New model 'permits time travel'

BBC ^ | 6/17/05 | Julianna Kettlewell

[LibKill]

Have none of these people seen "The Butterfly Effect".

Tampering with the past leads to disaster! Be warned.

[Crawdad]

Can the people in the past travel to the future?

[Crawdad]

I read that story. It was drawn up like a comic book. Wonderful.

[Jonx6]

Paging John Titor!

[Age of Reason]

I suspect our entire notion of time is an illusion.

[jgorris]

Science has now proved predestination... but there's still no god.

Actually, Kurt Godel, a brilliant logician with a philosophical bent, in addition to producing a closed time-loop interpretation of relativity, provided an upgraded and stronger version of the famous Ontological Proof for the existence of God. Kurt Godel's Ontological Proof

[jgorris]

I suspect our entire notion of time is an illusion.

That is precisely the argument of Kurt Godel. See A World Without Time.

[Equality 7-2521]

No, but I plan on going back and buying stock of an upstart company called Wal-Mart.

Everyone's heard of Paul Allen, Bill Gates, and Equality 7-2521... haven't they?

[Lloyd227]

"You can't travel into the past. You can only travel into the future"

ah.. but once you travel into the future, can you return? :-)

[HonoluluCharles]

"people don't suddenly fade into the ether "

Unless they're visiting Aruba...

[XEHRpa]

[Inhale...] 'ere.

[Age of Reason]

Thanks for the link.

[Age of Reason]

First define "god."

Then one can attempt to prove whether what you have defined exists or not.

[COBOL2Java]

In my purely amateurish understanding of how this theory works, you have a nearly limitless set of options to choose from this moment forward - but once you've made that choice, there's no going back. To my understanding, that doesn't qualify as predestination. Postdestination perhaps?

FWIW, wasn't there an episode that dealt with this issue in Star Trek: Next Generation?

[hosepipe]

"Looks like "some one" has been watching too much science fiction"- Church Lady C;-)~

[RegulatorCountry]

"In my purely amateurish understanding of how this theory works, you have a nearly limitless set of options to choose from this moment forward - but once you've made that choice, there's no going back."

But, according to the subject of this thread, there just might be the possibility of going back. And, in the act of "going back," you've altered an apparently limitless set of options going forward, effectively limiting these options to only those leading to the outcome of going back. Predestination of a sort. Try to visualise this, not from the perspective of the "now" being left, but from the perspective of the "now" destination, which would not be in the past to those inhabiting that "now."

[COBOL2Java]

Not yet enough coffee to enable me to focus entirely on that, but I get the gist of your statement. Fascinating to ponder.

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

Gibson's doing F451? I remember the old version - it wasn't bad.

[RegulatorCountry]

"In order for this to be true, there can be no free will."

Careful there, you're going to be called all sorts of derogatory names. In a highly intelligent and scientific manner, of course.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

No.