This thread was created in the future yesterday: The Time Travel Talking Thread

[Reecer6]

As we all know, time travel is an exciting concept to talk about. However, we don't have a thread for it at all! It still doesn't exist, this is the forums from the future. But until then, you can talk here. Examine possible ways real time travel would work if it were ever made! Confess what you would change if you went back in time in your own timeline! Perhaps make diagrams explaining time travel in 4 figures? Whatever, as long as it would be related to time travel!

[orangenelly]

Honestly, time traveling into the past sounds like a really bad idea. If movies have taught me anything, it's that the slightest chance will cause a horrible dystopian present.
(Unless you're Marty Mcfly.)

[Jolts]

Alright guys, I've just travelled back in time for some reason to answer this post:

Honestly, time traveling into the past sounds like a really bad idea. If movies have taught me anything, it's that the slightest chance will cause a horrible dystopian present.
(Unless you're Marty Mcfly.)

The way I see time travel, that doesn't actually happen. Anything you would have gone back and done in the past would have already happened and become a part of the timeline. For example, I have this post right here that I travelled back in time to make. Before I travelled it wasn't like this post didn't exist. It was always here, I just stumbled upon a thread that I had never seen before and found a post that I had apparently made with a visit to the forums on my web history so I know my account wasn't just hacked. I knew I had do have posted it, so I simply invented a time machine to make the post I knew I had to in order to cooperate with a stable time loop. And the reason I was even forced to cooperate in the first place was because the fact that I had the post in the past it already means I had travelled back in time to do it. If I didn't travel back in time to make it, it simply wouldn't have existed in the first place.

[Reecer6]

Yes, that's one theory on how time travel might work. But what would happen if you saw the post and decided not to post it? But if the post wasn't there, you would post it? You'd be stuck in an oscillating timeline where you are alternating between posting and not posting, and the servers would explode.

[Jolts]

Yes, that's one theory on how time travel might work. But what would happen if you saw the post and decided not to post it? But if the post wasn't there, you would post it? You'd be stuck in an oscillating timeline where you are alternating between posting and not posting, and the servers would explode.

If the post was there in the first place, that means no matter what you will comply with the time loop at some point because if you don't then the post would have never been there in the first place. And if the post was never there, then something would stop you from ever posting it.


Oh wow, just saw my post earlier. Looks like I will actually get that time machine working somehow...

[Reecer6]

Yet, there's still a possibility someone from the future could kill you before making that post in order to save the future or something. I don't supposed you can survive 50 sticks of dynamite?

Although I suppose someone could still make the post if they stole your account and recreated the time machine...

[teal dear]

Yet, there's still a possibility someone from the future could kill you before making that post in order to save the future or something.

you don't get this at all...

if that was going to happen then the post wouldn't have existed in the first place, the fact it exists means no one successfully stopped it existing... you can't change the past... at all... anything which any time traveller did to influence the past has already happened in the past, if they intended to make things turn out differently then they obviously failed beause things did not turn out differently...

you want to go back in time and kill hitler before world war 2? well looking at the past shows us that you failed because that didn't happen

[Kíeros]

What this is missing is obviously a discussion on time travel tense troubles. Let me spell it out to you, using the traditional time travel action: to go to kill Hitler.
If the event is in your past and in the relative past, use the standard past tenses:

I went to kill Hitler, I had gone to kill Hitler, I was going to kill Hitler, I had been going to kill Hitler

If the event is in your present and in the relative present, again, use the standard tenses:

I go to kill Hitler, I have gone to kill Hitler, I am going to kill Hitler, I have been going to kill Hitler

And the last of the standard tenses is used if both events are in your future:

I will go to kill Hitler, I will have gone to kill Hitler, I will be going to kill Hitler, I will have been going to kill Hitler

Now to the two most likely uses for this phrase; If the event is in the relative past, but your present, use the Present Precedent:

I go to have killed Hitler, I have gone to have killed Hitler, I am going to have killed Hitler, I have been going to have killed Hitler

If the event is in your future, but the relative past, use the Future Precedent:

I will go to have killed Hitler, I will have gone to have killed Hitler, I will be going to have killed Hitler, I will have been going to have killed Hitler

If the event is in your past, but is relatively happening now, use the Past Extant:

I went to be killing Hitler, I had gone to be killing Hitler, I was going to be killing Hitler, I had been going to be killing Hitler.

If the event is in your past, but has not yet relatively happened, use the Past Prospective:

I went will kill Hitler, I had gone will kill Hitler, I was going will kill Hitler, I had been going will kill Hitler

Finally, the two most confusing of the simple time travel tenses: If it is ongoing, but you have not done it yet, use the Future Extant:

I will go to am killing Hitler, I will have gone to am killing Hitler, I will be going to am killing Hitler, I will have gone to am killing Hitler

And finally, if you are doing an action that hasn't occurred yet, use the Present Prospective:

I go to will be killing Hitler, I have gone to will be killing Hitler, I am going to will be killing Hitler, I have been going to will be killing Hitler.

---

And that has been the simple time-travel tenses. Join us next week where we conjugate these thirty-six tenses for actions involving you and/or alternate universes. Here's a sneak peek at what is to come: If you are performing an action in the present to future you that happened in the relative past in an alternate timeline, and telling this to a younger you who has already seen it in another alternate universe, make sure to use the Present Poly-Metaprecedent Inverse-Prospective Extant-Precedent of I go to will have been killing me-us.

[Reecer6]

you don't get this at all...

if that was going to happen then the post wouldn't have existed in the first place, the fact it exists means no one successfully stopped it existing... you can't change the past... at all... anything which any time traveller did to influence the past has already happened in the past, if they intended to make things turn out differently then they obviously failed beause things did not turn out differently...

you want to go back in time and kill hitler before world war 2? well looking at the past shows us that you failed because that didn't happen

But something can't stop you from doing everything! No one's going to stop you if you live alone in a house and try to dent a wall in a windowless room that's not dented in the future. Anything that COULD stop you would end up damaging the house more, because denting a wall would be pretty quick and you'd hear someone crawling through your vents before then. Or, adding a haphazard letter to the end of a post that doesn't have it in the future! That's even QUICKER, and quiet too.

Also, couldn't you just say something like "I have killed Hitler, but that hasn't happened yet?" Time grammar is needlessly complicated.

[Jolts]

Snip

And this whole tense business is exactly why I dropped french at school.

But something can't stop you from doing everything! No one's going to stop you if you live alone in a house and try to dent a wall in a windowless room that's not dented in the future. Anything that COULD stop you would end up damaging the house more, because denting a wall would be pretty quick and you'd hear someone crawling through your vents before then. Or, adding a haphazard letter to the end of a post that doesn't have it in the future! That's even QUICKER, and quiet too.

The point is that if there really was truly nothing there to stop you, then what you were planning on doing would have already happened because nothing got in the way. If what you want to do never happened, then there has to be something keeping you from doing it no matter how random.


Alright guys, finally finished that time machine after one crazy all-nighter. I actually just looked my internet history, and everything checks out that I had to be the one making the post. If you'll excuse me, I will be going to have complied with a stable time loop.

[Wiwaxia]

There's also the C°ntinuum approach, where paradoxes are averted so long as you can jury-rig everything to look about right.

So if Jolts dies before posting that, some time traveler has to hack their account and go post it for them.
Or if you kill Hitler, the Time Police have to replace him with a fake (again).

[KarneWarrior]

Jesus bro, you don't have to be so rude.

All I'm going to say is time travel is blown way out of proportion in terms of complexity. The fact of the matter is that our minds work in three dimensions and hardly even percive the fourth so when you travel through time you'll be able to feel the difference, like stepping to a pool of water from another pool at a different temperature.

blah.

Look, idiot, you're perciving the fourth demension now since the fourth demension is time. So is the fifth and sixth and, augh, why am I even arguing with you, you'll come around. I did. It's inevitable for little shits like you.

IGNORE THE EDIT.

IGNORE IT.

[KarneWarrior]

blah.

Look, idiot, you're perciving the fourth demension now since the fourth demension is time. So is the fifth and sixth and, augh, why am I even arguing with you, you'll come around. I did. It's inevitable for little shits like you.

Jesus bro, you don't have to be so rude.

All I'm going to say is time travel is blown way out of proportion in terms of complexity. The fact of the matter is that our minds work in three dimensions and hardly even percive the fourth so when you travel through time you'll be able to feel the difference, like stepping to a pool of water from another pool at a different temperature.

[Raikonos]

I've always liked the MS Paint Masterpieces theory of time travel.



Forward time travel would be relatively easy, and I think it's implied that the Time Skimmer used by Dr Wily allows him to choose which of the infinite potential future timelines he ends up in. Backward time travel is one-directional, and annihilates the future you just came from. This system prevents paradoxes from occuring, since by changing the past you annihilate whatever future can no longer arise from it. It also allows for two of the same person/object to exist at once, if one came from an annihilated future. You wouldn't be able to meet your own future self by going forward though, since all timelines that you could travel to would diverge from the point at which you traveled forward and therefore not contain an instance of yourself.

[garrulousMonolith]

I've always liked the MS Paint Masterpieces theory of time travel.



Forward time travel would be relatively easy, and I think it's implied that the Time Skimmer used by Dr Wily allows him to choose which of the infinite potential future timelines he ends up in. Backward time travel is one-directional, and annihilates the future you just came from. This system prevents paradoxes from occuring, since by changing the past you annihilate whatever future can no longer arise from it. It also allows for two of the same person/object to exist at once, if one came from an annihilated future. You wouldn't be able to meet your own future self by going forward though, since all timelines that you could travel to would diverge from the point at which you traveled forward and therefore not contain an instance of yourself.

But what if you travel to the future, and then travel back to your present day, at the exact moment that you left? Is this actually "changing" anything in the past? (That is, your present, which is the future that you travel to's past).
From the future's point of view, all that's happened is you went into a timey-wimey box or something (assuming anyone was observing you at the time), it disappeared and reappeared nigh-instantaneously (presuming your device has that level of precision), you came out, and then years later you appeared in said timey-wimey box, and found and high-fived yourself before getting back in and disappearing. All you would have to do for this to be consistent would be to make sure you were in the place that you high-fived yourself at the right time in the future. Unless I'm missing something?

[Raikonos]

But what if you travel to the future, and then travel back to your present day, at the exact moment that you left? Is this actually "changing" anything in the past? (That is, your present, which is the future that you travel to's past).
From the future's point of view, all that's happened is you went into a timey-wimey box or something (assuming anyone was observing you at the time), it disappeared and reappeared nigh-instantaneously (presuming your device has that level of precision), you came out, and then years later you appeared in said timey-wimey box, and found and high-fived yourself before getting back in and disappearing. All you would have to do for this to be consistent would be to make sure you were in the place that you high-fived yourself at the right time in the future. Unless I'm missing something?

The key point you missed is, the future you travel to wouldn't have another you in it because in that timeline's history, you disappeared along with your time machine. Doesn't matter if you went forward five minutes or five years, that timeline is defined by your absence after you activated the time machine. If you travel back to the exact point at which you left, you have changed the future purely by your presence. The timeline is no longer defined by your absence, and that future ceases to exist.

Of course, you could also travel back to before you even left, and coexist with a younger version of yourself. You could even convince them not to time travel in the first place, and this wouldn't cause a paradox. A paradox would theoretically occur if you were to somehow disrupt the event in which you (that is, the you who time traveled) departed. But this isn't that event. That event was wiped from the timestream once you traveled to before it happened. You now come from a future that no longer exists. Whatever happens in this new future cannot retroactively affect you. Your own personal timeline is distinct from the timestream, and can easily contain events that happened in timelines which no longer exist.

[Catstorm]

I'm the mental time travel enthusiast. And I need to talk about it.

For this session we will assume that you can only time travel to your own body.

If you mentally time travel, and then go back to your present body somehow, your past/future self (whoever you were) won't be able to remember unless their consciousness is present too, right? They won't have any memory of the elapsed time while you had taken over. If their consciousness is there too, is it like in DBZ when two characters merge or do you have to have a mind battle to gain control of your body from that time? How would that even work.

Example: You mentally time travel to the past for a week. You take over and your past self's mind is basically unconscious. That would suck if they woke up a week later and found out that they can't even remember the past week. Imagine how hard it would be to explain that you woke up a week in the future but everyone else says you were acting pretty weird during that week. Like being....smarter than usual, or maybe having some strange objective that you yourself would never do. You all think it was strange, but X years later, you learn that you must go back into the past and do something important, and you figure out through this that it was you all along, not some weird memory thing.

Example 2: You mentally time travel to the past for a week. When you do, you hear another voice in your head. It is you. Like that one Spider-Man game where the future new Spider-Man talks to real old Spider-Man. Except both of them are you, and you have a mission, and dang it, you can't let your stupid preteen dramas get in the way of that uranium hidden in your attic or else someone you know will die. But you're only a voice and your past self has to listen to you like a weird conscience who knows the secrets of the universe. If you have a strong enough psychic ability though, you can just take over and let your past self take the back seat and comment on how you are ruining their social life.

Now, all of this would be nullified if mental time travel was permanent. EX: you go back to the past and you completely obliterate your past self's experiences. You have to live out the rest of the elapsed time as yourself and uh re-mature. But now this causes a paradox! Because your past self has to exist and grow up in order to be you and to have the knowledge and memory that you currently do. I don't know what happens next but it is probably not very pretty. Like you die or something.

I don't think meeting oneself in the past/future, though, will cause a paradox. :P

[Raikonos]

I'm the mental time travel enthusiast. And I need to talk about it.

For this session we will assume that you can only time travel to your own body.

If you mentally time travel, and then go back to your present body somehow, your past/future self (whoever you were) won't be able to remember unless their consciousness is present too, right? They won't have any memory of the elapsed time while you had taken over. If their consciousness is there too, is it like in DBZ when two characters merge or do you have to have a mind battle to gain control of your body from that time? How would that even work.

Example: You mentally time travel to the past for a week. You take over and your past self's mind is basically unconscious. That would suck if they woke up a week later and found out that they can't even remember the past week. Imagine how hard it would be to explain that you woke up a week in the future but everyone else says you were acting pretty weird during that week. Like being....smarter than usual, or maybe having some strange objective that you yourself would never do. You all think it was strange, but X years later, you learn that you must go back into the past and do something important, and you figure out through this that it was you all along, not some weird memory thing.

Example 2: You mentally time travel to the past for a week. When you do, you hear another voice in your head. It is you. Like that one Spider-Man game where the future new Spider-Man talks to real old Spider-Man. Except both of them are you, and you have a mission, and dang it, you can't let your stupid preteen dramas get in the way of that uranium hidden in your attic or else someone you know will die. But you're only a voice and your past self has to listen to you like a weird conscience who knows the secrets of the universe. If you have a strong enough psychic ability though, you can just take over and let your past self take the back seat and comment on how you are ruining their social life.

Now, all of this would be nullified if mental time travel was permanent. EX: you go back to the past and you completely obliterate your past self's experiences. You have to live out the rest of the elapsed time as yourself and uh re-mature. But now this causes a paradox! Because your past self has to exist and grow up in order to be you and to have the knowledge and memory that you currently do. I don't know what happens next but it is probably not very pretty. Like you die or something.

I don't think meeting oneself in the past/future, though, will cause a paradox. :P

I've always figured mental time travel would work by transferring all of your memories to your past self. This would rewrite history, because obviously you didn't know all those things the first time around. If we're assuming a universe that explodes when paradoxes happen, then this is a really bad idea please don't do this oh god. If it's a universe that works with stable time loops, then this can't happen at all since, well, it didn't happen. The way I think it'd work, the universe would have to essentially work like the MSPM time travel I was talking about. You send your memories back to your past self, and the future you inhabit is immediately annihilated because of it. Your past self (which may not be YOU you, depending on how consciousness actually works, but that's a different debate) now has all of your memories up to the point at which future you pushed the magic button. Little you is now free to do whatever it was that future you was trying to accomplish by destroying the universe. I hope it was important!

EDIT: I completely neglected to mention the branching-paths theory of time travel, in which multiple distinct timelines coexist that split off from points of choice. Flip a coin and create two timelines where it landed heads and tails, etc. So if you did mental time travel in that universe, it'd be pretty much the same thing as what I just said except that the future would persist after you sent your memories back. This would create a branching point at the time that you sent your memories to. One branch already exists, the branch in which little you continues on as he was. In the other branch, he suddenly gains future memories and goes on to do whatever it is you planned for him. Of course, since this happens in its own distinct branch of the timeline, it has no tangible effect on the version of you that sent the memories back. In fact, there'd be no way of knowing for sure that the machine actually worked!

Come to think of it, if you strip out the memories part this is pretty much exactly what future Trunks did in Dragonball Z when he brought the heart medicine to Goku.

[OrangeAipom]

What would be the point of mentally time-traveling to the future? Does this means you forget things you used to know?

[OrangeAipom]

What would be the point of mentally time-traveling to the future? Does this means you forget things you used to know?

Your memory has deteriorated by the time you're 55. I hope you are pleased by this.

[OrangeAipom]

Your memory has deteriorated by the time you're 55. I hope you are pleased by this.

Wouldn't you know if I was pleased by this?

[OrangeAipom]

Wouldn't you know if I was pleased by this?

Fuck if I remember.

[Raikonos]

What would be the point of mentally time-traveling to the future? Does this means you forget things you used to know?

I'd imagine sending memories into the future wouldn't really be all that useful. They'd just overlap with your future memories, which would probably include those memories anyway! Maybe you could use it as a really serious reminder for your future self to do whatever it is you're thinking about at the moment, assuming there's a "jolt" when all the memories hit you at once. Or you could give yourself amnesia knowing that at a specified point in the future all of your memories will come rushing back. But I'm not sure why you'd do that unless it was part of a convoluted plan to outsmart the world's greatest detective.

[Tirgo]

since i rp as dave a lot i have had some experience with trying to explain time travel

it still confuses me though

also did anyone see looper? shit was p cool

[OrangeAipom]

I'd imagine sending memories into the future wouldn't really be all that useful. They'd just overlap with your future memories, which would probably include those memories anyway! Maybe you could use it as a really serious reminder for your future self to do whatever it is you're thinking about at the moment, assuming there's a "jolt" when all the memories hit you at once. Or you could give yourself amnesia knowing that at a specified point in the future all of your memories will come rushing back. But I'm not sure why you'd do that unless it was part of a convoluted plan to outsmart the world's greatest detective.

But if the past memories overwrite the future ones, wouldn't I forget? I wouldn't even need amnesia.