If a person goes back in time and kills his great-grandfather, would he exist or not? The problem is that he wouldn't exist in the future, but he wouldn't exist to make it so he wouldn't exist. Discuss.
NEW!
This one has already been discussed. Now we're on a different problem on page 2 (although my future self is probably on a problem around page 5). Every twenty posts or so, someone can post a new time-travelling oddity.
I don't believe time exists, but is merely a perception and measure of change in any entity. Therefore, time time travel is impossible.
Now for your question: If a person went back and killed his great-grandfather, he would no longer be attached to the threads of time, but merely be disconnected from it (He will no longer be born in future timelines, but he would still exist as he came from a [now nonexistant] timeline he was born from).
BUT their great-grandfather would be required for their existance because if their parents weren't born, then they could not be born.
Killed the grandfather before the grandfather had your father/mother, I assume?
I agree, I dont think time travel is possible. It just is too complicated, though Black Holes are known to stop it so I dont really know, because I believe that Black Holes stop time because they stop everything else and you will forever see the person inside a Black Hole. So yes time exists, I just dont think mankind will ever touch it!
QUOTE(Mp)7-7 @ Nov 9 2006, 05:35 PM)
I agree, I dont think time travel is possible. It just is too complicated, though Black Holes are known to stop it so I dont really know, because I believe that Black Holes stop time because they stop everything else and you will forever see the person inside a Black Hole. So yes time exists, I just dont think mankind will ever touch it!
[right][snapback]586447[/snapback][/right]
Let's just assume that time travel is possible in this situation, just for the sake of disscusion.
QUOTE(Centeri @ Nov 9 2006, 05:32 PM)
Killed the grandfather before the grandfather had your father/mother, I assume?
Great-grandfather, and yes.
QUOTE(FatalException @ Nov 9 2006, 06:14 PM)
BUT their great-grandfather would be required for their existance because if their parents weren't born, then they could not be born.
[right][snapback]586433[/snapback][/right]
You would still exist of you killed your great-grandfather of the past because you already exist from a different timeline that you destroyed by killing your past. Basically, you would no longer exist in the present, but be stuck in a different dimensional timeline from the past where you were never born.
If you already exist, then why you would you stop existing because your great-grandfather stopped existing? Once you're born, only death will stop your existance.QUOTE(FatalException @ Nov 9 2006, 08:52 PM)
Let's just assume that time travel is possible in this situation, just for the sake of disscusion.
[right][snapback]586462[/snapback][/right]
Okay, Yes I do think that it would affect the future. It would be like if I went back five seconds ago and blew a bomb up, coming back to the future, it would still be exploding, no.
Of course he would exist. He wouldn't have to be born because he's already there. He can't be in two places at once.
Well my theory about doing stuff in the past through time-travel is this: If you go back in time and do something, it affects the time period that you're in even before you go back in time. For example: If you go back in time and stop the invention of the automobile, then there wouldn't be any cars even before you go back in time. So therefore, if you go back in time and kill an ancestor before they give birth or (in the case of a male ancestor) the one who causes an ancestor to give birth before they do, it would cause the descendants to never exist. Time travel is confusing...
If you understand time travel enough, you'll realise that it has no paradoxes.
QUOTE(LoserMusician2 @ Nov 9 2006, 08:36 PM)
If you understand time travel enough, you'll realise that it has no paradoxes.
[right][snapback]586556[/snapback][/right]
Care to explain? It seems to me that you're saying that you know a lot about time travel.
The idea behind it is pretty hard to understand, but it's the only way you can acheive having the ability to travel into the past. And it's this:
You don't go back into the past. You make the past come back to you.
I'll use an example:
Say you have an old 1920 house. And it's run down, and you want to restore it back to the way it was. So you clean it up and what not, and bam. It's back to the way it was. You technically did time travelling, but not really because it's on such an inaccurate and small scale.
But if that scale was much larger, and was much more accurate. (Like restoring the entire world exactly the way it was in 1920) Then that would be considered time traveling into the past. However, this can never be acheived unless some major scientific breakthroughs occur.
QUOTE(LoserMusician2 @ Nov 9 2006, 11:51 PM)
The idea behind it is pretty hard to understand, but it's the only way you can acheive having the ability to travel into the past. And it's this:
You don't go back into the past. You make the past come back to you.
I'll use an example:
Say you have an old 1920 house. And it's run down, and you want to restore it back to the way it was. So you clean it up and what not, and bam. It's back to the way it was. You technically did time travelling, but not really because it's on such an inaccurate and small scale.
But if that scale was much larger, and was much more accurate. (Like restoring the entire world exactly the way it was in 1920) Then that would be considered time traveling into the past. However, this can never be acheived unless some major scientific breakthroughs occur.
[right][snapback]586567[/snapback][/right]
I dont think you are right. If you are it is very hard to think of it this way. But as I dont think that you can actually physically bring you yourelf to a different time in the world.
He would still exist, he would continue on through this new history and see how his parents were never born and how the world is different without him. Even if he went forward in time again, he would never really reach a point where he could meet himself, as the reality would be different.
Of course when you look at it this way, the man you would be killing would no longer be your grandfather, he would simply be some other guy in the world. Severing your connection to history, is it even considered time traveling anymore?
This is why time traveling will never be created. You cant do that, you would be changing history, therfore be changing the present time. So for people that are living in present day, does their life freeze, therefore they never know what happens. Or does your grammy's husband just disappear from the couch?
Time travel can and never will happen. A cofee cup that falls off a table and breaks will never pick itself up again and put itself together.
QUOTE(Tango @ Nov 10 2006, 09:10 AM)
Time travel can and never will happen. A cofee cup that falls off a table and breaks will never pick itself up again and put itself together.
[right][snapback]586633[/snapback][/right]
Well, if you were able to go back in time, he is asking if you could catch it would it still be there all together in present life like it didnt smash, what you said didnt have a whole lot to do with time travel.
This is not talking about whether if time travel can happen or not, its about IF.
Time traveling maybe possible. Nothing is impossible.
If you thought if you went back and killed your grand-father, and you would disappear because of it, then you wouldn't exist and you wouldn't have gone back in time to kill your grandfather, thus you exist and you dont which is wierd. But if you put it that if you severed yourself from history, then you simply wouldn't exist which is also wierd.
It's a paradoxical sense if you think about it all different ways.
I agree with siegecopx and rantent.
THE BACK TO THE FUTURE THEORY!!
If we went back in time and killed our grandparent we would make a new timeline thus severing history.
Its snowing.
QUOTE(Oo.Zero.oO @ Nov 10 2006, 10:28 AM)
I agree with siegecopx and rantent.
THE BACK TO THE FUTURE THEORY!!
If we went back in time and killed our grandparent we would make a new timeline thus severing history.
[right][snapback]586654[/snapback][/right]
Yes, if you killed your grandfather you would no be alive in present day, because in the life of your would be grandmother she would probably get a husband and have a child just like your mom or dad then your parents wouldnt have you because they are different. Their life would be being lived not yours.
Time traveling isn't possible by my means. So I don't even give this a thought, hehe.
QUOTE(Chronophobia @ Nov 10 2006, 11:04 AM)
Time traveling isn't possible by my means. So I don't even give this a thought, hehe.
[right][snapback]586667[/snapback][/right]
This is what I said before, and he told me just for the sake of discussion to say that you can, then I really thought about it.
I think that it is very twisted. I dont know if the man would exist or not, I dont think he would.
At best, he would have prevented a baby just like him from being born. (assuming things turned out the same way)
Lets make this even better. What if you met you from 15 minutes beyond?