# Do you think time travel is possible?



## Raichu (Aug 24, 2012)

First of all, like the title says, do you think, even just hypothetically, that time travel could ever be possible?

Secondly, if you do (or even if you don't) what kind of time travel do you think it'd be? Do you think it'd be like in Prisoner of Azkaban?
(If you haven't seen Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, even before they went back in time, things had happened that they didn't understand. And then, once they went back, it was like "oh, that noise I heard earlier was actually future me! That thing that hit me in the head was future Hermione chucking something at past me's skull!" So like, whatever they did had already happened, in a way.)

Or do you think it'd be more like in Back to the Future?
(In Back to the Future, they go back in time, mess with stuff, and then go back to the future (lolz) and find that everything's different because of them.)

Or do you think it'd work another way?


----------



## INSANiTY (Dec 16, 2011)

1.Yes. But I won't say in risking that I'll sound completely stupid.

2. I think it would depend. In Back to the Future Marty went back decades and in The Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry and Hermione only went back a couple of hours IIRC So I think it would be a combination of both.


----------



## Mr Canis (Mar 3, 2012)

Of course it is. I travel forward in time about 24 hours every single day. I have done it so much that I make it look easy.


----------



## Trinidad (Apr 16, 2010)

Not backwards anyway. Where's the poll?


----------



## Raichu (Aug 24, 2012)

Trinidad said:


> Not backwards anyway. Where's the poll?


right after i posted, i realized i forgot the poll >.< but i didn't wanna make a whole new thread


----------



## Tater Tot (May 28, 2012)

yes but I think it would be depressing lol.

Although if you're trying to remember something it would help


----------



## NChSh (Jan 2, 2013)

I highly doubt it's possible, even theoretically, based on my current understanding of time.


----------



## sly (Oct 8, 2011)

Hello OP.

I am a time traveller. I am a function on the grid, a black spot really. I travel in a linear fashion through the grid of space, in a constant manner.


On a semi-related note:

Fuck hours, they are too long. Every 30min should be a hour instead :shocked:


----------



## Planisphere (Apr 24, 2012)

I saw all these responses far ahead of time. Does that count?

M-Theory, chaotic inflation, multiverse, many-words interpretation, cyclic model... take your pick. Even if it was possible, I would daresay that any changes made in the past would merely reroute your conscious perception along a new route of reality.


----------



## Boy Wonder (Jan 24, 2013)

I dont think its possible. 

I KNOW it is. Literally, as far as theoretical physics goes, time is just a 4th dimension. If we can somehow figure out extra dimensions, time travel should be possible.

HOWEVER, being that we haven't met any time travelers, isn't that saying that we will never invent time travel????


----------



## Mammon (Jul 12, 2012)

I don't think so. If it were, I think it would somehow CRASH the universe. And if so, why didn't it yet crash? But, what if the big bang is such a crash? o.o Perhaps black holes are results of time travels? Sucking in everything away out into another possibility.

This is confusing. plz help me


----------



## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

Raichu said:


> First of all, like the title says, do you think, even just hypothetically, that time travel could ever be possible?


From what I've read, time travel is fraught with problems. Moving forward seems possible, due to the laws of relativity (and we move forward naturally, steadily); but moving backwards still doesn't seem like an option.



> Secondly, if you do (or even if you don't) what kind of time travel do you think it'd be? Do you think it'd be like in Prisoner of Azkaban?
> (If you haven't seen Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, even before they went back in time, things had happened that they didn't understand. And then, once they went back, it was like "oh, that noise I heard earlier was actually future me! That thing that hit me in the head was future Hermione chucking something at past me's skull!" So like, whatever they did had already happened, in a way.)
> 
> Or do you think it'd be more like in Back to the Future?
> ...


Good question. I can't really say what I think will happen. It depends on the specific mechanisms of the time travel, I suppose. I tend to be more a fatalist/purist though, so my personal bent is that time has already happened and has taken permutations and interference into account -- it's all part of one continuum -- so when we go back to change something, the timestream has already accounted for it. (So you have movies like the "Prisoner of Azkaban" and "12 Monkeys" and "Donnie Darko" to some degree, and "Deja Vu" to some degree.)

In the other camp, you have "Back to the Future" and "Looper" and the "Terminator" series, etc.

There is also the possibility (which some of these latter movies even refer to) that the old timeline continues to exist while the jump back in time triggers the spawning of another timeline -- kind of like endless quantum worlds. I haven't read "The Number of the Beast" for many years now (by Heinlein) but I think that book dealt with endless possibilities that existed for every permutation of a particular action, and you could hop between them, searching for the one you wanted.


List of time travel science fiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


----------



## pretense (Jan 2, 2013)

It most certainly is, and once we achieve it, the idea of time will be non-existent.


----------



## Salamandre (Aug 8, 2012)

Raichu said:


> Or do you think it'd work another way?


The universe is one big jigsaw puzzle. If you travel back in time what happens to your molecules that may be in another form. Does it magically stop existing or do you add mass to the universe. There is also the metaphysical interpretation of time where the consciousness coexist with tangible mass by laws that are beyond those we presume by empirical study. In that sense it's implied that you keep your memory during time travel. 


My impression is that time is a illusion. From a grand scheme the universe changes configuration it doesn't produce any matter or energy. I may have to look at dark matter and energy to refute this but you understand what I imply. 

but despite the logic we can not sense the entire universe only packets of it. Our theoretical narratives are based on concrete data and a proposed consistency of it's patterns. But again metaphysics seems to oppose this notion. 

But i am digressing to much the point is we must ask ourselves not whether time moves forward or back. Rather how do situations affect you and by applying these feelings in to memory do we have subjectivity? In that case we can never know the subjective experiences of other people. And the concept of time travels either lessens the impact of subjectivity or aggrandizes it to the point of meta-physics. 

Hope that wasn't to difficult to read i know i can be quite cryptic at times.


----------



## Saira (Feb 2, 2012)

No, there are a couple of paradoxes that come up with time travel.


----------



## Aquamarine (Jul 24, 2011)

I don't think that it would be possible.

That reminds me, in the story Dr. Jin, a doctor went back in time, knowing very well what is supposed to happen in history. As he's a healer, he inevitably ends up saving the lives of some people who are supposed to die (according to history) with his knowledge of modern medical technology and methods, resulting in a change in history. When the events in history are changed, Jin's future self will cease to exist. If his future self cease to exist, he cannot travel back in time in the first place, resulting in a paradox.

I have not finished watching the series yet, but there are clues that all these experiences are only a dream that he is having, meaning that it is not real and time travel is not possible.

I am not sure if travelling forward in time is possible though. It may not have effects on the past but doing so will definitely affect the future.


----------



## TriggerHappy923 (Dec 8, 2012)

I think I remember Einstein going over this stating that time travel back in time was impossible but said it's possible to go into the future... well whatever he believes, I think it's impossible to go back in time, and nearly impossible to go into the future through a time warp. 

You can go through time like normal but freeze yourself (to you it would seem like time travel, but really it's the prevention of your body from feeling the decay of time) or find that space travel can become faster or just as fast as the speed of light and then result in space travel in less time... but still that wouldn't be considered time travel in the sci-fi sense. 

There are ways to bend space... but we cannot go back in time, we can however delay time in travel or "warp" from one end to another like a fold in paper... it's possible in theory; It's not worm-holes or anything, now that's crazy.:laughing:


----------



## Archetype (Mar 17, 2011)

Boy Wonder said:


> HOWEVER, being that we haven't met any time travelers, isn't that saying that we will never invent time travel????


Exactly.


----------



## TheProcrastinatingMaster (Jun 4, 2012)

Boy Wonder said:


> HOWEVER, being that we haven't met any time travelers, isn't that saying that we will never invent time travel????


That doesn't prove anything.

1. Humans can't invent it, doesn't mean it can't be done
2. Strict regulation of time travel, or complete criminalisation of it when it is is created.


----------



## TheProcrastinatingMaster (Jun 4, 2012)

All of time exists, whether it is possible to travel there is another question. It might be possible, but it's not likely


----------

