Soldato
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Why? You need to give a bit more of an explanationpenski said:
Is random actually random?
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This particular theory of time travel really tangles with my head and if true would mean that yes the same lotto number would come out. But the fact you've time travelled makes the theory null and void anyway
A further suggestion related to paradoxes suggests that time travel will never exist, even if theoretically possible. The reasoning is that as long as time travel exists, history will change, and will only become static when a timeline is reached in which no time travel exists and thus no further changes can be made. Assuming there is only a single dimension of time, the timeline we perceive must be the one that exists after all changes (if any) are made, and thus we will never perceive the invention of time travel, since it will have already destabilised itself out of the timeline by the time we would have reached it.
A further suggestion related to paradoxes suggests that time travel will never exist, even if theoretically possible. The reasoning is that as long as time travel exists, history will change, and will only become static when a timeline is reached in which no time travel exists and thus no further changes can be made. Assuming there is only a single dimension of time, the timeline we perceive must be the one that exists after all changes (if any) are made, and thus we will never perceive the invention of time travel, since it will have already destabilised itself out of the timeline by the time we would have reached it.
Chrisss said:
Conversely though, depending how it actually works (if at all), the time in which you record the numbers that come up may be the one in which you have already travelled back to place the ticket so it won't make any difference to the past.
Jokester
I don't believe that if you went back in time that events would be identical. I believe they would be different as some things are truly random aswell as obviously the things you change in past would affect the future of that past.
I believe if you were to go back in time and live in the past you would be starting off your own seperate timeline of events. Using this theory of time travel prevents all kinds of paradoxes aswell.
Theres another theory that says every event and possibility exists, which would be in line with my theory although I'd rather believe that a time line doesn't exist until it is created as that would make the number of time lines much smaller.
I believe if you were to go back in time and live in the past you would be starting off your own seperate timeline of events. Using this theory of time travel prevents all kinds of paradoxes aswell.
Theres another theory that says every event and possibility exists, which would be in line with my theory although I'd rather believe that a time line doesn't exist until it is created as that would make the number of time lines much smaller.
Inquisitor said:Why? You need to give a bit more of an explanation
Well if were talking in computer terms: In theory, true random numbers only come from truly random sources: atmospheric noise, radioactive decay etc...
True random numbers are typically generated by sampling and processing a source of entropy outside the computer.
delbuenno said:OK so presume at some point in 'the future' they develope a time machine. They could use it to come back and visit their past (aka our present). So why haven't they come back to our present.
(yep I know the future hasn't happened yet)? or has it?
How do you know they haven't? Just because you invent a time travel machine (hypothetically), it doesn't instantly mean the first thing you do is go back in time and tell everyone you meet that you can now traverse time at your whimsy.....
delbuenno said:I don't think time travel (as in back to the future style) Will ever be possible as surely someone would have come back in time to tell us?
They have (errr...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor
Soldato
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You're referring to a software-based pseudorandom number generator, not a true random number generator. It is possible obtain true randomness from a physically chaotic source, such as radioactive decay, which is believed to be truly random.penski said:
penski said:
Actaully there are quite a few physical phenomena which are impossible to predict. In theory they can produce totally random numbers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_random_number_generator
Gilly said:
He's talking about the idea that man has never been able to time travel, due to the fact that if a method of time travel had been invented, we would have witnessed time travellers by now. But seeing as nobody from the future has come back riding on a time machine, people believe one was never and will never be invented.
However the theory does fall apart slightly under the assumption that the time travellers may be under some sort of temporal directive and are not allowed to interact with humans in the past/future.
Soldato
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Pudney@work said:
Because time moving in a forward direction is infinite as soon as a time machine is invented then it will over time be used an infinite number of times. Since there are now an infinite number of time travellers moving through time it is now certain that at least one of them would come and tell us about it.
A different way of looking at it ....
Think of the OJ Simpson murder, a time machine is invented and someone decides to go and see if he really did it. At some other point in time sombody else decides they would like to have a look too. When the second person gets there he will find the first person there too ... and so on. If you extrapalate this you get a massive crowd all trying to watch OJ Simpson beating to death his missis. if you apply the infinity priciple again you can quickly see that if itme travel did exist then there would be an infinite amount of people at all points in time.
Any arguments of rules against a certain amount of people travelling to a certain point are null and void, since at some point someone would break them, since there is infinite amount of time then there are an infinite amount of rule breakers.
Therefore time travel doesn't exist.
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Gilly said:
I meant predicting it before it had happened. I decided not to address the time travel part of the question because its impossible to give an answer.
Soldato
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Says who? You're assuming that the human race lasts forever, along with the time machines.Rancidelephant said:
Also, even if time machines were used an infinite number of times, who's to say that every single possibility must occur? You're essentially, in mathematical terms, making the assumption that ∞ * 0 = 1, which is not valid, as ∞ * 0 is mathematically undefined.
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Soldato
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Inquisitor said:
You are assuming that the only people to develop time machines are humans. Current physics posts the universe as infinitely big and expanding, while the universe expands then time cannot stop.
If you have something occouring an infinite amount of times then you have an infinite amount of outcomes. i.e. everything will happen. That is the nature of infinity.
Soldato
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Huh?Rancidelephant said:
The universe is finite, not infinite. Also, who said the timeline extends forwards infinitely? It doesn't extend backwards infinitely (or so we believe).
I don't understand where you're getting the idea that infinity has anything to do with the problem.
You're actually touching on one of my favourite paradoxes here- The grandfather paradox
The basic premise of this is that by going back in time, you will have an effect of some sort. Because you exist, these changes must have already happened to allow you to go back and make them, because otherwise you would not exist, and therefore would not be able to go back and make them, and therefore would exist and so on.............
My belief is that this paradox applied to the lottery numbers would cause what could be called a branch in time. This is because I assume you would not be going back far enough to invoke the grandfather paradox (You are not dead, and are not going back to before you were born, therefore the grandfather paradox does not apply), and instead by writing the winning numbers on the ticket you would be in effect changing the future from what happened in the 'original' (This is not a term I like using with regards to time), and therfore branching off into a new future. Whether the same numbers came up again is therefore an entirely moot point, as you would be on a new timeline. I would assume if you carried on with the same type of actions, you would instead be affected by an existential paradox, in that it is theoretically impossible to have two copies of the same matter in existance at the same instance in time.
If this is correct, it then suggests that any time traveller will branch off into a timeline of his own & therefore to use the example of the OJ Simpson murder presented earlier, there could only be one time traveller (Or group thereof) present in any one timeline. However, would this mean that as he suggested, rahter than the number of travellers at any one time becoming infiinite, instead the number of timelines become infinite? I'm not entirely sure, but I can expand futher on this if anyone really wants- Could develop into a very interesting discussion if it concentrates more on the paradoxes created.
As Gilly said though, ultimately all of this depends on your perception of time as a whole.
-Leezer-
The basic premise of this is that by going back in time, you will have an effect of some sort. Because you exist, these changes must have already happened to allow you to go back and make them, because otherwise you would not exist, and therefore would not be able to go back and make them, and therefore would exist and so on.............
My belief is that this paradox applied to the lottery numbers would cause what could be called a branch in time. This is because I assume you would not be going back far enough to invoke the grandfather paradox (You are not dead, and are not going back to before you were born, therefore the grandfather paradox does not apply), and instead by writing the winning numbers on the ticket you would be in effect changing the future from what happened in the 'original' (This is not a term I like using with regards to time), and therfore branching off into a new future. Whether the same numbers came up again is therefore an entirely moot point, as you would be on a new timeline. I would assume if you carried on with the same type of actions, you would instead be affected by an existential paradox, in that it is theoretically impossible to have two copies of the same matter in existance at the same instance in time.
If this is correct, it then suggests that any time traveller will branch off into a timeline of his own & therefore to use the example of the OJ Simpson murder presented earlier, there could only be one time traveller (Or group thereof) present in any one timeline. However, would this mean that as he suggested, rahter than the number of travellers at any one time becoming infiinite, instead the number of timelines become infinite? I'm not entirely sure, but I can expand futher on this if anyone really wants- Could develop into a very interesting discussion if it concentrates more on the paradoxes created.
As Gilly said though, ultimately all of this depends on your perception of time as a whole.
-Leezer-
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If you actually went back "into" time and bought tickets etc., then it's possible those tiny changes might somehow affect the universe and cause different lottery numbers to turn up, a la butterfly causing a hurricane.
If you're talking about whether you can predict random events then I guess it depends on the nature of the universe: whether it's mechanical and deterministic or depends on probability.
If you're talking about whether you can predict random events then I guess it depends on the nature of the universe: whether it's mechanical and deterministic or depends on probability.
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