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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 30/08/2021 04:14, Adrian Tymes
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.32.1630293299.15478.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<div dir="ltr">On Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 10:49 AM Ben Zaiboc via
extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
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0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<div>At the very least, any writer who assumes that the
speed of light can be exceeded, should deal with the
consequences that would ensue. I'm not talking about being
able to expand to other galaxies, etc., I'm talking about
the consequences that pretty much ensure that the speed of
light cannot be exceeded.</div>
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Which consequences would those be? <br>
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<p><br>
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<p>I'm thinking about time-travel paradoxes in particular, FTL
travel leading to causality violation, and the 'self-healing'
phenomenon, where time-travel cancels itself out, meaning that
even if you did invent a time-machine (or FTL travel, which seems
to be essentially the same thing), the changes you'd make would
create a feedback effect, resulting in you not inventing the time
machine in the first place. Or travelling faster than light.</p>
<p>There's a name for this principle, I forget what it is, but it
seems to rule out time-travel and therefore also FTL travel.</p>
<p>And by the way, I don't claim to understand this stuff. Just
repeating (or paraphrasing, rather) what I've read in various
places at various times. The concept that there's no such thing
as simultaneity over large enough distances blows my tiny mind,
never mind the rest of it.</p>
<p>There's scope, though, in a story, for the equivalent of Greg
Egan's wormhole jest in Diaspora, where even though someone
travels /technically/ faster than light, they still don't in fact
get to their destination faster than a photon would, and the
hugely advanced, energy-hungry and expensive technology they
employ is completely useless.</p>
<p>OK, I can see the problem with that immediately. Just being able
to travel /at/ the speed of light (I mean a physical object, not
just as a signal) would be a huge thing. In fact it would be an
infinitely huge thing, haha.<br>
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<p>Ben<br>
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