Forums → The Tavern → Time travel
| 93 | 13613 |
- 93 Replies
I forgot to add, a person isn't necessarily consciously deciding to do the same action the exact same way.
I'd go back in time and relive my whole life startin at age six, with my intellect still intat but look like a six year old, and try to explain many of the terrible things that would happen, like 9-11
So using that logic, if I drop a feather it will land and if I go back in time and drop the same feather, it will land in the exact same place?
I still don't see how the balls can strike each other in exactly the same position, but unless we can go back in time and actually do it, there is no way for either of us to prove whether it would happen or not.
The closest you could get is to have two identical machines, with the balls placed in each so they are both in perfect alignment, set the machines off and monitor the result. But it still wouldn't prove whether a single machine could give identical results twice in a given moment in time.
As far as the brain making the exact same decision in the same space time, again, that is impossible to prove or disprove. People are given to split second decisions and there is nothing to say that if someone had the opportunity to repeat a decision that it would be identical the second time round. Like wise with throwing a die.
You throw the die. You get a six. Go back in time, you're throwing the die again, but there is nothing to say you will throw it again in the exact same way. It is down to chance whether you'd hit a six again, just as it would be if you picked up the die immediately after throwing it and threw it again. You could try for the same number, but you've no guarantee.
To start this post off, i want to give another argument about why there is no such thing as true random. One of the primary laws of motion is that to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, not an random and or random reaction. If two balls hit the exact same way, they will always bounce off each other the exact same way. If all those balls were placed into the machine the same way, when force is applied, they will always react the same way, yielding the same results. Nothing happens without something causing it happen (even our in our brains), and if nothing can happen without something else causing it to happen, randomness can't exist. We can call the thing causing the reaction "random", but it was still under the reaction of something else, which was under the reaction of something else, ect.
So using that logic, if I drop a feather it will land and if I go back in time and drop the same feather, it will land in the exact same place?
If you drop it the exact same way under the exact same circumstances, yes.
The closest you could get is to have two identical machines, with the balls placed in each so they are both in perfect alignment, set the machines off and monitor the result. But it still wouldn't prove whether a single machine could give identical results twice in a given moment in time.
It's still not the point. I'm not saying you can recreate it, i'm saying you can have it happen again by going back in time. The only way to be sure every possible factor is the same as the first time, is to literally have the action preformed as it was the first time.
People are given to split second decisions
The person and their brains aren't separate, and their brains don't make two different decisions when under the exact same conditions. People's hardly even control what they decide, no matter how much it feels like they do. Under the same circumstances, they will always make the same decision, the brain is not wired in multiple ways. The brain has a specific set of instructions (mind you each brain is different), and the same situation will make the brain follow the same instructions.
You throw the die. You get a six. Go back in time, you're throwing the die again, but there is nothing to say you will throw it again in the exact same way. It is down to chance whether you'd hit a six again, just as it would be if you picked up the die immediately after throwing it and threw it again. You could try for the same number, but you've no guarantee.
This isn't the same situation. In order for it to be the same situation, you would have to have had no memory of the first die throw ever happened. Then, you would have to be in the same position following the same movements.
You're still presuming that the two situations will be identical. The force applied to the balls to give them their motion is generated by small jets of air and these jets of air are never identical. One tiny difference in the air flow will apply a force to the balls that makes the machine do something different each time it is run. In other words, because the air flow isn't a constant, the first law of motion doesn't apply.
One of the reasons I used the example of the feather is that the tiniest temperature variation or a slight injection of air will totally alter the feather's trajectory causing it to land in a different position each and every time. Temperature and air flow isn't a constant, so again the first law of motion doesn't apply.
My point is that you can not guarantee the precise conditions each time and whilst you might be correct that if the conditions are matched precisely, you would get the same result, the chances are minuscule that the precise conditions will happen twice in a row.
With regards to the human brain, the article you have linked to is discussing one type of brain activity based on a tiny sample of data. It is not definitive proof. No one has mapped the brain perfectly and the top minds of the neurology world will admit that all they have is theories. I know this because I've spent 3 to 4 years in their company with a memory malfunction. Whilst I refused to go into a research department to have what was happening to me analysed in more detail, I did attend various centres and take part in tests to determine why it happened. They hadn't a clue and they told me as much.
Unless you have something more than one link that followed a very narrow path of research, you can hardly say you understand more than the leading minds currently working in the field can you?
Your entire premise is based on one period of time in space where everything is absolutely and precisely identical. My argument is, that is impossible given the variations produced by the equipment and even if the ping pong ball machine was substituted for an electronic computer-controlled device, I still do not believe the computer will come to the same conclusion on two entirely separate occasions.
Just because you know that the time in space has occurred before doesn't mean that the situation will be identical and therefore you can not guarantee the same results.
You're still presuming that the two situations will be identical.
It's not two situations, it's the same situation again.
Temperature and air flow isn't a constant, so again the first law of motion doesn't apply.
(It's Newton's third law we were talking about)
The third law of motion most certainly applies to any moving matter in out universe. Temperature and air flow aren't constant because something else's action is causing them to change.
My point is that you can not guarantee the precise conditions each time and whilst you might be correct that if the conditions are matched precisely, you would get the same result, the chances are minuscule that the precise conditions will happen twice in a row.
Once again, it's not twice in a row, it's the same situation twice. When we go back in time, we're not going to an alternate timeline, we're going to the same timeline we just had where everything is exactly the same as it was.
No one has mapped the brain perfectly and the top minds of the neurology world will admit that all they have is theories. I know this because I've spent 3 to 4 years in their company with a memory malfunction. Whilst I refused to go into a research department to have what was happening to me analysed in more detail, I did attend various centres and take part in tests to determine why it happened. They hadn't a clue and they told me as much.
Fair enough.
Your entire premise is based on one period of time in space
Actually the same period twice.
Okay, lets agree its one situation for the sake of argument. How do we get round the variances in the air flow from the lottery machine?
It was bugging me all night about that Newton's law thing... its been so long since I studied anything like that, I had a niggle that the first law was an object remaining a constant unless something interupts it, but there was no point coming back to it as you can't edit anything on here.
I agree with you that the only reason temperature and air flow isn't constant is that something else is acting on them, in this case it's the method the air jets use to generate air flow. There is a variable that could alter the results the machine gives. The balls are all of identical weight and size, the inner dimensions of the machine don't change, but because the air flow is a variable, the balls will not be in the identical locations every time the machine is run.
i would go to the time from the..........
DINOSAURS!!!
but i will need to be a dinosaur :P
but because the air flow is a variable
It still wouldn't change if you went back in time because nothing would act on it to alter it. The only thing that could possibly change it is the person who went back (either by their own body temperature, their air usage, their matter presence causing a miniscule change in air pressure, etc), or if they chose to physically do something to the machine.
But you're viewing time as a linear, that just because something has happened once, it must therefore happen again if you're looking at the same point in time.
The very fact that something varies, that a machine such as an air jet has no set pattern to follow, means that it will do what it does differently every time. Just because the first instance is in one period of time, you go back to experience that time again, it is rewriting time. The very fact you're there is rewriting time, but the variables that are not constant are not going to follow some set path just because they did it once before from your perception or experience.
But you're viewing time as a linear, that just because something has happened once, it must therefore happen again if you're looking at the same point in time.
First of all, how do you view time? Also, a varied amount of air pressure in the machine would mean that we didn't travel back to the same time line, and this entire argument is based off being in the same timeline at the same time, without changing that timeline.
The very fact that something varies, that a machine such as an air jet has no set pattern to follow, means that it will do what it does differently every time.
In the same timeline, it has the same pattern.
one period of time
Once again, it's the same point in time you're going to. That's the point of going back in time.
it is rewriting time.
Why would simply going back in time, even if you don't change anything, rewrite random parts of time? Why wouldn't time be constantly rewriting itself all the time?
The very fact you're there is rewriting time
You're only rewriting what you've changed, and if you haven't changed anything relating to the machine, why would it change?
Our argument centres on whether or not the variables present in the machine would be identical in the same period of time if time was rerun again.
My argument is simply that because you're rerunning time, the variables will do what they do best, vary. The variables don't understand that you've travelled back in time and this is a rerun. So any variation within the parameters of the air flow in that machine will change the timeline, and thus change the position of the balls in the machine.
Why would the variables suddenly produce a constant? That is the bit I don't understand. A variable is exactly what it says on a the tin, a variation, ie not a constant.
So any variation within the parameters of the air flow in that machine will change the timeline
What would cause it to vary?
A variable is exactly what it says on a the tin, a variation, ie not a constant.
It's only varied in a seperate duplicate setting. If you reference the same point on a data chart/table that point will remain constant.
What would cause it to vary?
The fact that the machine itself, the air jets, are subject to varying pressure. It is the nature of the machine.
It's only varied in a seperate duplicate setting. If you reference the same point on a data chart/table that point will remain constant.
But time is being reset, rerun. Why would a variable remain the same, by its very nature it varies each time?
The machine has a set coding on how to run itself. There is a pattern to every 'random' machine. That precise coding pattern would be unchanged.
You must be logged in to post a reply!