[ExI] Time Travel and FTL flight

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 05/09/2021 06:32, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2021 at 12:09 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat 
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org 
> <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>> wrote:
>
>     On 03/09/2021 18:11, Adrian Tymes wrote:
>>     The matter at hand was the objection that FTL always causes time
>>     travel, which I believe is not a true claim.
>
>     What I was trying to say was, if FTL travel /can/ result in
>     time-travel, then that means that FTL travel is not possible (on
>     the premise that time-travel is not possible), not that it always
>     does.
>
>     Unless, somehow, only non-time-travel-causing FTL journeys were
>     possible (so your FTL drive mysteriously stops working when you
>     try certain trips).
>
> Alternatively: some proposed forms of FTL could result in time 
> travel.  Those particular forms of FTL are not possible.  This has no 
> effect on other proposed forms of FTL.  This is not dependent on where 
> you go (that is: not just for certain trips), only how you go.

I don't understand that. Either you travel faster than light or you 
don't. Either FTL travel can result in time-travel or it can't. If it 
can't, then surely any method that can transport things faster than 
light will work, and if it can, then surely no method should work?

Saying it's /how/ you get to FTL that matters for whether time-travel is 
(theoretically, but not in fact) possible doesn't make any sense to me, 
when it's the fact that you /are/ travelling faster than light that 
determines if you could time-travel or not.

But maybe this is just the result of a primate brain evolved to survive 
on the savannah trying to think about things far removed from that 
environment!

Ben

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