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Grayald · 07-13-05, 09:52 PM

I absolutely believe it's possible. BUT... At humanitiess current stage and rate of evolution, and with our miniscule understanding of time, I don't think it's a possibility for US. I think we would first need to evolve beyond what we are now to be able to even try to comprehend the concept of time, because I can assure you, everything we as a species know, or THINK we know about time is less than nothing. And I don't see humans being around for the hundreds of millions of years it would take to evolve into truly intelligent life.

Right now, we can't even answer what exactly time really is, but it's though that time was created in the same instant that the universe was created, which, if true, means that the force we call time is somewhere in the range of 15 billion years old, which would mean there was no time, at least not as we have come to define it, before then. No past, present, or future. Only existence. That suggests that time is not the linear force that we perceive it to be, and that space and time may not be seperate forces. All in all, I think that we understand so little, that it's not even worth.

As for actually travelling through time, it's hard to really say what that would mean. I think it could be done, because I guess I believe that time is a tangible force of some kind. Like gravity. It's there, and it can be manipulated. What si it though? Does it flow like a river? Or is it just a set path that we are moving along? We don't know, and until we do, we're all guessing here. So can it be done? I think so. Just not by us right now.

As for the star thing. I often thought about that. No, when you see the light from a star you are not looking into the past. Light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second, and nearly 6,000,000,000,000 miles in 1 year. So say just for the sake of argument, you see a star that's 1 lightyear from Earth. The light you are seeing may have left the star a year ago, but it still exists within the same confines of time that we do.

As for seeing lightfrom a star that may not exist, yea, that's how it works. In fact, I read that fairly recently, scientists saw the light from a supernove that happened billions of years ago. So yeah, I would think if a star 1 light away goes supernove right now, we wouldn't see it visually until a year from now. That doesnt mean we are seeing th epast. Only something that happened already. It's not a matter of looking back through time. It's simply a matter of gargantuan amounts of distance having to be covered before the event gets from it's birthplace to our eye. Light is a funny thing like that. This happens so unimaginably far away, yet we can still see it. It's different from how we see on a daily basis. When we look at any other thing, we are seeing it now as it is, because we can only see things that are close to us. Light breaks that rule.

The whole subject of space and time is just very mind-bending. I think if we were to suddenlly understand everything tomorrow, we would be looking back on what we have thought up until then as completely asinine and laughable.

Ok enough rambling for me.

07-13-05, 09:52 PM	#8
Grayald Red Light Goblin Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 33 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	RE: Time travil.. I absolutely believe it's possible. BUT... At humanitiess current stage and rate of evolution, and with our miniscule understanding of time, I don't think it's a possibility for US. I think we would first need to evolve beyond what we are now to be able to even try to comprehend the concept of time, because I can assure you, everything we as a species know, or THINK we know about time is less than nothing. And I don't see humans being around for the hundreds of millions of years it would take to evolve into truly intelligent life. Right now, we can't even answer what exactly time really is, but it's though that time was created in the same instant that the universe was created, which, if true, means that the force we call time is somewhere in the range of 15 billion years old, which would mean there was no time, at least not as we have come to define it, before then. No past, present, or future. Only existence. That suggests that time is not the linear force that we perceive it to be, and that space and time may not be seperate forces. All in all, I think that we understand so little, that it's not even worth. As for actually travelling through time, it's hard to really say what that would mean. I think it could be done, because I guess I believe that time is a tangible force of some kind. Like gravity. It's there, and it can be manipulated. What si it though? Does it flow like a river? Or is it just a set path that we are moving along? We don't know, and until we do, we're all guessing here. So can it be done? I think so. Just not by us right now. As for the star thing. I often thought about that. No, when you see the light from a star you are not looking into the past. Light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second, and nearly 6,000,000,000,000 miles in 1 year. So say just for the sake of argument, you see a star that's 1 lightyear from Earth. The light you are seeing may have left the star a year ago, but it still exists within the same confines of time that we do. As for seeing lightfrom a star that may not exist, yea, that's how it works. In fact, I read that fairly recently, scientists saw the light from a supernove that happened billions of years ago. So yeah, I would think if a star 1 light away goes supernove right now, we wouldn't see it visually until a year from now. That doesnt mean we are seeing th epast. Only something that happened already. It's not a matter of looking back through time. It's simply a matter of gargantuan amounts of distance having to be covered before the event gets from it's birthplace to our eye. Light is a funny thing like that. This happens so unimaginably far away, yet we can still see it. It's different from how we see on a daily basis. When we look at any other thing, we are seeing it now as it is, because we can only see things that are close to us. Light breaks that rule. The whole subject of space and time is just very mind-bending. I think if we were to suddenlly understand everything tomorrow, we would be looking back on what we have thought up until then as completely asinine and laughable. Ok enough rambling for me.