Re: TimeTravel

Randall Randall (wolfkin@phonetech.com)
Wed, 21 Oct 1998 13:51:37 -0400 (EDT)

Dan wrote:
> Lady D'Los wrote:
> >Two simple questions which I feel will tickle your brain cells...
> >Timetravel, a Transhuman possability, or just a daydream? Would it be a
> >good thing, or disastrous?
>
> Into the future? Absolutely. Backwards? Almost certainly not.

Oh, I dunno...

> Consider: if we were develop backwards time travel at some point in the
> future, then someone could have gone back in time to some point before
> today. If time travel will be discovered, then it has already happened.

OK, I can follow you so far: if you return to the past of yourself, you were always part of that past. However, if we introduce the idea of "Many Worlds", another possibility arises: that we may be able to return to a past exactly similar to our own, but with the addition of ourselves (the time travelers). The only difficulty I can see is that there appears to be no way to get back to the "present" you left.

> Thus, due to the very nature of time travel, if it hasn't happened already,
> we can safely assume that it never will.

Even this is a very weak argument against, since you would have to show that it was likely that it *hadn't* happened.

Wolfkin.
wolfkin@phonetech.com