Time Travel

[speiss]

I suppose this is for those who are subject to a routine for most days, but if you aren't -- and how lucky you are! -- pretend for a moment.

I was in art class today, and someone brought up the topic of time travel. It didn't occur to me to go back to say, stopping Baby Hitler or riding a couple dinosaurs, but instead to go back to just yesterday.

And it was Tuesday yesterday. A fairly typical day (despite it being Valentine's day, but that's not of much significance anyway). I sat through all of my classes for about seven hours, went home, did some writing, and then slept.

Nothing extraordinary happened.

If your routine is as mundane as mine, for example, would you go back and change anything you did on a day like any other, knowing any particularities, peculiarities, what people would do, say, if someone would spill coffee or trip on some stairs?

Of course, one must take into consideration that anything you do even slightly different may act as an indirect prevention for any such things happening (like, for example, so-and-so wouldn't spill coffee if you said hi to them because that one second pause it took them to greet you back allowed them to miss bumping into a co-working and thus spilling the coffee in the first place, which would prevent them from going into the bathroom to clean up, which could have prevented them from hearing gossip from another co-worker that would influence their decisions for later in the day, etc.).

But nonetheless,

would you do anything differently?

 

[Cognisant]

Unequivocally No.

It's a pointless and dangerous thought.

 

[Felan]

I tend to think of time travel in a many world interpretative sense. If you went back in time you are simply following a different branch of time. Nothing in the original timeline has changed.

Recently I was curious about and found (as I understand things) is it possible for branches to merge back into the original or another. So if you go back in time and are Cleopatra it is possible that you are *the* Cleopatra of our history. But if the events turn out differently than happened in our timeline you would be in a different branch.

The lack of casuality violations is one thing that the Many Worlds interpretation solves. It also raises some interesting moral and philosophical questions. If you went back and killed all the humans are you a murderer or just the choice less travelled.

As for me (assuming the many worlds interpretation is correct) I would go forward in time to some advanced nanotechnology and get a bunch of portable knowledge and tools that I could sustain indefinitely as well the means to effective eternal youth and health. Then I would go back to the dinosaur age to live and expunge the prejudices of the modern age. Then I would move forward to when society was starting and become a leader that shapes as many varied societies as I can think of. The goal would be to try discern the best societies I can without the prejudice of history influencing the people of those societies. I have various other things/experiments I would do too.

I have probably spent way too much time thinking about what time travel would be like and what I would do.

 

[BitRogue]

I already have. America (now known as the United States this time round) is no longer an impoverished country battling a perpetual state of famine and disease. The Amazon desert now seems to be a lovely little jungle (although mankind seems to be bringing it back to desert again). There are some downsides - the Sahara and Arabia seem a little drier, and the Democratic Republic of Russia (or whatever they are now) no longer seem to have the vast technology edge they used to have (which kinda made all the above possible).

There are a few more things I am concerned about and I've been considering going back and doing some more changes. But let me know what you think - if you guys like it as it is, I can leave it for the time being.

 

[Melllvar]

Hm, it's actually interesting from a time-management perspective. I mean most days I mainly just sit in front of my computer, maybe go to work or visit some friends, run some errands, etc. If I could keep repeating days over again I suppose I'd try to cut out inefficiencies, maybe get a little more done each time. Which brings up the question of why I don't just do that anyways, I mean I could be doing stuff right now instead of responding to this...

And really I suppose that's a big problem in most INTPish types' lives, personally I think I'd probably have taken over the world by now if I wasn't so fond of sleeping and daydreaming. Any kind of concentrated efforts towards productivity will lose momentum eventually, though, so even a thought like this question can't be of much hope.

On the other hand most days would really be pretty boring to repeat over and over again, and since you'd presumably already have the memories from the previous day, the point of doing even remotely the same thing would be negated anyways. It would be kind of personally advantageous for me if I could just keep living the same day over for a while Groundhog's Day style, though. I'd totally do the Bill Murray thing and learn piano + everything else I could, but instead of trying to get some girl, plan to colonize Mars or something like that instead.

 

[P.H.]

If time travel was possible, I'd probably want to go to the future. Waaaay more interesting than reliving the past over and over. Though that would solve the "never enough time" problem.

I wouldn't travel back to change something significant because I think it's too dangerous. Besides, I'm happy right now with how things are. Why would I want to change something? Acceptance is the key, not time travel.

 

[Pizzabeak]

Considering how synchronized events are (or seem), I don't know. I saw that pretty girl in my class the other day, we crossed paths. I said nothing. Should I go back (it was also yesterday, or "yesterday" when speiss made the thread) and say something? What if I didn't say anything to her because the future holds a greater opportunity for us to cross paths? I feel like if I went back and acted on my gut (which told me not to say anything and keep walking) then I would have ruined the space time continuum.
Better stop now, I think we're dwelving too far into the issue, reaching dangerous topics.

If I could go back to any time for fun, Prehistoric Ages.

I don't know. I saw these cops giving a couple dudes a hard time earlier today so I filmed some of it. I wish I filmed more, the footage I got wasn't that great. I wouldn't mind going back in time to get more, better footage though, instead of taking that as a "If this ever happens again, I'll be sure to get more" lesson.