Which brings us to case study now before us: Perhaps quite literally the most difficult goals ever put forth in all of human history, might be realization of the tantalizing fantasy of actually turning back the clock, undoing all loss and erasing every tragedy, beyond merely howsoever striving for resolution by delving into inner life. -In short, of retrograde time travel, literal journey back into the past. Or even just communication, even direct observation of lost history or foreknowledge of things to come, indeed, conceivably the remote, delayed or advance retrieval of physical information, atomic structure and thence, conceivably, replication. 

We confront paradox in seeming challenge even of logic itself!

Nevertheless, compromise embraced a'priori only sacrifices latitude of possibility. And God has no need of handicapping on our part! Nor will He reciprocate the timid good sportsmanship. The boundaries of possibility are pressed only by unrestrained investigation thereof.

So look, all I really wanna know, first off, is whether Dirac's equation, the negative energy of exotic matter being a crucial time machine component for stabilized worm holes and/or Miguel Alcubierre warp bubbles either as at all possibly applicable to causality violation via timelike loops, remain viable now that the physics of Fisher Information has reduced Quantum Mechanics to a function of Thermodynamics, an aspect of classical physics!

And that's nothing to be so damn rude about. Yeah, you know who you are! But I digress.

First of all, indeed scientists still dispute whether or not the past even still howsoever exists as an aspect of four dimensional space-time, let alone whether direct contact with the past is even physically achievable even in very principle! But that only admits the tantalizing possibility, even however remote. Indeed, at worst, experimental refutation still advances science.

Whereas we already attribute to space-time the material attributes of constantly changeable, indeed: actually flexible curvature and thence conductivity to waves, competing new hypotheses also postulate spatial(-temporal?) drag, compression and/or even particulate nature and glass-like refraction. So, is any such speculation genuinely helpful or just redundant and confusing? One application is in attempt to explain away well observed time dilation, by variable speed of action and reaction among proposed particles of space under increasing compression under acceleration, exerting greater drag upon accelerating objects. But by constructing such a system, it seems that all which results is perhaps a new model of time, still observably dilating from various frames of reference. And the assertion of a separate invariant passage of time remains at least seemingly as redundant thereto as with Einstein, unless there can be discovered any other function at all of the passage of time not subject to dilation and invariant from all frames of reference. And of course, only the speed of light remains constant, with the entire subluminal universe subject to time dilation as required thereto.

After all, yes, the model of Einsteinian Relativity may conceivably be no more than a metaphor, but the Lorenz transformations remain literally true because time dilation is real, observable and inescapable. And so, the time barrier at the event horizon remains both the hope and the frustration for retrograde time travel and/or faster than light travel or communication. Indeed, time remains relative between frames of reference, not absolute, nor merely, together with distance, a simple measure of movement. So the very notion of time travel, then, is not "self referential" as some cynics contend. That's just bullshit! Indeed, we see forward time travel every day. The remaining question is only of retrograde time travel.
 

On the other hand, it seems that the Quantum-silly wishful thinking bogus touted results of Quantum Tunneling of propertied at all faster than light communication are easily explained away by the forward crest of exotically contorted wave forms, with resort neither to faster than light nor retrograde time travel of the signals in question. Besides, to begin with, faster than light travel or communication without access into the past, is only causality violation by the special definition of "elsewhen" as specified by Relativity. It doesn't really entail time paradox as otherwise thought of more generally. 
 

Neither the naysayers nor the wishful thinkers have achieved any progress in reducing the field of viable hypotheses. Real scientific experiments with conditions of falsification are still required, that if successful, might open the way to technological application. Alas, probabilistic Quantum Mechanics has been applied as rationalization towards the embrace of the coherence theory of truth, an Epistemology willfully conflating truth with mere validity, internal consistency amid the existing body of observations, thus, in Methodological application, rationalizing a quest only for further corroboration of orthodoxy and the avoidance of real experiments and new observations that might constitute refutation. Indeed, the coherence theory of truth naturally serves as the monumentally irresponsible Ontology of preference for anyone who thinks you can keep a poisoned cat alive by simply ignoring her! After all, veryone knows that even under the best of conditions, cats only like to pretend they don't want attention. 

Indeed, only the definition of truth as correspondence to a singular reality rather than statistical probability, compels experimental standards of refutation. Perhaps the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics positing indeterminacy is true, and indeed there is no singular truth. But if that is the case, that there is no truth, or more precisely: that there is no other truth, then all of that in and if itself, would be the one truth, otherwise not, and still subject to scientific standards of testability, meaning conceivable refutability. And indeed, real experiments are becoming possible, dragging Quantum Mechanics, especially the Copenhagen interpretation, and new alternative hypotheses as well, out from Metaphysics and into science at long last.

None the least is Popperian Richard Phillips Feynman's return to Classical Physics, by the triumphant reduction of Quantum Mechanics to measurement uncertainty predictable from Thermodynamics via the physics of Fisher Information (not to mention doubt inherent in the human Epistemological condition) thus rendering Indeterminacy quite superfluous, which seems a most promising development. But what exactly are the implications for retrograde time travel and/or faster than light? And indeed, do, for example, the controversial 'Star Trek' style warp fields of Miguel Alcubierre Moya survive very well? To reiterate, inquiring minds want to know!

All leaving merely the petty and paltry details of application, ways and means of rise to fabulous wealth and influence requisite to even to the barest incremental beginning of fostering the requisite lasting social institutions and infrastructure required for all that must be undertaken, even to such conceivable stopgap measures for meantime survival as indefinite life extension, with the aging cure now looming closer than ever, and in turn, meantime fallback provision as for Cryonic Suspension, for which institutions and infrastructure are vastly improved but still woefully inadequate, over the past decades.

If every catch-22 can ever truly be resolved for attempting that fateful end run around the event horizon, typical schemes involve technology thousands of years advanced from now, not to mention perhaps energy outputs of entire vast galaxies! None of which, anymore than ever guaranteeing success or otherwise freedom from error, ever rules out the attempt at howsoever realistic planning towards the achievement, succumbing neither to wishful thinking nor to naysay and despair.

Rather, it is sheer human frailty that regularly obstructs even by far the more modest ambitions so little as a decent meal plan!

It's people who are impossible!

That is why effective social engineering is actually so much more important than mechanical engineering, so much to the indignation of the techie nerds!

I have been compelled to adopt a most strict and stringent policy in dealing with megalomaniacal mad scientists: Look, don't just expect me to conquer the world, for you. Of course, the arcane and expensive machinations of those MBA masters of the universe frequently likewise loose all relevance except by facilitating the work of others with any better grip on some aspect of reality and end user utility, goods, services, markets and crying human needs. Indeed, we are all ignorant, only in different fields. That is why authentic respect and tight cooperation in all due diligence are key.

Grasping at an easy way only ends either in uninteresting convenience for purposes of fiction as such for the self honest, or else in sheer delusion living in denial if accepted seriously. The most outlandish and outrageous proposals need not be pipedreams only given the embrace of all due diligence of execution and implementation. Likewise, the best ideas or even simply the least ambitious and most straightforward all ambitions can degenerate into little more than pipedream because of typical half-assed disregard or refusal to undertake due diligence of implementation, or howsoever because of obstruction undermining all thereof, but often simple and daunting underserved and ill equipped lack of wherewithal and resources thereto, and consequent striving to make do in the best of good faith, impossibly left to ones own inadequate devices.

Routinely, sober serious business people discuss modest straightforward viable business ventures the likes of various freelance work, retail outlets and marginally improved business to business services, whilst any pipedreamer can fantasize about, for example, the next indy comic book sensation or some wild fantastic theme park, much let alone colonizing the moon or breaking heaven and earth turning back the wheel of life. Many creative ideas are even innovative. But ideas alone are worthless until realizable in execution. It is in implementation that plans are too often so halfbaked. But in truth, there is nothing except human perversity to prevent the sincere motivation towards every due due diligence, getting down to the nuts and bolts of business planning for wild and ambitious proposals, only given any supportive wherewithal and opportunity afforded by a sound management team in tight cooperation, any more than there is anything to prevent every agonizing willful stupidly in destruction of even the most modest, respectable and humdrum of human endeavor.

Surely, if a working group can be recruited and form to effectively craft any at all howsoever plausible plan or speculative case study towards achieving retrograde time travel, literally the most difficult challenge conceivable to humankind, also tasking colleagues from the future to come back and tell us the results, of course! then no lesser desire or frustration in life should ever daunt us even from likewise so little as the will to honest and rigorous due diligence just to explore possible options even if just for the sake of sheer creative and dramatic Science Fiction futurological scenario planning and World Building, let alone ever really following suite and taking action, great or small.

And what could be better? Gentle reader, if only you are crazy enough to strive diligently towards working out whatever intractable fine points of implementation in whatever your wildest ideas, then I might just remain boredom prone enough to stick with you!

Copyright Aaron Agassi 2009

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