Awesome entry O:

I'm actually writing a novel that deals with the nature of reality and such so this is relevant to my interests ()

Let's say you're a broken-hearted inventor with a time machine. Five years ago, your wife got in a car accident and now you're all alone. The accident was preventable, though, and you could have saved her. So you go back in time and save your wife's life. She happily returns home to your past self and it looks like all is well.

Does "Broken Bride" ring a bell to you? O:

Anyway, who says it's any choice made by a sapient species? I don't think the universe must revolve around them. Sure, laws of physics prevent spontaneous stuff from randomly occurring but still, there are chances in everything. Not only does every choice some species makes form another line, in my opinion, but any possibility of two or more outcomes does. If that makes sense.

And I say kill the guy. I mean, you're only helping him out anyways, since you're him ;D

Awesome entry O:

I'm actually writing a novel that deals with the nature of reality and such so this is relevant to my interests ()

Let's say you're a broken-hearted inventor with a time machine. Five years ago, your wife got in a car accident and now you're all alone. The accident was preventable, though, and you could have saved her. So you go back in time and save your wife's life. She happily returns home to your past self and it looks like all is well.

Does "Broken Bride" ring a bell to you? O:

 

Anyway, who says it's any choice made by a sapient species? I don't think the universe must revolve around them. Sure, laws of physics prevent spontaneous stuff from randomly occurring but still, there are chances in everything. Not only does every choice some species makes form another line, in my opinion, but any possibility of two or more outcomes does. If that makes sense.

 

And I say kill the guy. I mean, you're only helping him out anyways, since you're him ;D

Yes, but because apart from sapient choices, possibility is a fallacy. Like I said before, if you know the position and velocity of every particle in the universe, you can calculate and accurately predict all their interactions. If I roll a die, while there are theoretically six possible outcomes, as soon as I let go of it, the side it lands on has already been determined, no matter how many times you replay that exact specific throw.

Everything makes sense except the assumptions that said time machine could be created...

Edit: I think what he means is that other, non sentient animals can also make alternate time lines. Say a Lion is hunting a pack of antelope. He goes after one and kills it. This is one that produces offspring that adapt to new situations, but since it has been killed those offspring are never born and the herd dies out. However, in another timeline the lion targets another antelope, the offspring are born, and the herd lives on. The lions decision was not based off random particle motions, but neither was it real sentient thought.

Wormholes might be the solution to your time machine problem. Accelerate one end, and you can travel through time!

Everything makes sense except the assumptions that said time machine could be created...

 

 

Edit: I think what he means is that other, non sentient animals can also make alternate time lines. Say a Lion is hunting a pack of antelope. He goes after one and kills it. This is one that produces offspring that adapt to new situations, but since it has been killed those offspring are never born and the herd dies out. However, in another timeline the lion targets another antelope, the offspring are born, and the herd lives on. The lions decision was not based off random particle motions, but neither was it real sentient thought.

Well, that's a question of how much free will do animals have, which is another issue entirely. Though if an animal made a choice, I think it would count.

Wormholes might be the solution to your time machine problem. Accelerate one end, and you can travel through time!

 

 

~Eeko~

Doesn't solve the paradox problem, though, not unless these wormholes go into alternate timelines.

I'm gonna have to read this later; it's too long and I'm too tired.

But I will say that screwing around with causality is fun.

Wormholes might be the solution to your time machine problem. Accelerate one end, and you can travel through time!

 

 

~Eeko~

Doesn't solve the paradox problem, though, not unless these wormholes go into alternate timelines.

I'm sure you could engineer one too.

But the point is moot as far as I'm concerned. I hold to the ripple effect hypothesis.

Well that quote from stargate is very off, mostly because no particle can have a known location and velocity (uncertainty principle) and even then, we can only find where the particles will probably be (atomic orbitals if we're talking electrons) so the universe and all the matter in it has a probablility of being pre-determined, but it's all left up to chance (much as the creation of life, if you presume that that theory of earths creation and life's origins is correct). No individual particle, in the entire universe can have a pre-predicted future because of its interaction with all other particles, which is also a game of chance. Also most of the "laws" that we know of physics are typically just theories because they cannot exactly be universally proven in all situations.

The parallel timeline, or "tree" theory is reasonable, but i find it mind boggling that every sentient being (not just human, but any creature that has "free will") making a decision results in a different timeline.. the 11th dimension containing all of them would be immeasurable in size and complexity, and just incapable of being navigated in a reasonable time span (unless you build a time machine in the time machine inside the projection of the fourth dimension to keep a younger version of yourself ready to man the machine, although cryogenic storage of yourself would work too). So, just to clarify, would every decision made by sentient beings (and in this instance, let's say its on another planet), would that decision, affecting the entire universe, create an alternate timeline where nothing has changed for the person in the machine?

The part about being paradox free by not adjusting the current timeline, but creating a new one boggles me as well. In my personal opinion, it would create a sort of paradox on some level, because not only would a new "branch" to the "tree" be created by the decisions made at that exact time that the time traveler enters that "branch" but wouldn't his coming to that location on the timeline also cause it to branch off and possibly his interaction in that time would result in more branches being made (such as the possibility of another time machine being created) causing more connections between the branches (making more of a web like pattern i suppose) and even going back and preventing the specific circumstances in a branch that resulted in the creation of the first time machine, causing the destruction of it, undoing the connecting of branches, causing a paradox perhaps. Yes i realize that made little to no sense.

The subject of changing the branches themselves by intervening with others decisions (and as you brought up, killing and replacing) goes far too much into a philosophical-time travel/alternate universe jumping ethical science that i cannot even begin to fathom.

Well that quote from stargate is very off, mostly because no particle can have a known location and velocity (uncertainty principle) and even then, we can only find where the particles will probably be (atomic orbitals if we're talking electrons) so the universe and all the matter in it has a probablility of being pre-determined, but it's all left up to chance (much as the creation of life, if you presume that that theory of earths creation and life's origins is correct). No individual particle, in the entire universe can have a pre-predicted future because of its interaction with all other particles, which is also a game of chance. Also most of the "laws" that we know of physics are typically just theories because they cannot exactly be universally proven in all situations.

Let's look at this logically. Say we wipe out all life in the universe. Everything keeps moving the way it's moving and if it bumps into something else, energy is transfered, velocity changes, and it goes on its merry way. Unless there is something that changes the direction the dominoes are falling, they will continue in a predictable pattern. It's all a matter of knowing where the dominoes are and which way they're going.

The parallel timeline, or "tree" theory is reasonable, but i find it mind boggling that every sentient being (not just human, but any creature that has "free will") making a decision results in a different timeline.. the 11th dimension containing all of them would be immeasurable in size and complexity, and just incapable of being navigated in a reasonable time span (unless you build a time machine in the time machine inside the projection of the fourth dimension to keep a younger version of yourself ready to man the machine, although cryogenic storage of yourself would work too). So, just to clarify, would every decision made by sentient beings (and in this instance, let's say its on another planet), would that decision, affecting the entire universe, create an alternate timeline where nothing has changed for the person in the machine?

Every decision, no matter how small, is important, it's just a matter of seeing the big picture. And let's say an alien on Mars decides to eat eggs for breakfast instead of bacon. Doesn't really affect us on Earth so we wouldn't notice the change, but supposing we did one day visit Mars, it would be an issue. Another reason why navigating the 11th dimension would be difficult to say the least, unless you knew what you were looking for. (Sorry if that wasn't what you meant, your question was a bit unclear).

The part about being paradox free by not adjusting the current timeline, but creating a new one boggles me as well. In my personal opinion, it would create a sort of paradox on some level, because not only would a new "branch" to the "tree" be created by the decisions made at that exact time that the time traveler enters that "branch" but wouldn't his coming to that location on the timeline also cause it to branch off and possibly his interaction in that time would result in more branches being made (such as the possibility of another time machine being created) causing more connections between the branches (making more of a web like pattern i suppose) and even going back and preventing the specific circumstances in a branch that resulted in the creation of the first time machine, causing the destruction of it, undoing the connecting of branches, causing a paradox perhaps. Yes i realize that made little to no sense.

The timelines could never connect, but I think I see what you're getting at. Thanks to the fourth dimension projector of his time machine, the time traveller himself is passing through his own timeline, independent of the others, that is, until he reinserts himself. For a brief moment in his body's history, it will have been in an artificial segment of time. Essentially, he's cheating the system.

The subject of changing the branches themselves by intervening with others decisions (and as you brought up, killing and replacing) goes far too much into a philosophical-time travel/alternate universe jumping ethical science that i cannot even begin to fathom.

Well, once we can travel to alternate universes, you leave ethics at the door. If all outcomes occur, then it doesn't matter what you decide because in another parallel universe, you decided differently. If I pick the good option, another version of me still picked the evil one.

We still have ethics because we can't go to other universes where we made different choices; we have to live with the consequences of our actions.

So you're saying that the time travel would occur only through the branch that the time traveller is from and not be able to travel throughout the tree of timelines?

So you're saying that the time travel would occur only through the branch that the time traveller is from and not be able to travel throughout the tree of timelines?

Quite the opposite, actually. The only timeline he could not regress down would be his own, for the instant he did, it would split off into another. Other than that, the 11th dimension's his oyster.

I kind of agree with the way you see things, although the concept of alternate universes makes effecting the past undesirable for me. Say you broke up with your wife, and time traveled to prevent that, you'd be able to continue living happily with your wife. But it isn't your wife, it's the wife of an alternate you (probably dead) in a different universe, and your real wife is still in your original universe without you. Your friends and family in your original universe are also wondering where you are. For all you can see you've got what you wanted, but you still know it's not the same.

However, I don't believe in time-travel or alternate universes because:

"According to Newtonian physics [...] if you could know the position and velocity of every particle in the universe at any given moment, you could accurately predict all of their interactions for the rest of time."

What you seem to be ignoring is that this includes the particles that make people, and all other sapient life. Like a computer's random button, thoughts and decisions are not true randomness, just incredibly complex.

Because there is no true randomness there can't be alternate universes spawned from what could have happened when only one thing ever will happen.

Interesting entry, SPIRIT.

I suggest you guys go catch up on quantum mechanics and then come back to debate this.

I kind of agree with the way you see things, although the concept of alternate universes makes effecting the past undesirable for me. Say you broke up with your wife, and time traveled to prevent that, you'd be able to continue living happily with your wife. But it isn't your wife, it's the wife of an alternate you (probably dead) in a different universe, and your real wife is still in your original universe without you. Your friends and family in your original universe are also wondering where you are. For all you can see you've got what you wanted, but you still know it's not the same.

 

However, I don't believe in time-travel or alternate universes because:

 

"According to Newtonian physics [...] if you could know the position and velocity of every particle in the universe at any given moment, you could accurately predict all of their interactions for the rest of time."

What you seem to be ignoring is that this includes the particles that make people, and all other sapient life. Like a computer's random button, thoughts and decisions are not true randomness, just incredibly complex.

 

Because there is no true randomness there can't be alternate universes spawned from what could have happened when only one thing ever will happen.

1) Actually, there would be another universe where you had never left and then all those people would be happy. There is no way to universally please everyone when you're dealing with every possible outcome.

2) Yes, well, this explanation assumes the existence of free will and that our thoughts, feelings, and decisions are real things. I think, therefore I am.

I kind of agree with the way you see things, although the concept of alternate universes makes effecting the past undesirable for me. Say you broke up with your wife, and time traveled to prevent that, you'd be able to continue living happily with your wife. But it isn't your wife, it's the wife of an alternate you (probably dead) in a different universe, and your real wife is still in your original universe without you. Your friends and family in your original universe are also wondering where you are. For all you can see you've got what you wanted, but you still know it's not the same.

 

However, I don't believe in time-travel or alternate universes because:

 

"According to Newtonian physics [...] if you could know the position and velocity of every particle in the universe at any given moment, you could accurately predict all of their interactions for the rest of time."

What you seem to be ignoring is that this includes the particles that make people, and all other sapient life. Like a computer's random button, thoughts and decisions are not true randomness, just incredibly complex.

 

Because there is no true randomness there can't be alternate universes spawned from what could have happened when only one thing ever will happen.

1) Actually, there would be another universe where you had never left and then all those people would be happy. There is no way to universally please everyone when you're dealing with every possible outcome.

 

2) Yes, well, this explanation assumes the existence of free will and that our thoughts, feelings, and decisions are real things. I think, therefore I am.

1) But your origin universe would still be left missing you. If you made a time machine and used it, I'd be left in this universe wondering where you went, even if you only went back five seconds in time.

2) Thoughts and feelings are real, but they could be predicted like everything else that seems random. Either assume nothing spawns universes or all seemingly random things spawn universes, but saying that only people and sapient animals spawn universes seems holier-than-thou, IMO. It also produces disagreements with sapience, where my cat may spawn universes but yours may not.

I kind of agree with the way you see things, although the concept of alternate universes makes effecting the past undesirable for me. Say you broke up with your wife, and time traveled to prevent that, you'd be able to continue living happily with your wife. But it isn't your wife, it's the wife of an alternate you (probably dead) in a different universe, and your real wife is still in your original universe without you. Your friends and family in your original universe are also wondering where you are. For all you can see you've got what you wanted, but you still know it's not the same.

 

However, I don't believe in time-travel or alternate universes because:

 

"According to Newtonian physics [...] if you could know the position and velocity of every particle in the universe at any given moment, you could accurately predict all of their interactions for the rest of time."

What you seem to be ignoring is that this includes the particles that make people, and all other sapient life. Like a computer's random button, thoughts and decisions are not true randomness, just incredibly complex.

 

Because there is no true randomness there can't be alternate universes spawned from what could have happened when only one thing ever will happen.

1) Actually, there would be another universe where you had never left and then all those people would be happy. There is no way to universally please everyone when you're dealing with every possible outcome.

 

2) Yes, well, this explanation assumes the existence of free will and that our thoughts, feelings, and decisions are real things. I think, therefore I am.

1) But your origin universe would still be left missing you. If you made a time machine and used it, I'd be left in this universe wondering where you went, even if you only went back five seconds in time.

 

2) Thoughts and feelings are real, but they could be predicted like everything else that seems random. Either assume nothing spawns universes or all seemingly random things spawn universes, but saying that only people and sapient animals spawn universes seems holier-than-thou, IMO. It also produces disagreements with sapience, where my cat may spawn universes but yours may not.

1) Yes, but in another universe, I decided not to go and so you don't miss me at all. In another universe still, I decided to eat one too many potato chips and I choked to death. Remember, this explanation supposes that anything that can happen will happen.

2) Once again, it's a whole matter of free will. If I'm going to make the decision anyway, then I'm not really choosing anything. I'm no expert on the human mind, but unless we actually have a say in what our choices are, it doesn't really matter what we do because we're just more dominoes falling in the universe. True, you can make an educated guess about how someone is going to behave, but at the end of the day, you have a final say in what you choose to do. If you didn't, our legal system would pretty much be out the door by now.

For your second point, there could also be universes independent of our own, ones that didn't split off from the one we know, with different laws of physics and such. I'm not sure what science's take is on them, but they exist outside of sapient choice. I'm talking about diverging timelines and have yet to hear of a logical alternative to something that could split them other than free choice.

If I'm standing on Earth and I let go of a ball, it's going to fall down -- there are no other options. If I ask you what kind of ice cream you'd like, chocolate or vanilla, there are two possible options. Sure, I might know from past experience that your favourite flavour is vanilla, but you could also decide to be different for a change and go for chocolate.

I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about here, that's just how I see it.

Just out of curiouisity, SPI, you did just come up with this for fun, right?

I still don't see how that Star Treck quote works. It leaves out the part where sapient forces can interact with matter. You could predict where all drops of rain will fall from a cloud - but you would be wrong when a human takes out an umbrella and walks through the rain.

I kind of agree with the way you see things, although the concept of alternate universes makes effecting the past undesirable for me. Say you broke up with your wife, and time traveled to prevent that, you'd be able to continue living happily with your wife. But it isn't your wife, it's the wife of an alternate you (probably dead) in a different universe, and your real wife is still in your original universe without you. Your friends and family in your original universe are also wondering where you are. For all you can see you've got what you wanted, but you still know it's not the same.

 

However, I don't believe in time-travel or alternate universes because:

 

"According to Newtonian physics [...] if you could know the position and velocity of every particle in the universe at any given moment, you could accurately predict all of their interactions for the rest of time."

What you seem to be ignoring is that this includes the particles that make people, and all other sapient life. Like a computer's random button, thoughts and decisions are not true randomness, just incredibly complex.

 

Because there is no true randomness there can't be alternate universes spawned from what could have happened when only one thing ever will happen.

1) Actually, there would be another universe where you had never left and then all those people would be happy. There is no way to universally please everyone when you're dealing with every possible outcome.

 

2) Yes, well, this explanation assumes the existence of free will and that our thoughts, feelings, and decisions are real things. I think, therefore I am.

1) But your origin universe would still be left missing you. If you made a time machine and used it, I'd be left in this universe wondering where you went, even if you only went back five seconds in time.

 

2) Thoughts and feelings are real, but they could be predicted like everything else that seems random. Either assume nothing spawns universes or all seemingly random things spawn universes, but saying that only people and sapient animals spawn universes seems holier-than-thou, IMO. It also produces disagreements with sapience, where my cat may spawn universes but yours may not.

1) Yes, but in another universe, I decided not to go and so you don't miss me at all. In another universe still, I decided to eat one too many potato chips and I choked to death. Remember, this explanation supposes that anything that can happen will happen.

 

2) Once again, it's a whole matter of free will. If I'm going to make the decision anyway, then I'm not really choosing anything. I'm no expert on the human mind, but unless we actually have a say in what our choices are, it doesn't really matter what we do because we're just more dominoes falling in the universe. True, you can make an educated guess about how someone is going to behave, but at the end of the day, you have a final say in what you choose to do. If you didn't, our legal system would pretty much be out the door by now.

 

For your second point, there could also be universes independent of our own, ones that didn't split off from the one we know, with different laws of physics and such. I'm not sure what science's take is on them, but they exist outside of sapient choice. I'm talking about diverging timelines and have yet to hear of a logical alternative to something that could split them other than free choice.

 

If I'm standing on Earth and I let go of a ball, it's going to fall down -- there are no other options. If I ask you what kind of ice cream you'd like, chocolate or vanilla, there are two possible options. Sure, I might know from past experience that your favourite flavour is vanilla, but you could also decide to be different for a change and go for chocolate.

 

I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about here, that's just how I see it.

1) This is getting confusing now. I just meant that while you can dimension-time travel, it doesn't feel right because you know it's not the same universe.

2) You don't really have a choice. Any choice you make is based on your environment (which isn't determined by you) and your current thoughts. Your current thoughts are mainly based on your environment and your past-experiences (which are determined by your past environments). So while your choices are made on what you want to do, what you want to do ultimately isn't decided by you.

Well that's the thing, there aren't diverging timelines because there is nothing random to split them. But supposing there was, it would be from sub-atomic and truly random particles, which slightly affect the motion and outcomes of everything, including free will, making everything slightly random and everything spawn alternate timelines. The more complex and sensitive to the motion of particular molecules a structure is (such as the brain), the greater the observable effect when random sub-atomic particles affect those particular molecules.

So every second, and infinite number of alternate timelines would be made, but only a very small number of them would be noticeably different. Each timeline would each spawn it's own infinite variations of itself, and so on, making an extremely fuzzy tree. Your time machine would probably sort through these timelines to find the ones that are noticeably different, so the end result would be the same as your original statement, where the main time-lines are determined by sapient choice (because it has a great observable random effect). However, the difference would be that other things could spawn noticeably different timelines too, such as a computer which makes choices from the atomic motion it reads from an electron microscope, because the atoms it bases it's decisions on are observably affected by the random particles.

I don't know what I'm talking about either, I'm just going from things I've thought about when I spend time thinking.

No offence SPIRIT, but I think you’re doing it wrong. Your theory, though well planned, realistic, plausible, and paradox-free, ignores the fundamental law of matter which states that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. True, you’re not really creating or destroying matter when dimensional-time jumping, merely transferring it, but to the universe of origin, it “feels” like your matter was just destroyed. Same goes for whatever universe you land in – it “feels” like every particle of your body and time machine just suddenly came into existence. So naturally, this would make time travel impossible, or at least have catastrophic side effects. Additionally, to actual create a fully functional time machine would be unfathomably expensive and its running may very well rip the time-fabric to shreds.

Here is how you would avoid this:

Let’s assume that we use only 10% of our mind – since how much of our brain we actually use is arguable, I’m using “mind”. Now I’m going to contradict myself and say this is not true, but a mislead assumption. In reality (all of them), only a portion of our mind is allocated to ourselves, the rest is divided amongst our alternates of branched realities. To simplify, I’m saying that while there may be alternate versions of ourselves existing in alternate timelines, we’re all the same person, which means we all share the same mind.

“Alright, where y’goin’ with this, Fizz?”

Since all of our possible alternate selves share the same mind as we do, it’s all a matter of breaking the walls that divide the allocations. Once we achieve this, we can transcend our own reality, and venture into the reality of another self. By doing this, we either 1) force a trade of mind with our other self, or 2) subdue the other self’s portion of mind into a repressed state, thus leaving our body in our reality in a coma – it’s alive, but we’re not there.

“But in the first one, wouldn’t that cause confusion between your other consciousness and the people in your reality of origin?”

Yes, it would, but since we’re trading mental allocations here, I think it’s safe to assume that a trade in knowledge occurs between the interacting minds, meaning that once we trade, we are then proportionately the other. Whether we retain knowledge of our original reality is another matter altogether.

As a related but separate theory, I propose that this actually occurs frequently in our sleep, as our minds are not actively distracted by our reality, thus allowed to pass more easily between other selves’ minds. The byproduct of this would then be what we refer to as dreams.

On a side not, I always thought I’d have this conversation with bonesiii .

Adieu,

- MechaFizz

I've been just skimming the longer posts in this thread, but I did read MechaFizz' post above. Way to stretch the plastic, guys. Good stuff, all of you.

This is getting into the question of consciousness itself. Is it a product of the deterministic (and/or random) body-brain, or does it simply use the body-brain as a conduit into the matrix of perceived reality?

I like to think of the multiverse-tree as a static whole, infinitely large and complex like a fractal that contains all possibility. The perception of time is created by the mind as it subjectively moves through this multiverse-tree, navigating via its own free-will choices. The static fractal is also like a hologram which the mind (the subjective experiencer) illuminates via its own focus, which would be like the laser beam that decodes a hologram into an image. The angle of the laser (perspective), its frequency spectrum (spectrum of awareness), its coherence, and the chosen point or area being illuminated all factor into the resulting virtual-reality image, the subjective experience.

I think we're only as locked into the "laws" of 3-D reality as we believe we are. All a time-traveller really is, is somebody who's resonating with, and therefore experiencing, a more fluid, nonlinear concept of time. Technology can certainly be a tool to facilitate that, but it's not mandatory. The mind is capable of anything.

1) This is getting confusing now. I just meant that while you can dimension-time travel, it doesn't feel right because you know it's not the same universe.

 

2) You don't really have a choice. Any choice you make is based on your environment (which isn't determined by you) and your current thoughts. Your current thoughts are mainly based on your environment and your past-experiences (which are determined by your past environments). So while your choices are made on what you want to do, what you want to do ultimately isn't decided by you.

 

Well that's the thing, there aren't diverging timelines because there is nothing random to split them. But supposing there was, it would be from sub-atomic and truly random particles, which slightly affect the motion and outcomes of everything, including free will, making everything slightly random and everything spawn alternate timelines. The more complex and sensitive to the motion of particular molecules a structure is (such as the brain), the greater the observable effect when random sub-atomic particles affect those particular molecules.

 

So every second, and infinite number of alternate timelines would be made, but only a very small number of them would be noticeably different. Each timeline would each spawn it's own infinite variations of itself, and so on, making an extremely fuzzy tree. Your time machine would probably sort through these timelines to find the ones that are noticeably different, so the end result would be the same as your original statement, where the main time-lines are determined by sapient choice (because it has a great observable random effect). However, the difference would be that other things could spawn noticeably different timelines too, such as a computer which makes choices from the atomic motion it reads from an electron microscope, because the atoms it bases it's decisions on are observably affected by the random particles.

 

I don't know what I'm talking about either, I'm just going from things I've thought about when I spend time thinking.

1) Oh of course, but if you want to change the past, it's something you need to wrap your head around.

2) Well, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one as it's become more an issue of the philosophy of whether or not we have free choice than anything else.

No offence SPIRIT, but I think you’re doing it wrong. Your theory, though well planned, realistic, plausible, and paradox-free, ignores the fundamental law of matter which states that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. True, you’re not really creating or destroying matter when dimensional-time jumping, merely transferring it, but to the universe of origin, it “feels” like your matter was just destroyed. Same goes for whatever universe you land in – it “feels” like every particle of your body and time machine just suddenly came into existence. So naturally, this would make time travel impossible, or at least have catastrophic side effects. Additionally, to actual create a fully functional time machine would be unfathomably expensive and its running may very well rip the time-fabric to shreds.

 

Here is how you would avoid this:

Let’s assume that we use only 10% of our mind – since how much of our brain we actually use is arguable, I’m using “mind”. Now I’m going to contradict myself and say this is not true, but a mislead assumption. In reality (all of them), only a portion of our mind is allocated to ourselves, the rest is divided amongst our alternates of branched realities. To simplify, I’m saying that while there may be alternate versions of ourselves existing in alternate timelines, we’re all the same person, which means we all share the same mind.

 

“Alright, where y’goin’ with this, Fizz?”

 

Since all of our possible alternate selves share the same mind as we do, it’s all a matter of breaking the walls that divide the allocations. Once we achieve this, we can transcend our own reality, and venture into the reality of another self. By doing this, we either 1) force a trade of mind with our other self, or 2) subdue the other self’s portion of mind into a repressed state, thus leaving our body in our reality in a coma – it’s alive, but we’re not there.

 

“But in the first one, wouldn’t that cause confusion between your other consciousness and the people in your reality of origin?”

 

Yes, it would, but since we’re trading mental allocations here, I think it’s safe to assume that a trade in knowledge occurs between the interacting minds, meaning that once we trade, we are then proportionately the other. Whether we retain knowledge of our original reality is another matter altogether.

 

As a related but separate theory, I propose that this actually occurs frequently in our sleep, as our minds are not actively distracted by our reality, thus allowed to pass more easily between other selves’ minds. The byproduct of this would then be what we refer to as dreams.

 

On a side not, I always thought I’d have this conversation with bonesiii .

 

Adieu,

- MechaFizz

1) Ah, but that's the magic of our time machine, that it can bypass this law by transferring matter from one reality to another. Plus, adding matter or energy to the universe is said to happen all the time. This is the principle behind the weakness of gravity (which is said to be so weak because it filters in from another universe/dimension) and Hawking radiation (which has virtual particles popping in and out of existence).

Presumably if it were an issue, your machine might instead forge a bridge between the two universes and allow you to exist in the other in bubble of your old universe. Mainly, though, this is a try it and see sort of thing.

2) Have you read the Chrestomanci series? It's sounds a bit like what you're getting at. For in that multiverse, only a person who had had all his alternate selves born in only one universe could travel between them all. Anyone else who tried would look like a ghost in both the world they left and the one they visited.

The main issue with your theory is that what happens if you die in one universe or were simply never born?

I've been just skimming the longer posts in this thread, but I did read MechaFizz' post above. Way to stretch the plastic, guys. Good stuff, all of you.

 

This is getting into the question of consciousness itself. Is it a product of the deterministic (and/or random) body-brain, or does it simply use the body-brain as a conduit into the matrix of perceived reality?

 

I like to think of the multiverse-tree as a static whole, infinitely large and complex like a fractal that contains all possibility. The perception of time is created by the mind as it subjectively moves through this multiverse-tree, navigating via its own free-will choices. The static fractal is also like a hologram which the mind (the subjective experiencer) illuminates via its own focus, which would be like the laser beam that decodes a hologram into an image. The angle of the laser (perspective), its frequency spectrum (spectrum of awareness), its coherence, and the chosen point or area being illuminated all factor into the resulting virtual-reality image, the subjective experience.

 

I think we're only as locked into the "laws" of 3-D reality as we believe we are. All a time-traveller really is, is somebody who's resonating with, and therefore experiencing, a more fluid, nonlinear concept of time. Technology can certainly be a tool to facilitate that, but it's not mandatory. The mind is capable of anything.

 

Well hey, now that's possible too, but I'm basing this theory on the laws of the reality I'm in right now.

Though oddly enough I did have thoughts like this when I was like five. "What if I'm the only person in this reality and everyone else is just my imagination and they're all living in their own different realities?"

Now at this point, if your mind is able to do things like jump branches of the possibility tree, you have to start wondering if you haven't just gone insane.

I disagree that the human mind is somehow exempt from the laws of physics, it may be complicated, but it isn't magic.

A simplified version - when you time travel, it creates an alternate universe. No free will discussions needed.

I've been just skimming the longer posts in this thread, but I did read MechaFizz' post above. Way to stretch the plastic, guys. Good stuff, all of you.

 

This is getting into the question of consciousness itself. Is it a product of the deterministic (and/or random) body-brain, or does it simply use the body-brain as a conduit into the matrix of perceived reality?

 

I like to think of the multiverse-tree as a static whole, infinitely large and complex like a fractal that contains all possibility. The perception of time is created by the mind as it subjectively moves through this multiverse-tree, navigating via its own free-will choices. The static fractal is also like a hologram which the mind (the subjective experiencer) illuminates via its own focus, which would be like the laser beam that decodes a hologram into an image. The angle of the laser (perspective), its frequency spectrum (spectrum of awareness), its coherence, and the chosen point or area being illuminated all factor into the resulting virtual-reality image, the subjective experience.

 

I think we're only as locked into the "laws" of 3-D reality as we believe we are. All a time-traveller really is, is somebody who's resonating with, and therefore experiencing, a more fluid, nonlinear concept of time. Technology can certainly be a tool to facilitate that, but it's not mandatory. The mind is capable of anything.

Exactly! All of reality is subjective. Beyond our own consciousness there is no reality in the commonly perceived sense. The reason that there is a “common reality” is because through the collective human unconscious all minds interconnect into a single whole which forges a reality that is influenced by all collective minds. For an individual to “escape” this reality, their personal unconscious is simply gaining more awareness over the collective ones and placing a heavier influence over theirs’ than they have over his.

1) Ah, but that's the magic of our time machine, that it can bypass this law by transferring matter from one reality to another. Plus, adding matter or energy to the universe is said to happen all the time. This is the principle behind the weakness of gravity (which is said to be so weak because it filters in from another universe/dimension) and Hawking radiation (which has virtual particles popping in and out of existence).

 

Presumably if it were an issue, your machine might instead forge a bridge between the two universes and allow you to exist in the other in bubble of your old universe. Mainly, though, this is a try it and see sort of thing.

I did not know that about matter/energy/weakness of gravity. Did something new happen since my eighth and ninth grade biology and chemistry courses in the past two years ? They both began with “Matter is neither created nor destroyed during a chemical reaction”, though maybe I interpreted that slightly off.

As for your “magic” time machine, I’m definitely going with my mind-jump method now – I mean seriously, SPIRIT, you must be made of money to afford a time machine that sophisticated! I know you said to disregard cost, but to me, disregarding such a near-universal constant like cost is like saying “ignore the speed of light” .

2) Have you read the Chrestomanci series? It's sounds a bit like what you're getting at.

Not only have I never read it, I’ve never even heard of it . I constructed most of what I wrote on the spot, based upon a prior knowledge and philosophy. Never consciously thought about until I wrote that, if you’ll believe that .

The main issue with your theory is that what happens if you die in one universe or were simply never born?

The latter easy – if you were never born, then no part of your mind is allocated there. All of your selves are born at the same time, thus, so are all portions of mind. No new mind allocations can be forged after your time of birth. Thus, you cannot travel to a universe where you were never born. Also, on more of a side note, I consider that in a universe where your parents decide to put off having you, then when you are born, though that child may bear your same name, it isn’t really an alternate you, but a new individual altogether.

If one of your alternate selves dies, then all that happens is their mind becomes either locked in that universe’s parameter, believing itself to be dead, or reallocates to another or all alternate selves. This also means that you can no longer travel to the universe after the point where your alternate self there dies.

Well hey, now that's possible too, but I'm basing this theory on the laws of the reality I'm in right now.

I reject your reality and substitute my own .

Though oddly enough I did have thoughts like this when I was like five. "What if I'm the only person in this reality and everyone else is just my imagination and they're all living in their own different realities?"

I’ve had thoughts similar to that and so have other people I know. I think we all question our reality at some point in our lives .

Now at this point, if your mind is able to do things like jump branches of the possibility tree, you have to start wondering if you haven't just gone insane.

Does Vezon come to mind?

I disagree that the human mind is somehow exempt from the laws of physics, it may be complicated, but it isn't magic.

 

A simplified version - when you time travel, it creates an alternate universe. No free will discussions needed.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. If you’re talking about my mind-universe-jump theory, then I’ll just direct you to the theory of human collective unconscious and be on my marry way .

This also brings me to the point that, in theory, if you break further than the limits of your own mind and its allocations, you could then enter the collective unconscious and gain omnipotence. You could then view realities where you have since died or were never born through another. Though, in both theories, you’d have to prepare yourself and be open minded (no pun intended), or else you may end up in mental shock from the sudden inflow of information.

Adieu,

- MechaFizz

1) Ah, but that's the magic of our time machine, that it can bypass this law by transferring matter from one reality to another. Plus, adding matter or energy to the universe is said to happen all the time. This is the principle behind the weakness of gravity (which is said to be so weak because it filters in from another universe/dimension) and Hawking radiation (which has virtual particles popping in and out of existence).

 

Presumably if it were an issue, your machine might instead forge a bridge between the two universes and allow you to exist in the other in bubble of your old universe. Mainly, though, this is a try it and see sort of thing.

I did not know that about matter/energy/weakness of gravity. Did something new happen since my eighth and ninth grade biology and chemistry courses in the past two years ? They both began with “Matter is neither created nor destroyed during a chemical reaction”, though maybe I interpreted that slightly off.

I don't know if those qualify as chemical reactions, this is research you're going to have to do on your own. All I know is that they're matter and energy that do not appear to have always been in our universe.

The main issue with your theory is that what happens if you die in one universe or were simply never born?

The latter easy – if you were never born, then no part of your mind is allocated there. All of your selves are born at the same time, thus, so are all portions of mind. No new mind allocations can be forged after your time of birth. Thus, you cannot travel to a universe where you were never born. Also, on more of a side note, I consider that in a universe where your parents decide to put off having you, then when you are born, though that child may bear your same name, it isn’t really an alternate you, but a new individual altogether.

 

If one of your alternate selves dies, then all that happens is their mind becomes either locked in that universe’s parameter, believing itself to be dead, or reallocates to another or all alternate selves. This also means that you can no longer travel to the universe after the point where your alternate self there dies.

Well that kind of limits your ability to time travel, then. My model allows you to go beyond the constraints of your own existence.

I disagree that the human mind is somehow exempt from the laws of physics, it may be complicated, but it isn't magic.

 

A simplified version - when you time travel, it creates an alternate universe. No free will discussions needed.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. If you’re talking about my mind-universe-jump theory, then I’ll just direct you to the theory of human collective unconscious and be on my marry way .

 

This also brings me to the point that, in theory, if you break further than the limits of your own mind and its allocations, you could then enter the collective unconscious and gain omnipotence. You could then view realities where you have since died or were never born through another. Though, in both theories, you’d have to prepare yourself and be open minded (no pun intended), or else you may end up in mental shock from the sudden inflow of information.

 

Adieu,

- MechaFizz

No, I decided to stay out of that argument and respond directly to the main post.

Basically I just don't think the human mind is complicated enough to start making parallel universes, and neither do I think it's relevant, because Spirit said as soon as you arrive in your time machine it makes a new universe, and that's the problem solved without needing to get philosophical about it.