Maybe ghosts are real, but since they're incorporeal they're unaffected by gravity and get left behind in the void of space

KaiReeve@lemmy.world to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 289 points –
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I think about the same thing every time I watch a time travel movie or show.

They should teleport into empty space every time

I guess that depends on whether you only travel through time (time vs space), or whether you follow the time-line back (aka. travel through time and space, kinda like both you and I are doing right now).

EDIT: there's also the reference point, and whether you can bring a physical vessel, or have to possess your younger self.

Back to the Future appears to be using a kind of relative spatial reference point, and you bring your body along the ride.

Contrary, Steins Gate (the part shown in the series) uses a body as reference, and has you "possess" said body. Though it hints that Back to the Future-like travel is also possible.

Not sure if I can name any story where time and space are disconnected.

Larry niven and the known space universe. Doesn't have time travel, but does have a form of teleportation, where you have to offset the energies for velocity changes between teleport target and teleport destination.

Ahh, enjoyer of time travel movies and anime!

There's scifi that did this. The series Seven Days is one example

This assumes some concept of location independent of the surrounding matter.

We like to think that way because we live on a mostly-not-changing clump of rock and dirt.

There is nothing to define location other than what’s nearby.

The only alternative anyone ever proposes is larger clumps of matter further away. Relative to the sun. Relative to the center of the Milky Way. Center of the Milky Way is the most “legit” Nonmoving Point we can think of.

But maybe the legitimacy of the nonmoving point is based also on its nearness to you. Perhaps the thing that defines the wormhole’s position through spacetime is inertia and gravity.

Hard to see what else it might be, other than “it doesn’t move” which, the entire point above being, doesn’t really exist