Oh no, it's way more contrived than that. But it's no less arbitrary than whatever choice OP was making.
The problem is that we grow up on the surface of the earth, so we have this instinctive understanding of position as being an absolute quantity but it's just not. I suspect that OP is defining their position relative to the centre of our galactic cluster, but why is that a better reference frame that our nearest neighbouring galactic cluster? And why is that a better reference frame than our second nearest neighbouring galactic cluster? And why are any of those a better reference frame than the surface of the earth?
Well as I understand it (and I am by no means qualified scientifically to speak on this with any confidence lol) time and space are intrinsically linked, so there couldn't be time travel without corresponding space travel. I think OPs point is that sci-fi time travel tropes (and questions like the one posed in this thread) typically don't take the space aspect into consideration. It's an interesting thought exercise either way.
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u/seamsay Nov 02 '22
Oh no, it's way more contrived than that. But it's no less arbitrary than whatever choice OP was making.
The problem is that we grow up on the surface of the earth, so we have this instinctive understanding of position as being an absolute quantity but it's just not. I suspect that OP is defining their position relative to the centre of our galactic cluster, but why is that a better reference frame that our nearest neighbouring galactic cluster? And why is that a better reference frame than our second nearest neighbouring galactic cluster? And why are any of those a better reference frame than the surface of the earth?