Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

idlewords.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 81 posts

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#51

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

thinkloop wrote: post #26

There is no such thing as time, or time travel. There are only positions of particles. To go back in time by 1 minute, all particles in the universe have to be moved/changed back to their previous position. This is not time travel, but universe manipulation except for one subject. If there were parallel universes with every possible outcome and you traveled to one, this would also not be time travel, but a moving to…

Your position is inconsistent: the arrangement of particles changing is time, so your explanation of there not being time... asserts that time happens!

Putting the universe back as it was except for you is time travel. You've traveled your state to a different time (previous state) of the universe.

Your semantic game sounds very clever, but is actually just inconsistent and borderline ignorant of what people mean by those terms.

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#52

Post by thinkloop »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #51
thinkloop wrote: post #26

There is no such thing as time, or time travel. There are only positions of particles. To go back in time by 1 minute, all particles in the universe have to be moved/changed back to their previous position. This is not time travel, but universe manipulation except for one subject. If there were parallel universes with every possible outcome and you traveled to one, this would also not be time travel, but a moving to…

Your position is inconsistent: the arrangement of particles changing is time, so your explanation of there not being time... asserts that time happens! Putting the universe back as it was except for you is time travel. You've traveled your state to a different time (previous state) of the universe. Your semantic game sounds very clever, but is actually just inconsistent and borderline ignorant of what people mean by…

> Putting the universe back as it was except for you is time travel. You've traveled your state to a different time (previous state) of the universe.

> Your semantic game sounds very clever, but is actually just inconsistent and borderline ignorant of what people mean by those terms.

I don't think that's how most people think of time travel.

For example, say I proceeded to invoke reactions to get all particles back to exactly how they were on Jan.1 2000. Say this took me a year, and finally, in 2018, I execute the final reaction that places the last particle, so that the universe is exactly like it was Jan.1, 2000. Have I been time travelling for a year? Does making 2018 look like 2000 what people generally think of as time travel? What about that you yourself did not change, where are those particles coming from? What about the old you existing in that time as well, there aren't enough particles in the universe to have two you's. What about the time you travelled from remaining in existence while you're gone, and the changes you invoke in the "past" propagating there?

I get that it would provide a similar experience in many ways, but it doesn't involve travelling, nor time, just changes in particle positions - which is the nuance I am highlighting.

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#53

Post by YCode »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #51
thinkloop wrote: post #26

There is no such thing as time, or time travel. There are only positions of particles. To go back in time by 1 minute, all particles in the universe have to be moved/changed back to their previous position. This is not time travel, but universe manipulation except for one subject. If there were parallel universes with every possible outcome and you traveled to one, this would also not be time travel, but a moving to…

Your position is inconsistent: the arrangement of particles changing is time, so your explanation of there not being time... asserts that time happens! Putting the universe back as it was except for you is time travel. You've traveled your state to a different time (previous state) of the universe. Your semantic game sounds very clever, but is actually just inconsistent and borderline ignorant of what people mean by…

I think what he means is that time exists in the way that distance or speed exists. It's not a physical force like gravity or magnetism that acts upon the universe, it's just a method for us to understand and quantify what happens around us.

Traveling back in time subsequently doesn't make sense because the "past" is simply what we call previous configurations of matter.

You can't go back to those configurations (read: "go back in time") because they don't exist anymore.

Now, I'm not a physicist so I have no idea if he's correct, but semantically it makes sense and it's something I've wondered about for a while.

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#54

Post by zeven7 »

to3m wrote: post #37
officialjunk wrote: post #9

A few links are broken in that article. Here's an archive which contains the pictures referenced: http://web.archive.org/web/20070202095050/http://www.anomali...

I assume the war destroyed all the decent smartphones then, along with the vaping devices. Those photos look worse than ones taken on my Moto G.

The civil war in Titor's time line started in 2004, well before the first iPhone. I'd imagine the war altered his timeline enough that modern smart phones with nice cameras were not invented.

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#55

Post by 443633456 »

thinkloop wrote: post #26

There is no such thing as time, or time travel. There are only positions of particles. To go back in time by 1 minute, all particles in the universe have to be moved/changed back to their previous position. This is not time travel, but universe manipulation except for one subject. If there were parallel universes with every possible outcome and you traveled to one, this would also not be time travel, but a moving to…

"There are no particles, only waves."

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#56

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

thinkloop wrote: post #52
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your position is inconsistent: the arrangement of particles changing is time, so your explanation of there not being time... asserts that time happens! Putting the universe back as it was except for you is time travel. You've traveled your state to a different time (previous state) of the universe. Your semantic game sounds very clever, but is actually just inconsistent and borderline ignorant of what people mean by…

> Putting the universe back as it was except for you is time travel. You've traveled your state to a different time (previous state) of the universe. > Your semantic game sounds very clever, but is actually just inconsistent and borderline ignorant of what people mean by those terms. I don't think that's how most people think of time travel. For example, say I proceeded to invoke reactions to get all particles back t…

You have to give up the idea of a universal clock: you only have a local one.

In your example: since you erased the elapsed computation in other regions, you (by putting the particles back) are literally rewinding every clock but yours.

In whatever sense they were ever in 2000, they're back there, though you're in (your) 2018. Having your 2018 be their 2000 seems like a sensible definition of time travel.

(And yes, you'd have spent a year time traveling, though in many senses you always are time traveling forward, and you just happened to spend a year going fast "backwards".)

For the rest of your points, I agree that they're sensible objections to being able to do it, but they don't make the concept not mean anything, which was your original point.

Why would the future remain? You destroyed it when you time traveled, and any changes in the future would require time traveling forward to see. (Forward is less erasure heavy, because you're just stalling instead of rewinding.)

It's not just a similar experience, it's the literal definition of what that term means.

> nor time, just changes in particle positions

Uh... It's comments like this which makes me question your position.

Changes in particle positions is time! Literally: time is just that thing a clock does, which is tick. If particles change position, that's (by definition) time.

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#57

Post by arjie »

zeven7 wrote: post #54
to3m wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the war destroyed all the decent smartphones then, along with the vaping devices. Those photos look worse than ones taken on my Moto G.

The civil war in Titor's time line started in 2004, well before the first iPhone. I'd imagine the war altered his timeline enough that modern smart phones with nice cameras were not invented.

Ha ha, hilarious. But the Nikon DSC 995 existed in 2001 and took vastly better digital photographs than that. Not only did the technology exist but I was using one in India around that time.

I suppose the one thing hoaxes can't really compensate for is the fact that technology moves so fast.

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#58

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

YCode wrote: post #53
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your position is inconsistent: the arrangement of particles changing is time, so your explanation of there not being time... asserts that time happens! Putting the universe back as it was except for you is time travel. You've traveled your state to a different time (previous state) of the universe. Your semantic game sounds very clever, but is actually just inconsistent and borderline ignorant of what people mean by…

I think what he means is that time exists in the way that distance or speed exists. It's not a physical force like gravity or magnetism that acts upon the universe, it's just a method for us to understand and quantify what happens around us. Traveling back in time subsequently doesn't make sense because the "past" is simply what we call previous configurations of matter. You can't go back to those configurations (rea…

> Traveling back in time subsequently doesn't make sense because the "past" is simply what we call previous configurations of matter.

So? If my future goes from the world as it is now to the world as it was in 2000, in what sense am I not in 2000?

I mean, you guys seem to be under the impression that there's a single universal clock I cant reset... There's not. In whatever sense it ever was 2000, rewinding all the clocks would make it 2000 again. There's no clock besides those local ones, so if you reset them all, you're in the past (in whatever sense there was ever a past).

I just find it particularly silly to have said there's no time when you keep commenting on time happening.

(Also, does traveling a foot to the left not make sense because there's no distance, just past states Ive been in? Cause you said time was like distance, and you're right: both exist or neither exist in exactly the same sense.)

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#59

Post by AdventurerSen »

Zelmor wrote: post #29
eslaught wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steins;Gate[1] contains references to John Titor[2]. I actually thought they had made him up until I looked on Wikipedia and discovered he was a real ("real") conspiracy theory. An English version of the game is now up on Steam. Highly recommended. http://store.steampowered.com/app/412830/ [1]: Edit: the game. Not sure about the anime. [2]: Edit: In the game at least this is more in depth than just a password. Saying…

Welp, no linux version. A visual novel that actually got me interested. Hasn't happened in quite some time!

I believe there's a mobile version, and the first chapter is free.

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/steins-gate/id454136236?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mages.stei...

Post reply on HN