Is The Manipulation Of Time Pointless?

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Imagine, a group of survivors in the year 2090 find a way to transport their consciousness back in time to a host body in the present day using quantum entanglement (time travelers). Their mission is to stop a deadly virus. If they achieve this it will radically change future events.

Here is the problem. If they do achieve what they set out to do, then the virus would have never occurred, but then it would also be true that nobody would have been sent back in time to stop a virus. If that is the case then none of the events involving time-travel would have occurred in the first place, which would mean that nobody stopped a virus. In which case time would unfold as it originally did, and the deadly virus would always be unleashed.

So isn’t it true that time manipulation (changing past events) becomes pointless.
 
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IWantGod said:
Imagine, a group of survivors in the year 2090 find a way to transport their consciousness back in time to a host body in the present day using quantum entanglement (time travelers). Their mission is to stop a deadly virus. If they achieve this it will radically change future events.
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12 Monkeys?
 
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Science fiction writers have written many stories with different ways of playing out the question.
 
Until we can actually try it and see what happens, we have no way of knowing.

Maybe an early experiment would be to go back in time about 30 minutes and crush an empty soda can and see what happens .

Of course, they have to be careful that janitorial services doesn’t come by in the meantime and recycle the can, but that’s another issue.
 
It would be a pointless invention because we couldn’t change anything.
 
When it’s fiction the answer is whatever the author wants it to be.
When it’s real --well, wait till it becomes real and we’ll see.
 
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2369, we have found the time traveler. Suspects name is Delusioned.
 
I tried it, did not put enough sauce with the pasta, and it became quantumly entangled!
 
Pointless and not possible. You may travel back to a point in an alternative universe where the event was different, but it wouldn’t be ours.
 
IWantGod said:
2369, we have found the time traveler. Suspects name is Delusioned.
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Me and my Vortex Manipulator, cheap and nasty time travel.
Mtatum1958 said:
Pointless and not possible. You may travel back to a point in an alternative universe where the event was different, but it wouldn’t be ours.
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People are quick to declare that it’s not possible, but to make this thread something more than simply an exchange of opinions, you need to offer an argument for why it’s not possible. Then perhaps we can have a discussion.

Both QM and Relativity state that time travel is indeed possible, so what makes you think that it’s not?
 
Delusioned said:
Both QM and Relativity state that time travel is indeed possible, so what makes you think that it’s not?
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Time travel is possible. Changing the past however, does not seem to be. If the time traveler stops the virus in the past, this act will drastically change the future, in which case there wasn’t any reason for the time travelers to come back, they never stopped a virus, in fact they never did anything because that future never existed. In other-words those time travel events did not happen, so how can there now be a new timeline? This leads to a paradox. In which case it seems that the new timeline would never come to be and the original timeline would remain the same, and the virus would wipe out humanity accept those survivors; and what you now have is a time loop that never changes.
 
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Mtatum1958 said:
First, I did not say time travel was impossible, just the scenario presented.
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Okay, you posit that the presented scenario is impossible. Why?
Mtatum1958 said:
Unless and until it is demonstrated, it it all theory and opinion.
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I would posit that solipsism is true, and that you don’t actually exist. Until it can be demonstrated that you do, any argument otherwise is merely theory and opinion…correct?
Mtatum1958 said:
Lastly, there are multiple opinions on the subject,
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As with most everything. But the real trick lies in defending those opinions with well reasoned arguments. That’s where time travel paradoxes become fascinating.
 
IWantGod said:
Imagine, a group of survivors in the year 2090 find a way to transport their consciousness back in time to a host body in the present day using quantum entanglement (time travelers). Their mission is to stop a deadly virus. If they achieve this it will radically change future events.

Here is the problem. If they do achieve what they set out to do, then the virus would have never occurred, but then it would also be true that nobody would have been sent back in time to stop a virus. If that is the case then none of the events involving time-travel would have occurred in the first place, which would mean that nobody stopped a virus. In which case time would unfold as it originally did, and the deadly virus would always be unleashed.

So isn’t it true that time manipulation (changing past events) becomes pointless.
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That cannot occur on the same timeline.
 
Maybe you could change something but just not what mortals would want. Jesus made many predictions after all, and the gifts of the divine are not for the petty amusement of the mortals. IF you heard about someone having trouble a few years from now but wanted more, would God not let you take them down the more righteous path as part of a battle of influence? Its crusade o’clock after all.
 
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