A Test For Time Travellers

[Twighlight]

The more I think about it, the more I doubt whether time travel in the sense of human beings actually going back or forward in time is actually possible.

I suspect that transmission of 'information' back in time just might be possible....but it would be an extremely random affair. Probably some device using quantum entanglement could achieve this...as changes to entangled particles are superluminal ( faster than light )..so one could get the 'appearance' of information from the future if entangled particles were far enough apart. But that is probably about as far as 'time travel' will go until someone is crazy enough to venture into a rotating black hole and never be seen again.

 

[dimaggio]

How about this test:
=====================

All the people on the forum who want to know if he's legit think of some weird sentence (like "bionic sausage cadaver") and write in down on a piece of paper.
Then they take some numbers from a randomizer and write them under the sentence.
And finally they draw a picture on their computer, along with some illegible scrawl all over it.
Then everyone who participates posts that they are ready.

When everyone's ready, we all wait half an hour or so to provide a wide enough window for a time traveler to arrive in and still have enough spare time after that (but more on that in a moment).

After that time, everyone uploads their drawings onto an image hoster and post that, including the sentence and the random numbers.
The alleged time traveler then collects all of these drawings, sentences and numbers, including the respective username.

He then travels back into the half hour window AFTER everybody was ready and had their sentences prepared, but BEFORE they were posted!
He then immediately posts all of the sentences BEFORE the half hour is over, i.e. before anyone posted his/her stuff!





=> Given he/she was successful, everyone who participated will then most probably be convinced that he/she is indeed a time traveler.
Or they will start to get paranoid and think they are being watched. :D

And it would also not count that he says he can't tell us about the future because of some time-security reasons of whatever, since he wouldn't post something that we don't know and will happen in the future but something we already have made but not shared with anyone yet.
This way it can convince everyone immediately who participated and it wouldn't need a third party we would have to trust with checking if what the traveler says is genuine.

I'm aware that this might be a very tedious thing to do every time, but I think because of its ability to immediately expose a fraud only a real traveler who wants to prove himself would actually attempt it.

So what do you think about it, do you see a flaw I have overseen?

 

[Packerbacker]

I still like my test better.

The time traveler travels into the future to the time of his physical death (because he is going to die sometime) and brings back his deceased body which can then be compared to his living body. With a fingerprint and DNA match, that would be as conclusive as you could want, right?

Actually it would be as impressive if they merely brought back their deceased head, re: Bring Me Your Head -- Alfredo Garcia! :D

 

[Khronos]

I still like my test better.

The time traveler travels into the future to the time of his physical death (because he is going to die sometime) and brings back his deceased body which can then be compared to his living body. With a fingerprint and DNA match, that would be as conclusive as you could want, right?

Actually it would be as impressive if they merely brought back their deceased head, re: Bring Me Your Head -- Alfredo Garcia!

Its a good test for a time traveler proving himself to the world, however to a internet community it wouldnt work quite as nice. Also, personally if you were a time traveler, Would you like anything to do with your dead body? And since you could essentially be anywhen at the time of your death, how could you find yourself in all of time?

 

[KerrTexas]

Actually, "I" believe the "BEST" test for any time traveler would be to provide "ME" with the winning numbers for the Power-Ball Lottery a week in advance. /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[dimaggio]

@Packerbacker:
It's true that your test is a more direct way of proof. But as Khronos already said, I thought more about Forum Time Travelers, if you understand what I mean.^^

When I posted my test idea I also had a more direct test in the back of my head, but posted the indirect version, because I tried to find a possibility where a time traveler could prove himself immediately to everyone participating online, without the need for a third party we would have to trust. I mean, not everybody is capable of analyzing DNA.^^
And as Khronos also said, maybe a time traveler just wants to prove himself anonymously.

But for a "prove to the world" version I thought of a less morbid way:
He could just jump forward in time for about a minute while everyone is watching (with us as live audience, not with cameras). What we then would see is him vanishing for the amount of time he traveled to the future and then suddenly appearing again. The spot where he would do this could be well prepared beforehand to exclude any fraudulent behaviour.
But as I've already said, something like that is very impractical for an internet community.

@KerrTexas:
Hehe, but what use would it be to him, to only prove it to YOU?
He would more probably tell everybody the numbers. But then again, he would've told us something about a future event which then could be either altered because of a chain reaction, or it could change something else. Like: If everybody tries these numbers, then everybody would win and the money would be split, being effectively less money for every single one.
But in his original timeline maybe only one person won it all, got rich because of it and in a long cause-and-effect chain would've done something along the way with this money that is very important for the time travellers own history. Or something similar, I don't know.

The point is that with the idea I proposed, he wouldn't need to tell us anything about future events to prove himself. At least not directly.
He would only tell/show us "stuff" (sentences, numbers, pictures) we just came up with half an hour before without telling anybody yet.

But of course you could still say that, making an internet community believe he is legit, could also have big ramifications.
Then again, his very arrival in the past is a change already.^^

 

[Twighlight]

Well....almost a month after I posed this challenge..no takers. Considering the fact that this thread is potentially visible to every time traveller in the future history of mankind ( even if the forum closed at some future date ), I'd say it is not hard to draw an inference from that.

Of course, there are those who would have me believe that such a challenge would be 'beneath' the prowess of any time traveller. But it is possible to use the time travel advocates own 'timelines' theory to prove otherwise. By sheer probability alone....out of all those quadrillions of timelines there is BOUND to be someone nerdy enough to want to take up the challenge just for the sheer hell of it. As timelines represent every conceivable permutation of the universe, by definition such a person MUST exist if timelines do.

Where are they ?

 

[Packerbacker]

I was being facetious. A time traveler can bring back either information, or a physical artifact such as (a body) or a piece of technology. But--aside from the photo, maybe-- an internet communication will be limited to information, and that falls into the arena of remote viewing.One problem is that the person offering proof has to prove the both general case and the specific case. It hasn't been shown that time travel exists, or can exist. For true time travel you've got to move your carcase to the past or the future-- but is it our past or future?

The members of this forum generally don't believe that time travel has been accomplished--but it is an interesting topic to discuss, and there are always those who periodically show up with a preposterous tale. :D

 

[Twighlight]

I was being facetious. A time traveler can bring back either information, or a physical artifact such as (a body) or a piece of technology.

There really is no difference. Even someone sitting at their desk in 2036 and ostensibly 'posting on the net' in 2009 is not simply sending information but making physical changes ( not least to the 0s and 1s on a storage device ) in 2009. Sending a physical body may be a little more complex.....but it seems to me all that does is provide fuel for a new breed of hoaxers who don't 'travel' but now just sit in their comfy armchair in 2036 and 'send information'.

 

[dimaggio]

Another problem might be that (depending in what time travel model you believe) we are something like the very first timeline FROM which time travellers will depart into the past, but since they will then be in ANOTHER timeline we will never get to see them.
If we are not the first timeline and there is another "above" us where time travelers decided to depart into the past, then they WILL arrive in our here-and-now (their past).

All of this doesn't hold true if we aren't in a "there-is-a-first-timeline-unviserse" though, of course.
Then there always arrived someone from the future, but don't ask me WHERE they're coming from if you follow them up all the iterations, hehe.

That's the main reason I believe there always HAS to be a first timeline. There just has to be. :D

 

[Twighlight]

That's the main reason I believe there always HAS to be a first timeline. There just has to be.

The whole 'timelines' thing is a complete mess of logic and physics, all bundled into pure speculation, for which not one scrap of actual scientific evidence exists. People talk about timelines as if they were science...but they are not.

Some scientists 'believe' that various interpretations of quantum mechanics require the existence of 'many worlds'. But that is really as far as it goes. No method of decoupling entire universes from ours has ever been thought of. Nobody has ever done any experiment that showed 'another universe'....and it is doubtful ( by the very definition of parallel worlds ) if one ever could.

Parallel worlds are simply a convenient way of scientists not having the feintest idea what is really going on...but having to come up with something in the meantime. Timelines are not science...they are pure speculation....and there is actually more evidence for faries at the bottom of my garden.

 

[dimaggio]

I know it's not scientific and I didn't want to postulate that it works that way. Hence my word "believe".
Next time I put it in italics.

 

[RainmanTime]

The whole 'timelines' thing is a complete mess of logic and physics, all bundled into pure speculation, for which not one scrap of actual scientific evidence exists. People talk about timelines as if they were science...but they are not.

Once again, thank you.

Parallel worlds are simply a convenient way of scientists not having the feintest idea what is really going on...but having to come up with something in the meantime.

The instigation of "timelines" (or "worldlines" is another pop-sci term), along with parallel universes, can lead to paradoxes. IMO (and that of many scientists) any time you run across a paradox what nature is really telling you is "your conception for how things work is incorrect." IOW, you are missing something in the big picture. My belief is that this is exactly what is going on with the wave/particle duality of light. There is something fundamental to the construction of the universe which leads us to see this as a duality, which is a paradox. I have no reservations that somewhere down our timeline (couldn't resist) science will arrive at the "a ha" moment which will totally explain why we can perceive light in two different ways.


RMT

 

[dimaggio]

Argh, you must've posted milliseconds after me, my post would've explained the misunderstanding.^^

 

[KerrTexas]

@KerrTexas:
Hehe, but what use would it be to him, to only prove it to YOU? He would more probably tell everybody the numbers....

That's why I wrote the BEST test for ME would be for the time traveler to provide ME ( and only ME ) the winning numbers.

The other idea's in this thread might great, but for ME, not THE best.

he would've told us...

There is no " US " in this BEST test.

Whether the internet "community" believes or not...well... too bad . I might think about that for a few seconds, then continue with on the purchase of the Chalet in the Swiss Alps.

/ttiforum/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[dimaggio]

Well, alright of course you know best what convinces you the best. I can't touch that.^^
But I think IF the traveller would show up on a forum, my guess is he wouldn't try to only convince only one person.
Except if it would serve his own purpose for some reason.
But this wouldn't be your typical "I'm from the future" thread.

Then again, all the typical "I'm from the future" threads have all been a hoax so far, so who knows what a real time traveller would do.

If I would be able to travel back in time, I sure as hell wouldn't tell a soul about it, since I'd always want to make sure there is no way I'm helping anybody to fuddle in my time travel affairs. But, well, maybe to shock a few people I guess I would prove it to an internet community in such a way that THEY are convinced, but can't prove it to anybody else they might tell it, hehe. /ttiforum/images/graemlins/devil.gif
This sure as hell will drive many people nuts, since nobody believes them, although they KNOW it's true.^^
And who knows, maybe after some time most of them wouldn't believe it anymore and think it was just a VERY intelligent and elaborate hoax, even though it appeared to be 100% water proof.

 

[Twighlight]

I have no reservations that somewhere down our timeline (couldn't resist) science will arrive at the "a ha" moment which will totally explain why we can perceive light in two different ways.

It's quite simple. When I'm driving the car it's a wave...and manages to miss or go round things. When the wife drives it's a particle...and has this tendency to collide with things.

 

[dimaggio]

Hehe... you chauvinist. :D

 

[Twighlight]

Lol....will be interesting to see whether the 'women driver' stereotype extends in the future to time machines.


( The wife has just commented - can I ask if any of the time travellers can answer if men in the future still go round with holes in their socks. Ouch ! )

 

[Packerbacker]

If I would be able to travel back in time, I sure as hell wouldn't tell a soul about it,

That's the key motivational thing. Why would it be to the interest of anyone to advertise their ability to time travel?

And,very likely if it were a capability, it would be a top secret military project, unless you want to believe in a 19th Century fantasy (Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, or Lemuel Swift-Finche

) about a lone inventor who single-handedly invents a sophisticated machine.

One of the illogical things about the Titor story, is that if J.T. belongs to a military unit, it is not plausible that he would advertise his ability to time travel, since it would give information to potential enemies in time.