Time Travel – ?

Travelling in Time is a familiar feature of many Science Fiction books and
movies, and in this environment can be accepted as valid.  But is it
possible in actual fact?

I would allege, no.  And the reason is basically because, firstly the Past,
once past, no longer exists as such – except as fragments of memory or
evidence.  Hence, it cannot be "re-entered" by a Time Traveller.  It is not
a permanent continuum.  Secondly, the Future is unknown and only predicable
as a projection of the Past and Present; it has various possibilities
depending on causal influences, and it too doesn’t exit until the Present
catches up with it.

H.G.Wells, in his book "The Time Machine", has the Time Traveller contend
that any object has four dimensions – three spatial (length, breadth, and
height), and another: duration (ie. temporal).  However, the first three are
obviously closely related and tangible, whereas the fourth is ellusive and
fleeting.  It is true that any object must have duration, to some degree or
other, but all we know is that it exists in the Present, and continues in
our Present, along with us.  We can tell from its nature whether it has had
a long Past existence (eg. antiques), but this is surmising, or going by
records or other such contemporay evidence.  Again, the Past no longer
exists – all we have is the present existence of the object.  An object can
have a long or short (predictable) Future, depending on its nature: whether
durable like steel, or unstable, like ice in the sun.

Our means of measuring Time are all mechanical devices of various degrees of
sophistication, and we assume the Future will be much the same as Past and
Present, but we have no proof that it will be.  We devise Time-measurers on
basis of experience, and predict the Future accordingly.

If the cosmos is a causal, deterministic, process, then we exist at a
point-in-Time in this process.  The light from the stars may have taken
millions of light-years to reach our eyes, but what we see is still the
present Time from our viewpoint.

Time Travel is a fascinating concept, but, it would seem, an impossibility.

=========================================================

     Often a distinction is made between mere words and the objects they
are signs of.

     Words, however, are objects in their own right.  Their appearance
can be sight, sound, or touch.  They have a use.  The word, in itself,
is elusive because the properties always get in the way.

     The distinction made between words and the objects they represent
is a conventional distinction.  There is, of course, a relationship
between the two, but both the sign and its object are objects, things
that have a life of their own.

     The cause of the confusion is one of reference.  Since a sign
references an object it is not usually thought of as an object.  But it
is, and a very sophisticated object at that, every bit as complex as the
object referenced.

     Only Object is different, not the objects swirling around it.
Object cannot be experienced because it is One.  But words are many and
come as light, ink, voice, and braille.

In article <0FKelFBlxcR5E…@aegis1.demon.co.uk>,
Stephen Tonkin <s…@nospam.demon.co.uk> was reading his morning
paper (one morning), when he ran across an ad for a beat-up truck
with a dog… by one redneck, S D Rodrian; and noting that the ad
claimed the odometer read "only 13 billion miles," quickly wrote:

> Mr Rodrian,

> Please will you stop changing your email address when posting to
> uk.sci.astronomy. It makes it difficult to killfile your messages.

Sure. However, might you consider
a more civilized alternative: Instead
of burning the books so no one will
be able to read them, why don’t you
simply make up your mind to just
not read them yourself?

There. Betcha when you were growing up
you never imagined you would end up
on the side of the NAZI stormtroopers
whom you saw on film throwing books
into the bonfires! Live & learn.

Yep, it’s

S D Rodrian
wisdom.findhere.com

Your eyes do not deceive you
(it’s your wife)

> Thank you.

> sdRODRIAN <litr…@rednecks.com> wrote:
> [snip]

> Noctis Gaudia Carpe,
> Stephen

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

The other thread got a bit of a monster & i didn’t keep up.  I’m just going
back to this topic for revision and i spotted a note that claimed Frege
thought existence was a second level relation, i.e. a relation between two
concepts, but i can’t really make sense of this.  But my note underneath
says that there is not way of treating the existential quantifer as a
relation, which makes even less sense give the above, since Frege was
primarily concerned with ‘mathematical’ quantifiers like these. Any ideas?

In article <20000612231059.19749.00005…@ng-ct1.aol.com>,
gyud…@aol.com (Gyudon Z) was counting his toes, and finding
his calculator was short a couple-o-marbles, wrote:

> Here we go again…Unholy Nonentity member #4, SDRondrian, wrote:

Whew! For a minute there I feared ’twas I.

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> >In article <8guecr$qf…@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> >  Bjerknes <christopherbjerk…@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >> In article <8gu5s6$qd…@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>,
> >>   "Paul" <pl…@cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> <snip>

> >> > This easily qualifies for the "longest
> >> > and most incoherent" prize…

> >It needlessly reworks the minutia to bits and is
> >repetitive (a tip-off the writer either does not trust
> >his readers will understand or does not trust himself
> >to have the skill to put it concisely). However there
> >are many singular truths in there (it’s still a truth
> >regardless how many ways it’s put).

> Yet there is to be found no evidence of that,
> and you will note that if you
> press the author, he will evade with meaningless sophistry.

If it is you doing the pressing, mister z, then
I can understand anyone’s reluctance to repeat the
same thing to you 34,874 times. Really! Surely,
even you can see that if you’re not going to understand
even the simplest thing after it’s told to you a dozen
times… it’s masochistic to keep repeating it (except
in my case, of course, I’m an intellectual masochist:
I love the stupid above all other folks… and I enjoy
encouraging their stupidity by repeating things 2 damn).

> >Of course, I object to any absolute contention that
> >there are no absolutes! In my own cosmology
> >energy free of a vector (in effect: NOT in the/any
> >form of matter, or "free of gravity’s attraction")
> >is something by definition at absolute rest.

> But sadly, #4, it is your cosmology that is faulty.

I’m sorry, did you say my cosmology was "stinky?" Or
did you utter some other meaningless generalization
which does not require you to be more specific?
[This is just a rhetorical question --look it up
in a lexicon--look it up in a dictionary--in one of
them books tells what words mean to most people.]

> >But conventional relativity is, after all, a
> >kind of mental set of hurdles anyone trying to get
> >"straight to it" must navigate before he/she
> >can "get there" (and while always pretending he/she
> >never had to navigate any hurdles at all).

> I always considered relativity simply as a subset
> of physics. I never saw the
> mental aspect of it.

Surprise! (Please: Don’t anybody tell him one needs a MIND
to "see" intellectual matters.)

> >If Christopher can get over the silly human frailty
> >that what others think of one is worth a rat’s ass
> >he may yet make a great and powerful point.

> If SDRondrian ever listens to the usually correct
> criticism of his execrable
> pseudoscience, he may one day rise to
> the level of mediocrity.

Are you God then, my boy, to be able to ascertain
who is correct and who is not! Lucky you! Everybody
else on earth, the rest of us, must argue it out
one way or the other–which explains why I hold no
grudges against those who wish to win by censoring
their opponents: It’s so endearingly human! Moreover:
the sort of poster lives in these parts is about
approximately two bursted bubbles behind the times
(I recently got a reply on "dark matter" which made
reference to the Macho collaboration project which
has been pretty much superseded by WIMP research).

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> >> It is long, for a post, though that is not
> >> its orginal purpose, and I
> >> do have to polish it up. But,
> >> can you dispute anything which I wrote?
> >> Simply because I wrote it and it
> >> is clear to me, does not mean I
> >> conveyed my meaning accurately to
> >> others. If you could point out any
> >> specific problems, I would be grateful.

> >Sorry, Chris: I [was] able to follow your reasoning;
> >and found much I agreed with (not everything, but
> >you have a wider focus than mine… including the
> >philosophical/historical). But, let nothing
> >discourage you.

> Except the possibility that you may be wrong.

If I never wished to consider the possibility that I
may be wrong: NEVER would I have exposed my proposals
to anyone. [Think, my boy: It really IS worthwhile.]
Quite the contrary: I have never left a question
unanswered… whether they were serious questions, or,
as I like them best: idiotic questions–Hell, you
yourself have asked many of these and have been quite
amply answered in kind, haven’t you!

> That should discourage
> pseudoscientists everywhere, but they show an
> obstinate inability to admit it.

Well, obviously you must have the matter of
obstinacy haunting your thoughts! I shall refrain
from embarrassing you here; but, ask your psychoanalyst
what it means to be obsessed with a particular way
of seeing others (specifically your own words above
concerning an "obstinate inability to admit" things).
This is for your own mental well-being, trust me.

Kindly,

S D Rodrian
web.sdrodrian.com

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

In article <Nnt15.9743$qS3.25…@tor-nn1.netcom.ca>,
"Greg Neill" <gne…@netcom.REMOVE.ca> was caught behind
the outhouse (of his "in" house) smoken some 100% Cuban SDR,
and started babbling:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -

> Joseph Kinz <JoeK…@webtv.net> wrote in message
> news:2442-3945A712-34@storefull-223.iap.bryant.webtv.net…
> > My Dear Mr. Rodrian:

> > In regards to your extraordinary monologue  of
> > Wed, June 7, 2000, 10:06PM (EDT+4).
> > What a magnficent tome!  A magnum opus!
> > A compendium of the obtuse!  An encyclopedia of the archaic and
> > obvolute!

> Congratulations.  You have discovered the net-kookery of this
> Rodrian character.  I’ve long since kill-filed him, but every
> now and thn he slips out from the kill-file by changing his
> username slightly (it seems that he notices when the number
> of people still reading his posts drops to an insignificant
> level, then he has to change his username to inflict himself
> anew on his unwilling audience).

C’mon, Greg! Get naked, man: You enjoy reading my posts!
Admit it. Don’t gimme that: "I don’t inhale" crap!
I enjoy writing them and you enjoy reading them:
Be honest, Greg: The world loves an honest man (and
a sucker, but that’s neither here nor there).

Go for it!

SDR
wisdom.findhere.com

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

     Conventional system logic has limitations.  While the systems are
closed in the sense that any good well formed formula will transform
into another well formed formula, they do not necessarily deal with the
whole of our World.

     Therefore, to use them to decide worldly paradoxes sometimes
results in confusion instead of clarity.  Systems can oversimplify or
complicate the problem, or fail to deal with it entirely.

     The dialectic of Plato is really more sophisticated because it is
more flexible.  The precision of Aristotle was a great advance,
none-the-less, because it allowed for machine like thinking.  A really
great addition to the dialectic.

     Quantification, moreover, can be computer driven.  This is a
tremendous asset for our society.  I suspect that artificial
intelligence programs have failed to fully develop the potential of the
quantificational logic.

     Likewise Philosophers have failed to fully develop the potential of
the dialectic.  The dialectic can be human brain driven.  And it was
great when pulling guard duty in ancient Greece on cold nights with a
warm fire surrounded by fellow soldiers.

     Insight, or introspection if you prefer, cannot be left out either.
It lead to "I think, therefore I am."  It also lead to the "I think" of
Hegel.

     Professor Thomas A. Okelly was as hard headed as they come, but he
loved the dialectic as much as cold logic.

I heard J S Mill quoted on the radio today by Lewis Wolpert*.  Roughly
(my apologies to both JSM and LW if it’s too inaccurate): "Science is
based on rationality and religion is based on faith, therefore they have
no bearing on one another."  Now, if A is based on X and B is based on
Y, that does not imply that just because X and Y are disjoint so are A
and B.  At least, so one may think.  I suppose it depends on what the
rules governing "is based on" are.  Is there a logic of "is based on"?
Something "based on" the relevant logics of Anderson and Belnap,
perhaps?  I’m fishing.  BTW, I’m not claiming that rationality and faith
are either disjoint, or not.

[* In "The Moral Maze".  Would I be right in thinking that Daley** and
Starkey are on it because they can be counted on to be obnoxious and two
people rowing is more entertaining than rational discussion?

[** Normally I wouldn't call a lady by her surname alone, but I do not
know whether she is a Miss or a Mrs.***

[*** A footnote to a footnote to a footnote!  Do I win a prize?]]]

I wonder if anyone can help. I’m after the textual source of the expression
"logical possibility" or "logically possible".
Does anyone know who used it first? and when?

thanks
please reply directly to

r.ander…@mail.com

For Frege numbers were "self-subsistent objects" but were also related to
2nd level concepts.  Does his view point make sense? Should we really think
of numbers as objects rather than properties?
How exactly does frege’s view relate to Peano axioms? Does it make sense to
apply such criteria to Frege’s writings?