Regardless of the theories, I cannot believe that time travel will ever be possible. My main reason for this is because we have recorded history and we know what events happened in the past, and in our own recent past we even have our own memories of past experiences. If time travel were possible then we could not have a recorded history because it would be constantly changing. I can remember, for example, the day when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon, the first man to do so. If time travel were possible it would be possible to travel back through time and prevent that event from taking place. It would, for example, be possible for a Russian to travel back through time armed with the technical knowledge necessary to land on the Moon and give it to the Russians years before the Americans achieved it. That act would change history. After that it would then be possible for an American to travel back in time and prevent the Russians from using that information, and so on, and so on. History, however, is not subject to change, it remains constant, if it did change then it would not be history! In order to have a past that past must be unalterable, if it were subject to change then we may not be born to observe it, but we are here observing it. The following quote sums it up rather well I think - "This only is denied to God: the power to undo the past." Agathon (448 BC - 400 BC), from Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.
It has been argued that perhaps time travellers from the future have visited us, but being aware of the dangers of interfering with the past - that could have dire consequences for their future - they only observe in secret and do not interfere. However, it should be clearly understood that this policy of 'non-interference' does not help the situation at all. Imagine that today no time travellers have yet come back from the future to visit us. Now imagine that at some future time they do come back to today and visit us. Even though they may only be observing for a few minutes and then return to their own time, they have still changed the course of history. In the first instance no time travellers had visited us, but in the second instance they had. This alone has changed history, it doesn't matter whether or not anybody knew they were there, or if they physically changed anything or not, the fact is they were there. So what happened to our 'original' history, the 'today' with no visiting time travellers? It has been removed from history and never happened - but the problem is we know it did happen! Does this mean that when history is changed our memories are changed as well? Perhaps I only think that my memory of Armstrong walking on the moon has never changed, but in reality it may have been changed many times. I don't think so though, because it is recorded history, it is written down in black and white, and how could that change? Unless it has changed every time of course and I only think it is permanent? This is leading us on to the alternative universe theory, as it is beginning to sound a lot like it.
The alternative universes theory was designed to overcomes the problems of altering history, which of course cannot be altered. It is my opinion however, that this theory is an extremely complicated concept only offered up as a way of getting round a very real problem - that of changing history and associated paradoxes - and is based on strange phenomenon found only in the quantum world - which is not at all understood - and for which we have absolutely no evidence for being applicable in the larger world. Furthermore, I have yet to find any explanation of where all the matter and energy would come from that mysteriously creates all these very convenient alternative universes. I am also puzzled as to what would constitute a choice of outcomes that would generate a universe for every possible outcome. I can understand a photon being 'forced' by observation to go through either one slit or another, and this generating two possible outcomes both of which require its own universe, but what of other examples of a choice of outcome? What about my turning left at a road junction instead of right, does that create an alternative universe? Or what if I said 'yes' instead of 'no' when asked if I liked the colour pink, would that create an alternative universe? You can see where I am going here, if every choice resulted in an alternative universe, then the number of alternative universes created would be infinite and ever increasing at an infinite rate as all those alternative universes created their own alternative universes, and so on ad infinitum. All this just to avoid paradoxes! I think not.
I really cannot see how time travel could ever become a reality, for if it were possible it would have already happened, if you see what I mean? The only method I can envisage as workable, or possible, is to put a person into a state of suspended animation in order to arrive, eventually, at the future, because I don't think the future is already 'out there', I suspect it has to develop moment by moment.
0 comments:
Post a Comment