If you went back in time......

Bill Door said:
If we are imagining a scenario where time travel is possible, then I cannot see a reason why you should be unable to travel back to an event that took place before your birth (unless that is a specific restriction of the time travel mechanic such as Quantum Leap rules).

Your personal timeline would be consistent, eg:
1990 -age 0- born
2015 - age 25 - discover time travel and go back to 1960
1960 - still age 25 - grab your granny

Asking who came first in this scenario (no pun intended), you or your grandfather, is like asking where the beginning of a circle is.
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You would be absolutely fine being there, but being your own grandad is impossible because at the point of conception of your Father you simply don't exist.

In terms of time travel, who came first is irrelevant :)
 
The Dread Pirate said:
It's a continuous cycle yes however how did the cycle originally begin at some point someone other than yourself would've had to be your grandfather/father/creator.

Best explanaiton I can think of is a recent Dr who intro:
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Personally I do not see the bootstrap as being a true paradox, as it does not result in a contradiction but only an inexplicable event, i.e. there being a cyclical chain of events which has no start and no end.

Best retort I can think of is a not so recent short story by Isaac Asimov
The Last Question
 
Rroff said:
You posted in the time between me looking up the movie name as I couldn't remember it and then clicking submit. Besides impossible to direct someone to the movie without mentioning the name heh.
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Yeah but you broke my paradox :(

Raymond Lin said:
The terminator? Lol
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Rroff has the answer.

Has anyone not mentioned the mum aspect? To do this you would literally be a mother ****er
 
There is no such thing as going back in time. Time is an illusion created by changes, changes happen constantly and irreversibly.
 
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Yes. People don't stay together any more or just sleep around- every set of siblings I know of has different parents rather than 2 like in the good ol' days.... lol
 
Taking in the belief that time travel is real, i like the question can you kill your own mother/father?

You, as the time traveller, go back to when mum was a hot young thang and kill her before you were born or similar with your dad, or even kill them both.

Is this Back to the Future rules where you would fade of existence, but then again, if you did, how could you have gone back in time to kill them in the first place?

Oh well.
 
I don't know why people keep going on about paradoxes. That's only a minor point, it's still impossible to be your own father because your DNA mixed with your mother's DNA will never make you. (etc. etc. for any level of ancestry.) It could also end up being a girl.
It means you could be your brother / sisters father or even your aunt / uncles father... but you don't need time travel for that (depending on circumstances)
 
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Zogger said:
I don't know why people keep going on about paradoxes. That's only a minor point, it's still impossible to be your own father because your DNA mixed with your mother's DNA will never make you. (etc. etc. for any level of ancestry.)
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Being your own father wasn't the question though
 
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Need another Coffee.
 
just imagine if there was a continual cycle of this person going back in time and producing a male offspring with their own grandmother who produces another male offspring who then goes back in time again.
The genetic mutation after a few cycles would be huge!


edit: Maybe this is how we produce super humans..
 
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Zogger said:
Yes, hence the etc. - Your grandmother's DNA and your DNA will never make your father either and the new person's subsequent DNA and your mother's DNA will never make you
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It would if it already had, but that was my point, if you've been made already (as you would have to in order to be able to go back in time) then your Father has already been born to another man. That's why my answer is no :)
 
Gilly said:
Exactly my point, but you've not answered my question. If you are your own grandfather how were you born in the first place? The scenario has your Father being sired by you before you were born. Now we're talking about time travel so a linear timeline must have you existing before you can go back in time, and you cannot exist before you were born, in your own timeline at least.

It's not possible, even if we say that time travel is possible.
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I don't believe time is linear, for the possibility of time travel to exist for the premise of the thread, all time must exist simultaneously, otherwise you wouldn't be able to go backwards or forwards. Thus you would paradoxicly pop into existence from the mear action of timetravel. In theory any traveller who affects his own past causes a infinte loop.
Since I don't believe there is such a thing as first place, there can be no issue. We are stuck in linear time, but time is not linear.
 
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ChroniC said:
I don't believe time is linear, for the possibility of time travel to exist for the premise of the thread, all time must exist simultaneously, otherwise you wouldn't be able to go backwards or forwards. Thus you would paradoxicly pop into existence from the mear action of timetravel. In theory any traveller who affects his own past causes a infinte loop.
Since I don't believe there is such a thing as first place, there can be no issue. We are stuck in linear time, but time is not linear.
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I'm enjoying the fact that we're okay accepting the original premise as an actual possibility (LETS GO BACK IN TIMEZORS, LOL!) but we're getting all sciency upset about how we may or may not be able to bang our own mother/father/self because LOGIC.

:D
 
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