Re TimeTravel

Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com)
Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:40:18 -0700 (PDT)

Dan Fabulich:

>I'm well aware that the future hasn't happened yet. However, if
>backwards time travel is in the future, then by definition you can
>use it to reach the future's past. Go far enough back and that's
>the present. Even further back and you've got the past.

elementary

>Anyway, if you happen to be a determinist (as I am), then this
>argument isn't even relevant. The future hasn't happened yet, but
>it will, and if it's got time travel, then it will very likely
>alter its past.

This isn't what you were arguing before:

From: Dan Fabulich <daniel.fabulich@yale.edu>

>Into the future? Absolutely. Backwards? Almost certainly not.

>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.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You are arguing that because no one has come back from the future that it proves time travel (backward) is impossible. I merely stated the obvious, the reason no one has come back from the future isn't that time travel (backward) is impossible (although I believe it is.) it's that the future hasn't happened yet.

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

Here you restate it, the logical error is so obvious, but the words so slippery, that I was reminded of Lewis Carrol (mathematician Charles Dodgson).

Brian
Member,Extropy Institute