Deductive Logic on the subject of Time Travel.

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
Oh, so then it is NOT "Ambient Energy Pressure" you know, what a thermometer reads...cause heat is something that occurs between atoms, the release of the atoms energy/EMR, and causes them to increase/decrease in motion relatively, cause and effect, just 'looks' "random" but follows all the rules like it is supposed to.

Rules?

Besides, what exactly are you getting at with this post?

 

[SmarterThanGod]

Originally posted by Mentat
When I say "Time Travel" in the title, I'm referring to traveling into the past. I just wanted to see if I could establish deductive validity for my assumption that it is not just impossible, but non-sensical, to travel backward in time.

("P" stands for "Proposition" and "C" stands for "Conclusion")

Here we go:
P1: I did not exist in 1776.
P2: I exist now in a reality that includes P1 as being true.
P3: I go back in time (using whatever means) to 1776.
C: I did exist in 1776! ...

But, then, I have invalidated P1 and P2, and even (by extension) P3, so my conclusion violates all the propositions...is this logically sound?

Any and all helpful criticism is appreciated.

You could go by a predestination assumption, in which case, you would have existed in P1 and P2 before you were even born, because in the future, you will travel back to 1776, and since this must have already happened before you were even born, P1 would be false before you traveled back to 1776, and therefore, the present reality would include the events that happened to you in 1776, though you may not remember them, they are technically your past AND future. The main assumption here is that all events in the universe are predestined, and therefore that you cannot change the future because it is included in your present. Anythign you do while in 1776 will ALREADY be included in the present universe, so the outcome will never change.
This may have been mentioned already in another reply, but I am tired, and have only read the first post, so sorry if I am redundant

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Mentat, on page 5
The total amount of energy in the Universe should have a greater percentage that has been distributed as "random movement" (="heat"), as per the Second Law of Thermodynamics...right?

Originally posted by Mentat
Rules? Yes rules, heat a gas, and it expands, yes! rules!
chemistry and physics are all about "The Rules" and we don't really "write" them...
Besides, what exactly are you getting at with this post?

To the [ b]'d See the above, your question, and what (it) followed it...

 

[hey.like]

One mean of Time travel is movement in time dimension

Time system is not in future past and nowonly , but in space time , it is exist in a semi-dimension. to move in this semi-dimension and take the university strong power, it is ony way to exceed the light to travel. as the time system is one only. it isn't in time value travel but in dimension and to borrow the space-time unit action to arive a far away distance.

 

[hey.like]

Why the travel is not to go some distance?

Why the time travel is to go in time , it is semi-dimension as the first event. to return , first to face the first event. it is no mean.
If to take the mass system time help, it is enable and the time is in some progress only. but the livethings to front is in the right time direction . it is hard to fact the against time direction.

 

[Silverious]

Originally posted by Mentat
When I say "Time Travel" in the title, I'm referring to traveling into the past. I just wanted to see if I could establish deductive validity for my assumption that it is not just impossible, but non-sensical, to travel backward in time.

("P" stands for "Proposition" and "C" stands for "Conclusion")

Here we go:
P1: I did not exist in 1776.
P2: I exist now in a reality that includes P1 as being true.
P3: I go back in time (using whatever means) to 1776.
C: I did exist in 1776! ...

But, then, I have invalidated P1 and P2, and even (by extension) P3, so my conclusion violates all the propositions...is this logically sound?

Any and all helpful criticism is appreciated.

I was wondering, why you would assume you did not exist in 1776.

But, assuming P1 and P2 are correct. P3 could never have happened.

But assuming P3 DID take place, C is correct, P1 is false, and P2 would have to be modified. Because, at every time interval before P3, P1 and P2 are entirely correct. But once P3 takes place, you exist now in 1776.

I think you assumed too much, which is the main cause of the contradiction. But what do I know?

 

[olde drunk]

slightly different view

let's approach with a 'reasonable' basis.

a)i exist in 2004
b)i existed in 1950
c) i can travel back to 1950

hmmmm? how many times have you seen two family members talk about a past event? dick and jane were married on a saturday; the weather was misty, friend Spot attended.

now, when dick and jane discuss that day/event, they have two different views of events. regardless of the circumstances they vehementally disagree.

i submit that they each are traveling back to a 'probable past'. each is revisting the past that they experienced. i further submit, that when we can accept this possibility, we will get closer to actual time travel.

imho, all pasts, presents and futures exist as probablities or potential experiences. it is because we narrow our focus into a very fine 'present' that we negate our ability to visit the past or future. we see clues when we dream of of a future and it becomes a reality to be experienced.

in my construct, the past and future are there for us to visit when we develop full powers and prepare the human awareness for the experience. anyone who said they did today would be labled as a nut. also, are dreams a less valid reality?? are my rememberances of a past event lass valid than my conscious present?


peace,

 

[Sikz]

The thing with time travel is definitions.

"P1: I did not exist in 1776.
P2: I exist now in a reality that includes P1 as being true.
P3: I go back in time (using whatever means) to 1776.
C: I did exist in 1776! ..."

The contraversy here is the definition of "I". Is the you who goes back the same you who is there? This is why there is not as yet (to my knowledge) any undeniable logical proof against time travel- they are all based on contraversial axioms.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by SmarterThanGod
You could go by a predestination assumption, in which case, you would have existed in P1 and P2 before you were even born, because in the future, you will travel back to 1776, and since this must have already happened before you were even born, P1 would be false before you traveled back to 1776, and therefore, the present reality would include the events that happened to you in 1776, though you may not remember them, they are technically your past AND future. The main assumption here is that all events in the universe are predestined, and therefore that you cannot change the future because it is included in your present. Anythign you do while in 1776 will ALREADY be included in the present universe, so the outcome will never change.
This may have been mentioned already in another reply, but I am tired, and have only read the first post, so sorry if I am redundant

No, yours is a very good point. However, the real question is: If P1 and P2 are true, then is it possible to travel backward in time?

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Sikz
The thing with time travel is definitions.

"P1: I did not exist in 1776.
P2: I exist now in a reality that includes P1 as being true.
P3: I go back in time (using whatever means) to 1776.
C: I did exist in 1776! ..."

The contraversy here is the definition of "I". Is the you who goes back the same you who is there? This is why there is not as yet (to my knowledge) any undeniable logical proof against time travel- they are all based on contraversial axioms.

There can be only one "I", as that is what the whole semantic purpose of the term "I" is, ITFP.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Silverious
I was wondering, why you would assume you did not exist in 1776.

But, assuming P1 and P2 are correct. P3 could never have happened.

But assuming P3 DID take place, C is correct, P1 is false, and P2 would have to be modified. Because, at every time interval before P3, P1 and P2 are entirely correct. But once P3 takes place, you exist now in 1776.

I think you assumed too much, which is the main cause of the contradiction. But what do I know?

I may have assumed "too much", but I may have assumed "just enough". You see, if I existed in 1776, then I am predestined to travel there, and thus there is no contradiction, as SmarterthanGod has pointed out. However, with the assumptions as stated, I have to assume your last paragraph is flawed. The reason I say this is: If P1 is true before P3 takes place, then P3 cannot take place (logically). Thus, if P1 is ever true, P3 is never true.

 

[confutatis]

"Time" is just the way we think

Originally posted by Mentat
When I say "Time Travel" in the title, I'm referring to traveling into the past. I just wanted to see if I could establish deductive validity for my assumption that it is not just impossible, but non-sensical, to travel backward in time.

("P" stands for "Proposition" and "C" stands for "Conclusion")

Here we go:
P1: I did not exist in 1776.
P2: I exist now in a reality that includes P1 as being true.
P3: I go back in time (using whatever means) to 1776.
C: I did exist in 1776! ...

But, then, I have invalidated P1 and P2, and even (by extension) P3, so my conclusion violates all the propositions...is this logically sound?

Any and all helpful criticism is appreciated.

The problem with this issue is that you can't say something cannot happen because it's illogical. In fact, history is full of episodes when actual observation contradicted the logic of the time. The key point here, unseen by many people, is that logic does not apply to reality, it only applies to the way we think about reality. People who believe time travel may be possible are not entirely wrong; however, if what we loosely think of today as "time travel" turns out to be possible, then the skeptics will prove their point: whatever it is, it can't be called "time travel".

Mentat, I suggest your approach to the problem is slightly wrong, because you are not fully taking into account the way we think. Here's how I see the problem:

At any given point in time, I am aware of a certain amount of historical knowledge. One such piece of knowledge is "I did not exist in 1776". This is very much what you say in P1 and P2, with an important difference: the emphasis on "what I know" as opposed to "what is true".

Now suppose "something" happens (let's leave that undefined for now), and suddenly you acquire a new piece of knowledge that says "I did exist in 1776". You have a problem now, because two pieces of knowledge contradict each other. By the way, this is an extremely common occurrence in our daily lives, so the solution shouldn't be that difficult.

Let's examine a somewhat similar situation: At some point in your life, the statement "I have never been to Atlanta" was true. Then another "something" happened, and the statement "I have been to Atlanta" becomes true. Do you have a problem now? Replace "have been" with "existed" and think about the difference between Atlanta and 1776. Particularly why it's possible to be and not to be in Atlanta, while the same cannot be said about 1776. It's very interesting if you approach it from a particular perspective, as it reveals something about time.

The reason you can be and not be in Atlanta, the reason the two pieces of knowledge do not seem paradoxical to you, is because you already know the solution to situations like that. And the solution involves a concept called... time! "Time" is what allows two apparently contradictory statements to be true.

Back to time travel. Can it be possible? I say it can, only not the way you think about it. In order to explain how you can be and not be in 1776, you need the same concept you use to explain how you can be and not be in Atlanta: you need "time". So time travel is possible if you can "travel" through "time 1" using "time 2". In other words, time travel is perfectly possible as long as there are two or more time dimensions.

I suspect a question still remains: can we prove time travel is impossible if there is only one time dimension? And here the answer sounds too obvious to me: if there is only one dimension of time, then you can only travel from 2004 to 1776 by going through every single moment in between. You can't jump from 2004 to 1776 without first going through 2003, 2002, 2001, and so on. Now what happens when you go back through those years? If there's only one dimension of time, you already know the answer.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by confutatis
The problem with this issue is that you can't say something cannot happen because it's illogical. In fact, history is full of episodes when actual observation contradicted the logic of the time. The key point here, unseen by many people, is that logic does not apply to reality, it only applies to the way we think about reality. People who believe time travel may be possible are not entirely wrong; however, if what we loosely think of today as "time travel" turns out to be possible, then the skeptics will prove their point: whatever it is, it can't be called "time travel".

Mentat, I suggest your approach to the problem is slightly wrong, because you are not fully taking into account the way we think. Here's how I see the problem:

At any given point in time, I am aware of a certain amount of historical knowledge. One such piece of knowledge is "I did not exist in 1776". This is very much what you say in P1 and P2, with an important difference: the emphasis on "what I know" as opposed to "what is true".

But I didn't say that I knew I didn't exist in 1776, merely that I didn't. There's a difference. And as to reality contradicting logic, that is not true, and literally cannot be. You see, for anything that takes place, there is a logical framework that allows it.

The reason you can be and not be in Atlanta, the reason the two pieces of knowledge do not seem paradoxical to you, is because you already know the solution to situations like that. And the solution involves a concept called... time! "Time" is what allows two apparently contradictory statements to be true.

Back to time travel. Can it be possible? I say it can, only not the way you think about it. In order to explain how you can be and not be in 1776, you need the same concept you use to explain how you can be and not be in Atlanta: you need "time". So time travel is possible if you can "travel" through "time 1" using "time 2". In other words, time travel is perfectly possible as long as there are two or more time dimensions.

I suspect a question still remains: can we prove time travel is impossible if there is only one time dimension? And here the answer sounds too obvious to me: if there is only one dimension of time, then you can only travel from 2004 to 1776 by going through every single moment in between. You can't jump from 2004 to 1776 without first going through 2003, 2002, 2001, and so on. Now what happens when you go back through those years? If there's only one dimension of time, you already know the answer.

Yeah, I'd considered the dual time-dimension idea (btw, Kudos on your explanation, it was really good...I hadn't looked at in quite the same manner before), but disqualified it for reasons of Occam's Razor and my own distaste for ad hoc arguments.

Finally, in that last paragraph you seem to be describing a regressive type of time travel, wherein everything - including the Time Traveller - regress to former states. You are right, of course, that this is both impossible and non-sensical (especially since, if the time traveller goes back to any time before the time that he started going back, he is no longer going back, but forward as always), but I was also hoping to show that, even if we make the Traveller immune to the consequences of regressive time, it is still impossible and non-sensical to postulate backward time travel.