Advice for Time Travelers

Matt Gregory · Post by **Matt Gregory** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 5:01 pm

When advising your past self about avoiding a life-altering accident, make sure you convey the portends in terms of the understanding your self had of them before the accident to be sure your self doesn't miss them.

Shahrazad · Post by **Shahrazad** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 5:47 pm

Good advice, except that there are no time travelers here.

Katy · Post by **Katy** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 5:56 pm

Shahrazad wrote:Good advice, except that there are no time travelers here.

I don't think that's exactly the point...

Shahrazad · Post by **Shahrazad** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 5:57 pm

Then what is?

Katy · Post by **Katy** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:04 pm

Shahrazad wrote:Then what is?

Memory

Matt Gregory · Post by **Matt Gregory** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 10:30 pm

It was the most useless thought I've ever had. I just wanted to save it for posterity :-)

Matt Gregory · Post by **Matt Gregory** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 11:22 pm

I'm just kidding. Actually, a few years ago I was at the bar and I met this dude who had a philosophy degree and was going to be a theologian, but that didn't pan out for him so he became a car salesman, and he said he used to get some people together and have philosophical discussions. One of the topics he said they discussed was "Is there time travel?" Every time he talked about those discussions he mentioned that same topic, "Is there time travel?" That's the only topic he mentioned them discussing and he said it about three or four times, so I'm thinking there must be something to this time travel thing.

Greg Shantz · Post by **Greg Shantz** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 12:13 am

I've had a conversation about time travel at a bar as well. I said the only way it is possible is through memory.

Matt Gregory · Post by **Matt Gregory** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 1:27 am

I don't think it's possible either. Actually, I don't think it's possible for matter to travel through time, but if there is some other extra-dimensional substance then time travel is possible for that substance. It would be like us walking back and forth through space while moving in one direction in time: the substance would go back and forth through time while moving in one direction through the 5th dimension. Got that? Good!

Trevor Salyzyn · Post by **Trevor Salyzyn** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 7:55 am

I thought matter travels through time constantly and repeatedly.

Elizabeth Isabelle · Post by **Elizabeth Isabelle** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:02 am

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:I thought matter travels through time constantly and repeatedly.

and unidirectionally (forward). Or time travels backward through matter. Same thing.

Jamesh · Post by **Jamesh** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:57 am

Actually, I don't think it's possible for matter to travel through time

Correct. Time occurs as an effect of caused changes of matter - therefore there can be no travelling through it. It is not like space that one more or less travels on top of.

Elizabeth Isabelle · Post by **Elizabeth Isabelle** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 9:35 am

Jamesh wrote:Actually, I don't think it's possible for matter to travel through time

Correct. Time occurs as an effect of caused changes of matter - therefore there can be no travelling through it. It is not like space that one more or less travels on top of.

No, time would still be what it is even if matter was not. Changes in matter are only a method of perceiving time. A thing and its perception are two different things.

Jamesh · Post by **Jamesh** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 10:41 am

No, time would still be what it is even if matter was not. Changes in matter are only a method of perceiving time. A thing and its perception are two different things.

Not according to my thinking, which is that the form of matter is actually delayed time. The Totality without matter would be wholly instantaneous, as it would be infinity in its pure, timeless - as in non-actively relative, non-moving, non-spatial - state.

Changes in matter are only a method of perceiving time.

It would be more accurate to say it is a method of perceiving relative rates of flow of the universe.

Unidian · Post by **Unidian** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 10:50 am

I'm skeptical of time travel because I am skeptical of time. That is, I think time may be an artifact of consciousness rather than a physical dimension in the traditional sense. There's an upstart physicist named Peter Lynds who made big news a few years ago by virtue of getting a paper on the subject published in a major physics journal despite having no academic credentials. Google him if you're interested.

Tharan · Post by **Tharan** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 2:54 pm

And yet I posted AFTER you did. Intriguing.

Sapius · Post by **Sapius** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 3:51 pm

Tharan wrote:And yet I posted AFTER you did. Intriguing.

Beats me too. And if nothing is really happen-ing, then WHY reason or talk about anything at all. That beats me too.

However, there cannot be an â€˜out-sideâ€™ to time itself at all; that is - beyond consciousness, hence in that sense it could be said not to exist, independently.