Post by Vecusum on May 13, 2007 2:13:08 GMT -5
I haven't read the whole thing through and probably won't bother for at least a day.
Anyway, it seems to me like you guys are talking about one person who can travel when ever he wants in time. That would be very different from the Phil Conners Situation in Groundhog Day for a few reasons, the biggest being that factor of free will.
The traveller in the sense of a free range traveller who can go through time, i.e. what we normally understand a time traveller to be, is very limited by a few things but also limitless in others.
For example he can't kill himself, odds are that he probably couldn't even see himself or exist in the same time as himself. This may seem weird because people assume it would be like Harry Potter time travelling(read Prisoner of Azkaban) where you forced yourself along a path, they chose to forgo the paradox this creates and ignore all the blatant impossibilities for the sake of the story. We, however, know that matter can not exist in the in different places at the same time, just as we know that if one were to try and alter their state in time through time travel they would become nothing. But, in becoming nothing they are giving answer to the paradox and making the impossible possible. They no longer exist in that timeline, they removed themself, and that would be why they can't exist in the same time as themself.
If I were to go back in time to a point in my life the only me that would exist at that time would be the me from the future or the me from the past, to make it real time travel the me from the future would have to be the one in the past and so the me from the past would cease to exist. I would probably start when the me from the past stops and because of that I wouldn't be moving my future form through space, as is so widely assumed, but my future conciousness would be moving into my past form. The time I would have come from would effectively cease to exist and only the time I am now in would be there at all, I wouldn't be able to create such a paradox as killing myself in the past cause the only me to kill is the one that would be doing the killing(aka the way Phil time travels in Groundhog Day.) This would warrant that the only time I could travel to were times in my life.
Now, if you consider I can travel whenever you get the issue of me stopping events that would lead to me. Again not a problem, for the same reason actually, there is already a me existing in the past, my existence in the past will more than likely alter things enough to make my existence in the future never happen, but that doesn't matter because I removed myself from that timeline anyway, my future is what was other peoples past and as such I will continue to live on unaffected by any changes to my timeline because for things that exist in the present the past does not determine if they do exist or not. Think infinite possible overlapping existances one for each universal possibility where everyone and everything is at every point in time and all possibilities exist. In that case I wouldn't so much be travelling through time as choosing which existance my current consciousness is in which comes down to the lack of free will because everything you do do you don't do.
Anyway, in what seems to be the Time Traveller(from what I understand) it is very different from Phil Conners in groundhog day. Phil is actually closer to a god because he can kill himself and still come back with knowledge from what is an ended existence, he is immortal even though what is time to him is a constant repeating loop the fact that he can't actually end that loop makes him very god like. Sounds strange because I am basically saying his power being limited makes him a god but it is so, God(biblical) is very limited in the sense that he can do anything but he is so powerful and all encompasing that he can not end himself, he doesn't have enough power to terminate his power, it would be like saying someone who can chew through anything can chew through their mouth, he could chew through what his mouth is made of but if he tried to eat parts of his mouth he would end his ability to eat part of the way through and thus be unable to eat his mouth. God doesn't have enough power to destroy his power because after so much of his power is destroyed there isn't enough to destroy power. Phil can't kill himself so he is a god, the Time Traveller very probably could kill himself and therefore isn't a god and for the same reason as to why you can not kill yourself through time travel that I stated earlier in this post you can not send a message to a past self, the message arives at the future self cause the past ceases to exist OR sending the message back makes the self that would need the message not get it because they aren't at the place where they would/should have received the message.
P.S. We know there are other dimensions, we just can't preceive them, we have found things that definitely tell us there are other dimensions though.
Anyway, it seems to me like you guys are talking about one person who can travel when ever he wants in time. That would be very different from the Phil Conners Situation in Groundhog Day for a few reasons, the biggest being that factor of free will.
The traveller in the sense of a free range traveller who can go through time, i.e. what we normally understand a time traveller to be, is very limited by a few things but also limitless in others.
For example he can't kill himself, odds are that he probably couldn't even see himself or exist in the same time as himself. This may seem weird because people assume it would be like Harry Potter time travelling(read Prisoner of Azkaban) where you forced yourself along a path, they chose to forgo the paradox this creates and ignore all the blatant impossibilities for the sake of the story. We, however, know that matter can not exist in the in different places at the same time, just as we know that if one were to try and alter their state in time through time travel they would become nothing. But, in becoming nothing they are giving answer to the paradox and making the impossible possible. They no longer exist in that timeline, they removed themself, and that would be why they can't exist in the same time as themself.
If I were to go back in time to a point in my life the only me that would exist at that time would be the me from the future or the me from the past, to make it real time travel the me from the future would have to be the one in the past and so the me from the past would cease to exist. I would probably start when the me from the past stops and because of that I wouldn't be moving my future form through space, as is so widely assumed, but my future conciousness would be moving into my past form. The time I would have come from would effectively cease to exist and only the time I am now in would be there at all, I wouldn't be able to create such a paradox as killing myself in the past cause the only me to kill is the one that would be doing the killing(aka the way Phil time travels in Groundhog Day.) This would warrant that the only time I could travel to were times in my life.
Now, if you consider I can travel whenever you get the issue of me stopping events that would lead to me. Again not a problem, for the same reason actually, there is already a me existing in the past, my existence in the past will more than likely alter things enough to make my existence in the future never happen, but that doesn't matter because I removed myself from that timeline anyway, my future is what was other peoples past and as such I will continue to live on unaffected by any changes to my timeline because for things that exist in the present the past does not determine if they do exist or not. Think infinite possible overlapping existances one for each universal possibility where everyone and everything is at every point in time and all possibilities exist. In that case I wouldn't so much be travelling through time as choosing which existance my current consciousness is in which comes down to the lack of free will because everything you do do you don't do.
Anyway, in what seems to be the Time Traveller(from what I understand) it is very different from Phil Conners in groundhog day. Phil is actually closer to a god because he can kill himself and still come back with knowledge from what is an ended existence, he is immortal even though what is time to him is a constant repeating loop the fact that he can't actually end that loop makes him very god like. Sounds strange because I am basically saying his power being limited makes him a god but it is so, God(biblical) is very limited in the sense that he can do anything but he is so powerful and all encompasing that he can not end himself, he doesn't have enough power to terminate his power, it would be like saying someone who can chew through anything can chew through their mouth, he could chew through what his mouth is made of but if he tried to eat parts of his mouth he would end his ability to eat part of the way through and thus be unable to eat his mouth. God doesn't have enough power to destroy his power because after so much of his power is destroyed there isn't enough to destroy power. Phil can't kill himself so he is a god, the Time Traveller very probably could kill himself and therefore isn't a god and for the same reason as to why you can not kill yourself through time travel that I stated earlier in this post you can not send a message to a past self, the message arives at the future self cause the past ceases to exist OR sending the message back makes the self that would need the message not get it because they aren't at the place where they would/should have received the message.
P.S. We know there are other dimensions, we just can't preceive them, we have found things that definitely tell us there are other dimensions though.