Historical Time Travelers?

TarnishedPenny said:

Why didn’t Adolph Hitler die when injured in WW1 or Lenin die of any number of the diseases he’d had before the Germans smuggled him into pre-revolutionary Russia? Such things would not have been difficult for a ruthless time-travelling nation to organize and would have prevented many problems.

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Yeah, but you never hear people bitching about all those other horrendous atrocities that have already been erased by previous future back-travelers. Just be patient. Hitler and Lenin will eventually be erased by future future back-travelers and then we won't have them to bitch about them either.

Hehehe - HectorBidon. ...Reasonable point.

TarnishedPenny

I think I remember saying that in my view, there are VERY FEW people who do this 'time traveling' thing. And there are reasons this could be so.

You have painted the 'thought experiment' proposition (which is nonetheless a good concept) onto a pre-existingly too-wide canvas - you take the whole let's say 'ethics' or moral question from the perspective that the majority constitutes the apex of value or existential validity or maybe existential primacy... And that may not be a true assumption to make.

And what about the literary and fiction trope 'the Prime Directive?'

No. You are incorrect. There is most definitely a scenario in which no one who can time travel interferes with anything very much. This is the hypothesis that - Hitler IS also 'the Jews;' he hurt himself and will continue to do so until 'he' and all those sentient beings like him stop continuing to insist that they must do what they have always done. ...Insist that they are DIFFERENT to those they injure. Even in the Vedas this is outlined this same way - 'karma' means 'mind trap' or 'stuck mindset,' 'fixated mind.' Yes admittedly it is a difficult hypothesis - it implies the victim cannot argue they are NECESSARILY morally superior unless they went through the proposition in which they WERE the 'Hitler.'

And, there is an old saying - no tyrant like a freed slave who falls into power.

TarnishedPenny said:

Well, to my mind, if you can get close enough to observe, you can get close enough to act. Paradoxes have no magic powers; they don’t stop or block; they merely show flaws in logic. The Grandfather Paradox to my mind only shows that time travel just ain’t possible.

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Well, you can't kill your grandfather without either destroying the time line you're coming from or creating entirely new one, but you can be your grandfather freely.

Suppose, a future guy wonders who his grandfather is. Grandma only tells it was a nice stranger. So he decides to use his time machine... Finds grandma in hippies colony, get drunk and stoned and wakes up in young grandma's bed.

It's a loop, but no causality is broken as long the loop exists. Existence of the loop leads to determinism though, there is no fee will for that guy, he had to do all he did in order to even exist.

Likewise, you can't kill your past self, but you can get killed by your past self... only that should already have happened in time traveler's past. So as long as you haven't killed a stranger you're likely safe from that scenario.

Desiremakesmeweak said:

No. You are incorrect. There is most definitely a scenario in which no one who can time travel interferes with anything very much. This is the hypothesis that - Hitler IS also 'the Jews;' he hurt himself and will continue to do so until 'he' and all those sentient beings like him stop continuing to insist that they must do what they have always done. ...Insist that they are DIFFERENT to those they injure. Even in the Vedas this is outlined this same way - 'karma' means 'mind trap' or 'stuck mindset,' 'fixated mind.' Yes admittedly it is a difficult hypothesis - it implies the victim cannot argue they are NECESSARILY morally superior unless they went through the proposition in which they WERE the 'Hitler.'

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So basically you're saying, you and me and TarnishedPenny, we all are the same time traveller in different loops?
Well, I can take that, although what happened with the free will then?

None of this makes any sense, folks.

If time-traveling ability exists in the future, it's likely that at first the technology will be limited to a few people, but it is a near certainty that in time it will be available to everyone, because that's what happens with technology.

So if in the future it does exist we'd expect to see lots of time travel and lots of interference in the past.

That would, in turn, wipe out the existence of the time travelers. And everyone else that exists.

You don't have to kill your grandfather in the past to stop yourself from ever existing. All you have to do is meet him, talk to him, or maybe just wave hi to him. Your existence is the consequence of an extremely improbable and fortuitous meeting of a sperm and an egg. One tiny change in the circumstances and that meeting never happens. Small acts have ripple effects.

There's no way to resolve the impossibility of it.

Space-time is like an hourglass. The space-time point that is HERE+NOW is at the center. Above are all space-time events that led to HERE+NOW. Below are all possible space-time events that HERE-NOW could cause.

Going back in time from HERE+NOW to change a THERE+THEN event, which is at the center of its own hourglass, means also changing the events leading to and produced by that THERE+THEN. Good luck with that.

We travel to the past mentally. We change the past by lying about it. It's easy.

SimonDoom said:

None of this makes any sense, folks.

If time-traveling ability exists in the future, it's likely that at first the technology will be limited to a few people, but it is a near certainty that in time it will be available to everyone, because that's what happens with technology.

So if in the future it does exist we'd expect to see lots of time travel and lots of interference in the past.

That would, in turn, wipe out the existence of the time travelers. And everyone else that exists.

You don't have to kill your grandfather in the past to stop yourself from ever existing. All you have to do is meet him, talk to him, or maybe just wave hi to him. Your existence is the consequence of an extremely improbable and fortuitous meeting of a sperm and an egg. One tiny change in the circumstances and that meeting never happens. Small acts have ripple effects.

There's no way to resolve the impossibility of it.

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Of course. The only universe where controlled changes of the past are possible is fully determined, predestined universe with no random events. That, of course, includes also any 'corrections' made, they too are already predestined. What sounds like a paradox, but actually isn't, just immensely wasteful... but nature seems to be wasteful anyway.

If random chance and/or free will exist (and I suspect, in strongly physical sense it the same thing actually) then there is either aggressively expanding multiverse (because there should be an universe where you broke your favourite coffee mug last Thursday, and another where you did it Friday, and no, other than that they are exactly identical again by Sunday) or past is only observable.

Although, who said there is only exactly one past that leads to the actual present? There could be as infinitely many different possible histories that leads to this moment as this moment have possible futures. Not all futures are equally possible. Future where I kill Donald Trump before noon tomorrow is so unlikely we can rule it out (because, even if I really wanted, I still have to plan it, travel to US over the ocean, acquire whatever weapon... nah, I can't get it done, objectively, without help from aliens anyhow... or, yeah, time travel). So why it's so hard to accept that not every history is equally possible too? If I had an unknown grandad and had access to time travel, I could easily be between some handful of dudes to be my possible grandads that could lead back to my exact genetics.

What I'm saying, it is possible that whatever changes a time travel made may as likely lead to catastrophic changes of the present as be compensated by random events to have no effect on the present moment. Do this require determinism and predestination? I don't think so. Something softly like that, attractor of some sort, maybe.

LupusDei said:

Although, who said there is only exactly one past that leads to the actual present?

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Any other path necessarily leads elsewhere. The "actual present" exists throughout the universe, quark by quark. Good luck changing all those wee buggers.

I could go on about multiverses but fuck it. Any past you can change will not be your own. The universe you left behind will proceed without you. Have fun.

Hypoxia said:

Any other path necessarily leads elsewhere. The "actual present" exists throughout the universe, quark by quark. Good luck changing all those wee buggers.

I could go on about multiverses but fuck it. Any past you can change will not be your own. The universe you left behind will proceed without you. Have fun.

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...I think this is exactly correct.

LupusDei said:

So basically you're saying, you and me and TarnishedPenny, we all are the same time traveller in different loops?
Well, I can take that, although what happened with the free will then?

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In 'my' (IE this) construction - no particular one of us may claim moral superiority in terms of how the 'Cosmos' might permit such a thing as tampering with history in any real sense - because, and you are right in the implication of it, all things comply with 'the best information' and in line with whatever the 'Universal perfect ideal' is... There is no 'free will' exactly; we have a basic nature based on some 'structure' of our being, and we are subject to knowledge and information and especially, the lack of it.

I don't know this picture is necessarily true, I just know it is the counter-scenario to the usual mentality that says that someone with compassion for other beings would alter a certain 'bad thing' that happened (to them) in the passing historical account as it appears to stand from their point of view.

Hard though it is to have to consider, the point is this - how do the victims guarantee that they would not under any circumstances also be oppressive and violent against someone else they found weakened, or that they had put into such a weak position?

There is the absolute moral conundrum.

'We would do not do THAT! We are not the type of people who would do THAT...! Trust us. Honest. Honestly, we wouldn't do it.'

And then, they do it.

Are humans then, the top-line sentient being in the Cosmos?

Unlikely.

Altering history is about power. How do WE become entitled to this kind of power??

Desiremakesmeweak said:

Altering history is about power. How do WE become entitled to this kind of power??

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Power (as in sentient social control) is always seized, never given. 'Entitlement' is irrelevant.

But the other application of 'power' (as energy) matters. I've seen calculations that sending something human-sized into the past would require a supernova's energy -- and whatever is sent back would arrive as a cloud of quarks. Oops.

Maybe some of Earth's impact craters are actually time-traveler landing points.

Fascinating

LexxRuthless said:

I was watching something on History Channel lately about William Shakespeare. It was kind of a conspiracy show; they were talking about authors who lived at that time who seemed likely to have been responsible for writing his works. They made the case that his background made it extremely unlikely that he was this prolific author.
That put me in mind of a conversation I had with a friend several years ago. We were talking about Ben Franklin, and this friend said, "You know, it would not surprise me at all if it turned out that Ben Franklin was a time traveler from the future. I feel the same way about Leonardo DaVinci."
I thought about that for a few seconds and nodded. "You could throw Archimedes onto that list for me," I replied.
Now I find myself thinking that maybe Shakespeare is another one of those guys. Or maybe Shakespeare ran into a time-traveling Lit major who had a copy of his Complete Works and rolled that guy...
Are there any other historical figures you can think of who belong on that list? "Historical people that would surprise no one if it turned out they were time travelers from the future?"

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I find this and other ideas like it very interesting.

Hypoxia said:

Power (as in sentient social control) is always seized, never given.

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There I must respectfully disagree, if only over the word 'always',

Consider the peaceful and genuine transfer of control by the British to its colonies. (We can leave out if you wish African and Asian ones.) It is sufficient to point to Australia, New Zealand and Canada as independent nations to which power was given, not seized.

TarnishedPenny said:

There I must respectfully disagree, if only over the word 'always',

Consider the peaceful and genuine transfer of control by the British to its colonies. (We can leave out if you wish African and Asian ones.) It is sufficient to point to Australia, New Zealand and Canada as independent nations to which power was given, not seized.

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The British monarch is still head of state in those nations, yes? And appoints the local governor-general, the viceroy. I'm not sure how 'independent' they are. Can the monarch direct their militaries?

Cast-aside colonies are another matter. Were they worth the resources needed to retain them? Were they "granted freedom", or kicked to the curb?

Back to time travel. Did travelers from the future work to dismantle empires?

Hypoxia said:

The British monarch is still head of state in those nations, yes? And appoints the local governor-general, the viceroy. I'm not sure how 'independent' they are. Can the monarch direct their militaries?

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I thinks Canadians and Aussies and Diggers would argue rather hotly they are independent. The head of state is the Queen, yes, but the viceregal appointees are chosen by the locally-elected prime ministers, not HM. The monarch has absolutely no directive power over the militaries and navies of such former colonies - none. Power, the true power, lies within each such nation, gained when Great Britain cheerfully passed that power to them.

As for the many other colonies which were granted independence since, say, 1945, it would of course be foolish to say that finances didn’t matter. Yet the great anti-colonialism argument is that the evil colonial powers were profiting by sucking out the wealth and prosperity of the hard-done-by colonials. Looking at the mid-African colonies in particular, they were enormously prosperous in terms of GDP. What is now Zimbabwe was known as the jewel of Africa, for instance.

Power was not seized. It was bestowed.

TarnishedPenny said:

I thinks Canadians and Aussies and Diggers would argue rather hotly they are independent. The head of state is the Queen, yes, but the viceregal appointees are chosen by the locally-elected prime ministers, not HM. The monarch has absolutely no directive power over the militaries and navies of such former colonies - none. Power, the true power, lies within each such nation, gained when Great Britain cheerfully passed that power to them.

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Plus, we can roll out the Royals every now and then to sell a few magazines. Harry and Meghan went down a treat just last month. Bunting and sausages all got a boost.

electricblue66 said:

Plus, we can roll out the Royals every now and then to sell a few magazines. Harry and Meghan went down a treat just last month. Bunting and sausages all got a boost.

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Not to mention commemorative plates...

TarnishedPenny said:

Not to mention commemorative plates...

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But none for time travelers.

PS: Didn't I read of the Queen dissolving the Oz gov't and forcing new elections, not too many years back?

Hypoxia said:

But none for time travelers.

PS: Didn't I read of the Queen dissolving the Oz gov't and forcing new elections, not too many years back?

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Never happened. The Governor General dismissed the Whitlam government back in 1975, but as pointed out above, the GG is appointed by the government of the day (the Queen signs off on the appointment, but that's all she does). It's been a fun controversy over the years, but Kerr had the dismissal power on his Todd Malone. Sure, he'd have kept Her Maj informed what was going on, but it was all done under the Australian Constitution.

Hypoxia said:

Having said that, I'll nominate Tycho Brahe, who invented science.

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Hypoxia said:

Power (as in sentient social control) is always seized, never given. 'Entitlement' is irrelevant.

But the other application of 'power' (as energy) matters. I've seen calculations that sending something human-sized into the past would require a supernova's energy -- and whatever is sent back would arrive as a cloud of quarks. Oops.

Maybe some of Earth's impact craters are actually time-traveler landing points.

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Yeah I think I mean it in the sense of that there is or may be some physics structure which makes certain things necessary, and you can't just choose to 'go around it' - it's not about power being 'given' therefore but 'permitted' in terms of that structure (I don't even think 'structure' is quite the right word, either...).

I don't really know - I'm not from the future, I'm not a time traveler, and I don't have advanced facts. Or if I am (x 2) and I do, then I'm slack about retaining these kinds of mechanistic facts in my head because they are fairly low priority things to me. LOL

LupusDei said:

Well, you can't kill your grandfather without either destroying the time line you're coming from or creating entirely new one, but you can be your grandfather freely.

Suppose, a future guy wonders who his grandfather is. Grandma only tells it was a nice stranger. So he decides to use his time machine... Finds grandma in hippies colony, get drunk and stoned and wakes up in young grandma's bed.

It's a loop, but no causality is broken as long the loop exists. Existence of the loop leads to determinism though, there is no fee will for that guy, he had to do all he did in order to even exist.

Likewise, you can't kill your past self, but you can get killed by your past self... only that should already have happened in time traveler's past. So as long as you haven't killed a stranger you're likely safe from that scenario.

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A Futurama fan?

ausfet said:

A Futurama fan?

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No, but probably just because I don't know what it is. Seriously. I generally don't watch TV shows, and even if I did, have different selection around here.

Oblimo said:

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It was the nose thang.

LupusDei said:

No, but probably just because I don't know what it is. Seriously. I generally don't watch TV shows, and even if I did, have different selection around here.

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One of the characters travels back in time and sleeps with his grandmother, thus becoming his own grandfather. The loop exists and works.

Not that Futurama should be the source of any intelligent conversation or theories!