Time travel. Whose reality?

[jen_etic_flaw]

There has been plenty of fiction written about about time travel. Also theorising about being able to do so in the future by the power of exploding stars etc.

Humans are complicated creatures and different versions of reality exist for each person.

Even if time travel were possible, would the person accept that ‘reality’ presented to them?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

There are different interpretations of the word "accept" so I'm not sure how to answer you, besides which it would be an opinion anyway. To me, the "biggies" are...

"Accept" in the sense of "can I believe my eyes" (or ears or whatever sensory inputs are functional in experiencing the future)... probably. The human species is keyed into believing its senses as an evolutionary survival mechanism. As you point out, we already understand that everyone sees everything differently, so there is only limited consensus on reality anyway.

"Accept" in the sense of "I can stay here OK" (vs. "I've got to do better than this" as might be said in a dystopian future)? There I could imagine someone saying "Not only NO but HELL NO."

"Accept" in the sense of "I've gotten myself into this mess; I have to live with it until I can fix the mess." (Halfway between the other two meanings of "Accept", I think). But the issue here is whether we would KNOW that it was a mess if we skipped the events between when we started our time jump and when we ended it.

 

[Jon]

I think that brings up the subjective versus objective arguments about reality. Is there an objective reality or is it all just subjective, since it goes through our own mental filters and so can never be verified?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

OPINION: I believe there is an objective reality because it can be repetitively and consistently measured by inanimate devices that have no "subjective" aspect to the act of measurement. This is not to say that WE would see reality because our perceptions are filtered. But that inanimate object doing measurements for us? Whatever IT sees is apparently quite self-consistent.

 

[Bee]

I think that if truth is subjjective, then reality also has to be.

I'm reading a great (fiction) book currently called The Psychology of Time-Travel. It tackles just this question.

 

[jen_etic_flaw]

You are all making very valid points, but you can split current ‘reality’ into something here and now?

There is always a one side and another. To put it simply regarding immediate social relationships, for example. The ‘truth’ may lay somewhere in between.

So how do we know what we think we may believe, or indeed perceive is actually ‘real’ in the first place at all?

 

[Bee]

That's just it - we don't. It's all subjective. You and I could be in the same place, breathing the same air, looking at the same flower - but we'd experience it differently, and describe it differently - using language based on our own history and experiences that meant something to us on a personal level.

Two people having a conversation will each remember different things - but that doesn't mean the conversation happened one way or another - it's just that what we experience and what we subsequently recall is meangingful to us. Our own truth - or to put it another way, our own reality.

 

[Jon]

Maybe truth is not subjective, just merely something we have a hard time verifying. For how do we know for sure what truth is?

It was "obvious" that the earth was flat, but new knowledge proved otherwise. The aliens always knew it - different perspective. But the creator of our universe simulation knew even better. We are just 1's and 0's in a computer simulation.

We thought that Newton's Laws were sound, but Quantum Mechanics suggests different things happen at different scale.

Unless we start from the end of unending time, we cannot look back on what is pure truth. We can only guestimate.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I think that if truth is subjjective, then reality also has to be.

You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but I don't think it needs to go that deep. All we need is one layer of subject filtration in a world of true - or "absolute" - reality and we are still stuck inside our own heads. Of course, like that famous Jack Nicholson line, perhaps we "can't handle the truth." The movie The Matrix would be an extreme example of that. But then again, with so many writers of fantasy, science-fiction, and speculative fiction successfully vying for our attention, I wonder if we care so much about reality anyway.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

We thought that Newton's Laws were sound, but Quantum Mechanics suggests different things happen at different scale.

Newton's Laws actually are quite sound. It is just that we found that they have a limit... which is also a play on the nature on the limit. In physic and chemistry, it frequently happens that we find there are macro effects and micro effects. If we do the math, we invariably find that the macro effects are just a sum (usually in three dimensions) of the micro effects. For instance, the old "Ideal Gas Law" PV = nRT (relating pressure, volume, temperature, and amount of a gas) is completely derivable using statistics in a micro model involving spherical geometry on gas molecules moving randomly. That is also true in many other scenarios, many other disciplines.

As you point out in post #8, it's all a matter of perspective. Forests are different than trees in various ways. One tree has negligible effects as you get more distant from it - but a whole forest full of trees is totally different because there you have something that can affect weather patterns.
.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

I am writing a story which is based on time travel. The premise is that when the first industrial sized space elevator is created. I'm thinking of a tube several miles in diameter, with tube riders, container-ship sized spaceships tethered to the tube by some sort of magnetic levitation. The tube is from ground level to a space location around 20,000 miles out. Because of the time difference between an object moving in orbit and something stationary on the ground a current of time flows in the "ribbon tube" --- I call it, as I'm sure the first attempts at a space elevator will be some sort of ribbon, and then I imagine this ribbon being wrapped around and turned into a tube. The time energy stored in the ribbon tube structure is needed by the human race or whatever it has evolved into at the end of the universe. They need the time energy so that they can step outside of the universe as the universe decays and dies, so that they can then come back into the next universe. But there are different factions, some factions decide that the end of the universe should mean the end of all life and it shouldn't be preserved. Anyway that's the basis of the story I'm struggling with!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

If you have not read it yet, may I suggest Asimov's "The Last Question" as a really good read involving the end of the universe? It is not a time travel story, but it is a computer story and an end-of-the-universe story.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

If you have not read it yet, may I suggest Asimov's "The Last Question" as a really good read involving the end of the universe? It is not a time travel story, but it is a computer story and an end-of-the-universe story.

Yes I have read it Richard, it's one of my favourite stories. Basically Asimov relates exactly what's happened to computers. The fantastic increase in computing power. The only difference really, between how Asimov saw computers, and how they actually are, is that Issac could not foresee the development of the microchip, his device for making the computers of a usable format was to hide the workings in hyperspace.

What is so amazing about that story is the punchline which if I recall it correctly is the computer saying, yes I now understand everything, and the computer initiates the recreation of the next universe, and speaks the words "Let There Be Light" - an amusing joke and something that makes you think what will happen as computers become more and more powerful.

For anyone who hasn't read the story yet, It's a short story, easy to read and you can read it here:- https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html