TIME
TRAVEL,
LOGIC
AND
SPECULATION
II
In the first article, the infinite oscillation of being in the
“grandfather paradox” led us to the conclusion that the “grandfather paradox”,
the “paradox of knowledge” and the “sensibility to the initial or final
conditions” or “temporal butterfly
effect” constituted 3 variations of one and the same paradox.
In order to solve these paradoxical situations,
even if a reductio ad absurdum reasoning led us to the
conclusion that we cannot have at the
same time “Time” and “Time Travel”, and consequently that these problematic
situations are, in a sense, always already resolved, let’s continue to consider
systematically the logical
implications of the possibility of the time travel at will to whatever time of
the relative past or future, with or without machine?
Doing so, we will be able to reach a deeper comprehension of the reality and we
will gain higher degree of abstraction yet: speculation in its most stimulating
aspect!
Clue: reductio ad absurdum in series: overprinting,
multiverses, determinism.
Temporal
short-circuit
The
most radical way to avoid the paradoxes of time travel! At the moment to approach a new time, the
time traveller disintegrates in a
phenomenal collision, because of the opposition of the contradictory
flows/streams/flux-arrows: his own flux vs. destination time flux. In other words, two opposite time arrows!
Let’s keep in mind that the collision happens on the temporal axis, that means
that it is totally unpredictable since the time traveler is nowhere in the
time-space continuum of the destination time. The temporal short-circuit
undoubtedly constitutes the most radical exit of the voyage in time; to some extent a specific temporal
collision, which differs from the "absolute" temporal collision in
what it would touch only the traveller of time and the place and the moment of
his arrival. But precisely, what
becomes the place of impact? It seems
that no fiction novel nor scientific theory considers this possibility. It is true that it destroys the interest of
the conjecture of displacement in time.
Perhaps
can one nevertheless see the "chain reaction" of the famous episode
of Star Trek "All good things" like an approach of the consequences of the temporal short-circuit.
Put in
temporal nest of abyss or the infinite temporal incremented overprinting
Here is the most important and deeper
discovery related to the time travel possibility!
Short-circuit has made long
fire, and possibility exists to reach, at will, whatever time of the relative past or future, with or without machine. But the price to pay to enjoy our
free-will: the setting in temporal nest
of abyss, an infinite temporal overprinting with incrementation and a
phenomenal overload which will lead us to the notion of reduction.
Let us illustrate this infinite
temporal incremented overprinting through the trip of the little time traveler
Cloc. In each step of the process, we
have to focus on the initial Cloc and to wonder who accompanies him; let’s also
remind that all the events occur in the same universe, or at least in the same
portion of space-time; no possible resort to any quantum-type reduction yet; by another way, we must keep in mind
that the events are random, non determined!
Cloc-In for the
initial Cloc, Cloc-tn for Cloc travelers:
a)
Infinite spiral:
Cloc-i1 is alone this
01/07/2002 at 15h35' 28,1578867219183457118552574627916122453040705". He does not know that he will travel in time
one year later.
One year later, Cloc-t1
returns one year earlier, that is to say this 01/07/2002 at 15h35'
28,1578867219183457118552574627916122453040705". The Cloc which he finds
at this date is different from
initial Cloc-i1, which was alone; moreover, this found Cloc knows
that he will travel in time one year later, informed by his next himself, Cloc-t1. So,
we have Cloc-t1 with Cloc-i2.
One year later, return one year
earlier of Cloc-t2. This
Cloc traveler is different from first Cloc
voyager, because first Cloc
traveler t1, like the initial Cloc, did not know that he would
travel,
whereas he knows it. He thus meets the initial Cloc-i3
accompanied
by first Cloc traveler-t1bis. Found/met Cloc is different from initial
Cloc-i1
who was alone, and from first
visited Cloc-i2 accompanied by a
visitor, Cloc-t1
since he is now accompanied by two visitors.
So we have Cloc-i3 with
Cloc-t1bis and Cloc-t2.
One year later, third Cloc
traveler cannot be the same one as the second since he was seen accompanied by
two visitors, two clones whereas the precedent had been seen accompanied only
by the initial Cloc; this third Cloc
traveler will thus come to be added to both others: thus we have:
Cloc-i4 with Cloc-t1ter, and Cloc-t2bis
and Cloc-t3; and so ad
infinitum.
Each stage of the spiral is
marked by additional information compared to the preceding stage. To understand
the process, it’s absolutely necessary to grasp the positive feedback loop with geometrical resonance, amplification. The reasoning proceeds
"by defect": "X cannot
be x-1". To know the number of Cloc at any step of the process, simply
apply the well-known function: f(x)= (x²+x)/2
Of course, the situation has to
be perfectly symmetrical for a trip in the future, i.e. an initial Cloc non
visited and consequently without knowledge of the possible visit of himself,
and from there, the “infinite temporal overprinting with incrementation”
process can start.
b)
Let us repeat the experiment, through the protocol of the billiard balls
elaborated by Kip Thorne and his team:
Let us recall that Kip Thorne
and his team, in the Consortium, imagine that they succeeded in controlling
a wormhole and in making a machine of
it to travel in time.
They launch a ball of billiards
towards the Wormhole:
The ball leaves alone,
re-enters in a mouth of the
wormhole
and arises 15' earlier by the other
mouth of Wormhole
to cross itself before it does
re-enter in the mouth.
The met ball is not the same one
as the initial ball, since this one was alone.
The met ball re-enters in the
hole and arises 15' earlier
to follow that which crosses
itself.
This met ball is not the same
one as the initial ball which was alone,
nor that the second ball which
was met only by one ball.
The ball crossed by two balls
re-enters in the hole
and arises 15' earlier to follow
that which follows that which crosses itself.
This cross ball is the same one
as the initial ball which was alone,
neither that the second ball
which was met only by only one ball,
nor that the third ball which
was met only by two balls.
And so on ad infinitum.
There is thus a ball crossed by
an infinity of itself.
Two opposite interpretations:
either we sum all the individuals related to all the loops, that will lead us
to the multiverse alternative; either we consider that no loop is possible,
realization of the travel trip being infinitely deferred; and since reality
“is”, even if illusory – illusion and doubt have the privilege with regard to
absolute nothingness to have the ability to “express” this doubt and to distance itself, to break free from nothingness
precisely - that will lead us to the
“determinism” alternative.
In any case, there is complete
incompatibility between the situation with initial Cloc alone and time travel
possibility.
We
understand that the «Groundhog day» scenario, even if a real pearl per se, is
“logically” impossible.
Now, what is concerned by the
temporal overprinting? The time traveler only, the space-time portion where
Cloc or the ball moves or the entire universe? According to the Relativity, no
absolute change, thus we will consider that the overprinting applies to the
space-time portion where Cloc and the ball move.
To have an idea of the infinite
temporal incremented overprinting, you can imagine a hologram infinitely cloned
in the same portion of space-time, the infinitely long worm-image of two face
to face mirrors in a stake in abyss with a
conservation of the size and in taking into account the recursive
incrementation – we stay in a first level infinite, 
. The equivalent of a ”flou de bougé” in photography, the overprinting, on the same cliché, of an infinite number of identical images, but shifted ones compared to
the others. We consider here the most simple case, a uniform translation:
translation shift and homogeneous overprinting. A kind of infinite 3D canon per tones to take a musical analogy.
The Fourier-Transformation
will be a useful tool to formalize and to program the phenomenon.
A very good example of temporal overprinting in the literature is
provided by the novel "Of time and cats" by Howard Fast. Another interesting approach:
"Me, me and me" by William Tenn. For his part, Stephen Hawking showed
that quantum fluctuations of fields would become infinite in the vicinity of a
mouth of a wormhole, preventing the
formation of time loops or destroying the traveller who would approach a Loop
of the time kind.
Of course, the infinite temporal overprinting situation is impossible
per se, all the more if one takes into account the infinite number of
grandfather/knowledge-type paradoxical situations the free-will will imply!
We saw in the first article that the possibility of displacement in time
"at will" implies the overlap of all the times; in other words, "past = present =
future", or rather, neither past nor future do not have more direction, there
is not more than a multiple "present", probably an infinity of
presents corresponding to every moment of the history of the universe, floating
in a hyperspace. However, the infinite
overprinting requires the reintroduction of the distinction between past,
present and future, because the free-will implies an indetermination, an
uncertainty - indefinite which points out the potentialities of infinite,
besides it is a question of
"infinite" temporal overprinting - which doesn’t adapt to the
fixing of the times. Since it
contradicts the principle of overlap, the temporal overprinting contradicts a
condition of the possibility of travel in time. So that the time trip seems impossible in its case. We have to find another way to ensure the traveller of time his free-will.
Finally, let us specify that it is not a question here of the infinity
of visits of Cloc at the same place at the same moment, because in that case,
Cloc has at each visit a different age,
while the phenomenon of infinite overprinting sees repeating same Cloc at the
same age. If the two situations are
combined, the expression “phenomenal obstruction” becomes an euphemism.
Indeed, imagine what would be the combination of the temporal
overprinting and an infinite return of the same traveller of time or of an
infinity of travelers of time at the same moment, or even of the temporal
overprinting and an infinity of travelers of the time who return an infinity of
times at the same moment! On the other hand, no panic! that reminds us the demonstration of Cantor to prove
the equivalence of the infinity of the number of points in a line, a surface, a
volume, … and a hypervolume – “
” transfinite, the
question of the transition “
”ßà“
”,
“continuum hypothesis”, being demonstrated unsolvable by Paul Cohen and Kurt
Godel, kind of mathematical equivalent of the Heisenberg indetermination, these
oscillatory phenomenons revealing a subtle and unexpected coherence in our
understanding of the deep paradoxical nature of the reality.
Temporal Reduction
The
alternative novelists and theorists prefer to correct the effects of the
temporal overprinting: the reduction ad infinitum of the universe in coexistent
branches: the "multi-verses".
The only way, apparently, of escaping the infinite temporal overprinting
and of avoiding the paradoxes of displacement in time while preserving his
free-will, it is ad infinitum to have one reduction of the times in which a
traveller of time intervenes. Thus, in
the case of the paradox of the grandfather, must coexist the two exits: that where the grandfather is alone and that
where he is killed by Saint-Menoux.
More, possibly, that where another traveller of time meets him, plus
that where another traveller of time surprises or prevents Saint-Menoux from
killing his grandfather, plus... plus…
plus…
But
does reduction really constitute a solution?
Collection
or connections: Freedom?
Temporal
reduction can indeed constitute a solution to the infinite temporal
overprinting by allowing the infinite variations to develop; in the same way
that a 4-dimensional space-time is made of an infinity of 3-dimensional space-time, a space-time with
five dimensions is made of an infinity of
4-dimensional space-time.
But
does multiverse , in the case of an instantaneous or of 10-43s
journey/transfer really makes it possible to escape the absolute
determinism?
We face
this alternative: the multiple branches of the universe are connected in some way
or not. In the first case, we face the following sub-alternative: conservation
of free-will or not.
a) Connection & free-will
Really,
in the situation of connections between the multiple branches of the universe
and conservation of free-will, the “grandfather paradox”, the “paradox of
knowledge” and the “temporal butterfly effect”
paradox persist.
So, in
the case of the “grandfather paradox”,
if I kill in another branch of
the universe a "clone" of my grandfather, maybe this is not really a
parricide, but the action is denatured,
and before all, somebody can come to kill my grandfather in my branch of
universe, consequently… the paradox is not solved.
b) Connection & -(free-will)
Since
the times are simultaneous, everything is always already accomplished. Moreover, the possibilities are fixed. Indeed, if I can go to kill my grandfather
in another universe, nobody can come to kill him in my universe, since I exist. Can one even come in my universe? Yes, but in the condition of not making
certain things. That prohibits any
free-will. I can thus return in my
initial universe only in certain conditions.
This is the situation of a “complete” determinism developed here below.
c) Collection
Third option: there is no "bridges" between the various
branches of the multiverse, no possibility of passage at will from a branch to
another, but then, the temporal reduction is assimilated to the achievement of
all the possible ones in a deterministic spreading out, and it is not any more
question of time travel.
In this case, multiverse applied to time travel means that "time is
frozen": all the moments exist currently simultaneously - nowhere from an
absolute point of view – making a broken up reality; not only does it
contradict, the very true observation
"An object cannot be itself and something else at the same time." –
even if I prefer the more complete "time is the only way for an entity to
be different from itself and to occupy two different space’s positions",
even if one can argue that, in some sense, an entity, to be able to persist,
has to be "itself" (1) and different of itself" (-1), which
would lead us to a kind of illusory reality "à la Berkeley" – but goodbye free-will! Just a floating
collection of all the times! Here we face a variation of the “absolute”
determinism.
To be able to accomplish several pseudo-trips starting from the same
universe, it is necessary that it is geared down ad infinitum, if not, only one
possible trip, since any other universe is inevitably different and that I
cannot return in that of departure. The
journey is expensive: the eternal exile or the reduction ad infinitum. But in any event, all is fixed in
advance. The roof: if Cloc cannot return in his universe, it is
that he will continue to exist in a universe where he could not appear
naturally since he killed his grandfather there.
Addenda:
-Mass
paradox is not really a problem, with or without connection, we can even
consider that entropy increases. Indeed, if the branches are connected,
multiverse=universe and no absolute loss or addition of matter; if no
connection, no transfer of matter or energy at all, no more question of “time
travel”, and this is simply as if branches other than our own didn’t exist.
-nor is the orientation: if
time travel became reality, the spatial orientation would be a totally
secondary problem; our sympathetic Newton having given us all the necessary
instruments to escape grave situations.
Determinism
The easiest way to avoid the infinite temporal overprinting and
the most economic too to avoid temporal reduction: the determinism. This is the
occasion to evoke 3 kinds of determinism: absolute, complete/total and
classical/mechanical.
Doubling
Before all,
here the illustration of an often neglected consequence in the situation of the
absolute determinism which will enable us to bring a response to the many
paradoxes implied by the possibility of moving in time: let us meet again Cloc, our ten year old
boy. We are the 01/07/2002 at 15h35'
28,1578867219183457118552574627916122453040705'' and he wishes to go the
30/06/2002 at 15h35' 28,1578867219183457118552574627916122453040705”. To simplify the situation, let us not make
it meet itself. It emerges in the
medium of a clearing and turns over at once to the 01/07/2002 at 15h35'
28,1578867219183457118552574627916122453040706'', that is to say a measurement
of the time of Planck to later avoid making it meet before or at the moment of
his retreat in time. The 30/06/2002 at
15h35' 28,1578867219183457118552574627916122453040705'', there is and there
always were two Cloc, that which was there naturally and that which made a jump
behind in time. Let us complicate the
things and make Cloc meet itself in the past.
To be the future voyager, Cloc which receives the visit of himself must
live exactly what the voyager will have lived:
buckle perfect, Cloc always already went visit the 30/06/2002 to 15h35'
28,1578867219183457118552574627916122453040705" and he is always already
turned over the 01/07/2002 at 15h35'
28,1578867219183457118552574627916122453040706". Cloc never will thus have been alone this 30/06/2002 at 15h35'
28,1578867219183457118552574627916122453040705". There will never have been one 30/06/2002 at 15h35'
28,1578867219183457118552574627916122453040705" with only one Cloc.
a) Absolute determinism
We will not make again the development which can be found in the first article.
Let’s just remind that the simultaneity of all the possible times, determined
by the minimal time of Planck, i.e. 10-43s, induced the absolute
determinism which constitutes the simplest solution, in any case the most
economic, to the problem of the paradoxes caused by a voyage in time. But the price to be paid is high: the hope of the greatest freedom thanks to
the time travel becomes the most solid nightshirt, the best kept prison. What
an irony!
The roof of the “absolute” determinism is provided by the situation
described by Moorcock in “Behold the man”.
Like points out it Christian Grenier, "... it is the incursion itself of the temporal
traveller into the past which is at the origin of the History. This particular way to consider the temporal
trips quite simply integrates them into a historical screen solid and single,
which not only accepts them, but makes them necessary: without these incursions into the past, the
History would have been different, or would not have been ".
Let’s emphasize that the multiverse conjecture is already implied in the
absolute determinism configuration!
b) Classical determinism
On the question of the pure determinism implied by the resolution of the
paradoxes of the matricide and causality, and more generally of the
“sensibility to initial or final conditions”, the Consortium puts forward an
interesting idea. According to
traditional physics, even out of the Loops of the Time Kind, the world is
deterministic. "What occurs to one
moment given is entirely determined by all that occurred before (or
afterwards)". Indeed, everything
push us into believing that we are completely determined by innumerable, maybe
infinite, endogenous and exogeneous factors, in the spirit of Laplace. Thus the voyage in time is not opposed to
the free-will more than a classical world is.
c) Complete determinism : inertia
Applied to time travel situations, this transition by the classical
determinism leads us to the notion of «complete determinism».
So there are authors for whom no problem arises in consequence of the
intervention or of the simple
presence of the traveller of time in the past or in the future. Thus, the philosopher David Lewis is
satisfied with the infringement of the free-will in the paradox of the
matricide or of the grandfather.
According to him, there is inevitably something to prevent the voyager
from changing the past, which, it should well be acknowledged, does nothing but
move the problem; simply, in fact the
universe is arranged so that the voyager does not make an incoherent act. Lewis thus admits that the past is fixed
once and for all. He must recognize
that the only presence of the voyager in the past constitutes an
anachronism. Lewis draws on the cord by
saying that the "hitches" that the voyager undergoes do not prove
that it is not "really able" to act in the past and to kill his
grandfather. In the normal course of
the events, we often fail to achieve our goals. It seems that Lewis exploits the ambiguity, the ambiguous meaning of the word
"ability".
His point of view joins that of Fritz Leiber, who speaks about "Law
of causality" or "Law of Conservation of Reality". He illustrates his conception by the
possibility of minor changes in the course of time: a tree pushes back where another was torn off; if a traveller of time kills the woman whom
her grandfather must marry, in other words his grandmother, the grandfather
marries her sister! According to
Leiber, that would not prevent the grandfather from marrying the possible
sister of his promised in marriage
But “close to” means “different”, thus... In addition, a surprising consequence in this way of presenting
the things is that the future should then be as rigid as the past; thus there
would be no free-will, not more than in
the acts of the characters of a film, whose sequences are predetermined.
It is with this situation that it is necessary to apply the
expression " total determinism" of Jacques Van Herp. Van Herp speaks indeed about a total determinism
which weighs on the world insofar as the interventions in time disturb the
individual destinies, but do not modify the history in its broad outline. This determinism is distinguished from the
absolute determinism. The
"absolute" determinism is related to spreading out in the same moment
of every moment of the history of the universe. The determinism that evoke Van Herp, Reichenbach, Watzlawick is
put up with the flow of the duration.
Simply this duration is such the carpet which one unrolls, with here and
there some irregularities without consequence, a preexistent future which is
achieved, like drawn towards an omniscient purpose.
Unfortunately, this kind of determinism is definitely impossible outside
the framework of the multiverse, indeed, we are brought face to face with the
“infinite temporal overprinting” again; let’s go back to square one!
For a
longer development, please take a look at
http://www.chronoplanet.com/paraok.htm
Conclusion
First, we make
the conjecture that the ability to travel in time at will would give us the
supreme liberty.
But in order to
infer all the logical implications and to solve the numerous paradoxical
situations in the hypothesis of
the possibility of the time travel at will to whatever time of the relative
past or future, with or without machine, a series of
reductio ad absurdum lead us inexorably toward the “determinism” spectrum.
The promise of
the highest free-will turns into the assurance to carry out the data of a plan always already printed.
Now, by a boomerang effect,
the nature of the reality in which we evolve, without the ability to travel in
time, seems to be the best mean to escape these “complete” and “absolute”
determinisms synonym of non-being! The discreet presence of a mechanical
determinism is of little importance: Reality is liberty per se, by its own
existence! Auto-constitutive freedom.
Ironically, being the determinism
complaining about its own abyssal limits and its sadly planned course, I am
precisely the true expression of my free-will. Reality is logically divergent.
NEXT
DEVELOPMENTS
Temporal collision (Time’s arrow: Anisotropy of time; not simple logic barrier; the microscopic time’s arrow is
obvious)
Mathematical demonstration of
the impossibility of time travel
Mathematical demonstration of
the similarity of the “grandfather”,
the “knowledge” and the “temporal butterfly effect” paradoxes!
Time travel, Logic and Speculation 1
916 test
ÓNEUROLAND