DBT
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You are deflecting. The issue is that it is you who claims sufficient knowledge of physics and cosmology to declare time travel impossible.
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You are deflecting. The issue is that it is you who claims sufficient knowledge of physics and cosmology to declare time travel impossible.
untermensche
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I believe the future is not already decided. There is randomness and if you could run the tape of the universe twice from this moment you would get two different outcomes.
Why is there something as opposed to nothing is an old philosophical question.
I can only deal with the universe as it exists.
Humans can't just reach out somehow and bring new energy into the universe. There is nowhere to reach to and no way to reach very far at all.
untermensche
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skepticalbip
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untermensche
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Why has nobody brought a computer back there for them?
In fact somebody in your universe could bring a computer back any second.
That might scramble a few things here in the present up.
skepticalbip
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That is a strawman to distract from the fact that your "argument" was worthless bullshit.
untermensche
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Your argument is that because a computer is possible so is time travel.
Worthless bullshit.
A computer did not require somehow breaking free from the flow of time.
It did not require a miracle.
untermensche
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I have done some research and may have to revise my beliefs.
There seems to be some very recent evidence of time travel.
There seems to be some very recent evidence of time travel.
DBT
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You are placing yourself on a pedestal of expertise by declaring what is not possible.
meh, a head coming out of an ass is not evidence of structural change
Bomb#20
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Here's a photo of two and a half million years ago -- it's the deepest we can see into the past with the naked eye:
Right ascension 00h 42m 44.3s
Declination +41° 16′ 9″
(Of course looking at the photo is looking a couple nanoseconds into the past. If you want to see 2.5 million years into the past you have to actually go outside at night and look up at the real thing.)
No, it's the other way around. You are the same as practically every other philosopher who thinks his philosophical reasoning from his armchair is a qualification to tell scientists how the world is: to wit, your philosophical reasoning is well-informed by all that is known of state-of-the-art 19th-century science. But you seem to have skipped out on your science class the day they covered the entire 20th century.
We can see the Andromeda galaxy as it was 2.5 million years ago. If there's advanced life there, it can see the Milky Way as it was 2.5 million years ago. To suppose that we can see its past even though its past no longer exists, and to also suppose Andromedans can see our past even though our past no longer exists, is the same thing as supposing there is, in this universe, absolute simultaneity. It is to suppose there's a privileged frame of reference, a universal clock, a "now" for the Milky Way tucked between our nonexistent past and our nonexistent future that sits in a state of perfect alignment with an identical "now" for the Andromeda galaxy, tucked between its nonexistent past and its nonexistent future.
What you are supposing is such a sensible thing to suppose -- such a perfectly intuitively reasonable picture of the universe -- that perhaps the smartest man who ever lived, Isaac Newton, took for granted that that's how reality is. But as far as we can tell from looking carefully at the universe, it's just wrong. The difference this makes to our observations is so subtle that it took an Albert Einstein to figure it out; but there appears to be no such thing as absolute simultaneity. If we assume "now" in the Milky Way is the only time that really exists, then what time is it in the slice of Andromeda that really exists, that isn't Andromeda's past or future? What, 2.5 million years after the light from Andromeda that you can see right now was emitted? 2.5 million years in which frame of reference? Depending on exactly how fast you're moving toward Andromeda, different frame of reference, different answer, different time. That would mean that Andromeda has a moment in its past that doesn't exist any more to you, but that exists right now to your friend in Europe (or vice versa), since the rotation of the earth means he's moving toward Andromeda hundreds of miles per hour faster or slower than you are.
Since it doesn't make sense for one and the same thing to exist for your friend and not exist for you, it follows that your conviction that the past does not exist anymore is incompatible with the Theory of Relativity. If you nonetheless decide that you are right and Einstein is wrong, that takes religious faith, same as deciding the Bible is right and Darwin is wrong.
untermensche
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That is a picture made by energy existing in the present day hitting some human camera in the present day.
That energy did travel a long way and did exist in the past
But we can't photograph that energy in the past.
We can take a photograph using that energy as it arrives here in the present.
That is a picture of present day energy. Not the past.
You call it a picture of the past because you don't think the energy has changed so the present day energy resembles the energy as it existed in the past very closely.
The past, when that energy started on it's journey here does not exist anymore.
If a man did not noticeably age from the age of 20 to 30 taking a picture of him at 30 would not be taking a picture of him in the past at 20 because the picture looks very similar.
If a picture of the Grand Canyon in 2021 looks very similar to a picture taken in 1921 it does not mean we are looking at the past when we photograph the Grand Canyon in 2021.
Your reasoning that we are seeing the past is fallacious.
We are seeing present energy that is believed to resemble the past very closely.
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untermensche
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Bomb#20
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You are ignoring my argument and simply taking Newtonian mechanics for granted. Your line of reasoning might as well be straight out of 100 Authors Against Einstein.
DBT
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You are the one making a positive claim. Physics doesn't eliminate the possibility. You do. You declare that it's impossible.
untermensche
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I am not taking anything for granted.
I am being scientific.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
The claim that the entire past is stored somehow and can be broken into by a human somehow is an extraordinary claim.
What is your evidence?
You claimed to see the past. I hope you understand now that isn't close to true.
untermensche
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skepticalbip
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untermensche
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You think humans can travel to the past as if the past is out there.
You are deluded.
Show me where the past is.
Point it out to me.
This is like talking to a bunch of Christians.
Show me this god you claim exists.
Einstein is also known for being very wrong about QM.
You are deluded.
Show me where the past is.
Point it out to me.
This is like talking to a bunch of Christians.
Show me this god you claim exists.
Einstein is also known for being very wrong about QM.
skepticalbip
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More strawmen. No one has claimed that they know we can travel to the past. No one has mentioned god.