Why Does Back to the Future Require 88 MPH for Time Travel?

In summary, the conversation discusses the movie "Back to the Future (1985)" and its lack of scientific accuracy. The significance of 88 miles per hour and the concept of the flux capacitor are also mentioned. Some participants express their love for the movie and its entertaining elements, while others note the lack of real science involved. The idea of writing a paper on the movie and its paradoxes is brought up, but it is concluded that there is no scientific theory proving time travel to be impossible. There is also a mention of a DeLorean car with working flux capacitor being sold on eBay. The conversation ends with a link to a forum dedicated to the movie's cult following.
  • #36
StatusX said:
The only thing from back to the future that's even remotely accurate is that if you see your future-self in the future, the universe will collapse on itself. It's true, but no one knows why.

That's a worse case scenerio, the actual effect could be quite localized; limited to merely our own galaxy.
 
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  • #37
Plastic Photon said:
I love the dad and the son's laugh. Me and my dad use it all the time to annoy mom. 'Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah'.

My daughter does a laugh that starts as Captain Hook from "Hook", shifts to Ricky Ricardo and ends as George Mcfly.
 
  • #38
cronxeh said:
If you would agree that consciousness is separate from your body, then it is weightless and capable of traveling through time. Nostradamus did it.
No offense, cronxeh, but I certainly don't agree with a separate mind. I'm an atheist, remember? And Nostrodamus has been so misinterpreted in order to make his 'predictions' valid that it's a total joke.

StatusX said:
if you see your future-self in the future, the universe will collapse on itself. It's true, but no one knows why.
Where the hell did you come up with that?

franznietzsche said:
I should add that my humour detector regularly malfunctions. Just ask tribdog and Danger.
That's true. Franz's sense of humour is like Richard Simmon's sense of 'macho'.

Janus said:
My daughter does a laugh that starts as Captain Hook from "Hook", shifts to Ricky Ricardo and ends as George Mcfly.
And you didn't drown her before her eyes were open? :bugeye:
 
  • #39
Danger said:
No offense, cronxeh, but I certainly don't agree with a separate mind. I'm an atheist, remember? And Nostrodamus has been so misinterpreted in order to make his 'predictions' valid that it's a total joke.
Where the hell did you come up with that?
That's true. Franz's sense of humour is like Richard Simmon's sense of 'macho'.
And you didn't drown her before her eyes were open? :bugeye:

So you think consciousness has no value then? I wonder what is the point of living and wondering about the wormholes and in general "reaching out there" via various means if you didnt believe that there was more to life than what is offered by the seemingly obvious?
 
  • #40
cronxeh said:
So you think consciousness has no value then? I wonder what is the point of living and wondering about the wormholes and in general "reaching out there" via various means if you didnt believe that there was more to life than what is offered by the seemingly obvious?


Its intellectual hedonism.
 
  • #41
franznietzsche said:
Its intellectual hedonism.

Fair enough. Ignorance is bliss then, and Fox News is your #1 source for the refills.

I just wish there was an outlet of frustration with questions of infinite complexity that keep the rest of us up at night.
 
  • #42
cronxeh said:
Fair enough. Ignorance is bliss then, and Fox News is your #1 source for the refills.
I just wish there was an outlet of frustration with questions of infinite complexity that keep the rest of us up at night.


Huh? Color me confused now. What are you talking about all of a sudden?

You ask why bother wondering about wormholes and the universe if one believes that there is no god, no soul, and when you're dead, you're really just worm food, right? And I answer Intellectual Hedonism. Knowledge, among other things, is pleasurable. So is problem solving. What can I say. I'm a freak.

So what are you going on about now?
 
  • #43
cronxeh said:
So you think consciousness has no value then?
I have absolutely no idea how you could draw a conclusion like that. I'm quite fond of my conciousness, however much I might try to suppress it with beer.
And although I don't quite agree with Franz's assessment, it's not far off.

cronxeh said:
Fair enough. Ignorance is bliss then, and Fox News is your #1 source for the refills.
I just wish there was an outlet of frustration with questions of infinite complexity that keep the rest of us up at night.
Sorry, man, but ignorance is the thing that keeps the likes of Nostradomus out of the dungeon. I've never gotten cable until moving in with N/W a couple of months ago, so I've only seen Fox news once. Seems like typical Yank coverage, so I can't comment about how you folks view it.
And anyone who loses sleep over questions of 'infinite complexity' has issues of some sort that normal people don't worry about. I have infinite curiosity, but I'm certainly not going to lose sleep over what I don't know.
 
  • #44
Franz's last post showed up while I was posting that last one of mine. Now that I've seen the elaboration of it, I agree.
 
  • #45
cronxeh said:
So you think consciousness has no value then? I wonder what is the point of living and wondering about the wormholes and in general "reaching out there" via various means if you didnt believe that there was more to life than what is offered by the seemingly obvious?
One needn't believe that consciousness has "no value" just because one doesn't believe in dualism. Suppose we were able to map out a person's brain at the synaptic level and simulate it on a computer, and that the simulated person behaved just like the original--same memories, same creative abilities, same sense of humor, same spirituality, same personality, same emotions, etc. This would pretty well demonstrate that dualism is wrong--would such an experiment cause you to become a nihilist?

Anyway, believing that all events have physical causes does not force you to believe consciousness is some kind of illusion--there's always naturalistic panpsychism, which says that all physical processes could have some sort of inner experience, but which also says that the relationships between mental events obey strict mathematical laws which we normally call the "laws of physics". I've always found this idea intriguing since, unlike dualism, it needn't conflict with any of the findings of modern science, it's more like a philosophical "reinterpretation" of the usual materialist view. See http://consc.net/online1.html#panpsychism for some more articles on the subject.
 
  • #46
I've never heard of that before, Jesse. Thanks for the input. I'll check out your links tomorrow. N/W just went to bed, and I have a very distinct feeling that I'd better follow right away. (She's jealous of PF!)
Catch you tomorrow.
 
  • #47
N/W? What's that?
 
  • #48
Mk said:
N/W? What's that?


Stands for Not Wife
 
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