Posted on 06/17/2005 12:06:22 PM PDT by LibWhacker
So if your father goes missing at some point and you can't remember where you were or what you were doing at some time when he was missing it is possible to go back in time and kill him, otherwise there is no possiblity that some dope can go back and save JFK only to see a nuclear war start between the US and USSR.
Science has now proved predestination
Yes, but when you return, everyone will be a vegetarian.
No you science-hating luddite idiot. This is a hypothesis, not a theory tested by experiments. Furthurmore it concerns the past and the present saying nothing about what will happen in the future.
But wheeeee! this traveling forward is a blast!
"I never was comfortable with the idea of an infinite number of possible universes resulting from time travel to the past."
The number of universes ceases to be infinite once one has been "fixed" into place. So, if time travel is at all possible, know that you're destined to do it, if an older version of you ever pops in to say "hi." And nobody will be erased from existence due to your having done it. I still wonder why this would be the case, if there is no deity, though.
Only if you are a female democrat member of the Arkansas Mafia.
Ok, now where can I get my hands on a Tardis?
Awesome!
Sign me up!
"No you science-hating luddite idiot."
Well hi there, buddy. I happen to love science. I only hate the demagogues and ideologues who've been passing themselves off as scientists of late. Theory is taken as virtual "proof" of evolution, so why would this not be taken as proof of predestination?
Does this mean that if Darth Vader had done a lot more faster-than-light travel than his son Luke, that Luke would have been younger than his dad and .... ah if he.... ah I mean the dad had killed the ah no... um the younger guy would have eh... becau...
Does this mean that if Darth Vader had done a lot more faster-than-light travel than his son Luke, that Luke would have been younger than his dad and .... ah if he.... ah I mean the dad had killed the ah no... um the younger guy would have eh... becau...
Fantasy is OK. I've been telling my kids that I'm from the future ever since they were old enough to understand what that meant.
No it isn't because if the past was changed we'd never know. The new past would seemlessly become our past and anyone "erased" would never have existed.
Does this mean that if Darth Vader had done a lot more faster-than-light travel than his son Luke, that Luke would have been younger than his dad and .... ah if he.... ah I mean the dad had killed the ah no... um the younger guy would have eh... becau...
The point is that people wouldn't suddenly diappear in front of you if their grandparents were killed before their parents were born. They would simple not even exist in your memory to begin with, since they never would have existed. Any reliance on SciFi writting is laughable to the point of being ignored.
Clearly, the present never is changed by mischievous time-travellers: people don't suddenly fade into the ether because a rerun of events has prevented their births - that much is obvious.
Hmmm... I still don't understand; If someone went back and killed Marx's grandparents, Marx's contemporaries wouldn't suddenly see him "fade into the ether." He just simply would never have existed for them. And we here in the 21st century wouldn't be aware that anything amiss had happened either. In fact, couldn't time travelers be traveling backward in time constantly killing people whose offspring they don't like -- thereby instantly wiping out our memories of those people and anything they might have accomplished during their lifetimes? I just wish they'd get around to Stalin, Mao and Hitler!
I LOVE that Bradbury story - I can't wait to see it on the Big Screen. I'm also anxiously awaiting Gibson's rendition of F451.
The aliens said that you can travel forward in time, but not backwards...
An absurd statement. Our inability to perceive something does not disprove its existence.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.