Time Travel is Impossible

[Linksquest]

Ok. Now before you guys go crazy i must say one thing. I am very much in love with stories that are about time travel. They are awsome. I love fantasy and sci-fi.

(all ideas about time travel are MINE and have not been taken from other sources)

The timeline can be thought of as a river. The present can be described as a boat on this river continuously following the current of the river downstream. All living things can be described as people in this boat. The past is all the river that the boat has traveled already and is now behind the boat. The future can be described as the long stretch of river that lies beyond the boat.

If a person were to jump from the boat and attempt to make it upstream, behind the boat (try to travel back in time), even if he/she did make it upstream, the boat would continue onward down the stream, and he/she would be alone upstream (in the past). The past would be desolate and completely empty, and this person would have to work twice as hard to get back to the boat (the present) as it is now further down the stream than when he started.

If someone were to jump from the boat and swim downstream, in front of the boat (travel to the future) they would leave the boat behind and in doing so, leave all the people behind as well (all living things). They would continue down the river at the same rate as the boat, so returning to the boat should take as much energy as it took to get away from it. The future, too, would be a desolate thing, so abstract, so filled with endless possibilities that it would be everything and nothing. The future would not be visable as it would be changing constantly because of the different decisions being made on the boat (the present). Someone will dump some poisen into the river and so then all the fish ahead of the boat would die. The present changes the future everyday.





OK. Now this is why traveling to the past is impossible:

IN concept, the reason why you would want to travel to the past in the first place would be to perhapes, change something, or to view a historic event, or to talk to someone who is now dead. But those dead people are the key. For time travel to work as so many people in novel's suggest, it would have to take the REINVOKING of all dead spirits from heaven and hell and replacing them in already decayed bodies and have these bodies restored. These souls that have already met their end would get, in essence, a second chance. All of the people in the boat would have to be thrown upstream to be with the Timetraveler, thus making the past a temporary "present," a temporary resting place in time.

If i am in the boat, and someone would want to talk to me in the past (lets say 3 years ago) They would leave the present and go to the past. I would still be in the present. I am NOT in the past. My conciousness is not in the past. They can't talk to me, because i am here.

The present can also be described as the time you are presently experiencing. Traveling to the past or future is impossible because by doing so it would become your present. "Yesterday's tomorrow is today" is a common phrase used by people. These terms represent comparisons in time to each other. where I am now is the present. I can't travel to tomorrow, because when i wake up in the morning tomorrow, Tomorrow will have become today.

One will always be in the present.





Say whatever you like to this guys!
I would love to hear what you think!

[Azier the Swordsman]

Have you ever heard of Stephen King's The Langoliers? The story is based on this idea of time travel.

[Felix]

*keels over* That was confusing. I think I understand how you're looking at this and I must say that it makes perfect sense. As much as I'd like to think that time travel is possible I agree with how you think. That was very interesting. *claps* Bravo.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

.....

that made no sense whatsoever

however my reasoning seems to make more sense John

Lets say you were walking on the street and you saw a guy walk across you and get hit by a car....

If you decided to go back in time to save the man, and lets say you do. Then the man wouldn't of walked pass you and died in the first place.

If you decide to not go back in time... then you would see him die. However if you do go back in time to save him, he would of died at all, thus you not needing to go BACK in time

it goes like in cycles and makes no sense

thus time travel is impossible

[Azier the Swordsman]

I'm reminded of a major plothole in Ocarina of Time: Maybe I missed something here, but wouldn't Link's return to the past at the end have not made anything matter? He defeated Ganondorf in the future, but wouldn't he still take over the in the years leading up to the future? Or did his defeat affect past, present, and future, and spawn a whole new timeline alltogether?

[Linksquest]

well the basic point i was trying to make was that no one is in the past because they are all in the present. All the people that have died, are dead, and to make time travel work you would have make their spirits re-enter their bodies... which is impossible.

[Bobtheduck]

I think that is merely assuming that there is no past. So, you have an idea. A hypotheseis. Not even a theory. It could even just be considered a philosophy. So, yeah. If EVERY THING leading to your hypothesis were true, it would be fact, but you base your conclusion on things that are themselves very debateable, and even just ideas themselves.

How can you say there is no past? Why do you think time is like a river? I mean, where did you get this analogy? Did you come up with it on your own? Time may not work quite like that, and I think the idea that visiting the past would "bring back dead spirits" is just a tad bit over the top. Since I am not conviced of the ideas leading up to your conclusion, this would not convice me of the conclusion.

MSP is arguing a more traditional point, but thinking of things in absolute terms, if there was only one timeline and you could change things, you couldn't do anything that would keep you from doing what you were doing. You wouldn't be able to kill your grandfather or do something to stop yourself from going back in time... You also wouldn't be able to help change things in any significant way, provided there was only one timeline. So, that doesn't mean time travel isn't possible. Just that paradoxes are impossible. That's my hypothesis, anyhow.

[Sonic_13]

time doesnt pass... people and things pass.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

the past and present and future is just time... that is all... mwahaha

or was is time is just the past and present and future

[Slater]

if you could travel faster than the speed of light, you could go back in time.

But that's not possible by our physics today. it would take more than infinity energy to do that

[GhostontheNet]

Ok. Now before you guys go crazy i must say one thing. I am very much in love with stories that are about time travel. They are awsome. I love fantasy and sci-fi.

(all ideas about time travel are MINE and have not been taken from other sources)

The timeline can be thought of as a river. The present can be described as a boat on this river continuously following the current of the river downstream. All living things can be described as people in this boat. The past is all the river that the boat has traveled already and is now behind the boat. The future can be described as the long stretch of river that lies beyond the boat.

If a person were to jump from the boat and attempt to make it upstream, behind the boat (try to travel back in time), even if he/she did make it upstream, the boat would continue onward down the stream, and he/she would be alone upstream (in the past). The past would be desolate and completely empty, and this person would have to work twice as hard to get back to the boat (the present) as it is now further down the stream than when he started.

If someone were to jump from the boat and swim downstream, in front of the boat (travel to the future) they would leave the boat behind and in doing so, leave all the people behind as well (all living things). They would continue down the river at the same rate as the boat, so returning to the boat should take as much energy as it took to get away from it. The future, too, would be a desolate thing, so abstract, so filled with endless possibilities that it would be everything and nothing. The future would not be visable as it would be changing constantly because of the different decisions being made on the boat (the present). Someone will dump some poisen into the river and so then all the fish ahead of the boat would die. The present changes the future everyday.





OK. Now this is why traveling to the past is impossible:

IN concept, the reason why you would want to travel to the past in the first place would be to perhapes, change something, or to view a historic event, or to talk to someone who is now dead. But those dead people are the key. For time travel to work as so many people in novel's suggest, it would have to take the REINVOKING of all dead spirits from heaven and hell and replacing them in already decayed bodies and have these bodies restored. These souls that have already met their end would get, in essence, a second chance. All of the people in the boat would have to be thrown upstream to be with the Timetraveler, thus making the past a temporary "present," a temporary resting place in time.

If i am in the boat, and someone would want to talk to me in the past (lets say 3 years ago) They would leave the present and go to the past. I would still be in the present. I am NOT in the past. My conciousness is not in the past. They can't talk to me, because i am here.

The present can also be described as the time you are presently experiencing. Traveling to the past or future is impossible because by doing so it would become your present. "Yesterday's tomorrow is today" is a common phrase used by people. These terms represent comparisons in time to each other. where I am now is the present. I can't travel to tomorrow, because when i wake up in the morning tomorrow, Tomorrow will have become today.

One will always be in the present.





Say whatever you like to this guys!
I would love to hear what you think!

Let's catch our hypothesis up with modern physics before saying its impossible for these reasons. For example, by the scientific Theory of Relativity, a person in a hypothetical rocket ship travelling at extremely high speeds will in fact age much more slowly than a person who stayed on earth because the fabric of time is warped by the speeds travelled. And if our space traveller returns to earth he will find a friend much more aged than he, though both are clearly in the same universe. By your conception this should be impossible - our space traveller should be just as old somehow or something.

[Slater]

no, not exactly. Time never traveled backwards for either man, it just traveled at a different rate.

BTW, that theory has been proven true by flying atomic clocks around the earth at super high speeds. Two on the ground held still will agree, but the one that took off in the jet would disagree with those two, even ifit was perfectly in synch with the other two. None of them went back in time, however.

[Kura Ookami]

Time travel is possible, but only traveling forward in time. I think this is one of einstiens theories, but if you travel at close to the speed of light time will pass more slowly for you than for people who are not traveling at that speed. This is actually true for all speeds including when you walk somewhere although theamount of time would be like billionths of a second and therefore too small to make any difference. In other words if you've even walked somewhere you've time traveled into the future.

So we can time travel to the future, but it is theoretically impossible to travel back to the past because of this formula. e=mcc. Energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. The energy of an object increases the faster it goes and the speed of light is constant so the mass of the object must increase to the point of infinity at the speed of light and the greater the mass the harder it becomes to move the object.Again this mass increase happens at any speed theoretically.

[GhostontheNet]

no, not exactly. Time never traveled backwards for either man, it just traveled at a different rate.

BTW, that theory has been proven true by flying atomic clocks around the earth at super high speeds. Two on the ground held still will agree, but the one that took off in the jet would disagree with those two, even ifit was perfectly in synch with the other two. None of them went back in time, however.

I know, you're missing the point. Such data would merely contradict the style of his argument's suppositions.

[Heed]

God is in control of everything... The Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. If we were to have time travel, God would not logically allow it. God could do it. In essesnce, as previously stated, you would be taking people out of hell or heaven and reanimating them. Thus you are controlling the spiiritual realm. We have no control like that, that is God's territory, so really, the whole concept of time time travel is absurd.

However, you do have tomezones which are kind of time travel. I am in Japan now... 13 hours ahead of my house in New York. So, I am technically in the future, but what happens at my house now does not affect what happens here in the future... or current time zone, because the time zones coexist in the same Time. I also heard the theory that God looks at time as all things are happening now. Like in another "time" the middle ages are happeing but also our time is happening. Kind of like diferent planes or dimensions of time all happening at once yet we cannot travel between them.

As I said, Time is God's territory.... yet in heaven there is no time... time is an earthly concept which was created by God fir us to use, but with God there is only eternity...

[Nate]

I fail to see how travelling into the past would somehow take a person's soul and "put it back in their body." By travelling back in time, one would be at a point BEFORE the soul left the bodies of the people in that era. There would be no need to "put the souls back in the bodies" because at that point in time, the souls would not have left yet.

You state we're always in the present, but that's not true, is it? I was in the present yesterday, but the present of yesterday is now the past. I'm not in it currently, but at that point in time it WAS the present.

By your logic, I can never go to Otakon. Because if I try to go there, I'll invariably end up "here." Because we are always "here," I can never go "there" no matter how hard I try. It's not that I can't get "there." I CAN. It's just a matter of perception. So it is with your statement about us always being in the present.

Though I believe time travel to be impossible, I do not believe it is impossible for your reasons. ^^

[Gypsy]

I love time travel stories - actually, I've drawn a manga with the time travel theme (shameless plug: http://www.hoodiegypsy.com/manga).

As for it being possible or not, I can't claim to understand all the physics that would make it possible/impossible. I do that that our God is outside of the time domain, and whatever the time travel verdict ends up being, He's in total control. ^^

[Shadowchild]

i dont understand how timetravel can actually even be thought of as possible or why we think it may happen in the futer. it is not like we can change time or nothin. god set the clock and that is the way it is gonna stay. ^-^

[bbboy21]

Well I'm not smart so I really cant say much about this....

[Sonic_13]

i'm more intrested in the concept of teleportation. There was this news article saying how there were able to move some weird tiny organism between 2 points, and when it did it came back differently. I wish I could find the darned article, I looked everywhere!

[cbwing0]

Why didn't you ask the resident Philosophy major? Here's my view (and my view of your view ):

The timeline can be thought of as a river.

Let's stop right there. As has already been said, this may or may not be true. My opinion is that it is not]If a person were to jump from the boat and attempt to make it upstream, behind the boat (try to travel back in time), even if he/she did make it upstream, the boat would continue onward down the stream, and he/she would be alone upstream (in the past). The past would be desolate and completely empty, and this person would have to work twice as hard to get back to the boat (the present) as it is now further down the stream than when he started.[/quote] This is not how a river works at all. Swimming upstream is much harder than swimming with the current of the river. If you were to choose a particular point in the river and attempt to stay there, the current would simply sweep you further along. It would be much easier--not harder--to swim with the current and then return to the "boat" of the present.

If someone were to jump from the boat and swim downstream, in front of the boat (travel to the future) they would leave the boat behind and in doing so, leave all the people behind as well (all living things). They would continue down the river at the same rate as the boat, so returning to the boat should take as much energy as it took to get away from it. The future, too, would be a desolate thing, so abstract, so filled with endless possibilities that it would be everything and nothing. The future would not be visable as it would be changing constantly because of the different decisions being made on the boat (the present). Someone will dump some poisen into the river and so then all the fish ahead of the boat would die. The present changes the future everyday.

Once again, this is not how an actual river works. If you were to leave a boat and attempt to swim in front of it, you would find that the boat would catch up with you quite easily. After all, it is moving with the current, and it is designed specifically to glide through the water faster than one could swim. Returning to the boat would take far less energy than trying to outswim it.

To summarize, this particular argument against the impossibility of time travel is based on a weak analogy that is being improperly used.

Still, to dismiss your other arguments based on this analogy would be to commit a fallacy. Let's consider those now...

For time travel to work as so many people in novel's suggest, it would have to take the REINVOKING of all dead spirits from heaven and hell and replacing them in already decayed bodies and have these bodies restored. These souls that have already met their end would get, in essence, a second chance. All of the people in the boat would have to be thrown upstream to be with the Timetraveler, thus making the past a temporary "present," a temporary resting place in time.

One must only accept this if we continue with the highly problematic comparison of time with a river. What if the "boat" of reality is noting like a normal boat, but more like a line (or vector, perhaps), which moves forward with the river while still existing at the points behind it? What if, like a normal river, there is more than just a boat to be found in the water? A river teems with life that is not contained in any boat. There are also nonliving entities, such as the riverbed and the water.

If i am in the boat, and someone would want to talk to me in the past (lets say 3 years ago) They would leave the present and go to the past. I would still be in the present. I am NOT in the past. My conciousness is not in the past. They can't talk to me, because i am here.

If you were to swim through a river you would leave behind dead skin cells, sweat, and other parts of your body. If the "river" in question is time, how can we say that we would not also leave behind the imprint/remnant of our consciousness as it existed at various points in the past? Perhaps one could interact with this, even affecting it's appearance in the present.

Traveling to the past or future is impossible because by doing so it would become your present. "Yesterday's tomorrow is today" is a common phrase used by people. These terms represent comparisons in time to each other. where I am now is the present. I can't travel to tomorrow, because when i wake up in the morning tomorrow, Tomorrow will have become today.

By that same reasoning motion would be impossible, because by moving to any other point ("there") would become (for us) "here." Moving in ordinary situations involves changes in environment, circumstances, and perception even though where we can always be described as "here" from our perspective. In the same way moving to a different time would involve changes (albeit radical ones) in environment, perception, and circumstances. Just as motion does not change the "here" for other people, moving through time would not necessarily make the past into the present by virtue of the fact that our perspective changes.

At any rate, I have shown that your original hypothesis is incorrect. Time travel is not, strictly speaking, impossible according to your arguments. It was an interesting idea, but I am afraid that it is mistaken. Later I can explain my own view on time travel if you would like .

[mitsuki lover]

However if one looks at time travel the way they did on Quantum Leap it becomes quite possible.
The way we view time it's a straight occurence,like walking down the
street.However if you loop one end of time to another you can create
a sort of mobius strip that would allow for a form of time travel as long
as the traveler was to travel within the loop.
Of course on at least one occasion in the series Quantum Leap broke this simple rule when Sam leaped into his gg grandfather.However a new rule
was then added stating that one can time travel or quantum leap ooutside
of one's time as long as it was within one's own bloodline.

One of the interesting outcomes of time travelling is that it may have some
rather odd results.For example in Silent Mobius Yuki buys an antique
coffee grinder and then is set into 30 years in the past and when she
returns without it the grinder is given to her by her landlord as a gift.
So the question is at what point in time did the coffee grinder come into
existance?

This is one of the puzzling conundrums that can occur with time traveling.
And I am not going to even get into Katsumi visits her mother in the past
because that's even weirder!

Of course the question is would we really alter history by traveling into the past or is the past inflexibly fixed?

As Captain Braxton in Future's End pt.1 tells Captain Janeway and Chuckles...er I mean Chakotay..."A leads to B leads to C which in
turn leads back to A."

[uc pseudonym]

The original position on time travel has already been addressed to the extent that I feel it is not necessary for me to do so any further. Therefore, the remainder of my post prior to the quotation is merely an alternate premise that would allow for time travel. I should preface it by saying that this "theory" is completely conceptual; it is not based on any scientific study or any real knowledge of the field.

Consider time not as an ongoing process, but as a completed set of events. We are merely experiencing these events as we move along them. This would raise a question of free will, but for the moment the question concerns only the past, so the theory could just as easily accept the future as unwritten and being created by those experiencing the events. These events exist (in their entirity, or at least entirity up to that point) at every instance in "real time," a different flow.

At each moment in real time the entire span of the time we experience exists. This is a poor statement, so I will use an example to make myself more clear. Let us propose that the beginning of time exists in year 0. At moment A in "real time" the completed set of events consists of nothing. A year passes, and we will consider this point "B." At this point the completed set of events contains a year. Therefore:
A: 0
B: 1

This relates to time travel in a fairly simple way. For simplicity sake, we will operate as if the previous century ended at "5", a point we will label C. At this point in time, things have existed as they have in history as we know it. However, a scientist develops a time machine and goes back in time to, say, kill Hitler. They return at the point they left in observable time (5), but now they are at theoretical point D in real time. Hence our diagram is as follows:
A: 0
B: 1
C: 5 (Hitler lived as in history)
D: 5 (Hitler died at a much earlier age)

I realize that I have, in effect, pushed the problem of paradoxes back to a second level of time. Obviously, time travel on this second level would create exactly the same paradoxes, but I don't feel my concept is entirely meaningless. With these two levels, time travel of a sort is still possible.

if you could travel faster than the speed of light, you could go back in time.

But that's not possible by our physics today. it would take more than infinity energy to do that

This has been referenced numerous times; I have merely quoted the first of such instances for organizational purposes. Please let me also state that the following is merely my opinion; I have read Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and some more recent articles, but I am hardly learned on this subject.

Experiments have shown that, at sufficiently high speeds, time "moves" at a slower rate, yes. However, these speeds are rather insignificant compared to the speed of light. While it is reasonable to hypothesize that time would "stop" at c, and move backwards beyond it, we cannot be even relatively certain the behavior of time approaching the speed of light. Please correct me if I am wrong on this account.

[Linksquest]

I think that is merely assuming that there is no past. So, you have an idea. A hypotheseis. Not even a theory. It could even just be considered a philosophy. So, yeah. If EVERY THING leading to your hypothesis were true, it would be fact, but you base your conclusion on things that are themselves very debateable, and even just ideas themselves.

How can you say there is no past? Why do you think time is like a river? I mean, where did you get this analogy? Did you come up with it on your own? Time may not work quite like that, and I think the idea that visiting the past would "bring back dead spirits" is just a tad bit over the top. Since I am not conviced of the ideas leading up to your conclusion, this would not convice me of the conclusion.

MSP is arguing a more traditional point, but thinking of things in absolute terms, if there was only one timeline and you could change things, you couldn't do anything that would keep you from doing what you were doing. You wouldn't be able to kill your grandfather or do something to stop yourself from going back in time... You also wouldn't be able to help change things in any significant way, provided there was only one timeline. So, that doesn't mean time travel isn't possible. Just that paradoxes are impossible. That's my hypothesis, anyhow.

Ok, so lets say your father died yesterday from a gunshot when he went to work. You want to travel back in time to yesterday to warn him not to go to work, so that he won't get shot, and will still be alive. But right now he is dead. What you essentially want to happen is for your father to be alive again. For him to be alive again his spirit will have to be REPLACED in his body.

Time traveling to the past to say, the 1700s works the same way, but on a grand scale. All the people who were living in that era are now DEAD. For them to be alive again, all of their spirits would have to be called from heaven and hell and placed into their bodies once more.

[Linksquest]

I fail to see how travelling into the past would somehow take a person's soul and "put it back in their body." By travelling back in time, one would be at a point BEFORE the soul left the bodies of the people in that era. There would be no need to "put the souls back in the bodies" because at that point in time, the souls would not have left yet.

You state we're always in the present, but that's not true, is it? I was in the present yesterday, but the present of yesterday is now the past. I'm not in it currently, but at that point in time it WAS the present.

By your logic, I can never go to Otakon. Because if I try to go there, I'll invariably end up "here." Because we are always "here," I can never go "there" no matter how hard I try. It's not that I can't get "there." I CAN. It's just a matter of perception. So it is with your statement about us always being in the present.

Though I believe time travel to be impossible, I do not believe it is impossible for your reasons. ^^

No NO no!!!!!! GWAH!!! >.<. The reason why it is impossible is because once a body is dead. It's dead. Unless God raises people from the dead or something. Their souls go to enternal judgement (or a waiting place till events in revelation come to pass). Once a person dies, even if you were to go to that point in time when they were alive, their soul would still be wherever it went when that person died. God won't be like, "Oh... i have to release your soul now cause someone is trying to see the 1600s" That would allow said people to RELIVE their time and get a 2nd chance at where they will end up after the judgement.

You WILL be able to go to otakon ^^, because the future is just a term to represent things to come. The Future is where you will be. You will be where the future once was (You will be at otakon) But it will no longer be the future. It will have become your present.

You cannot be in the future because the future is things that are yet to come. It's as impossible as talking about yourself in the future tense but trying to say that you are somewhere NOW:

"I will be at Otakon." "I am at otakon now" The sentence changes.

"I WILL BE AT OTAKON NOW" does not make sense.


Each person can only be in the present. Even if time travel were possible, anywhere you travel will be the time you would experience at the moment. That time would always be your present. The present is an ever changing thing. It follows you wherever you go.

[Pent]

When I first read your idea Linksquest, it made me think. It is against most other time travel ideas. But I think yours is bibical. Here's why.
When we go to heaven there will be no "time". Kind of like it is for God. We exist above time. There is no "day" or "night". We do not exist inside times bounderies. Therefore if someone did go back in time to where we were not dead, unless our spirits came back from heaven, how would we be in this back in time world? It's not like in this past world we never died yet. So I guess the point that got me was the fact that the spirits can't come back. A first my argument when I read that was, no they wouldn't have to come back. Then I thought, in heaven there is no rules of time.

[cbwing0]

Time traveling to the past to say, the 1700s works the same way, but on a grand scale. All the people who were living in that era are now DEAD. For them to be alive again, all of their spirits would have to be called from heaven and hell and placed into their bodies once more.

I can't figure out why you continue to assert this particualar point (or why you chose not to respond to anything in my post ]transcend[/i] time, standing over time in its entirety and then choosing to act within the series at a specific moment, which would not necessarily have to be the moment that was defined as "the present" for them at the moment when they transcended the normal order of events.

There is nothing logically or spritually impossible about this. The only limit is whether or not it is physically possible for one to develop and use time travel technology.

[Heed]

Noone's opinion is reallyr ight or wrong. I disagree with many of the posts here however there are some very good points. When I said that souls would be going back, it would be true, as far as I can see it anyway. Because the person alreay died, God would not allow us to go back in time. Therefore, if we did go back after someone died, it would be like that person comming back to life. As if God didn't have control enough over what has alreayd happened we need to be concerned about taking control of time ourselves?

To me, Time travel is an interesting theory, and I like FICTIONAL stories and movies about it, but the thought that we can do it it really unethical as well as just wrong. It would be going outside of God's will and set plans.

That is my opinion anyway... Don't take it seriously if you don't want to

[Galant]

Oh how I wish that more people would realise that time travel is not only possible but that in fact we all do it - at the speed of one second per second. To many people live only within the second, for the second, not realising that what they do with that second counts. You see we not only travel through time to the future but we also create the future. So many believe the future is set down in stone, and as such t creates an apathy in people. They believe that their hopes for the future will come to pass and wish they could only get there sooner. Yet they do not realise that the quickest way to get to those hopes is to make use of one's future creating ability and make use of the seconds one is travelling through. Do not wish that you could go to the future and see what is there, take your present and turn it into the future.

As concerns God, remember that He did not finish creation with Genesis. Realise that He is in fact creating a new heaven and a new earth. Much of that has yet to come, but some of it, the most important parts of it - that eternal universe - is being created now - within you and those around you. The work God is doing within you is not merely playing catch up to get things back to how they should be. The work He is doing within you is part of His final creation. He is creating that which will last forever, a glorious masterwork of eternal beings, perfected by Him, and perhaps what is most amazing is that He has given us chance to work with Him. We, by our actions now, by our use of the seconds given to us, can take part in the creation of an eternal universe. Whenever we work alongside God, doing His will, we are creating the eternal - that which cannot be destroyed or corrupted. His paints are the wonders of His glory and His canvas are the eternal souls of humanity, and He invites us to paint with Him. We have the chance to master the brushes of life and learn how to not only help people in this life, but to have a part in creating eternity. How's that for a vocation?

Or you could just spend that second for the second, and let the future be the future, just because well, there are so many shiny things to get distracted with, and so many glittery paints.

We'r all travelling through time - which brush will you master?

[cbwing0]

but the thought that we can do it it really unethical as well as just wrong. It would be going outside of God's will and set plans.

Considering some of the other things that God allows people to do on this side of eternity, I don't think we can rule out time travel that easily.

It appears that there are many people here who simply do not understand what is involved in time travel, or what is involved in the relation of events in time to one another (hence the persistence of the claim that going back in time would necessitate bringing dead people back to life).

If we also take into account the other point that has been put forth about never being able to escape the present, it is not difficult to see why traveling in time would not involve any mischief with departed souls. We must remember that the point in the past that for us is in the past was in fact the present at the time that the individuals involved were experiencing it. To go there would merely be to enter this past moment, making that which for the people of the past is the present also the present for us at that moment.

I said it already, but apparently I was ignored. What is involved here is not experiencing the same moment twice, taking pieces of the past and attaching them to the present, or anything like that. All that you are doing is going back or going forward to a particular moment. You are adding things to it (namely yourself and your actions), but you are not making it occur twice. It still occurs once, but now it still occurs once with the addition of you.

To help you conceptualize this, think about what happens when you save a game and load it later. Let's say that (God forbid) you lose terribly after you load the game. Not wanting to start over, you instead reload the original game save. As far as the game is concerned, the events that occur after you reload the game (and this can be done any number of times) happened one way, and only one way. Reloading the game won't give you extra lives, or populate the world with ghosts of every enemy that you killed in the previous save.

Time, then, does not extend beyond the reality of the game. As far as time is concerned the events only happened once even though you may change something about the event from a meta-temporal standpoint.

I hope that helps to make this clearer; but, if you don't understand ask a question. Don't simply keep talking without knowing what has actually been said (and thus not knowing what you are talking about). Please...it will save everyone a lot of time and frustration .