05-23-2003, 08:26 PM
> So you're now suggesting that not only is time travel possible, there is some sort of power that stops you
> from doing anything that would create a paradox.
No power is necessary. It won't happen because it didn't happen. Think of spacetime as a sheet that we only see slices of. The whole is a static tapestry.
> We're talking about time travel. So if anyone in the future EVER went back in time, he'd already have been in
> the past. So those changes would be made, but would then affect the future, thus changing the present the
> time traveller left from.
So? Nature solves the three-body problem just fine, too. The universe is the solution to a universal equation, the Theory of Everything. Well, probably. Physicists are still working on that detail. ;-)
I glossed over two points: quantum uncertainty (spacetime may be static but its exact state doesn't seem to be pinned), and the existence of different reference frame views that may also see different slices of the universe. (Thinking of the universe as a single, absolute sheet is incorrect. Thinking of it from a relative perspective that gives us our own particular view of the sheet is not.)
> from doing anything that would create a paradox.
No power is necessary. It won't happen because it didn't happen. Think of spacetime as a sheet that we only see slices of. The whole is a static tapestry.
> We're talking about time travel. So if anyone in the future EVER went back in time, he'd already have been in
> the past. So those changes would be made, but would then affect the future, thus changing the present the
> time traveller left from.
So? Nature solves the three-body problem just fine, too. The universe is the solution to a universal equation, the Theory of Everything. Well, probably. Physicists are still working on that detail. ;-)
I glossed over two points: quantum uncertainty (spacetime may be static but its exact state doesn't seem to be pinned), and the existence of different reference frame views that may also see different slices of the universe. (Thinking of the universe as a single, absolute sheet is incorrect. Thinking of it from a relative perspective that gives us our own particular view of the sheet is not.)
All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory... - Larry Wall