Time's a curious thing
Ever look back on yourself five years ago and think how silly you were back then?
Whether it's a memory of screwing up a question at a quiz night, or finding a guitar song easy that I remember having trouble with, or looking back at old forum posts thinking "uhh...I actually said that? What a fool!", it's amazing to think of the changes over the last five years. And even more scary, wondering whether, five years (and probably 4 blog posts) from now, I'll think the same thing looking back '08. If so, I'll be one odd fellow in '13.
Anyhow, onto non-me topic: Time.
I'm not sure whether I've written it here before, but it is still my idea that, as we are all still here, if time travel were possible, it'd only be used by socities who can utilise it safely without any paradoxical activities. This also means that they don't travel to any societites for which this is not the case - including us. And as it seems to me we're a long way from maturing enough, it will be a long time before we can hope for time travel (if it is at all possible, maybe not), so don't hold your breath. I mention it now because I recently heard it was a theory that travel might be possible, but would require the correct technology at both ends of the trip, which has a strange parallel to my earlier idea.
And a second brief point:
Question 1: Do you think that time can go on forever? [e.g. there's no point where time will just stop]
If no: Q2) How will it stop, and what will cause it? { 'Time travel paradox' would be a cool answer :D }
If yes: Q2) Can time extend backwards forever?
My initial reaction to Q1 is "yes", and so now i'm thinking my reaction to Q2 is also "yes". It's often wondered how time began - Big Bang, Creation, etc... but it's not often considered *whether* time began. I can't think of any reason why it really needed to? Sure, if you keep going backwards, then entropy keeps decreasing, but it's easy to be bounded yet always decrease. Maybe there was no start of time. something to think about :)
Whether it's a memory of screwing up a question at a quiz night, or finding a guitar song easy that I remember having trouble with, or looking back at old forum posts thinking "uhh...I actually said that? What a fool!", it's amazing to think of the changes over the last five years. And even more scary, wondering whether, five years (and probably 4 blog posts) from now, I'll think the same thing looking back '08. If so, I'll be one odd fellow in '13.
Anyhow, onto non-me topic: Time.
I'm not sure whether I've written it here before, but it is still my idea that, as we are all still here, if time travel were possible, it'd only be used by socities who can utilise it safely without any paradoxical activities. This also means that they don't travel to any societites for which this is not the case - including us. And as it seems to me we're a long way from maturing enough, it will be a long time before we can hope for time travel (if it is at all possible, maybe not), so don't hold your breath. I mention it now because I recently heard it was a theory that travel might be possible, but would require the correct technology at both ends of the trip, which has a strange parallel to my earlier idea.
And a second brief point:
Question 1: Do you think that time can go on forever? [e.g. there's no point where time will just stop]
If no: Q2) How will it stop, and what will cause it? { 'Time travel paradox' would be a cool answer :D }
If yes: Q2) Can time extend backwards forever?
My initial reaction to Q1 is "yes", and so now i'm thinking my reaction to Q2 is also "yes". It's often wondered how time began - Big Bang, Creation, etc... but it's not often considered *whether* time began. I can't think of any reason why it really needed to? Sure, if you keep going backwards, then entropy keeps decreasing, but it's easy to be bounded yet always decrease. Maybe there was no start of time. something to think about :)
So i dont check ur blog very often :P
ReplyDeletebut in response, i believe that time having a beginning and/or and end point is impossible. ie it must go forever on both ends. The ideas of simultaneity in Einstein's theroy of relativity show that the simultaneity of two events is relative to the observer. so, for example, if the big bang and the beginning of time were two simultaneous events then they perhaps cannot be simultaneous with respect to a different observer hence contradicting itself.
in response to the time travel thing. perhaps time travel can happen yet paradoxes are just impossible. ie. someone might say that you can go back in time and kill your mother before you were born but perhaps you simply cant. This is analagous to young's double slit experiment when thought about from a particle point of view. even though logically, the partical must only go through one slit, the other slit has influence in where the particle ends up. ie. it is impossible for the particle to end up at certain points, it might just be impossible to go back and influence the future.
anyway, this comment is becoming long so i shall leave it there :)