Edit: Oops, some of the ideas in my post are already expressed. Somehow I missed some of the posts while reading this thread. :unsure: Feel free to skip it, but I hope you read it anyway. It expands a little on some ideas.
Think about larger paradoxes. What if you went back in time and killed Hitler or George Washington or Jesus Christ for that matter. These events would cause huge problems with time. If it was possible to do these things then it would send a huge ripple throughout the time stream affecting almost everything. I don't think such a thing would be possible.
My take on it has been that you can't change the past. This doesn't mean that time travel is impossible. I think that if you went back in time to a certain time/event, you would have been there when the event/time first happened. Any change you make would have had to be made the first time that history happened. Therefore any attempt to go back in time and kill your grandfather is doomed to failure because you know he wasn't killed. The theory breaks down a little because I can't explain how or why you failed, but for whatever reason you do fail. The same applies to trying to kill Hitler. We know the he lived, so that means that nobody went back and killed him. Maybe someone will go back and try to kill him, but they will not succeed.
This means that maybe someone went/goes back in time and kills JFK. Of course, this means that the future is kind of already planned. We know that JFK was killed, so if he was killed by a time traveller that traveller will definitely at some point go back and do this.
Most past changes would probably happen by accident, because why would you go back in time and try to change something, if you know it already happened differently?
This does mean that you can go to the future and make changes as well, because when the future happens it happens with you there.
This theory does have holes, but I think it is more believable then a theory that says you erase the time stream that already happened and make a new one.
I think anyone who discovers enough about the nature of time to build a time machine would also have learned how this type of thing works by default. Meaning that the knowledge needed to build a time machine has the knowledge of how time travel works imbedded within it.
I apologize that this post is a little confusing, but I'm not great with words and this is a confusing topic to explain.
Think about larger paradoxes. What if you went back in time and killed Hitler or George Washington or Jesus Christ for that matter. These events would cause huge problems with time. If it was possible to do these things then it would send a huge ripple throughout the time stream affecting almost everything. I don't think such a thing would be possible.
My take on it has been that you can't change the past. This doesn't mean that time travel is impossible. I think that if you went back in time to a certain time/event, you would have been there when the event/time first happened. Any change you make would have had to be made the first time that history happened. Therefore any attempt to go back in time and kill your grandfather is doomed to failure because you know he wasn't killed. The theory breaks down a little because I can't explain how or why you failed, but for whatever reason you do fail. The same applies to trying to kill Hitler. We know the he lived, so that means that nobody went back and killed him. Maybe someone will go back and try to kill him, but they will not succeed.
This means that maybe someone went/goes back in time and kills JFK. Of course, this means that the future is kind of already planned. We know that JFK was killed, so if he was killed by a time traveller that traveller will definitely at some point go back and do this.
Most past changes would probably happen by accident, because why would you go back in time and try to change something, if you know it already happened differently?
This does mean that you can go to the future and make changes as well, because when the future happens it happens with you there.
This theory does have holes, but I think it is more believable then a theory that says you erase the time stream that already happened and make a new one.
I think anyone who discovers enough about the nature of time to build a time machine would also have learned how this type of thing works by default. Meaning that the knowledge needed to build a time machine has the knowledge of how time travel works imbedded within it.
I apologize that this post is a little confusing, but I'm not great with words and this is a confusing topic to explain.
USWest Hardcore Realms
Accounts: mikedok5, mikedok6
Accounts: mikedok5, mikedok6