Can you solve these time traveling paradoxes? Please share your thoughts and what you believes would happen if time traveling were real and these paradoxes happen. PS! I didn't invent these paradoxes.

1. If a man who is 20 years old in 2016 is traveling back to the 1960s and dies in a car accident, what would happen with him? Wouldn't he be born, would he disappear or something else?

2. If a guy traveling back in time and kills his grandfather, what would happen then? It's called the "grandfather paradox".

3. If a guy traveling back in time and makes children with his mother before she met his father, what would happen then?

4. If a person traveling back in time and kills themselves, how would thing happen then and would they disappear? If the future version of the person kills the past version of themselves, then they would die and how could the future them kill the past them then?

Any disruption in the space time continuum results in the anihilation of the known universe. Now step away from the DeLorean, Sebby! 

Hugs, Devlyn

The existence of these paradoxes is proof that time travelling is not possible, at least not going back into the past.

But, for the sake of science fiction, you have to assume the existences of alternate universes.  Going back to kill your grandfather before you were conceived puts you into a different universe than the one you were born in.  It's a universe where that guy was murdered by a time-travelling stranger from an alternate universe who happens to share some DNA with the victim.

1: you would still exist up until you went back in time, and died.

2: technically, you would never have existed.

3: you are your own grandpa.

4: you are dead.

1 - He would just die.  No effect on time line.  However if someone else was killed also who wasn't killed originally at that time, then repercussions.

2 - I believe as long as he remained in that time, he would be fine.  Once he left that time, he would cease to exist.

3 - Cannot determine.  Too many variables.  Does his mother still have children with his father.  His children with his mother will effect the time line, but we cannot predict how.

4 - Once again I believe he would be fine.  Once he left that time, he would cease to exist.

If someone else did these killings, I believe the man would cease to exist and the time line would change according to the man's contribution to the world.  If the man does the killings, he already existed in the future and is existing in the past where he does the killings.  So the future time line will change, and once he returns, he will cease to exist because he will return to the new 2016 where he now does not exist.

In general, the assumption is that time is linear (which I believe is the popular consensuses).  I may sound pompous, but I believe that believing time is linear is the same as believing the world is flat.

I myself believe that time is parallel.  With the past, present, and future all happening at once.  We would travel through time (left to right?) and not back and forth in time.

I believe this example shows time is not linear (a paradox also):
- Man 1 travels 10 years into the past (2006).  Man 1 takes Man 2 (from 2006) to 2011.  For Man 1 this is five years into his past.  For Man 2 it is 5 years into his future.  So it has already occurred (Man 1) and not yet occurred (Man 2). So how can time be linear.  So if time is linear how can the future and the past be happening at the same time.  They can happen at the same time if time runs parallel.

My understanding is, time is simply a human construct to help frame important events in the past and the future. Time is a way to explain in a linear manner what has happened or is about to happen. To me, time is merely an observation of motion, whether it be the movement of the sun from horizon to horizon, the movement of the sun dial's shadow across the ground, the pendulum of the clock, the second hand of a watch, or even the vibration of the quarts crystal or movement of electrons through the circuit of a digital watch (if you are fast enough to be able to observe it); time is movement. Even the activity within the brain, synapse-to-synapse, birthing an idea, is movement of chemistry and the spark of life. Without movement, there is no life.

Time is more subtle than that.  We remember the past; we see the present; we visualize the future.  Without time, remembering, seeing and visualizing would all be identical.  We could not perceive movement, because movement means observing that an object is in a different place at a different ____.  Oops, no time.  The concept of movement requires that time is something fundamental, not just a human construct.

What IS a human construct is the division of time into measureable units.  But time itself has to exist for movement to have meaning.

The speed of light means we're  not really seeing the present, though. In fact, it means we're looking at the past.

Hugs, Devlyn

1 is not a paradoxon - some stranger will have died in a car accident in the past and someone will strangely have gone on a time travel and never returned.

2 its a true paradoxon. Either the universe is saved by being constructed of infinite alternate universes being created at each moment then it would play out like in "back to the future" with an alternate future. Or the paradoxon would cut off that  part of the timeline in a loop that is not accessible anymore, so basically it will just not have happened.

3 upon return , his mother may eventually disclose to him that he has a secret brother or sister that she had with a stranger who reminds her much of her sun. But she never talked about this before because she got married to someone else later on and it was not accepted back then to have children before marriage.

4 is the same as 2, basically

Quote from: KathyLauren on September 11, 2016, 10:11:06 AM
Time is more subtle than that.  We remember the past; we see the present; we visualize the future.  Without time, remembering, seeing and visualizing would all be identical.  We could not perceive movement, because movement means observing that an object is in a different place at a different ____.  Oops, no time.  The concept of movement requires that time is something fundamental, not just a human construct.

What IS a human construct is the division of time into measureable units.  But time itself has to exist for movement to have meaning.

What must be understood is that time "exist" only in your mind.  The moment that the synapses storing the memories are destroyed, that is the end of that.  Do you think that an animal is aware of that?  I was not aware of it when I was in my Deaf Years (prior to seven and a half years old).  It didn't occur to me that my memories were from the past until after I learned how to tell time and what days, weeks, and years meant.  I remember that experiential click when I was nine years old.  I remember that state of no-mind prior to that very clearly.  The phenomenon of time is a human event, happening as a result of the mind.  Really, movement is observing that an object is in a different place AS A RESULT of interactions between motions of different material things happening.  Maybe a tree branch falls and bumps the object to a different place.  Maybe a dog picks it up and moves it elsewhere.  Maybe a person picks it up and puts it in the trash.  It is not because of time.  It is because SOME ACTION occurred; something physical happened.  Even a chemical reaction is movement, whether in the brain or in a beaker.  What is in the past is gone, and what is in the future is not here.  There is only action in front of or inside you.  I know it's hard to see, especially if pre-lingual and pre-social memories are not clear (to be fair, I didn't learn these things until I was finally given hearing aids, so these memories of the "no-mind" state started forming permanently a few years before my diagnosis, and the experiences went for at least 3-5 years beyond what normally happens; something that is never allowed to happen in human civilization except in the cases of feral children or those misdiagnosed that preclude education).

It would seem that time is not something that exists only in the mind.  It would exist whether one is aware of it or not.  Time is a measurement of change.  Things change; they do not remain static.

Quote from: Deborah on September 11, 2016, 05:37:51 PM
It would seem that time is not something that exists only in the mind.  It would exist whether one is aware of it or not.  Time is a measurement of change.  Things change; they do not remain static.

Is time a measurement of change, or is the apparent energy of motion (how much does it take to get it to move slowly or rapidly) the one that is the measurement of change?  Again, what you are seeing is movement.  Even the quartz crystal in a watch is movement, a to-and-fro vibration that is very steady and used to maintain time in a watch.  That itself is movement, nothing more.  You are merely counting the number of times something vibrates a complete cycle to approximate one second (tuned to 32,768 Hz in many cases).  It's like you hit a drum four times to get a measure of quarter note beats (four downbeats).  Here, the arm and stick as an assembly is vibrating 4 beats to a measure.  You can then change it to 16 beats to a measure containing 16 beats.  What if one had decided that a whole day was to have 20 hours instead, wherein an hour is a bit longer than our current hour?  Again, time is human-defined within the mind.

I agree that the way we have decided to quantify time is a human invention. 

Time itself though is not a human invention.  It could be quantified in any other way and still be the same thing.  So it is independent of the words we have come up with to describe it.

It is simply change.  I think that the only place that time might not exist is a place totally devoid of matter.  There, where nothing exists, no change is possible and there is no time.  There is just eternal emptiness. 

If one were to introduce matter into that void then change would begin and time alongside it.

I personally don't believe the relevance of time and how we measure it will have any influence in time travel.  Our voyage would depend on how we measure no matter how we do it.  20 hour days with hours longer than 60 minutes is the same as 24 hour days with 60 minutes because we will be using how we measure time as our reference point for our travel.

However this clip from Deep Blue Sea puts the measurement and relativity of time into perspective.  I hope I am not violating any rules by posting this link.



If I did and the link is removed, go to google and enter - Best explanation of the Theory of Relativity ever youtube LL Cool J -

The passing of time is "measured" by thermodynamics independently of what humans think. Entropy increases with time. And this is a direction. The reverse is not really possible overall - total entropy always increases in direction of the timeline. This is what makes timetravel seriously a problem because basically going back in time would mean to go against the thermodynamics laws - to move something into a place of lower entropy. It would not be impossible, but the expense would have to be a much higher entropy elsewhere. We can create spots of lower entropy and humans do it all the time - by building things, creating things. But the cost is always a higher entropy elsewere because total entropy cannot be lowered. e.G. if we forge a knife, the knife is an object of low entropy, because it is very "ordered" - its pure steel, has a sharp edge etc. But to make it causes more entropy (disorder) because one had to dig up col and burn it to forge the knife etc.

The passing of time is marked by increasing entropy - and it does so if humans count the hours or not.

Quote from: Mohini on September 11, 2016, 05:04:08 PMWhat is in the past is gone, and what is in the future is not here.

You almost had me convinced until you said that.

As soon as you distinguish past, present and future, you assert the existence of time.  If time did not exist, past, pressent and future would be indistinguishable.

You are absolutely correct that the measurement of time is a human invention.  But time itself just is.

Quote from: KathyLauren on September 12, 2016, 06:26:51 AM
You almost had me convinced until you said that.

As soon as you distinguish past, present and future, you assert the existence of time.  If time did not exist, past, pressent and future would be indistinguishable.

You are absolutely correct that the measurement of time is a human invention.  But time itself just is.

Actually, what I ought to have said to further clarify is that there is no past, present, and future.  It means that to say, "There is only the present," belies the concept of time.  It means to ignore the past and the future.  So, rather, I would be more accurate in saying that there is only "What is happening in front of or around you."  What has happened "in the past" is "something that is not active," and something that may "happen in the future" is action that is not happening.

What I'm trying to say now is that this is my perspective on the last of awareness of time, as it doesn't exist for me because I remember simply getting up when the sun is rising to play all day or go somewhere with Mom, and then see Dad come home when the sun is usually on the other side of the house.

I do not think there is some cosmic record that says, "If you go back specifically to this point in time, you will see this happening at that moment again."  It would only exist within the person(s)'s mind(s) as memories and/or actions recorded somewhere (newspaper, recording of some kind).  If both of these in material form (synapses and physical records) are destroyed, then there would be no way to access them as if you came here from another planet and tried to see what happened "in the past."  The only thing visible or accessible is action that is happening around you.  Otherwise, where would the data for every single thing that happened be stored at?

I don't believe in the existence of any of these paradoxes. There are higher dimensions than time, so all the scenarios are valid and have no disastrous result.