You find yourself in the cretaceous

[untermensche]

It doesn't say it's impossible either.

It says the past can't change.

You can't move from your present into the past without changing it.

You can't kill Hitler in 1933 and not change the past.

But of course you do believe it may be possible for somebody in the future to go back to 1933 and kill Hitler and change the past.

My 10 year old would fail his reading class if this were how he summarized bilby's post, and rightly so!

Going to the past and observing anything is changing the past as much as killing Hitler.

It's just that I have to use childish examples to get people to understand what it means to go back in time.

If you say I can go back in time then I can go back to 1933.

If I am now in 1933 I can go kill Hitler, at least try.

What would stop me?

If I went back in time next week to 1933 and killed Hitler would I change the past?

Since Hitler did live, no time traveler successfully traveled/travels/will travel to 1933 and kill him.

So you cannot go back to the past and kill any dinosaurs?

What would stop a person in the future going back to 1933 and killing Hitler?

 

[untermensche]

[removed]

 

[Jokodo]

It says the past can't change.

You can't move from your present into the past without changing it.

That doesn't follow.

You can't kill Hitler in 1933 and not change the past.

That just tells us that no-one did go back to 1933 and kill Hitler. This could be for any number or reasons, e.g.:

- time travel is impossible
- it is impossible to select your destination with the required accuracy, so even though time travel is possible, time travelers tend to end up a few thousand years and a few million kilometres off their intended target.
- by the time time travel became feasible, the world had entirely forgotten about Hitler, so going back to kill him didn't cross anybody's mind.
- someone did travel back to 1933 with the intention to kill Hitler but ended up killing a lookalike whose mysterious death is but a footnote in a local newspaper.
- and many more.

Saying "Hitler lived, therefore time travel is impossible without changing the past" is like saying "No Bhutanese visited me yesterday, therefore intercontinental travel is impossible".

My 10 year old would fail his reading class if this were how he summarized bilby's post, and rightly so!

Going to the past and observing anything is changing the past as much as killing Hitler.

It's just that I have to use childish examples to get people to understand what it means to go back in time.

If you say I can go back in time then I can go back to 1933.

If I am now in 1933 I can go kill Hitler, at least try.

What would stop me?

If I went back in time next week to 1933 and killed Hitler would I change the past?

Since Hitler did live, no time traveler successfully traveled/travels/will travel to 1933 and kill him.

So you cannot go back to the past and kill any dinosaurs?

That depends on the dinosaur. You are free to kill any dinosaurs that were in fact killed by a time-travelling untermensche.

What would stop a person in the future going back to 1933 and killing Hitler?

What would stop a person from Bhutan from buying a plane ticket and visiting me in Austria? Then why am I not sitting here with a visitor from Bhutan?

 

[Jokodo]

[removed]
I have no circular arguments.

"time travel is impossible because it would require time travel" is not circular?

[removed]You lie when you say I do.

Your position is religious delusion.

You claim it is possible to move from the present to the past without changing the past.

Specifically: That it is impossible to change the past, present, and future, so if (and only if) the past includes a time traveler from the future, the future necessarily includes someone traveling back to the past. Whether that is so is not currently known. It's arguably improbable and may well be impossible, but you acting like Rumpelstiltskin doesn't constitute an argument.

 

[untermensche]

"time travel is impossible because it would require time travel" is not circular?

It's a lie to say that is my position. Don't merely say it. Prove it.

My position is that all observers are born. They all have a beginning.

And at their beginning they are not a part of the past. The past has completed and led to them and they were not in the past.

If they go to the past they are going to a time that has passed that they have never existed in. It existed already without them.

bilby claims almost the exact opposite:

He is saying two things from both sides of his mouth. He is saying you can't change the past and also saying a person living in their present going to the past does not change the past. But a person moving from the point of their birth to the past would change the past. They were not there before they were born.

To say a person can move from their present into the past is to change the past.

A person going back and killing Hitler in 1933 would change the past.

Can a person go back in time and do things, like kill Hitler?

Why not?

 

[Jokodo]

"time travel is impossible because it would require time travel" is not circular?

[removed]. Don't merely say it. Prove it.

My position is that all observers are born. They all have a beginning.

And at their beginning they are not a part of the past. The past has completed and led to them and they were not in the past.

If they go to the past they are going to a time that has passed that they have never existed in. It existed already without them.

bilby claims almost the exact opposite:

He is saying two things from both sides of his mouth.

[removed]

He is saying you can't change the past and also saying a person living in their present going to the past does not change the past. But a person moving from the point of their birth to the past would change the past. They were not there before they were born.

Unless they traveled there from the future, of course. A visitor from the distant future wasn't born yet, almost by definition. Yet, in a fully deterministic block universe, his birth, and his consequent use of a time machine, is a given as much as if they had been born. His mounting a time machine in the future and emerging in a present in which he had not yet born does not therefore violate causality.

In other words, your argument against the possibility of time travel relies on the presumed impossibility of time travel.

To say a person can move from their present into the past is to change the past.

Not if time travel is possible and the universe is deterministic.

A person going back and killing Hitler in 1933 would change the past.

Can a person go back in time and do things, like kill Hitler?

We don't know. If they can, in this model, they already did, so them doing so doesn't change the past.

Why not?

Can a person go a quarter of the way around the globe and visit me in Austria from Bhutan?

 

[untermensche]

That doesn't follow.

It sure does.

The block universe dos not allow changes to the past.

It does not allow somebody who was born in the middle of the block to change any part of the block before they existed. You can't show me any evidence of that.

Saying "Hitler lived, therefore time travel is impossible without changing the past" is like saying "No Bhutanese visited me yesterday, therefore intercontinental travel is impossible".

That's not close to what I'm saying.

I'm saying that Hitler not dying in 1933 is the past as it happened.

Every event in the past is the past as it happened.

When a person is born they are not part of the past that has happened.

If they go there they will change the past that has happened.

If time travel is possible then it is possible for somebody in the future who isn't born yet to go back to 1933 and kill Hitler.

If you say it isn't possible you are saying time travel is impossible.

That depends on the dinosaur. You are free to kill any dinosaurs that were in fact killed by a time-travelling untermensche.

How did I kill it before I encountered it?

Any dinosaur I saw would be my first time seeing it.

I have killed none.

So I guess I could kill none.

What would stop a person from Bhutan from buying a plane ticket and visiting me in Austria? Then why am I not sitting here with a visitor from Bhutan?

I didn't ask why hasn't somebody killed Hitler yet.

I asked what would stop a person not yet born from doing it at some time in my future?

If they could go back to 1933 what magic would prevent them from killing Hitler?

 

[Jokodo]

You're imagining time as a linear succession of points. This may be accurate, but it doesn't appear to be the case. Our observations of the universe rather suggest, as the simplest model compatible with reality, time as a dimension of spacetime not entirely unlike the more familiar spatial dimensions, and equally distorted by relativistic effects.

What you're looking at is a three-dimensional map of a multi-dimensional universe. Saying that a person must be born before they can emerge from a time machine mumble mumble linear time mumble mumble is, in this model, not entirely unlike saying that a person must cross the Greenwich meridian in order to get from 179° West to 179° East, since one of them is all the way out West and the other is all the way out East: In both cases, you may be confusing a dimensionally reduced representation of reality for the real thing.

 

[Jokodo]

I didn't ask why hasn't somebody killed Hitler yet.

I asked what would stop a person not yet born from doing it at some time in my future?

If they could go back to 1933 what magic would prevent them from killing Hitler?

The same magic that prevented a person from Bhutan from visiting me: It's called Not Everything That Can Happen Does Happen.

 

[untermensche]

He is saying two things from both sides of his mouth.

[removed].

[removed].

If the past can't be changed it can't be changed.

Any person who did not exist in the past cannot visit it without changing it.

It does not matter if they get there by time travel.

They are still an intruder going to some time they have never existed in before.

You want to say somebody has traveled to the past before they were even born somehow so that when they travel there you can say they were always there.

It is lunacy.

Unless they traveled there from the future, of course.

Is traveling to 1933 from the future and killing Hitler changing the past?

Why is traveling to some empty field in 20,000 BC not changing the past?

Can a person go back in time and do things, like kill Hitler?

We don't know. If they can, in this model, they already did, so them doing so doesn't change the past.

We know it would change the past.

Any person moving from their present to any moment in their past would change the past.

Can a person go a quarter of the way around the globe and visit me in Austria from Bhutan?

They cannot occupy the same space you occupy.

They cannot get there faster than the speed of light.

There are many things they can't do.

Like move into the past without changing it.

 

[untermensche]

I didn't ask why hasn't somebody killed Hitler yet.

I asked what would stop a person not yet born from doing it at some time in my future?

If they could go back to 1933 what magic would prevent them from killing Hitler?

The same magic that prevented a person from Bhutan from visiting me: It's called Not Everything That Can Happen Does Happen.

I didn't ask why hasn't it happened.

Why is it possible for a person from the future to visit a dinosaur and kill it but not kill Hitler in 1933?

Anything any person in the future did in the past would change the past as much as killing Hitler in 1933.

No difference.

 

[untermensche]

You're imagining time as a linear succession of points. This may be accurate, but it doesn't appear to be the case. Our observations of the universe rather suggest, as the simplest model compatible with reality, time as a dimension of spacetime not entirely unlike the more familiar spatial dimensions, and equally distorted by relativistic effects.

What you're looking at is a three-dimensional map of a multi-dimensional universe. Saying that a person must be born before they can emerge from a time machine mumble mumble linear time mumble mumble is, in this model, not entirely unlike saying that a person must cross the Greenwich meridian in order to get from 179° West to 179° East, since one of them is all the way out West and the other is all the way out East: In both cases, you may be confusing a dimensionally reduced representation of reality for the real thing.

I am imagining time as change.

The past is all the changes that have already happened.

They have already happened.

If a time traveler goes back to the past they are making new changes that didn't happen the last time the past occurred.

 

[Jokodo]

I didn't ask why hasn't somebody killed Hitler yet.

I asked what would stop a person not yet born from doing it at some time in my future?

If they could go back to 1933 what magic would prevent them from killing Hitler?

The same magic that prevented a person from Bhutan from visiting me: It's called Not Everything That Can Happen Does Happen.

I didn't ask why hasn't it happened.

Why is it possible for a person from the future to visit a dinosaur and kill it but not kill Hitler in 1933?

Anything any person in the future did in the past would change the past as much as killing Hitler in 1933.

No difference.

False. A person from the future killing Hitler, who lived until 1945, in 1933, would change the past.

A person from the future killing a Hitler lookalike who died under mysterious circumstances in 1933 would not change the past.

If the past is immutable, only one of the two can thus have happened.

 

[untermensche]

Can a time traveler from the future go to 1933 and kill Hitler?

If not why not?

What would stop them from setting their dial to 1933 and going there?

What force would stop them from at least trying to kill Hitler and possibly succeeding?

History says Hitler didn't die in 1933, I know.

But Paleontology says no humans lived at the time of the dinosaurs. Humans didn't arrive until much later. All dinosaurs were dead before humans existed.

Hitler didn't die in 1933.

 

[untermensche]

I didn't ask why hasn't it happened.

Why is it possible for a person from the future to visit a dinosaur and kill it but not kill Hitler in 1933?

Anything any person in the future did in the past would change the past as much as killing Hitler in 1933.

No difference.

False. A person from the future killing Hitler, who lived until 1945, in 1933, would change the past.

A person from the future killing a Hitler lookalike who died under mysterious circumstances in 1933 would not change the past.

If the past is immutable, only one of the two can thus have happened.

Why would killing one man change the past but killing another not change the past?

 

[Jokodo]

I didn't ask why hasn't it happened.

Why is it possible for a person from the future to visit a dinosaur and kill it but not kill Hitler in 1933?

Anything any person in the future did in the past would change the past as much as killing Hitler in 1933.

No difference.

False. A person from the future killing Hitler, who lived until 1945, in 1933, would change the past.

A person from the future killing a Hitler lookalike who died under mysterious circumstances in 1933 would not change the past.

If the past is immutable, only one of the two can thus have happened.

Why would killing one man change the past but killing another not change the past?

Because one died and the other didn't.

This is literally like asking "why does painting a red wall green change its color while painting it red doesn't".

 

[untermensche]

Why would killing one man change the past but killing another not change the past?

Because one died and the other didn't.

This is literally like asking "why does painting a red wall green change its color while painting it red doesn't".

They didn't just die. They were killed by a person who wasn't born until long after the lookalike actually died of cancer in 1956.

How did the lookalike die of cancer in 1956 and also die of a gunshot in 1933?

How did the dinosaur live and die without any human presence then suddenly in some way have some human visit them?

To go into the past is to go to a time you have never been.

Your presence there would be something that wasn't there the last time the past occurred.

 

[Jokodo]

You're imagining time as a linear succession of points. This may be accurate, but it doesn't appear to be the case. Our observations of the universe rather suggest, as the simplest model compatible with reality, time as a dimension of spacetime not entirely unlike the more familiar spatial dimensions, and equally distorted by relativistic effects.

What you're looking at is a three-dimensional map of a multi-dimensional universe. Saying that a person must be born before they can emerge from a time machine mumble mumble linear time mumble mumble is, in this model, not entirely unlike saying that a person must cross the Greenwich meridian in order to get from 179° West to 179° East, since one of them is all the way out West and the other is all the way out East: In both cases, you may be confusing a dimensionally reduced representation of reality for the real thing.

I am imagining time as change.

Sounds like a pretty linear conception.

The past is all the changes that have already happened.

They have already happened.

Verb tenses are like demonstratives: They help us communicate about relative positions with individuals that are close to us in spacetime. They are meaningless outside a reference frame. "here", "there" and "yonder", or "to my left" and "to my right" are meaningless distinctions if we abstract away from my position in space, and "has happened", "happens" and "will happen" are meaningless distinctions except when looking from a specific point in spacetime. The past "has happened" from your particular viewpoint, the future "has happened" from another viewpoint, and if we could step outside the universe, and assuming a deterministic block universe is an accurate model, all events just are.

So the earth in the age of T. Rex. is. Whether or not it includes a time traveler from 2025, or from 2 million years in the future, is ultimately an empirical question, and while we have no reason to assume it does, our data is insufficient to rule it out.

If a time traveler goes back to the past they are making new changes that didn't happen the last time the past occurred.

And if a Earth-traveler moves West, he'll end up somewhere else than if they move East, right?

 

[Elixir]

Poor unter.

 

[Jokodo]

Why would killing one man change the past but killing another not change the past?

Because one died and the other didn't.

This is literally like asking "why does painting a red wall green change its color while painting it red doesn't".

They didn't just die. They were killed by a person who wasn't born until long after the lookalike actually died of cancer in 1956.

What the fuck? I specifically said a lookalike who died in an unsolved mystery death in 1933, but because he was a nobody history books don't talk about him.

How did the lookalike die of cancer in 1956 and also die of a gunshot in 1933?

He didn't die of cancer in 1956. He died in 1933, the precise circumstances never being resolved at the time. That's specifically the scenario I gave you. You can't wantonly change the scenario and then claim it fails.

How did the dinosaur live and die without any human presence then suddenly in some way have some human visit them?

They didn't. Either they had a human visit them, in which case they never lived and died without any human presence, or they didn't.

To go into the past is to go to a time you have never been.

I'm going to places I've never been every other day.

Your presence there would be something that wasn't there the last time the past occurred.

There is no "the last time". There's just one time for me, and one time for the T. Rex. Only our timelines aren't parallel.

It's not entirely unlike how you can fly from England to New Zealand via Los Angeles or via Dubai and Singapore.