A couple of days ago I jumped into a ventrilo channel at the tail end of a conversation on time.  You guys were talking about (theoretically) whether you could travel back in time, kill your grandfather and then cause yourself to cease existing.  You would vanish.

As threatened :-), I said I would post a forum thread on the subject because I like it so much.

Here’s my take on time and time travel.

Time does not exist.  So no, the question of traveling in it is irrelevant.  Well … to be more clear, time exists, but it exists only as a method for us to organize experienced reality into a coherent “story line.”

My opinion is that we exist outside of time and space.  This would be our consciousness.  You could call it our spirit, soul, essence or whatever you want.  I’ll call that our omega state (end state).  This state just is, and there is no such thing as time.  If you want to talk about it relative to time, we already are this omega state, but it looks like that is in the future to us.  When we are born, we are placed into an alpha state (beginning state).  We begin to exist in time.  Because of the way our mind and body connect, we create a perception of time due to the difference between our alpha and omega states.  Time is relative to the observer, and you have to have a reference point to judge time.  Time can not be perceived without change, and we are in a changed state from our omega existence.  From our alpha state, we develop toward our omega state.  This happens as a flow of time in a fixed direction because the end is already there.  We are in essence experiencing the “story line” organized into a logical sequence from alpha that leads to omega.  We experience it as moving, but I think it is probably more like many snapshots pulled together in flip-book creating a perception of animation (the smallest possible snapshot being Planck’s constant).

Matter can not exist without an observer (Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Physics).  Matter is a combination of space and time.  We perceive location (space) and time relative to stimuli from our senses and organized by our consciousness into a logical sequence; therefore, matter, time and space are all part of the observer.

So our future self is generating a past that explains itself.

That is why you can’t travel in time and change things, because all your decisions exist simultaneously (outside the illusion of time).  You did not go back in time and kill your grandfather before you were born because you exist.  If you did not exist, the concept of traveling back in time to change the past is irrelevant.

P.S.  [DISCLAIMER] Many of you know I am a strong proponent of organized religion.  As a disclaimer, this understanding of mine does not specifically belong to any organized religion that I know.  I just don’t want people assuming that everyone in a particular faith all believe the same as me.  I’m really outside the box on this.

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VITAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION

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Important tidbits from John Wheeler.  A contemporary of Niels Bohr, also worked with Einstein and others

“Time is what keeps things from happening all at once.”

“No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.”

John Wheeler’s Classic Delayed Choice Experiment:  This was a thought experiment later confirmed with laboratory tests.  The general idea was that deciding how to observe a phenomenon, even after the various possibilities happened in time, changes the results.  This indicates that future actions of the observer change reality in the past.

Briefly, the experiment has a photon being shot through one screen (screen 1) that has 2 holes in it.  On the other side is screen 2 some distance away.  Screen 2 blocks light (no holes), and it can be removed very quickly by the observer.  The observer can decide to keep the screen there OR remove it.  Behind the screen 2 are two light detectors, one pointed at each hole in screen 1.  They can only see the photon if screen 2 is removed.

AFTER the photon passes screen 1 with the two holes in it, BUT before the photon strikes screen 2, the observer can remove screen 2 allowing the light detectors to see which hole the photon passed through in screen 1.  The observer can know or not know which hole the photon passed through.

Here’s the part that messes with your head! :-)

What happens?  By classical definition of time, the photon has already done something at Screen 1 [passed through hole #1, or hole #2, or both as a wave].  After that point in time, the experiment is changed by the observer so that only 1 result can happen.  Yup!  That is what happens.  The observer in the future is deciding the past by their choice to leave screen 2 in place or remove it.

Copenhagen Interpretation (Wave function collapse) by Niels Bohr.  Also called the “standard” interpretation.  This theory of quantum physics states that there is a “probability cloud” of imaginary states of reality.  When someone makes an observation, they cause the cloud to collapse resulting in only the 1 outcome they observe.  The observer basically causes reality by looking at it.

Many-worlds Interpretation (Quantum Decoherence) by Hugh Everett III.  This theory of quantum physics states that there is an infinite number of parallel universes, one for each possible configuration of probabilities.  They are *all* real.  When we make an observation of reality, we are seeing one of these realities.  This theory is more popular with scientists who do not like the idea that we are causing reality.

Time and the Theory of Relativity.  The theory of relativity describes many situations where time is relative to the observer.  1 second on a clock that is standing still does not equal 1 second on a clock moving.  1 second on a clock moving at the speed of light stretches out forever to someone who is not moving at all and looking at it.  Time is not absolute but depends on who is paying attention to it.

Benjamin Libet and his experiments on time and consciousness.  Libet conducted medical experiments showing that the response in the brain to a stimulus happens about ½ a second after the stimulus is applied, BUT we perceive it happening at the same time (within a few microseconds).  The brain scans show a region of the brain processing the single from the nerves later, but the person understands it sooner or as happening at the same time.  This indicates that our perception of time is an arrangement of stimulus from our senses in a specific order.

George Von Bekesy and his experiments on perceived location (space).  He conducted medical experiments into consciousness and spatial perception.  When the test subjects were not able to visually see what was happening, he could cause them to sense stimuli in locations where they had no body parts by changing the characteristics of the signal.