response 25 of 68:

Apr 9 19:57 UTC 2002

Re #22: I and others have been talking about the assertion in #14,  not
#12. #12 is a probabilistic argument, since there is an infinity of
time yet to occur (as far as physics can ascertain) hence an infinity of
opportunities for discovering time travel if it can exist, but no
evidence for it has arisen  from that infinity of opportunity. It was
then argued that you could not observe time travel backward if it did
occur, which I pointed out is a case of claiming an effect can exist
for which  observation is not possible, so here we are again....

response 27 of 68:

Apr 9 20:21 UTC 2002

Give it up - he's obviously training for a job as an accountant at
Enron.

response 29 of 68:

Apr 9 21:13 UTC 2002

He must have a pretty sad life.  Though I remember I had a phase when 
everybody who disagreed with me was wrong - whether they actually were 
or not.

response 31 of 68:

Apr 9 23:11 UTC 2002

He's delusional, too.

response 33 of 68:

Apr 9 23:39 UTC 2002

        *laughs and points*

response 35 of 68:

Apr 10 06:17 UTC 2002

if history cahnged it would possibly affect my memory as well. thi is
explanation for those queezy deja vu experiences ..

response 37 of 68:

Apr 13 02:38 UTC 2002

Re: 12 -- 
-----
One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of
accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved
in becoming your own father or mother that a broadminded and well-adjusted
family can't cope with. There is also no problem about changing the course
of history --- the course of history does not change because it all fits
together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the
things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.

The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult
in this matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001
Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that
was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping
forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently
according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own
natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past
and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations
whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention
of becoming your own father or mother.

Most readers get as far as the Future Semi-Conditionally Modified Subinverted
Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up: and in fact in later
editions of the book all the pages beyond this point have been left blank to
save on printing costs.
-----

response 39 of 68:

Apr 13 16:12 UTC 2002

#37 was an unattributed verbatim lifting of some writing by Douglas 
Adams.

response 41 of 68:

Apr 13 19:38 UTC 2002

I have read it - a long time ago. I haven't memorized every passage.
But I did appreciate that it was fiction.

response 43 of 68:

Apr 13 22:30 UTC 2002

Well, there is a theory that even if time travel is possible, it will 
never be discovered.  If anyone invented a practical time machine, they 
would travel back in time and muddle up history.  This keeps happening 
until a time line is created in which no practical time machine is 
invented, and all the muddling stops.  So since no time line with time 
machines in it is stable, no such time line will ever exist.

response 47 of 68:

Apr 14 04:54 UTC 2002

Re: 43 - in the Adams universe, it's impossible to muddle up history because
it's already happened.  If you made up your mind to go back and kill your
grandfather before your father was born, your failed attempt would suddenly
put your grandfather's tiresome old story about his assassination attempt he
told you when you were seven years old into context.

response 49 of 68:

May 1 05:15 UTC 2002

What you smokin'