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jumpmanzero t1_j0zqqe4 wrote

Reply to comment by captainstormy in What if time travel is impossible because of this? by [deleted]

Sure... but I mean.. if you went to sleep and woke up in the year 4500, it would feel a lot like time travel, right?

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captainstormy t1_j0zr09i wrote

It doesn't matter what it feels like. It isn't time travel. That's like saying you time travel 8 hours into the future when you go to sleep because you didn't perceive those 8 hours.

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pab_guy t1_j0zsbq1 wrote

> That's like saying you time travel 8 hours into the future when you go to sleep because you didn't perceive those 8 hours.

Which is actually perfectly valid from a certain perspective. But I think your simile is not really accurate... in the case of time dilation your entire presence is not experiencing time at the same rate, which is simply one method of time travel. With sleeping the time travel is purely experiential.

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jumpmanzero t1_j0zsspk wrote

We don't call it time travel because it's too familiar - but it is, in a way. We're all travelling through time, all the time. Or it least it feels like we are.

I mean, say I made a ship that produces WARP SCOOBY-DOO fields that distort the flow of time, and when I get in it, press a button, and get out, I'm in the year 4500.

But when I get there, some bald guy is like "oh, you weren't time travelling, you were just in STASIS for 2500 years". I'd dramatically tell him to "STEP OFF MY TIME BISTRO" - but how would I prove any sort of difference?

What is the real difference? That the ship was sitting there, with me looking frozen the whole time? Is that what counts? Would it make a difference if it was cloaked behind the scooby-doo rays?

What if I got in the ship and then got out in the past - would it matter then that the ship was sitting there with me frozen inside "during transit"?

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Odh_utexas t1_j10o115 wrote

I’m with you. People are arguing semantics without ever defining the bounds of this conversation

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