Time Travel...

Oh Yes!

Two years back, our National Gallery of Australia in Canberra (our capital) had the "Gold and the Incas - Lost Worlds of Peru". A major exhibition about the cultures of ancient Peru in all their scintillating variety, leading up to the Inca culture and those following.

Fabulous. To think 2500 years before the Spanish came and conquered, the cultures that came into being...

Their technical brilliance, the many and various ancient Peruvian societies beliefs, inventions and discoveries was incredible.

I spent the full day pouring over the exhibition in detail (with a lunch break). Thoroughly enjoyable and we were so lucky to get the exhibition.

Thanks for sharing...

 

There are lots of things/people I'd want to see but would I be just an observer or would I have to be involved? Would I look like a local person, in the right clothes, color skin etc? because if I turn up there in modern clothes then it's quite likely I won't make it back, lol.
Am I overthinking this??

 

Nah…you ain’t overthinking. However, you’ve made some excellent, logical, valid points.

Right up front I stated you can answer any or all questions.

It's up to the individual as to who/what/where/when they'd want.

Personally, there'd be instances where I would be “just an observer” too. E.g. being with Leonardo da Vinci for one (too awestruck at his genius). For me, Time Travel would be a fantastic learning experience.

You wouldn’t need to be involved unless you wanted to be. I kinda worried if there is any possibility of changing history dependent on any involvement…but then left the questions pretty open with no restrictions or limitations so our imaginations could run riot with the prospects.

Logical and valid points:

• Would you look like a local person…

• Valid point of going in “modern clothes then it's quite likely <you> won't make it back”

I neither thought nor worried about those two points (logical as they are). Being focused on time and destinations, I automatically thought I’d take on the look of wherever I ended up so blended in (I mentioned in earlier posts I don’t have a scientific mind…didn’t mention I have imagination with no boundaries so whatever I think goes).

The whole idea of the thread is to have fun with the thought…and you’re already doing it!

Thanks!

 

It is a fascinating topic to discuss, for certain. I've done a bit of research for a novel I wanted to write (got about halfway through it and lost my drive to complete it. I still get it out now and then and revise parts and write another few pages or a chapter . . . then it will languish as something else grabs my attention. But, 20 years on, I'm still sorta writing it, lol).

The Paradox theory is as I stated. What if you could travel back in time and did so for the express purpose of killing your great-grandfather. If you do that, then you could never have been born, and thus would not have been possible for you to travel back and commit the murder, so . . . . paradox!

But from my standpoint, there is no paradox, because by the mere act of traveling back in time you have destroyed your universe's existing flow of time. You can kill your great grandfather and not simply vanish because you removed yourself from that timeline, and thus would not be affected by any changes your action caused. You would not be able to return to your life in that timeline . . . you could go back to the exact time and place you started from, but no one would know you and anything you did or accomplished would never have been. Things would have changed for everyone, but they would not know anything had changed. Things might even look pretty much the same to you, but you as a person would no longer exist in the altered timeline. Yet you would retain all memories of your "previous" life in the now destroyed timeline.

Lets say I have an enemy, and decide to travel back in time and kill that person's great grandfather. My enemy would indeed never have been born, and when I returned to the exact point I left from, no one would remember my enemy. I would retain my memory of this person, as I was out of the timeline when the change took place. In fact, some aspects of my own life may not be the same as they were before I committed the heinous act, but I will remember everything that happened to me over my lifetime regardless of how it has changed in the new "time flow".

I didn't ponder the possible complications any farther, as I had enough "information" for my needs. There are endless opportunities for a paradox to arise, I suppose. Is time travel possible? I don't know, but I do know the theory of relativity allows for "time dilation". Scientists have proven that time for an object in motion is different for a stationary object. The laws of nature dictate that velocity (or gravity) can bend time . . . and if something can be bent, it can probably be broken.

 

Darn. I wish I were knowledgeable enough to properly compliment a response to your Post. I’ll take a punt at some aspects, but will stand aside for those knowledgeable on the subject who can give intelligent answers:

Don’t give up, you probably need a muse to be inspired(?). An American artist I know took a whole period of his artwork (dating back 20 years) and reused the materials by painting over them. Never did understand his reasoning, I can only expect something inspired him and his new lot did exceptionally well.

Thanks for going to the trouble of explaining it as simplistically as possible. Getting the gist of it!

I understand your point here, only because I’m equating it with a movie I saw called “Frequency” starring Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel. When watching it at the time I was thinking they were on parallels of time whenever they communicated.

Personally, Hitler comes to mind in this instance. If his great grandfather were eliminated, then the many lives Hitler had eradicated, consequently left untouched, would dramatically change many things, many lives in many ways. This is where I get lost and step aside.

I did a quick search on Stephen Hawking’s views of Time Travel and found some interesting information. One paper on “Space and Time Warps” has Intellectual Property restrictions on quoting, so I’ll leave it to the reader to do their own search to read it online.

I think simplistically about Time Travel as though it is a parallel time/another dimension/”Twilight Zone”/walking through a “portal” without qualifying my thinking – I leave this to those that know what they are talking about.

Thanks for a great post. You broke it down so my simple mind could absorb and think further on the subject.

Please don’t give up on your book…maybe the timing hasn’t been right.

Cheers

LS

 

Hitler was not the founder of the Nazi party. By killing him, one may allow a less charismatic but more "rational" leader, resulting in far more sinister changes to the timeline.

LS[/QUOTE]

 

Exactly what I have been saying about Osama bin Laden, Robert Mugabe, al-Qaeda , ISIS, and other lowlifes. If you can go back, kill them, but... there might be someone/something more evil to take their place. Think about it.

I want to go back for the good and great things... the good and great people.

 

My comment was due to having friends' relatives and their family's friends who survived Auschwitz. Specifically because of how Hitler said that all Germany's problems had been caused by the Jews which eventually led to their condemnation and extermination of so many.

There was a long trail of people who with Hitler's power could have contributed as you say.

The series of the Nuremburg Trials sought to bring a good number of people indicted on criminal charges against peace and humanity (e.g. lawyers (who placed laws allowing the Germans of the time to commit what was at trial shown to be criminal acts); doctors (who commited heinous crimes as experiments); Nazi Party officials; high-ranking military officers along with German industrialists).

Such offenders to humanity are still being tracked, captured and charged for their crimes today. Unfortunately, Hitler was not unique. He was simply the first name that came to my mind.

 

Where there is good it will always be parallelled with evil. History has shown its share of monsters; it continues to this day; and unfortunately there will be human beings in the future who will commit crimes.

As individuals, we cannot be judge and jury.

Our governments seek out those evil doers (e.g. as we have seen with "Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda , ISIS, and other lowlifes") in trying to protect the nation they govern. We need to place our trust in those we elect to protect us from such evil.

To find a perfect world I guess would be the equivalent of Buddhism's quest of seeking Nirvana.

 

Ditto

 

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Ha! You give me too much credit. I know nothing. My science cred is thin, and quantum physics gives my headache headaches. I just pondered in depth time travel as it related to my story line. I had to come to grips with what I thought the mechanics and ramifications of such travel would be in my fictional universe or I couldn't present it in a believable fashion in print. But it is an interesting thing to imagine . . .

 

If you are going to throw in that I might not be able to come back then I do not want to go!

 

Nah! Don't worry about it. Fly with me and there won't be any problems getting there and back because my way has no restrictions, limitations and (now newly added feature) no after effects

 

I think I'd like to go back to the 1900's and then, visit every decade after that. History really fascinates me, so I'd love to see everything as it was invented.

 

Welcome aboard!

Wow! 20th Century! You’ve picked an amazing period that packed an amazing amount and variety of events and people in 100 years!

While you're going through, you simply must stop into the Roaring 20s where you’ll probably run into LauraR kicking up her heels in some Speak Easy with the young counterparts of her grandparents.

(BTW, your shoe wardrobe will ensure you'll never go barefoot)

What a great century you’ve chosen!

 

DoDiDoDo DoDiDoDo DoDiDoDo...Welcome to the Twilight Zone…


Whaaaaat...!

 

Where is LauraR?
Or has she gone back...

 

...Not sure...last I saw she was thinking about heading off to the Roaring 20's...