voyage, and a post-it note on the interior of the machine that says "Hey, you're the new me, watch the damn videos"." Well, watching the videos might take a damn looong time. By the time the poor sap is done with all of them, he already forgot most of what he saw. But even an all-powerfull AI has this crucial limitation. It can't store arbitrarily large quantities of data, and, more limiting, can't process them fast enough. Please realize that processing information must happen in some real time, because flipping bits fundamentally depends on the arrow of time. Thus the amount of operational knowledge our timetraveler has is just a little patch in the vastity of the universe. Yeah, he'll know more than any given human, but he'll know little at the universe scale.
|
|