miketx
Diamond Member
- Dec 25, 2015
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- #1
For the moment, assume time travel is possible. Please note that this NOT a time travel paradox question. Suppose that we have achieved time travel and we want to study history, to see how it differs from history books and learn from the past. Now, let's say our traveler is a person born in 1983, and they are sent to the past to study it with things they need to record history. But, our traveler is unlucky. For the sake of the story, let us say that he was going to Pearl Harbor on December 6th 1941, to record the attack on the American fleet. All goes well until early on the 7th, during the attack, when our traveler is struck by a stray bullet and is killed instantly.
After the smoke clears his body is found, but is in such a state that no one can ID it or figure out what the little "doo-dads" he has do, so it is all disposed of. Forensics being what they were then, he is marked off as another unknown casualty of war.
So, to the question. Our time traveler has perished in the past, 42 years before he was born. As time proceeds from the events of 1941, slowly moving forward until 1983 is once again the present, is our traveler born again? I would say that he must be, if time is indeed a constant, ever moving current. So, if he is born and follows his path as he previously did, does he once again end up being killed in the past, and if so, how many cycles does this time loop repeat itself? What is the long term effect on entropy, and will the random effect of entropy at some time or another, fix the causal loop?
After the smoke clears his body is found, but is in such a state that no one can ID it or figure out what the little "doo-dads" he has do, so it is all disposed of. Forensics being what they were then, he is marked off as another unknown casualty of war.
So, to the question. Our time traveler has perished in the past, 42 years before he was born. As time proceeds from the events of 1941, slowly moving forward until 1983 is once again the present, is our traveler born again? I would say that he must be, if time is indeed a constant, ever moving current. So, if he is born and follows his path as he previously did, does he once again end up being killed in the past, and if so, how many cycles does this time loop repeat itself? What is the long term effect on entropy, and will the random effect of entropy at some time or another, fix the causal loop?