An odd question about time travel...

[Allea]

The incidents I refer to apply mainly to the U.S. but the same concept would work anywhere so...
I was thinking if I could go back in time and stop all kinds of bad things from happening and realized how unstable time is and that it would never work.
Basically you could only stop one bad event.
Imagine if you could go back in time and stop Hitler before he became powerful, then you moved to 2001 and attempted to stop the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center...
You would most likely end up trying to stop something that would never happen since if you stopped Hitler you would change the course of time so drastically that the world would be so different that it would even be highly possible that Osama Bin Laden's parents would have never created Osama in the first place.
Just the simple fact that so many Jewish people would have lived who didn't would make it so that many people who married since WWII would have very possibly married someone else that they didn't simply because Hitler killed them.
Or if you went back just to stop 9/11...
And then tried to stop the recent New Orleans disaster...
Who's to say that maybe all the dust and chemicals and *crap* released into the atmosphere when the twin towers fell isn't what effected the world's weather cycles in a way that 'Hurricane Katrina' may have never existed if we hadn't had 9/11...it's highly possible if you think about it.
The few things we could almost always know would happen if we went back in time would be extreme earthly produced natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanoes meaning no matter what you changed before it, the tsunami in the Indonesia area would still happen, except...
Who can be sure that the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki years ago didn't loosen and weaken land masses creating the oppurtunoty for the eartquake that caused the tsunami?
It's odd to think how true it is that moving a simple grain of sand may change the entire world. That grain of sand may have gotten stuck in the beak of a bird carrying a seed that it then drops and a tree grows which eventually produces fruit that feeds a nation by producing more trees and feeding their cattle by those trees making natural irrigation ways with their roots that feed wheat which ...
It's endless...all from a grain of sand.
I guess what I'm saying is, even if we could go back and change the past, who's to say our good deed wouldn't go unpunished.
Our simple act of trying to stop one bad event just might create ten more.
Of course that could also maybe work the other way too.

Peace

[Ahkei]

maybe if you went back a little bit and stopped 9/11 then went back in time some more and killed hitler, THEN come back to where you started....my head will explode if i think anymore about time travel

[J]

This got complex right from the first post. So, I'll say: Things are like they are for a reason. If you were to change the past that could make you vanish.

[Xena]

Does Fate Rule Our Lives? Or Does God Hold Us Responsible?
Who holds us accountable? God. Who, then, fixes our fate? Many would also answer: �God.� But is that logical? Would you force a person to do something and then later blame him for having done it? Consider a father who in the morning locks the doors of the house in order to prevent his son from going outside. When he comes home that evening, he finds that his son has stayed home all day. Now, what if the father asks his son why he did not go outside, perhaps even punishing him for being lazy? Would that be just? What would you think of such a father?
�That would never happen,� you say. Yet, according to some, that is what God does. If good and bad are from God and he has written everything on our foreheads, as it were, why would he hold us responsible for doing bad? If what we do is what God has determined, why are we held accountable for our actions? Why must we answer to God for something about which we had no choice?
Perhaps at this point you are thinking: Who are we to understand God�s ways?
Reflect, though. These questions affect all of us. In this world, we have only one life to live, and it passes very quickly. The way we live our life is profoundly affected by our answers to the questions mentioned above. If God has determined our fate, why would we bother to try to improve ourselves? Why even bother to learn about God? Words like �right� and �wrong,� �sin� and �merit,� are meaningless. If it is our fate to do something that we regard as wrong, then we will do it anyway because we cannot change what has been predetermined.
If, though, that is the way things are, why has God taught us his commandments? Why did he send the prophets? Why have books, called God�s Word, been written? If fate rules, would not all these things be pointless? Surely, human intelligence objects to reasoning that contradicts itself. The logical human mind cannot accept it.
On the other hand, if we have free will and God holds us accountable for what we do, then we have to use our short life to take in accurate knowledge about God and his purposes and learn to live our lives the way he wants us to. This becomes the personal responsibility of every living human. No one else can serve God on our behalf. One is reminded of a Turkish proverb, �Each mutton is hung by its own leg.� That is, each one must answer for his own misdeeds.

Fate is not possible.

[ChimpoUA]

Whoa, my brains just Xploded from this time travel thingy ! I'm with Galcian

[Xena]

Whoa, my brains just Xploded from this time travel thingy ! I'm with Galcian

It's very simple:

Fate is not possible
Time travel is not possible (for humans)

[ChimpoUA]

Oh well, each his own thought, as I always say... (Or her thought )

[Xena]

Oh well, each his own thought, as I always say... (Or her thought )

Oh you think they are possible? how?

[Ahkei]

Oh you think they are possible? how?

If you travelled even the tiniest bit faster than the speed of light, how much faster you travelled would determine how far you would move forward in time. But thats forwards, not backwards.

And its still not possible To do that

[Xena]

If you travelled even the tiniest bit faster than the speed of light, how much faster you travelled would determine how far you would move forward in time. But thats forwards, not backwards.

And its still not possible To do that

Oh I see, how could have been so wrong?

Of course, its so much a proven fact is'nt it? I mean its been tested and proven yeah?

By the way the above is very sarcastic ^^

Nah, well i'm saying it is impossible.

[ChimpoUA]

Yep, it's impossible to travel faster then light, as Einstein explained with the "speciale-relativiteitstheorie" (don't know the English name, probably somthin like: "the special relativity-theory")

[Ahkei]

And its still not possible To do that

...

[pkt-zer0]

About fate. I think what Xena presented is a common interpretation, but not one that has any meaning at all. I mean, morals could go to hell then.

Think about your life for some time. How your actions had certain effects. Those effects changed you and the world in certain ways.
Would you have done things just like you did if your life would've happened differently?
And could you really choose freely, given the past you have? Was it not your experience and memories that led you to choose as you did?

The above would only be true, if law governed the entire universe. There are many unknown and random factors, so I'm not saying that I find either extreme acceptable. (Freedom of choice VS. Fate)
I think that time travel might actually be possible, but in a different way than portrayed in SF films. That would require a much greater understanding of space-time and all that, though.

[Xena]

...

Yes.... I was refering to you saing that if you DID travel faster then light, that you COULD go forward in time yes?

Well that is'nt proven.

[pkt-zer0]

Yep, it's impossible to travel faster then light, as Einstein explained with the "speciale-relativiteitstheorie" (don't know the English name, probably somthin like: "the special relativity-theory")

Einstein actually explained the general theory of relativity. With spinning/accelerating inertia-systems included.