The fun you could have with time travel...

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Yeah, maybe I would, too, but I'd rather just relax in my flying car and watch Jaws 37 (both of which are officially due in 1 year and 350 days!).

It depends on whether altering history will cause the timeline to split, or create some sort of crazy paradox. And if it does cause a split, then it still depends on whether or not I get to travel between all the branches of the timeline I've created.

Because if I could create new timelines and travel between them, I would conduct so many "what if" scenarios for the sake of curiosity. Go back, change history a bit, and watch the results. And then when a scenario gets boring or dangerous, I'll come back to the "real", unaltered timeline.

If I could also travel back to points in my life while occupying the body I had then, I'd have even more fun. Make up for all that fun stuff I never got to do, maybe be a young genius or something.

Watch a movie on Netflix called 'The Penitent Man'.

Its about a guy that invents a means of opening a window in time...like watching TV except you can watch any time period you key in, any place.

He describes what happened to a world where this was mass marketed as entertainment and how the population reacted to such knowledge.

The film is the guy as an old man, the inventor of the time device, talking to a psychologist in the past (he alone knew how to travel through time not just watch it).

The best line was when the psychologist burst out 'jesus christ' and the old guy replied 'he was just a man....'

One of the most interesting takes on 'time travel' was the movie "Groundhog Day" staring Bill Murray. One of the best comedies ever.

The 'travel' consisted of living the same day over and over again.

Just see it if you havent.

I will go back in time and "borrow" some artifacts. Paint some pictures in caves of the time machine I have. Save all of the Doctor who tapes and then go in to the future to put my mind in a robot so I can travel forever!

I'm pretty sure that messing around with time travel will inevitably drive you insane, no matter how much fun you have at first.

There are two possibilities for how time travel might work.

The first possibility is that everything is already set in stone, and your time travel is already part of history. In this possibility, you would go insane because it would be the ultimate proof that you have no free will.

The second possibility is that when you change something in the past, it creates an alternate timeline, and when you return to the future, you are now in that alternate timeline. This would also drive you insane, since it would eventually dawn on you that you have "erased" all your friends and family who lived in the original timeline's future.

Not necessarily. One determinate response to knowing everything is set in stone, could be acceptance and even happiness. As to the other, every time we make a choice between two non-compatible actions we "change" the universe. The only thing that does not make us "Gods" is that others are also branching between alternate paths.

ruveyn

bolded part: I thought the theory was that every time a choice is made the individual 'splits' the timeline and travels down the path of his decision while alternate timelines where he chose the other are created. We do branch between alternate paths... I think the thing that does not make us 'gods' is that we cannot (yet at least) access the alternate timelines.

That would be .. superb. Can you imagine? Finding the timeline where everything..just EVERYTHING that has happened in your life so far has been perfect and benefited you greatly. Finding it and jumping to such a timeline...going from a sh***y life to an awesome one. Wow. Even if you as an individual did not experience all the wonderful things you still get jumped to a place where everything is a-ok.

Wouldn't that lead to contention between the "you" that traveled to the other time line and the "you" that already lived there?

ruveyn

Don't mean to interlope, but that cant be the same 'you'.

I'd start with a simple test to at least try to find out what the rules of time travel are. There are so many variations of it right now in science fiction that you've got to wonder if maybe one of these writers is onto something (or else no one is). I'm reading 11/22/63 by Stephen King right now and I've already found some flaws in his take on time travel -- but I have to give him a chance, I'm only 1/3 of the way through the book.

Rule number one - if you kill your grandfather before he wedded and bedded your grandmother you cannot return to the time line from which you started.

Why?: Because the time line in which you existed no longer exists for you. You were never born in your original time line.

ruveyn

I heard the act of traveling to another time itself splits the timeline.

i.e, You go back in time and kill 'your' granma/granpa, but you have already left your timeline.
Not only is it not the same granma and granpa in the time you visited, but when you return to your original time, it isn't the same world that you left.
btw. I am just repeating some of what I have heard. I'm no authority on the topic.

Last edited by ripped on 26 Jan 2013, 2:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

Let's say you go back in time before you where born. and you did something to your parents that would cause you not to be born. Would you fade from existence? And if you did, Then you would not be able to go back in time. and if you don't go back in time then you can't stop your parents from having you.

That is the Classical Grandfather Paradox. For those who believe there is only One World, that is a strong argument against backward time travel.

ruveyn

Here's some fun reading --

Temporal paradox
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_paradox

I personally like the "self-healing hypothesis." (Time would heal itself from the paradox.)