Traveling to Parallel Worlds vs. Time Travel
I think the discussion of time travel often gets confused with traveling to parallel worlds. Travel to parallel worlds would involve LATERAL travel (in the present) where events are occuring in REAL time but in a DIFFERENT place. Time travel would involve traveling forward or backwards from the present along the TIMELINE. We need to appreciate that the two are inextricably bound to each other but that the possibility of parallel worlds introduces a new factor into the equation. Discussion of time travel often presumes that it arrives at the same world, past or future, that we came from, only in a different time. This may NOT be the case at all. We talk about parallel worlds but are often inconsistent in applying this new paradigm of reality. It is hard to rid ourselves of the old way of thinking about the universe, but it is human nature to fall back on what is familiar and has been for so long.
While time travel to the past or future may be in the same timeline, it very well may not. You may go into the past or future, but arrive in a DIFFERENT world, a different timeline that has no direct relationship to the world you just came from. This may explain how some people "see" the future, but the event never occurs. The Many Worlds Theory would say that they could have see A future, but that what they saw was not OUR future in THIS timeline, but one in another parallel world.
There is so much talk about traveling back in time to change history in some way, but according to Many Worlds Theory (Hugh Everett), you cannot go back to the SAME world in the past, only a parallel world where events happened differently. So any change you might be able to make would not affect the history of YOUR timeline that you left. It's like the saying, "You cannot put your foot in the same river twice". Things are not the same as they were the first time you did it.
Discussion of time travel needs to keep this factor in mind.
I think the discussion of time travel often gets confused with traveling to parallel worlds. Travel to parallel worlds would involve LATERAL travel (in the present) where events are occuring in REAL time but in a DIFFERENT place. Time travel would involve traveling forward or backwards from the present along the TIMELINE. We need to appreciate that the two are inextricably bound to each other but that the possibility of parallel worlds introduces a new factor into the equation. Discussion of time travel often presumes that it arrives at the same world, past or future, that we came from, only in a different time. This may NOT be the case at all. We talk about parallel worlds but are often inconsistent in applying this new paradigm of reality. It is hard to rid ourselves of the old way of thinking about the universe, but it is human nature to fall back on what is familiar and has been for so long.
While time travel to the past or future may be in the same timeline, it very well may not. You may go into the past or future, but arrive in a DIFFERENT world, a different timeline that has no direct relationship to the world you just came from. This may explain how some people "see" the future, but the event never occurs. The Many Worlds Theory would say that they could have see A future, but that what they saw was not OUR future in THIS timeline, but one in another parallel world.
There is so much talk about traveling back in time to change history in some way, but according to Many Worlds Theory (Hugh Everett), you cannot go back to the SAME world in the past, only a parallel world where events happened differently. So any change you might be able to make would not affect the history of YOUR timeline that you left. It's like the saying, "You cannot put your foot in the same river twice". Things are not the same as they were the first time you did it.
Discussion of time travel needs to keep this factor in mind.