Saturday, April 2, 2016

Time Revisited

There is a debate between philosophers about whether or not "time travel" as it is presently defined is possible. 





One current assumption is that we travel back on a time thread independent from the unfoldment of events or the rearrangement of cosmic particles, and that every event that has ever unfolded is held in a lattice-like matrix called "time" and that we can travel back along this hypothetical time thread and rearrange the unfoldment of events in a way that the very particles that constitute our being would be disrupted. 

In physical terms, the validity of time travel rests on the hypothesis that time is circular or at least independent of the unfolding of all events and the movement of all particles held in It (time), and that particles, including faster than light particles, can move along time, back and forth. 

Time travel involves a discrepancy between the passing of time and the movement of particles. I can conceive of such a framework, and in reality, am held in it irrespective of how the cosmos is or is not constructed, but when philosophizing about it, I have my doubts that time and the movement of cosmological particles are independent. 

For time and the movement or rearrangement of particles to be separate, the universe would have to be structured, which gives rise to the notion of intelligent design. I can conceive of a world in which particles unfold in a way that is intelligent, but my brain struggles to leap to the notion of intelligent design as a relational conclusion. 

It is tempting to think of time as independent from everything else. It is tempting to think we can travel back and forth through time independent of our present unfoldment. It is tempting to think we can separate ourselves from our currently cosmological predicament, to step outside of time and the unfoldment of everything that makes up the cosmos, and travel around willy nilly. 


In order to go back in time and disrupt our grandparents' union, or to choose different lottery numbers, we would have to take everyone with us along for the ride, every particle that moved during the course of that time segment would also have to travel back, otherwise we'd conceivably arrive to a time space location and be the only one there. 

Just because one individual were to travel back in time doesn't mean that everyone else would be there. To travel backwards in time, everything that constitutes the cosmos would have to make a 180 degree turn and reverse direction, traveling back along itself - or rather, back into itself. 

If we were to travel along the thread of time, we would be on top of it, or next to it, i.e., independent from it. That is not time travel, that is parallel dimension. In order for time travel to work the way it is portrayed in science fiction and also in the writings of those who write with "authority" on the subject of time travel, parallel dimensions, a space into which one can enter to travel along a separate Time thread, would have to exist. 

If everything that makes up the universe is separate, then it is conceivable to step outside of one space and enter into a parallel dimension where we can rewind the entire unfoldment of the cosmos while simultaneously maintaining our form. In this case we'd be the only being not affected by the rewinding of time. Our body and being would remain in tact. 

This would allow us travel back in time the way in which it is conceived by philosophers and science fiction writers. In other words, to be a Time Traveler, the cosmos (1) would necessarily have to be circular or Time would have to be independent from the unfoldment of all particle movement in the cosmos; (2) the Time Traveler would have to be separate from the Cosmos and unaffected by the passing (rewinding) of Time; (3) the Time Traveler would have to be able to travel faster than the speed of light; (4) Parallel Dimensions into which the Time Traveler could enter would have to exist. 

I'm not saying Time Travel is impossible, I just wanted to walk through the concepts that would have to be in place to wrap my mind around it. 























No comments: