paulv70
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Time tripping
I've always been fascinated by the idea of traveling through time. If you could go back could you actually change the past, cancel your own existance, etc.
One of the theories I really like was in the first Back to the Future movie where Marty goes back and endangers his own existance by preventing his parents from getting together. Then after he repairs the damage and comes back he returns to a different reality where his parents, who were whiny losers are now cool and successful. If you look closely at the scene where Doc Brown is facing the terrorists and throws the gun he's holding away, you can just make out a shadow that moves into then out of the light in the background. The theory was that that was the Marty who grew up with the cool parents and when our Marty returned home he actually switched realities with this other Marty.
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10/1/2007, 2:41 pm
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toddcross
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Re: Time tripping
Does the possiblity of time travel cancel out the belief in GOD? If i were to travel back in time and cause changes that made some people not be born and others born does that mean GOD allowed this or does that mean the existance of GOD is a creation of man?
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10/1/2007, 5:31 pm
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paulv70
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Re: Time tripping
I prefer the "quantum mechanics" thoery that whatever can happen does happen in an alternate reality, therefore if you go back and change anything you simply jump to a different reality where those changes were supposed to take place.
Since I believe that all of creation falls under God and since God created all of creation before you "tampered" with it, I don't see that it would have any effect on his/her existence.
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10/1/2007, 5:55 pm
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Spikosauropod
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Re: Time tripping
quote: Does the possiblity of time travel cancel out the belief in GOD?
Most theologians understand God to exist outside of time. With this in mind, even if we forget someone who has been erased from our timeline, we may assume that God does not. Erasure in this manner would therefore be no different from any other kind of death. God would deal with the dead person’s soul in whatever manner was ultimately fitting. If a person seemed to be created, I would assume that this would be dealt with in a manner similar to ordinary birth. The point is this: if God exists and time travel is possible, we may assume that God has a contingency.
Last edited by Spikosauropod, 10/1/2007, 10:19 pm
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10/1/2007, 10:16 pm
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paulv70
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Re: Time tripping
Or that it's part of his/her grand design.
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10/2/2007, 5:16 am
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Spikosauropod
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Re: Time tripping
quote: Or that it's part of his/her grand design.
That too. And another thing: it may be that time travel is not possible precisely because it will not fit into that design. A similar question has been raised about life on other planets. Until we actually find that life, the philosophical implications are moot.
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10/2/2007, 2:03 pm
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paulv70
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Re: Time tripping
I disagree. No philosophical discussion is moot. That's the entire principle of Philosophy, the what if? Yes time travel is impossible, but what if it wasn't and so on.
One thing I can promise you is that I will never be capable of time travel. I make this vow now that if I ever were I would come back to precisely this moment and tell you all about it.
There see.
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10/2/2007, 6:47 pm
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Spikosauropod
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Re: Time tripping
No, the discussion is not moot, only the implications. What I mean is that no one need begin to arrange their moral and ethical standards around a possibly nonexistent contingency. For example, one could ask, “If the devil conquered heaven, would this mean that God is not omnipotent.” It would definitely mean that, but it supposedly has never happened. The observation that this would mean God is not omnipotent is not an aspersion on God because of the if-then structure of the hypothesis.
But back to time travel. There is supposedly now good evidence that time travel is possible in at least some sense of the word. It may be that things go back in time quite frequently. However, if they go back to their own past, the changes they make may result in changes to the present that prevent them from going back initially. If this is the case, then every time trip would automatically be edited out. Maybe this editing process is the whole reason why time travel does not seem to occur. Maybe you and I could travel to yesterday as easily as we travel to another state, but this editing process always undoes our trip.
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10/2/2007, 8:33 pm
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paulv70
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Re: Time tripping
quote: Spikosauropod wrote:
There is supposedly now good evidence that time travel is possible in at least some sense of the word.
I'm curious. What's your source?
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10/2/2007, 9:03 pm
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Spikosauropod
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Re: Time tripping
This is the best I can do right now. However, I have read Scientific American articles published more recently that were more positive. Unfortunalely, I don't have them at my disposal.
Scientific American, September, 2002
I will work on it. The key element is to realize that while intuitively time travel should be impossible, it is gradually being discovered that a physical restriction simply does not exist. As with relativity and quantum mechanics, the universe doesn't seem to care what we humans think should or should not be possible.
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10/3/2007, 1:21 am
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