This timeline
- Thread starter Rawknee
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Einstein
Temporal Engineer
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No. But you could try another timeline by altering the choices you made that put you on your current path.
Einstein
Temporal Engineer
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Well, if you happen to be a plumber now, try being a banker instead.
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The theory states that you will create a parallel universe if you time traveled, so you cannot change the past of your current timeline.
Einstein
Temporal Engineer
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But altering your present life choices in the present will have an effect on how the future unfolds. Same as if you traveled to another time line. I am suggesting that your past in this alternate timeline may no longer be as you remember it.
This is kind of how I reasoned out why buildings can mysteriously pop into existence overnight in an empty field.
IroncladMarshmallow
Active Member
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Yes. There's a lot of theory I won't get into here, so I will put it in a simpler, but non-reverse-engineerable context.
Suppose traveling forward through time is like skiing down a hill. You can make gentle nudges side to side to guide your direction along the way, but you're always moving downward.
To go back in time, or back to the top of the hill in this analogy, you must gain energy to climb back up. That gives you the potential to take a different course down the hill this time, perhaps even pushing over other skiers, thereby altering their timeline.
There will always be paths you cannot realistically take, however, just like a skier would be unable to pass through a tree or boulder.
Time travel enables many possibilities, but not all of them. Knowing what things can and cannot be changed will prevent frustration.
Suppose traveling forward through time is like skiing down a hill. You can make gentle nudges side to side to guide your direction along the way, but you're always moving downward.
To go back in time, or back to the top of the hill in this analogy, you must gain energy to climb back up. That gives you the potential to take a different course down the hill this time, perhaps even pushing over other skiers, thereby altering their timeline.
There will always be paths you cannot realistically take, however, just like a skier would be unable to pass through a tree or boulder.
Time travel enables many possibilities, but not all of them. Knowing what things can and cannot be changed will prevent frustration.
Ayasano
Member
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Possibly yes, possibly no. There are 3 main theories of time travel. Immutable single timeline, mutable single timeline and mutable multiple timelines.
In a single immutable timeline, you can time travel, but whatever happened, happened. Your perspective might change, you might have your memory altered, you might suffer from amnesia. But if something happened, it will always happen, regardless of what you do. Paradoxes simply don't occur.
In a single mutable timeline, any changes made to the past will basically overwrite the timeline. Paradoxes are a big issue in this version, due to the lack of timelines or imutability to handle them.
In multiple timelines, whatever changes you make fork off new timelines. Paradoxes are resolved by the original timeline and new timeline existing side by side.
Obviously the answer to your question might change depending on the specifics of sub-theories within those main theories and whichever is proven true. So basically the answer to your question is "we don't know yet".
In a single immutable timeline, you can time travel, but whatever happened, happened. Your perspective might change, you might have your memory altered, you might suffer from amnesia. But if something happened, it will always happen, regardless of what you do. Paradoxes simply don't occur.
In a single mutable timeline, any changes made to the past will basically overwrite the timeline. Paradoxes are a big issue in this version, due to the lack of timelines or imutability to handle them.
In multiple timelines, whatever changes you make fork off new timelines. Paradoxes are resolved by the original timeline and new timeline existing side by side.
Obviously the answer to your question might change depending on the specifics of sub-theories within those main theories and whichever is proven true. So basically the answer to your question is "we don't know yet".
So which one do you believe is most likely true?
Ayasano
Member
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Most likely true? None of the above, if you follow Occams Razor. If time travel does turn out to be possible though, it's probably via an immutable single timeline, simply because it avoids the most problems.