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Path: utzoo!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.physics,net.puzzle,net.sci,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: A Sane Man Proposes A Time Travel Experiment
Message-ID: <622@looking.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 26-Jul-86 02:51:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: looking.622
Posted: Sat Jul 26 02:51:34 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Jul-86 08:48:25 EDT
References: <289@axiom.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 28
Keywords: "I gotta take this idea into the 80's."
Xref: watmath net.physics:4678 net.puzzle:1872 net.sci:1373 net.philosophy:6345
Summary: 

In article <289@axiom.UUCP> gts@axiom.UUCP (Guy Schafer) writes:
>
>
> ... advertise big that you're going to listen for time messages from the
> future and see what happens ...
>
>If a message comes in, we know that sometime in the future, the stored info
>was retrieved and used to send info back in time using technology now
>unknown.
>
>If nothing comes in, we know that during the next x years (where x is the
>probable durability of the stored information) technology to send info
>back in time will not have been invented.
>
>Comments?

Not likely you'll get anything.

If there is time travel (backwards) then it is probably highly restricted,
and messages to the past are no doubt illegal - certainly for frivolous
purposes like this.

But most of all, it's a paradox.  Not only would your intent to listen
go in the history books, but so would the results of your experiment.
If the books say you received nothing, then they wouldn't bother to send.

If they "will have said"  that you received something, then the future exists
and there is no free will, so why bother with the experiment?