Cliff asked:

1) Theoretically, if something could travel faster than the speed of light, is time travel possible? If you
could go faster than the speed of light time would slow down, right?

2) Are heaven and hell a dimension? when you die, you leave the first 3 (maybe 4: considering time is
only a conscious thing) dimensions behind.

I'm a 21 year old musician and now this website has inspired me to look into philosophy as a higher
learning tool. Thanks.

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First: time travel is not possible. Fundamentally, the idea offends against the principle of simultaneity.
An object cannot be in two places at once. Although this is commonly swept under the carpet in
science fiction, well that's fiction. Scientists often speculate on time travel and devise all sorts of
wonderful ideas to circumvent the logical conflict, but (much as I hate to be a spoil sport) the facts —
allthe facts we knoware dead against it. So, fiction again.

For what it's worth, time travel also contradicts another basic law. The speed of light in a vacuum is
the grain of time. Thus light is essentially energy, void of information. To travel at that speed means
you would have to convert yourself into pure energy. But then, you erase the information that enables
your reconstruction some place else. So much for stepping under a canopy etc etc. In any case,
these fictions never keep you informed that even at the speed of light, time travel would still take
thousands of years from one galaxy to another.

Faster than light particles are known, they're called tachyons. And yes, as you guessed, they enable
us in certain specialised areas of research, to "slow down time" and study complexity related
phenomena at a more humanly graspable speed than "real time". If you're interested, there is a
chapter on this in Ian Stewart's book Does God Play Dice?

What heaven and hell are you better try to find out from a theologian. Philosophers are at times
inclined to assert that the planet we live on is hell; but as for heaven, although there are hundreds of
rivalling accounts from all the different religions, no-one ever received a doubt-free message from the
place, so we can't know what it "is". (Theologians will, of course, refer to revelation, but some
recalcitrant philosophers will doubt the reliability of this report as well). Now when you die, you don't
leave any dimensions behind at all. Strictly speaking, dimensions are a facon de parler; they are not
real in the sense that your keyboard is real. But in any case, the crucial thing is not that you "leave",
but that you cease to be.Out like a candle, as Shakespeare said. Now many religious people hold
fast to the idea that "you" don't really die, only your body disintegrates. But I think there is an awful
confusion behind this notion. From my experience this belief invariably entails the survival of the
personality, but this cannot be, because the kind of personality you are is completely fashioned in life
and carried across time in biological memories which die along with your body.

I think, truly, that one of the great issues in philosophy is just this: death. We've tried for thousands of
years to get to grips with it, but because we are creatures, there is inbuilt resistance to our calm
acceptance of the ineluctable and utter finality of individual non-being. Maybe you should have a look
at my Pathways paper, entitled Death, Free Will, Value. I'd like to think there's something in it for a
person who is not frightened to contemplate the meaning of death.

Jürgen Lawrenz

1) Time slows down, sort of, when you move at any speed at all, during your accelerationand
deceleration, notwhen your speed is constant. In the latter case, you can't tell whether it's you or the
rest of the world which is moving. Therefore, time also slows down in gravitational fields, since gravity
is equivalent to acceleration. You just don't see the slowdown when you're driving in your car,
because it's utterly insignificant (but present) at those speeds. As to whether "time" reallyslows
down... no. Youslow down, i.e., the motion of the particles making you up... because they become
more massive as you accelerate. Look, all this is very nice to sort of push words around with, but
everything I'm saying is just pretty vague approximations to the real physics. You need to do some
reading on this to really understand it. Take a look at something by Asimov, or the early
popularizations by Gamow.

2) No.

I'm glad... but please learn some more before you take a running jump into sheer speculation.

Steven Ravett Brown

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