WHY DO WE RIDE ON A TIME MACHINE?
Variations on the theme of time travel refer to three interrelated, but methodologically very different areas: to the field of mathematical models of the universe, philosophical culturology and science fiction. In his opinion, the opportunity of time travel originates from the solution of Einstein’s equations, implemented by K. Gödel. This creates problems in interpretation of ontological concepts and their correlation as “causality”, “action”, and “time arrow”. In the 1980s, after Gödel’s death an outstanding astrophysicist and cosmologist I.D. Novikov formulated the fundamental difficulty in evaluation of the time travel context. The principle of self-consistency removes such paradoxes of travel into the past, as the violation of causality and the “butterfly effect”. This principle states that attempts to change the present by local intervention in the past do not stand a chance of success, because there are many variants of the development of events, and only those, which are globally self-consistent on all parts of space and time, with the exception of singularities, are implemented. Most likely, physical journeys in time do not threaten us either in the near or the distant future. Then why is the humankind wandering in their thoughts through the dark depths of the unknown past or future? The humankind needs to determine itself in the present, so it is necessary to find or construct a reflective position, allowing us to see our position clearly. Temporality is the most important characteristic of human existence. We support the connection of times with the help of our memory and hope; we know that we are mortal, and we hope to bring a recipe for salvation from the journey into the future or to change our destiny by traveling into the past.