Can Time Travel Ever Become Reality?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the feasibility of time travel, exploring both theoretical and experiential perspectives. Participants engage in a debate about whether time travel can ever become a reality, referencing cultural implications and technological possibilities.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • One participant asserts that time travel is impossible based on the lack of observable time travelers throughout history, suggesting that if it were possible, evidence would be evident in our current reality.
  • This participant distinguishes between traditional notions of time travel, like those in H.G. Wells' works, and more speculative future technologies.
  • Another participant challenges the idea that the absence of technology equates to impossibility, indicating that just because we may not develop the technology does not mean it cannot exist.
  • A further comment expresses skepticism towards the parallel universe theory as a solution for time travel, arguing that it opens the door to arbitrary explanations that lack rigor.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the possibility of time travel, with some firmly believing it is impossible based on experiential evidence, while others maintain that technological limitations do not inherently negate the concept's feasibility. The discussion remains unresolved with multiple competing perspectives.

Contextual Notes

Participants' arguments rely on personal interpretations of evidence and theoretical frameworks, with no consensus on definitions or implications of time travel. The discussion includes assumptions about technology and cultural observations that are not universally accepted.

DiracPool
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My guess is that this topic has been covered somewhere at some point. However, I have not recently seen a general, more non-technical treatment of the subject, so I thought this may be the thread for it.

In any case, for discussion purposes, I'm going to make the bold statement that time travel is impossible and that the "proof" for this statement is nothing so much technical as it is experiential. Experiential in the sense that if time travel were possible, we would at this moment see time travelers all around us, not only those traveling from the future, but those traveling from the past. In addition, not only would we at our time see time travelers, every culture from early humans to the dinosaurs would have experienced time travelers and all history and science books would have at least an obligatory chapter on the technology. The fact that none of this is the case is proof that it is impossible and we should stop fantasizing about it and wasting good popular science programming time.

Now, I'm not talking about the deal that when we find out how to time travel then we can go back in time or forward in time, etc. from THAT point. You know, where the guy demo's the six flags rollercoaster loop thing as his vision of a model for time travel. That may be a different deal altogether. I'm talking about the good old H. G. Wells stuff.

So either you can side with me, or side with Michio, who was quoted in another thread as saying...

"Once confined to fantasy and science fiction, time travel is now simply an engineering problem" - Michio Kaku

Ain't going to happen. Ain't ever going to happen. Is my common sense logic flawed here?
 
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Oh, just one more thing, I personally do not buy the parallel universe "solution" to make time travel work. So if one were to try to invoke that then I think practically any "Deus ex Machina" solution is fair game, and it becomes a null argument in my mind.
 
Just because we, or any other life in the universe, may never develop the technology, doesn't mean it's impossible.
 
Closed, pending moderation.

Zz.
 

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