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From: jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: net.physics,net.sci,net.philosophy,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: A Sane Man Proposes A Time Travel Experiment
Message-ID: <354@epimass.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 2-Aug-86 22:36:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: epimass.354
Posted: Sat Aug  2 22:36:54 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Aug-86 06:13:01 EDT
References: <289@axiom.UUCP> <5723@lanl.ARPA> <7489@tekecs.UUCP> <83@unc.unc.UUCP> <556@sunybcs.UUCP>
Reply-To: jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck)
Organization: Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, CA
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Xref: watmath net.physics:4735 net.sci:1447 net.philosophy:6431 net.sf-lovers:15617

In article <556@sunybcs.UUCP> tim@gort.UUCP (Timothy Thomas) writes:
>Think about the logic in that.  If we have to rely on somebody in the
>future to help us, then we will wait forever.  If some technology
>is 'invented' or 'found' because of somebody in the future sending
>it to us, that would be a contradiction. 
>Ok, fine, we now have some new tecnology.   So in the future (since it
>has already happened), we send it back to ourselves again.  Where did
>it originate???  There is no way any new knowledge from the future
>can enter into the present or past because of this knowledge must
>originate someplace, or be found (found meaning discovered on its
>own or invented, not handed to by some future scientist).

Why would it be a contradiction?  Causal loops are certainly strange,
but they can be drawn on a Minkowski space-time diagram easily enough.
"Contradiction" means that the statements "A" and "not A" are both
true.  For example, going back in time and killing my (younger) self
cause a contradiction, where A is the statement "I exist at time t".
But you're stating "knowledge must originate someplace (and time)?"
as a postulate; it's not an axiom of logic.  It only contradicts
intuition.

-- 
- Joe Buck 	{ihnp4!pesnta,oliveb,nsc!csi}!epimass!jbuck
  Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, California