Lorien Writes: perhaps the most intelligent human on the planet, Professor Steven Hawking, suggests it IS possible. I again provide a link to his lecture on the subject (it consists of three pages though I provide a link to only the first and you need to click on next at the bottom of each one to get the other two). Before you dismiss the idea entirely, I strongly recommend you review his thoughts on the subject.
Space and Time Warps (read on…)
While he provides mathematical support for these theories in more advanced articles, this lecture is written in a way that even those without knowledge of quantum mechanics and quantum theory might understand. I can probably find them again if anyone is interested and can understand advanced calculus and differential equations – though I’m at a loss as to how to express them given this board’s formatting limitations. Even I can only partially understand and appreciate the initial equations, but got baffled after the first dozen or so where it became, at least for me, totally incomprehensible. While I understand the math, but cannot visualize the concepts at all. The man is truly gifted.
Now, granted we still don’t know a lot – especially since we still lack a unified theory that incorporates gravity, but we do know quite a bit. One heck of a lot more than when I was in college over 25 years ago. Even the “Big Bang” has been supplanted by a more enlightened and ever more commonly accepted theory by Alan Guth, The Inflationary Universe. The learning curve is highly exponential – mostly because of increased and more detailed sensory data and much more powerful computers. If you truly exhaustively research the subject, you might be amazed at just how much we actually do understand. Some concepts can only be proven mathematically at this time – and some defy rational explanation. Hell, it wasn’t until the 30’s that they literally PROVED (to their horror) that not everything can be proven. Logic, as we know it, breaks down at the sub-atomic level. I’m not suggesting that we don’t have a long way to go, but I am submitting that we know a lot more than your post implies – and what we do know in no way contradicts the possibility of time travel (even if we still don’t have any idea how to accomplish it). Although we think in terms of four dimensions, the existence of at least 10 dimensions has been mathematically proven. What that might mean in terms of physically manipulating the universe remains a complete mystery.
Frankly, though I acknowledge the possibility of time travel, the existence of it as a means to travel into the past is one of the most terrifying and apocalyptic scenarios I can imagine. While the potential for beneficial uses is possible, the likelihood for genocidal consequences is immeasurably greater. The only comforting aspect is that we continue to exist – and I can’t but help but assume this is because travel into the past where changes can be manipulated is still (and hopefully forever) beyond our or any entity’s capabilities. I also acknowledge that changes in the distant past would not be perceived by those in the present as they would instantly become this history on which our present was based. Those of us in the present would be completely unaware of the changes as our knowledge of history and our past would be instantly altered. It could be happening all the time. Yesterday, we could have been intelligent reptiles and today we’re intelligent mammals with no recollection of the change. The possibilities are endless; however, I find it improbable in the extreme that at least one of those changes would have irreparably destroyed civilization and all possible futures (assuming, of course, that different time lines aren’t created with each such manipulation). This presupposes the existence of an infinite number of time lines based on each an every choice made by each and every event that occurs – and that’s just too much for me to conceptualize.
