In article <ey34se6hh4a.fsf at lostwithiel.tfeb.org>,
Tim Bradshaw <tfb at tfeb.org> wrote:
> * Peter da Silva wrote:
> >> Sorry, I didn't mean you specifically. My memory (which is vague, so
> >> don't quote me) is that you may be able to use (uncensored) solutions
> >> with closed timelike curves to do things like generate unbounded
> >> energy or something (which is what I really meant by toxic I think).
> > That's a long way from "any causality violation is inherently toxic", isn't
> > it?
> Well, in a GR sense it's `any uncensored CV is inherently toxic'
> (because I think that generating unbounded energy is toxic -- because
> a CV solution in GR is just one with closed timelike curves. There's
> never a problem with anything that is censored.
But you didn't say that all uncensored solutions with closed timelike
curves generate unbounded energy, or even that they inevitably do.
It's not like a black hole where you just need to get enough mass together
to create a singularity.
Look, at the quantum level time is just another dimension. Past and future
are an epiphenomenon caused by information loss. I don't see why people need
to shy away from macro-level causality violations any more than they need to
shy away from macro-level "left-rightwards violation".
I think the reason people shy away from CV is the same as the reason Einstein
shied away from QM [1]. It simply makes people uncomfortable, so they find
reasons to rule it out.
And I think science demands that people be honest enough to admit it, that
the kind of CV implied by relativity and FTL is not automatically toxic.
[1] I don't mean to imply that FTL is possible or that causality violation
is inevitable, just that the iron opposition to the very idea is
irrational.
--
In hoc signo hack, Peter da Silva <peter at baileynm.com>
`-_-' Ar rug tú barróg ar do mhactíre inniu?
'U` "And now, little kittens, we're going to run across red-hot
motherboards, with our bare feet." -- Buzh.
