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I’d like
to come back on just two of my points, perhaps the more contentious, and
therefore more fruitful lines of enquiry. The first
point, in summary, is that if time travel exists, then the mass of the universe
will fluctuate over time. I use the phrase “over time” to get around any
semantic discussion on whether the mass of the universe can be considered
outside the context of time. Now, I have
noticed that much of the debate on this thread has included a high content of
scientific argument, which suppresses contributions from those without a
scientific bent, so I’ll keep my content science light. If time travel does
exist, then I’d expect this to occur to some degree in the natural world. My
reasoning is that if something is possible, then we usually see it occurring in
nature. I’m thinking here about matter moving through time – elementary particles,
black holes, light, car keys etc. Now, with the exception of car keys, which
may have another explanation, we don’t normally experience things disappearing
or appearing. My argument, in basic philosophical terms is -
if time travel is possible it would occur in the
natural world -
time travel in the natural world would be observable -
there is no evidence for time travel occurring in the
natural world -
ergo – time travel is not possible The next
point is over the claim that neither the past nor the future exist. We need to
ground ourselves on what existence means, and without wishing to regress to
Descartes I would suggest that for something to exist it needs some element of
tangibility, or a potential for interaction with other things that exist. OK,
the past is important in that it has some bearing on the present, but it cannot
be said to interact with the present. I cannot weigh an object in the past, or
eat a cheese sandwich that was made in 1837, or speak to my great, great, great
granddaughter who will not be born until 2075. Therefore, in the normal context
of the semantics, the past and the future do not exist. If they do not exist, I
cannot go there. You might argue that this is a circular argument – if time
travel did exist, then the past and the future must also exist. I would not say
this is circular, but the two statements must either both be true, or both be
false. Any
thoughts …? Bernie Doeser Sandiway,
Cheshire, UK. -----Original
Message----- hi Bernie, in reply to
your first point: The fact that object was travelling from time A to your
second point: i entirely agree that what was talked about does not cohere with
what most people think of when they think of time travel, but this is because
we have a certain concept of time. Perhaps exemplified best by Kant in the
trascendental aesthetic of his first crit, where he offers arguments for
the apriority of time (and space) and also when he argues for the pure concept
of causality, it is very tempting and intuitively correct to thinkof time as
linear, successive etc, like this ---------------------------,or
ABCDEFGHIJKLM... But our traditional view of space and time has been challenged
precisely by relativity theory (not to mention Quantum theory). And therefore,
if we are trying to discuss time travel with reference to science, as i think
we must, we should of course try to disregard what we think are our intuitions
(not, this time, in the kantian sense). Particularly if they have been formed,
or have their primary refence to Spielberg Films. ! This delimiting may of
course be more boring, but then isn't everything more boring without Doc Brown
and a flux capacitor thingy?! to your third
bit: i think this is the most common and most difficult problem. it is easy to
come up with loads of paradoxes, but again, only if we take a Doc Brown view of
time travel. But for the moment i will accept this, just incase my second reply
(just above) is detrimentally faulted. But now i dont precisly know if i
have an answer. Perhaps if we take an extreme relativist stance which denies a
reality that is independent, then time travel would not involve moving
yourself, but instead moving reality so that the past simply became part of the
present (your present which is on this view the
present). the same applies for travel into the future. hmmm, i never thought i
would find myself arguing for the possiblity of time travel from an
anti-realist point of view. to the fourth
and final point: lots of things happened that are not documented ( how do i
know this if they are not in some way documented, by pen or memory etc?). i
personally, and i have an incling that Alice might agree with me, have now wish
to by out microsoft, if the implication was that it would be to make money, lot
and lots of it... there we go,
what you tink? cheers, andy
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