What if time travel became possible now?

[AmericanFan]

Originally Posted by Sir Wood

If time travel was made possible now, where you can step back for only 7-minutes any where-place-time and of all the video clips you've seen, which one Alizée performance would you go see first? (Realize you can only make 1 trip every 5-years.)

I'm kind of torn, but I think I'd probably like to go see first the La Isla Bonita performance. Any takers?

"88 mph..."

I need to get technical here. If time travel is ever made possible, then it is possible now because time is no longer a constant.
Furthermore there would be no need to wait 5 years between trips as that could also be manipulated.
In any case if I could do that I wouldn't waste it on my own selfishness. I'd go back and stop a few wars, assassinations, disasters and accidents.
Imagine being able to evacuate Pearl Harbor or the World Trade Center prior to the attacks. Better yet, meet the terrorists at the airports and prevent them from boarding the planes.
Then stop the Lincoln and JFK assassinations.
7 minutes would be plenty of time to save Titanic.
Best of all I could go back and introduce Hilary Clinton's parents to birth control. Actually that would be my first trip!
In any case it would be fun.

[Tye]

Originally Posted by AmericanFan

I need to get technical here. If time travel is ever made possible, then it is possible now because time is no longer a constant.
Furthermore there would be no need to wait 5 years between trips as that could also be manipulated.
In any case if I could do that I wouldn't waste it on my own selfishness. I'd go back and stop a few wars, assassinations, disasters and accidents.
Imagine being able to evacuate Pearl Harbor or the World Trade Center prior to the attacks. Better yet, meet the terrorists at the airports and prevent them from boarding the planes.
Then stop the Lincoln and JFK assassinations.
7 minutes would be plenty of time to save Titanic.
Best of all I could go back and introduce Hilary Clinton's parents to birth control. Actually that would be my first trip!
In any case it would be fun.

Changing all that stuff could lead to worse things. Say you evacuated Pearl Harbor, and one of those people went on and had a family. In the future one of those kids could have a kid that could cause the death of someone else. Changing the past isn't going to save the future. It will just result in a different one, and the people who you saved could have off spring that do horrible things. I am not saying that I would not love to be able to save the people who died at Pearl Harbor or the Trade Centers, because I would, but what I would love to do isn't always best for the future.

[AmericanFan]

If we had to knowledge to invent time travel surely we could master retroactive abortion. I already have a few names on my list of people that I'd like to about.

[lefty12357]

Originally Posted by Tye

Changing all that stuff could lead to worse things. Say you evacuated Pearl Harbor, and one of those people went on and had a family. In the future one of those kids could have a kid that could cause the death of someone else. Changing the past isn't going to save the future. It will just result in a different one, and the people who you saved could have off spring that do horrible things. I am not saying that I would not love to be able to save the people who died at Pearl Harbor or the Trade Centers, because I would, but what I would love to do isn't always best for the future.

That was really well said, Tye.

[Tye]

Originally Posted by lefty12357

That was really well said, Tye.

Merci, lefty.

[Deepwaters]

Time travel isn't just a technical problem, it's also a question of whether the past is malleable and if so to what degree. Given chaos theory, if the past can be changed at all, merely to set foot in it briefly would introduce so much unpredictable change that the present would become completely unrecognizable if you go back any significant distance.

Maybe the past is fixed, and anything you do in it can have no consequences for the present that haven't already happened. Maybe it's impossible to actually travel into the past, and if you do, then what actually happens is that you pop into an alternate time line, one that had you in it in (say) December 1941, whereas in our current timeline you weren't born then (I don't think we have anyone here that old, do we?). So if you go there and change what happened at Pearl Harbor, that timeline unfolds accordingly, while your own timeline remains with its fixed history, separate from the one you have entered (created?) with your time travel.

[AmericanFan]

Another view is that someone may have died at Pearl Harbor who could be directly or indirectly responsible for something so wonderful that it is almost beyond our comprehension. By allowing his or her death to occur we have condemned mankind to suffer for eternity. And we still have Hilary Clinton!

[Tye]

Originally Posted by AmericanFan

Another view is that someone may have died at Pearl Harbor who could be directly or indirectly responsible for something so wonderful that it is almost beyond our comprehension. By allowing his or her death to occur we have condemned mankind to suffer for eternity. And we still have Hilary Clinton!

Since there is still the other possibility that that survivor would do something bad or would lead to something bad it is not worth the risk to save them. I know some look at time travel as a way to right wrongs. The most we can do is except our limitations and live with the wrongs we made. If time travel was a possibility it would cause a serious moral problem. Why would anyone care if they do something bad if they know they can just go back and fix it. Man should suffer for the wrongs he makes not live in a society where doing wrong is meaningless, because you can right that wrong. Man has spent thousands of years learning from his wrong. Why should we fear our mistakes. They have crafted us into what we are. You have to look at the picture in its whole perspective not just from one point of view.