Time Travel Ramblings

[tyrannosaurus vex]

so.. what keeps the Visigoths from sacking New York then?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

so.. what keeps the Visigoths from sacking New York then?

Cause they're dead?

[Daruko]

The Map is not the territory.

A Zen Koan or philosophical argument, I think are discussing Map level stuffs... how our perception may cause us to process time linearly, irrespective of what Time is actually doing.

In my opinion, it may be possible to travel through time, some experiments certainly seem to indicate that electrons may be sent "back in time" at least in a quantum sense... but that doesn't necessarily mean that a human could travel through time. Heck, what scientists have called "time travel" in the quantum field, may simply be a fundamental misunderstanding of what the heck is going on, or an artifact of our own perception (if human brains are hardwired to process data linearly, then when non-linear stuff happens... we might process it as happening in the past/future).

There certainly are some interesting models of Reality which would permit 'time travel' in some sense. But, ONLY if those models are anything more than a thought experiment by a crazy person, for example: http://www.specularium.org/index.php

Personally, I think that the question of Time Travel may actually be due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what time is. Maybe there is no such thing as Time, except as a game of Order for humans... or at least for our brains. Maybe there is only ever NOW and we simply remember old NOW as the past and Not Quite Yet NOW as the future. We presume that reality works the way we see it... but I dunno how much stock we should really put into that concept, beyond the occasional barstool, of course...

I agree with everything you just said, but I don't understand the first line... where am I confusing the map for the territory here?  And also, reading over that last paragraph, I'm wondering, why the hell do you not like Alan Watts? 

[Thurnez Isa]

so.. what keeps the Visigoths from sacking New York then?

give them time

[Mangrove]

so.. what keeps the Visigoths from sacking New York then?

give them time

Visigoths - I can't comment

Hot Topic Kiddie Goths? Well, they couldn't even open a lunch sack, let alone sack an entire city. NY is safe until the Megatsunami hits.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

The Map is not the territory.

A Zen Koan or philosophical argument, I think are discussing Map level stuffs... how our perception may cause us to process time linearly, irrespective of what Time is actually doing.

In my opinion, it may be possible to travel through time, some experiments certainly seem to indicate that electrons may be sent "back in time" at least in a quantum sense... but that doesn't necessarily mean that a human could travel through time. Heck, what scientists have called "time travel" in the quantum field, may simply be a fundamental misunderstanding of what the heck is going on, or an artifact of our own perception (if human brains are hardwired to process data linearly, then when non-linear stuff happens... we might process it as happening in the past/future).

There certainly are some interesting models of Reality which would permit 'time travel' in some sense. But, ONLY if those models are anything more than a thought experiment by a crazy person, for example: http://www.specularium.org/index.php

Personally, I think that the question of Time Travel may actually be due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what time is. Maybe there is no such thing as Time, except as a game of Order for humans... or at least for our brains. Maybe there is only ever NOW and we simply remember old NOW as the past and Not Quite Yet NOW as the future. We presume that reality works the way we see it... but I dunno how much stock we should really put into that concept, beyond the occasional barstool, of course...

I agree with everything you just said, but I don't understand the first line... where am I confusing the map for the territory here?  And also, reading over that last paragraph, I'm wondering, why the hell do you not like Alan Watts? 

I like Alan Watts...

Anyway, my Map/Territory comment was basically, just because we can create a Map wherein something may travel in time, it may not be an accurate representation of the territory... wherein our concept of time may be just that, Our Concept. I like to think about the possibilities, but often I come back to the possibility that we're fundamentally wrong about something.

[Daruko]

The Map is not the territory.

A Zen Koan or philosophical argument, I think are discussing Map level stuffs... how our perception may cause us to process time linearly, irrespective of what Time is actually doing.

In my opinion, it may be possible to travel through time, some experiments certainly seem to indicate that electrons may be sent "back in time" at least in a quantum sense... but that doesn't necessarily mean that a human could travel through time. Heck, what scientists have called "time travel" in the quantum field, may simply be a fundamental misunderstanding of what the heck is going on, or an artifact of our own perception (if human brains are hardwired to process data linearly, then when non-linear stuff happens... we might process it as happening in the past/future).

There certainly are some interesting models of Reality which would permit 'time travel' in some sense. But, ONLY if those models are anything more than a thought experiment by a crazy person, for example: http://www.specularium.org/index.php

Personally, I think that the question of Time Travel may actually be due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what time is. Maybe there is no such thing as Time, except as a game of Order for humans... or at least for our brains. Maybe there is only ever NOW and we simply remember old NOW as the past and Not Quite Yet NOW as the future. We presume that reality works the way we see it... but I dunno how much stock we should really put into that concept, beyond the occasional barstool, of course...

I agree with everything you just said, but I don't understand the first line... where am I confusing the map for the territory here?  And also, reading over that last paragraph, I'm wondering, why the hell do you not like Alan Watts? 

I like Alan Watts...

Anyway, my Map/Territory comment was basically, just because we can create a Map wherein something may travel in time, it may not be an accurate representation of the territory... wherein our concept of time may be just that, Our Concept. I like to think about the possibilities, but often I come back to the possibility that we're fundamentally wrong about something.

oh... that's weird... i seem to remember you saying you didn't on irc, and i blew a raspberry afterwords.   

you might be right, but just because it's a map doesn't mean it won't do the trick.  we'll always be fundamentally wrong about something.  that's one of the things we use the map for... getting around the territory.  sure, we bump into shit that we can't see coming, but luckily we seem to be able to have different maps that help with those obstacles.    Example: Classical physics vs Quantum Physics. 

having said that... by all means, if you come up with a way to communicate what we're fundamentally wrong about PLEASE tell me.  Thanks.

[Thurnez Isa]

If i ever travel back in time
Im bringing back the Mongol hordes

[The Good Reverend Roger]

time travel is irrelevant. what you're really looking for is tourism/escapism. this is why somebody needs to build an industry based on Anton LaVey's "Total Communities" - where entire towns are constructed, for people to live in permanently, which recreate in every detail other worlds or times. We could build a medieval township where people must live as if it is the year 1153 AD, or a Classical Roman township, or whatever else. That way you get a taste of life in the past without the trouble of going there.

I'd rather just wait a few years for full immersion virtual reality.

That will be mankind's last invention.

[P3nT4gR4m]

so.. what keeps the Visigoths from sacking New York then?

give them time

Visigoths - I can't comment

Hot Topic Kiddie Goths? Well, they couldn't even open a lunch sack, let alone sack an entire city. NY is safe until the Megatsunami hits Scottish Empire arrives.

Fixd

[Cain]

Maybe they would allow me to create Salazore town?

Of course, the problem with the idea is that it allows for free movement of people should the city-state in question fail to live up to expectations.  Which was sorta my point with the Soviet thing - it expects everyone to work from a fundamental rule base - a bad starting point indeed.  In reality, because you cannot assure that, the idea loses much of its attractiveness.  Much in the same way the Libertarian idea being quite literally floated in America currently - to take to the high seas - will suck for those who spend too many resources getting into one onboard community, only to find out it sucks.

[hooplala]

"This garbage barge isn't much like the Leif Ericson!!

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

The Map is not the territory.

A Zen Koan or philosophical argument, I think are discussing Map level stuffs... how our perception may cause us to process time linearly, irrespective of what Time is actually doing.

In my opinion, it may be possible to travel through time, some experiments certainly seem to indicate that electrons may be sent "back in time" at least in a quantum sense... but that doesn't necessarily mean that a human could travel through time. Heck, what scientists have called "time travel" in the quantum field, may simply be a fundamental misunderstanding of what the heck is going on, or an artifact of our own perception (if human brains are hardwired to process data linearly, then when non-linear stuff happens... we might process it as happening in the past/future).

There certainly are some interesting models of Reality which would permit 'time travel' in some sense. But, ONLY if those models are anything more than a thought experiment by a crazy person, for example: http://www.specularium.org/index.php

Personally, I think that the question of Time Travel may actually be due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what time is. Maybe there is no such thing as Time, except as a game of Order for humans... or at least for our brains. Maybe there is only ever NOW and we simply remember old NOW as the past and Not Quite Yet NOW as the future. We presume that reality works the way we see it... but I dunno how much stock we should really put into that concept, beyond the occasional barstool, of course...

I agree with everything you just said, but I don't understand the first line... where am I confusing the map for the territory here?  And also, reading over that last paragraph, I'm wondering, why the hell do you not like Alan Watts? 

I like Alan Watts...

Anyway, my Map/Territory comment was basically, just because we can create a Map wherein something may travel in time, it may not be an accurate representation of the territory... wherein our concept of time may be just that, Our Concept. I like to think about the possibilities, but often I come back to the possibility that we're fundamentally wrong about something.

oh... that's weird... i seem to remember you saying you didn't on irc, and i blew a raspberry afterwords.   

you might be right, but just because it's a map doesn't mean it won't do the trick.  we'll always be fundamentally wrong about something.  that's one of the things we use the map for... getting around the territory.  sure, we bump into shit that we can't see coming, but luckily we seem to be able to have different maps that help with those obstacles.    Example: Classical physics vs Quantum Physics. 

having said that... by all means, if you come up with a way to communicate what we're fundamentally wrong about PLEASE tell me.  Thanks.

Well, I don't know that there IS anything wrong... its just that time seems, to me, an awful lot like an interpretation of perception... Our "time-binding circuit" on Full Speed Ahead. Yet, if we didn't have this time binding circuit, or if our time binding circuit worked differently, would we even consider the possibility of time travel? I am reminded of a South American tribe which perceives the Past as in front of them and the future as behind them (they can see what happened in the past, they can't see what will happen in the future...). Could it be that we consider "time travel" because we drew a picture of time as a timeline? I dunno... but I always consider that when the topic of time travel comes up. Could the strange problems surrounding time travel, simply be artifacts of misunderstanding the model?

That is, I see no reason that a person could not (if time travel exists) go back and kill his *insert patriarchal/matriarchal individual*. I see no reason why, if time travel were possible that travelers from the future, would not come back to our time.

Now, maybe there are magical barriers that will stop the bullet from killing Granddad, or to stop visitors from the future from saying "Hey, DO NOT VOTE FOR GWB!"... or maybe the quandaries are simply because the entire topic, its possibilities, its problems, its paradoxes exist because its a made up concept.

Though, I still like reading books on the subject

[Triple Zero]

I'd rather just wait a few years for full immersion virtual reality.

for the fifth time, it's already there for two decades, and nobody wants it. i've used it, coded some apps for it and it's boring as fuck.

maybe glue yourself to a couch and swallow some shrooms and zap yourself some full immersion TV if you need it so badly?

[Roo]

I'd rather just wait a few years for full immersion virtual reality.

for the fifth time, it's already there for two decades, and nobody wants it. i've used it, coded some apps for it and it's boring as fuck.

maybe glue yourself to a couch and swallow some shrooms and zap yourself some full immersion TV if you need it so badly?

How 'full' is it? Can you taste, smell, and touch things? Can you interact with other real people in it? Does it seem like a whole other world, or is it limited and clunky?
If not, it's not really there yet.

When I think of 'full immersion' virtual reality, I think of Tad Williams' Otherland series (4 ridiculously long books about a fictional virtual reality), where the technology is such that people can do everything in a virtual environment that we can do in real life. It's the internet taken to its full potential. People can eat, play games, have sex, etc. (all virtually).
We're definitely not there yet, but I can easily see things moving in that direction.