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I've never even seen, or heard of, Donnie Darko but I have seen Timeline which has time travel in it. And also I watch a show called Stargate that has a couple episodes that deal with time travel. And, of course, I've seen the Back to the Future movies.

In theory, yes time travel is possible. But in actuallity it's not. What has been done has been done. You can't just go back in time and change things. And even if you could it would be unwise. Too much can be changed by too little. And besides the theory of time travel often has you going through wormholes. But in reality a wormhole is much too unstable for you to pass through. You would never come out the other side but would instead be lost forever.

Well, go see Donnie Darko before telling me about time travel. You see, what you've just said is what we've all heard before, generic warnings of not to meddle with the past. If, per se, you came and left the past without altering anything at all, could it not be safe? First you said it was impossible, then unecessarily said that if it was if would be unwise... okay.... we've all heard those things before. Give some reasons! Your wormhole reason is the only one, and of course, you know everything about things the greatest rocket scientists know only the bare bones about, having been in a wormhole right? You've never been in one, don't jump to conclusions.

In Donnie Darko they naturally disprove the possibility of foreseeing a fated future. Supposing the future IS predetermined, they say, it would be impossible to see into it. If your designed future were visible to you, you would be presented with a choice to agree with it or deny with it, thereby making fate inherintly contradictory.

Supposing your idea that you could travel to the future and adjust it so you could await it back in the past... that doesn't work either, on the same level, just shifted slightly upward. THen that means the actions taken in the present could further affect what you have already altered, thereby making it moot... I come to a half-conclusion from this that time travel to the future, if possible, would be unable to change very much at all, and time travel to the past, if possible, could change the present on a large scale, but that one must not have the intention to do so.

Now a refrain we've heard much before... time travel is contradictory? Let's say a nazi sympathizer builds a time machine with the motive of making it so Hitler (yes again with the Hitler metaphors) would win WWII... he travels to the past and completes his objective... later on in time we will know Hitler DID win WWII. But knowing this, the nazi sympathizer of the future will have no reason to build a time machine, his objective already having been completed, and nothing will have then happened. From this I can conclude that if travel to the past is possible, changing the past is impossible. Because if you succeed in changing it you will never have had reason to change it in the first place.

There is hole in your Hitler theory. Even presuming that a nazi sympathiser could and did travel to the past and change the tide of WWII, its still possible for people to know about it. He could have told people. He could have written a book or a journal. I mean he didn't just change the past and then simply cease to exist. Any number of things could have happened to make at least some people now that at one point Hitler had lost during WWII.

No problem about being harsh, you weren't really. I just found the paradox they bring up in that movie at the one scene where Donnie is discussing predetermined reality with the professor very interesting. I know it has no scientific basis, but it doesn't need one; it's just common logic.
As for your continuing idea about being able to travel only to the future: just, no. We can't base our debate on your limited grasp of quantum mechanics. We can't even base it on the knowledge of a thousand scientists. What humans know of this subject is excruciatingly little. Rather than just ruling something out with a wave of the hand. Everything mankind knows on this is theoretical... it's a theory that we can't travel to the past, just like it's a theory we can.

Thanks for being so agreeable. And that was a brilliant stab you made with the flat earth example. Ouch! Yeah so I've already said most of what I had to say. Any other ideas, anyone? We can leave this thread open as a home base for new members, I guess.

Hmmmm.... good topic. I think that travel forward in time may be possible, but even then it wouldn't be as we assume. In a story i read there was a scientist who created a 'slow box' which slows down a persons molecules. to the person inside the box, as i recall, Days seem to pass in seconds, and when they pull the lever and exit the box, it is alsmost a month frow when they first entered. But to all those outside the slow box, the test subject is just moving incredibly slowly. That may be as close to time travel as we can get. Also, as we are on the subject of time, is it possible to stop time, and If so, what would happen?