posted
The problem I have with the 'one timeline' theory is that it makes some situations seem far too contrived. Imagine this simple experiment.
1. In the room with the time machine write 'Travel back in time' on the blackboard. 2. Leave the room for two hours. 3. Enter the room. If the writing is still on the whiteboard then travel back in time an hour anf rub it out. Either hide in a cupboard for an hour or travel back to your own time.
Now if we are to assume 1 time like then the paradox of this experiment is clear. Yet to assume that you 'won't be able to rub it out' just seems daft. Sure there's lots of things that could happen, You could accidently use permenant marker, you could trip and break your leg, your flux capacitor could malfunction sending you to 1985. But none of these factors are inherant in the experiment, and would instead demand some force driving them to occur. (Or some other force to wipe the writing off the board without needing you to.)
As far as I can tell this experiment suggests one of three things, 1. We have mythical protectors of the timestream. 2. We should reject the single timestream model, or 3. Time Travel is impossible (And there may or may not be a single timestream).
ETA: In the case of my simple experiment it would appear that the 'protectors of the timestream' have me writing on the blackboard but wiping stuff off the whiteboard.
quote:Originally posted by Open Mike Night: Once the endless loop started, I'm sure everyone would blame me for screwing up the universe.
Especially those big guys in the Andromeda galaxy who until you came along were happily minding their own business instead of vaporizing our cities out of revenge for your selfish paradoxes.
One of my favorite sci-fi story themes is that of the unlucky time-traveler who keeps returning to the crapshoot, desperate to return the timeline to anything even resembling the one he came from.
Seems rather like trying to fix a soft clay sculpture with your thumbs--you'd just keep making it worse the more you messed with it.
Posts: 418 | From: New Port Richey, FL | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Doug4.7: The way I "really" think it goes on is the Many Worlds Theory. At each decision point (do I go with red tie or blue?, etc.) the world splits.
Now think of time as a splitting river (like at a delta). In time travel, you go back "upstream" along the stream you came down on. Now in the past, if you do something different, you now are going down some other stream (one that does NOT lead to the world you left). So your original world has not changed, but now as you time travel back towards the future (downstream), when you arrive, things are “different”. You can never get back to the “original” world you started in (you don't or can't find the correct stream).
Now because of quantum symmetry rules, these streams both divide and recombine as time progresses. So somehow, you can have the SAME present with two DIFFERENT pasts. No, I am not sure how to think that.
I love quantum mechanics.... Thanks Dr. Morrison!
I came up with a similar theory. My difference is that the only point of splitting is the beginning of time. And once time started, it just kept restarting every nano second. By this logic there would be an inifinite amount of alternate worlds that would all be identical except for being at a different point in time. You could only go as far into the future as the first split has gone and you could go back to the beginning of time whenever you wanted since it would always be generating. You wouldn't actually be travelling in time, you'd just be stepping sideways into another reality that was at a different point in time. This would also mean that if you went into a universe that was still in a year you weren't conceived and killed your parents it would make no difference to your time at all and providing you knew how to get back you would see no changes. The only way to see the changes you caused would be to stay in that exact universe and wait. Even if you went back a few minutes you would be in the default world. Of course, this could get very confusing. It already makes less sense to me than it did several years ago when I thought of it.
But in a time travel situation where my actions would affect my present I wouldn't kill Hitler. As evil as the Holocaust was, it was also responsible for many people meeting, getting married, and having kids. I know I don't have any direct Holocaust survivors in my family tree but I could have people who met through them or because of them. Actually, if I did go back in time in a way that could affect the future I would be too scared to even breathe out of fear that I would get germs that were meant for someone else and ruin my present.
Posts: 835 | From: Massachusetts | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Mad Jay: Slight hijack.
To people who wouldn't go back in time:- If you had a machine that would let you look forward in time, and you had an opportunity to make a decision that might affect the future, would you use the machine to find out what the correct course of action should be?
Doesn't this imply that no one but you has free will?
The outcome of even the simplest decision should spread out in a probability wave, leading to all sorts of different situations. The machine would have to know exactly what would happen, and exactly how everyone else would decide to live their lives.
e.g., I want to go on a cruise, but will the ship sink? I look, and, sure enough, it does. So...I decide not to go. Now, the taxi driver who would have taken me has to take someone else. This causes traffic congestion. The captain of the cruise ship is late arriving. The ship sails 20 minutes later than scheduled...and thus doesn't hit the iceberg. *BECAUSE* I didn't take it!
To make this work, the taxi driver would have to go through the motions, like a robot, coming to my door, opening the cab, acting as if he is putting in my luggage...
(Fritz Leiber dealt with that kind of robotic lack of free will in his haunting novel "The Sinful Ones.")
So, with respect, I think your future-revealing machine raises more difficulties than the mere moral question of right and wrong.
(But, to answer your real question, if I had a crystal ball that would tell, say, the winner of the next Belmont Stakes, then, yes, I would take advantage of the knowledge and bet heavily on the outcome of that race. And yet, I would *not* invest on such "inside information" in the stock market. Go figure!)
Silas
(Afterthought: perhaps this is because I consider gambling on horse-racing to be "amoral" already, whereas investment is intended to be mutually beneficial to both parties. The stock market is *not* a roulette wheel, even if some people act as if it were.)
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Mad Jay: Slight hijack.
To people who wouldn't go back in time:- If you had a machine that would let you look forward in time, and you had an opportunity to make a decision that might affect the future, would you use the machine to find out what the correct course of action should be?
Doesn't this imply that no one but you has free will?
Yes, and no. I was thinking more on the lines of big decisions, where the decision you make/influence is big enough that it overrides the collective free will of everyone else; or decisions that affect the immediate future. For example:- you are in the same room as the president of a country with nuclear buttons, and the president has his hand waving above the nuclear button; or a scientist is on the verge of a major discovery and you have an opporutnity to sabotage the experiment.
quote:
The outcome of even the simplest decision should spread out in a probability wave, leading to all sorts of different situations. The machine would have to know exactly what would happen, and exactly how everyone else would decide to live their lives.
Yes, you are right. I was imagining something similar to the machine in Asimov's Foundation series that displayed possible timelines as a tree, and would highlight the probability of each path. (I forget the name of the device). You could input all the possible choices that you have and it will tell you which choice has the most likelihood of the desired outcome.
quote:
So, with respect, I think your future-revealing machine raises more difficulties than the mere moral question of right and wrong.
(But, to answer your real question, if I had a crystal ball that would tell, say, the winner of the next Belmont Stakes, then, yes, I would take advantage of the knowledge and bet heavily on the outcome of that race. And yet, I would *not* invest on such "inside information" in the stock market. Go figure!)
Silas
(Afterthought: perhaps this is because I consider gambling on horse-racing to be "amoral" already, whereas investment is intended to be mutually beneficial to both parties. The stock market is *not* a roulette wheel, even if some people act as if it were.)
But, don't you use your own intellect to make choices that would change the future to be more like what you would want to be? Does it matter if you use a machine to make the choices for you? or a crystal ball?.
Say, you want to go on a cruise, and you have to report at the pier by 10AM. You get up late, and you have 4 choices a) skip breakfast, take a bath and reach the pier on time b)skip bath, eat breakfast and reach the pier on time c)bathe and have breakfast and hope that you can drive fast or they will hold the ship for you d)miss the cruise and sleep a bit more. Each choice has differrent probabilities of you going on a cruise, and some choices have differrent secondary outcomes. It's a bit like looking in a crystal ball. The crystal ball just happens to be powered by your own intellect.
-------------------- Nico Sasha In between my father's fields;And the citadels of the rule; Lies a no-man's land which I must cross; To find my stolen jewel. Posts: 4912 | From: VA | Registered: Jul 2003
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So many of these arguments seem just like elaborate excuses for inaction, or worse, being apologists for all the wrongs there are today in evidence all around us.
I've read and seen more than my share of SF, including time travel stories. And like much of older SF with its emphasis on intergalactics empires, etc, there always seemed a lot of underlying thought in the stories that seemed, if not reactionary, certainly containing a lot of tortured reasoning for accepting the worst of the status quo. And for a genre that prides itself on being forward thinking, that's unforgivable.
To me, having a time machine and failing to use to the best of your ability would be plain old moral cowardice, akin to driving by the scene of an accident where the poor guy is clearly in danger of dying, but multiplied by a factor of literally millions. The only question is NOT whether to do anything, but how to do it best.
One of the ways I teach my students history is by using a lot of alternate history scenarios, and I encounter my share of students who have the kneejerk response, "Would it even matter? Wouldn't things turn out the same anyway?"
No, emphatically, NO. And I say that to scenarios like claiming killing Hitler would not make any difference, or more bizarrely, worsen things. (For starters, Hitler's possible successors like Roehm or Goering didn't have his ambition or his abilities in either public speaking or shrewd diplomacy. The worst case is not a Cold War but a Germany settling for a restoration of its 1914 borders.)
If studying history has taught me anything it's that nothing is "inevitable." Even tiny factors like one influential person's perceived physical shortcomings can play a pivotal part (eg Napoleon's height.)
When people argue an event in history was "inevitable" my experience has been they want to make excuses for why things are the way they are. The most common example I see with my students is Anglo kids insisting it's "inevitable" that American Indians would get wiped out and whites take over the continent.
Naturally this bothers me as much as a German arguing the "inevitability" of the Holocaust wiping out six million Jews. In both cases their guilt is clouding their judgement and making them come awfully close to excusing away genocide. It's also striking to me that I've never heard a nonwhite student making these arguments, and that the arguments generally come from the more sheltered students, those younger, still living at home, never having held a job, etc.
My nonwhite students and the older students of all backgrounds, by contrast, find thinking about changing the past liberating. It's nothing like flights of fancy. I think it's more a case of knowing how the world could be different and then thinking about how they might apply that now.
And I don't mean by going out and killing a public figure. Sometimes all that would have been necessary to change the world for the better is to convince a pivotal figure to act differently. Here's the alt history scenarios I give my classes for their exams. (For my students they're spread out over six exams during two semesters.) As you can see, I also give them scenarios where things could have turned out far worse as well:
What If…? 1. De Las Casas or Montesinos commands the first Spanish expedition to the Americas.
2. Cortez is defeated by the Aztecs. Aztecs acquire firearms and better ship technology from captured Spaniards.
3. The French win the French and Indian War, taking over the American colonies.
4. American colonists opposing British rule lose.
5. The new United States accepts the Delaware Nation’s suggestion and grants American Indians their own state or states within the US system.
6. Napoleon decides against selling the Louisiana Territory to the US.
7. The Whigs win the vote against Pres. Jackson, halting forced removal of the Five Tribes.
8. Congressman James Polk decides against running for president on a new idea called Manifest Destiny. There is no war with Mexico or civil war over slavery. Instead, there is an attempted class-based revolution in the US in the 1860s.
9. The US decides to annex all of Mexico (and its population, almost equal to the US at the time) after the Mexican War.
11. Lincoln accepts the Confederate offer, guaranteeing protection for slavery in the South (but barring its expansion further west) to avoid civil war.
12. Lincoln survives assassination and follows Gen. Sherman’s advice, granting land taken from plantation slaveowners to all 300,000 Black Union veterans.
13. Two groups of anarchists carry out the Plan of San Diego, taking over and declaring south Texas and Baja California independent nations run on anarchist principles.
14. The Anti-Imperialist League convinces Pres. McKinley to give up US control of Cuba, the Philippines, & Puerto Rico after the Spanish-American War.
15. Pres. Wilson sends US troops to stop the Mexican Revolution.
16. The American Liberty League tries to overthrow Franklin Roosevelt using a private army of ex-soldiers, declaring the US a fascist state.
17. Huey Long survives assassination and challenges FDR for the presidency in 1936.
18. Hitler decides against declaring war against the US after Pearl Harbor.
19. FDR decides against replacing Henry Wallace with Harry Truman as Vice President. Wallace becomes President when FDR dies in 1945.
20. Gen. MacArthur defies Pres. Truman and bombs Communist China in 1951.
21. Martin Luther King survives the assassination.
22. Reagan dies from assassination by John Hinckley. Bush Sr. becomes president and likely wins reelection in 1984.
23. The CIA decides in the 1950s on a policy of not giving training, money, or intelligence to Arab nationalists or Muslim fundamentalists, including two men named Saddam Hussein & Osama Bin Laden.
24. Congress defies Bush Sr. & votes against going to war with Iraq in 1990.
25. Bush Sr. decides to invade Iraq itself during the Gulf War & overthrow Hussein.
26. GW Bush dies as a young man from either drunk driving or a cocaine overdose. Who becomes president in 2000, and how do they respond to 9-11?
27. US authorities stop Al Qaeda before they carry out their plans for 9-11.
Posts: 69 | From: Texas | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:Originally posted by educatedindian: So many of these arguments seem just like elaborate excuses for inaction, or worse, being apologists for all the wrongs there are today in evidence all around us.
I believe you are wrong, for two reasons:
1) The ability to alter history is a massive and violent power, and cannot be used "surgically." e.g., to stop Hitler, would you drop a nuclear warhead on Berlin in 1933?
2) With my deepest apologies for being personal here, I cannot endorse your moral certainty. Your rejection of the arguments put forward here is, in my opinion, too hasty.
You have, for instance, entirely failed to address the issue of the new, altered time-line having its own horrors, massacres, genocides, etc.
Yes, there have been horrors perpetrated throughout history. Yes, it would be nice if they hadn't happened. But unless you are prepared to set yourself up as God, constantly stepping in and changing events, then, human nature being what it is, horrors will continue to happen.
A very wise man once said to me: "Know the implications of the rules before you change them. Also after."
Silas
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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I didn't see anything personal Silas. No need to worry.
"The ability to alter history is a massive and violent power, and cannot be used "surgically." e.g., to stop Hitler, would you drop a nuclear warhead on Berlin in 1933?"
Where would I get a nuke? Easier and more humane to stab him in a back alley when he was down and out living in Vienna.
"You have, for instance, entirely failed to address the issue of the new, altered time-line having its own horrors, massacres, genocides, etc."
Take the first one I talked about, talking De las Casas or Montesinos into leading an expedition before Columbus did.
No more 75-112 million dead from genocide. In its place, in the absolute worst case scenario, you have:
The Americas going through colonialism much like Africa did in the 19th century.
Disruption
Conquest
Extremely limited colonization on the coasts instead of 95-98% death rates and land loss of over 90%.
Followed by independence after 100-150 years.
Better? Absolutely. Honestly, I can't come up with scenarios where this timeline would turn out worse than things are right now for Native peoples of the Americas, short of ridiculous Deus ex Machina plot twists.
"Yes, it would be nice if they hadn't happened."
Nice? Talk about understatement. How about a blessing inversely equal to the horrors avoided?
"But unless you are prepared to set yourself up as God"
Is there any reason this same argument could not be used to argue against doing ANYTHING, anytime, EVER, to stop any kind of evil from happening?
Go back to my analogy of the car wreck.
Would a judge accept your argument?:
"I couldn't save him your honor! His kid could have become the next Hitler. That'd be playing God on my part!"
"human nature being what it is, horrors will continue to happen."
Hitler, Stalin, Reagan, etc, did not commit their horrors because of human nature, but for power and ideology. The question we have to ask is how they could have been stopped before racking up their body counts.
"A very wise man once said to me: "Know the implications of the rules before you change them. Also after."
Exactly. Many Native cultures talk about thinking ahead for how your actions will affect seven generations. Winona Laduke proposed a Seven Generations Amendment to the Constitution, where all govt bills outside of appropriations have to address how they affect the next seven generations of people.
But what you're arguing doesn't do anything like that. It only makes excuses >>>after the fact<<< for inaction.
Posts: 69 | From: Texas | Registered: Aug 2006
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To me at least, there is a remarkable difference between activism and going back in time to significantly alter history.
Aside from the fact that I believe going back in time to alter events is impossible (not that anyone took any notice of me the first time... not that I'm pouting or anything), even if I were to accept that it was possible I still see it as immoral.
Every day we are forced to make choices and some of the choices we make have unforseen consequences. We cannot forsee every possibility of our actions, we make our choices based on the outcomes that are known to us and the information we have available.
If I save a child from drowning, I have no idea if that child will become a serial killer, a great visionary or just another average Joe. I can't use any of those as justifications for action or inaction. Instead I must decide upon what I need to do based on my morals/ethics and the situation. In the case of the drowning child, I'd likely seek assistance as I'm not a terribly good swimmer... and having both the child and myself in need of rescue would only further complicate the situation.
If I shoot and kill a man now, I have no idea if he was going to have any offspring. Of the men that died in WWII (as an example), we cannot tell how many of them would have had children or how many. What we do know is that as a result of WWII, many couples had larger families than they may have otherwise had (hence the baby boomer generation). By altering history and preventing WWII, I am swapping existing lives (ie; generations of people we know were born) for potential lives (those future generations that only may have come into existence).
The flow-on effect becomes increasingly large with each generation, there is an increasing number of people who we know should have existed that now do not. Sure, there will be others (the offspring of people that now didn't die in the war) but does their existence justify those that now do not?
-------------------- "victory thru self-deception" Posts: 2211 | From: Western Australia | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
This topic raises another idea. If you killed Hitler pre-1930, would another person have had the same ideas and grabbed power in the same way? Would the outcome be the same.
Things happen for a reason. The economic situation of Germany after WWI was a factor in the rise of Hitler.
I'm not talking about of fate, but the [i]reasons[i] that he was able to do the things he did does not necessarily change even with him out of the equation.
-------------------- "I always tell the truth. Even when I lie." - Tony Montana Posts: 890 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Damian: This topic raises another idea. If you killed Hitler pre-1930, would another person have had the same ideas and grabbed power in the same way? Would the outcome be the same.
A few people already did raise that idea earlier in the thread.
-------------------- "You're the opposite of troll. It's a compliment!" Posts: 12086 | From: Alberta | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
If Mark David Chapman was prevented from killing John Lennon, would there have been a Beatles Anthology? If so, what would it been like?
-------------------- It's like they took a bunch of movies, put them in a blender and turned it on really fast!-Mystery Science Theater 3000 Posts: 2603 | From: Magna, Utah | Registered: Aug 2004
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The Beatles broke up before John was killed. So I don't see how it would have made any difference.
-------------------- "For me, religion is like a rhinoceros: I don't have one, and I'd really prefer not to be trampled by yours. But it is impressive, and even beautiful, and, to be honest, the world would be slightly worse off if there weren't any." -Silas Sparkhammer Posts: 3239 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Sep 2003
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What I mean is would John have wanted to even reunite with them? Would he and Paul bury the hatchet or would they bicker like they did during the "Let It Be" sessions?
-------------------- It's like they took a bunch of movies, put them in a blender and turned it on really fast!-Mystery Science Theater 3000 Posts: 2603 | From: Magna, Utah | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote:Originally posted by educatedindian: I didn't see anything personal Silas. No need to worry.
Thank you for that. I will continue to spar with you, but don't want to get a-fightin' with you.
quote: "The ability to alter history is a massive and violent power, and cannot be used "surgically." e.g., to stop Hitler, would you drop a nuclear warhead on Berlin in 1933?"
Where would I get a nuke? Easier and more humane to stab him in a back alley when he was down and out living in Vienna.
The point of the "nuclear warhead" argument is that you would, by stabbing Hitler, also destroy the entire world of today. No Microsoft; no Pope John-Paul II; no Israel; no United Nations; no you or me! It's "nuclear" in that it destroys an entire world, just to kill one man.
quote: "You have, for instance, entirely failed to address the issue of the new, altered time-line having its own horrors, massacres, genocides, etc."
Take the first one I talked about, talking De las Casas or Montesinos into leading an expedition before Columbus did.
No more 75-112 million dead from genocide. . .
How does this scenario prevent smallpox and measles from being introduced to the Americas?
How does it *guarantee* that the Spanish, French, English, Italians, Germans, Russians, heck, the Japanese and Chinese, don't come over and engage in exactly the same behavior?
Even if you isolate the Americas from Europe and Asia entirely...what prevents that alternative history from having genocides from Aztec (or other) imperialism?
quote: Better? Absolutely. Honestly, I can't come up with scenarios where this timeline would turn out worse than things are right now for Native peoples of the Americas, short of ridiculous Deus ex Machina plot twists.
I'm afraid that the native Americans were simply doomed, and that *no* historical turnout can be crafted that is as rosy as your view. Disease would have done the bulk of the killing, and Old World greed would have finished the job. The moment *anyone* in the Old World saw the Aztecs' and Incas' caches of gold, a war of domination could not have been stopped.
In the same way, there would inevitably have been *some* form of the 1849 Gold Rush. Maybe a century earlier, or two centuries later, but it would have led to the suppression of the lifestyle of the south-west California natives.
quote:"Yes, it would be nice if they hadn't happened."
Nice? Talk about understatement. How about a blessing inversely equal to the horrors avoided?
But, again, you aren't addressing the issues of the alternate horrors. With Hitler dead, Stalin becomes all the worse...and might have gotten the A-bomb first. You cannot know. History is far too complex, too "chaotic."
quote: "But unless you are prepared to set yourself up as God"
Is there any reason this same argument could not be used to argue against doing ANYTHING, anytime, EVER, to stop any kind of evil from happening?
Yes. When I act, now, to stop evil, I cannot know -- and thus cannot take into account -- the effects in the future.
i.e., It is wrong to kill a young artist in an alley. I cannot know if he will grow up to be Hitler. Since I can't possibly take that into account, I can *only* act on the morality of the here-and-now.
Since I can't know all the outcomes of my actions -- nor of my inactions! -- I am free (and morally obliged) to act to the very best of my ability.
My very ignorance is (Orwell!) a strange kind of strength.
I do not want to be the sort of person who goes around murdering young artists in alleys...even if they might grow up to become Hitlers. But, in any case, I can't tell, looking at a group of 100 artists, which ones will become evil and which will become good. Thus, I may (and must) act for the good.
quote: "A very wise man once said to me: "Know the implications of the rules before you change them. Also after."
Exactly. Many Native cultures talk about thinking ahead for how your actions will affect seven generations. Winona Laduke proposed a Seven Generations Amendment to the Constitution, where all govt bills outside of appropriations have to address how they affect the next seven generations of people.
That simply is not possible. You cannot know all the implications of your actions into the next ten minutes, let alone that far into the future.
GWB invaded Iraq in order to bring peace and stability to the Middle East, which would lead to the end of global terrorism, an Israeli/Palestinian settlement, the victory of moderation in Iran and North Korea, and a golden age of peace that would last for centuries.
Oops...
quote:But what you're arguing doesn't do anything like that. It only makes excuses >>>after the fact<<< for inaction.
Correct: specifically, after-the-fact/before-the-fact, a situation unique to time travel!
Since we live in the present, we do not have any "after the fact" knowledge, and are compelled to grope along, all but blindly, in the fog of countless possibilities. The very best we can do is estimate the odds and modify our behavior thus.
(Not drawing to inside straights, not getting involved in Land Wars in Asia, that sort of thing.)
Silas
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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What about looking at this problem from a different angle. What if you travelled forward in time, say, 100 years? The "history" book at that time show a terrible thing happened on Christmas Day 2006. It made the world a much worse place than it is today. Would you, in the present again, stop that terrible thing? Do the morals of time travel apply to the future?
-------------------- "I always tell the truth. Even when I lie." - Tony Montana Posts: 890 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Damian: What about looking at this problem from a different angle. What if you travelled forward in time, say, 100 years? The "history" book at that time show a terrible thing happened on Christmas Day 2006. It made the world a much worse place than it is today. Would you, in the present again, stop that terrible thing? Do the morals of time travel apply to the future?
Travel to the future presents a unique problem in that it, as best as I can tell, dictates that there is no such thing as free will.
The act of seeing into the future, I believe, is something akin to attempting to measure both the momentum and position of a photon.
Skipping that for a moment, so we see in the December 2106 issue of Time Magazine a "100 Years since" article marking some tragic event that greatly impacted the world. Yet by coincidence it appears that we have the knowledge, skill or connections to prevent this from ever happening. How do you know that it wasn't your attempt to prevent the event from happening that actually triggers it in the first place?
Edited.
-------------------- "victory thru self-deception" Posts: 2211 | From: Western Australia | Registered: Jun 2005
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{Edit: I am referring to Damian's question here.}
Oh wow, that is a great question. At first thought I would say they do. But then again...
Ok I have to say that I would do whatever I could to change the Christmas day event that you speak of because I am in my present time and assume that I was shown what happened for a reason. By people from the future that want me to "fix things".
If I invent the machine and go to the future, well first I would make the machine to be as I suggested earlier in the thread. As in you are watching a movie, and cannot make any changes to anything while you are there. But would I do something to make a change in my present? I think yes.
But then again, could it be worse if I interfere? That's a tough one. How many trips do I get? I could change things and then skip ahead 100 years again and see if it helped. Hmmm... I'll have to think on it some more.
-------------------- God bless our Troops! If you can't stand behind our troops, please, feel free to stand in front of them. Posts: 380 | From: Ohio | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Salamander: Yet by coincidence it appears that we have the knowledge, skill or connections to prevent this from ever happening.
Let's say we do.
quote:How do you know that it wasn't your attempt to prevent the event from happening that actually triggers it in the first place?
For argument's sake, let pretend it was the assassination of a world leader (doesn't matter who). The future's history book were quite clear that this event was the turning point.
Would you act to stop it?
-------------------- "I always tell the truth. Even when I lie." - Tony Montana Posts: 890 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Apr 2005
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I'm still not sure why doing your average good deed in the past is worse than doing your average good deed in the present. It might do harm, of course, but so might saving a person's life today.
Posts: 1699 | From: New York | Registered: Oct 2002
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It's not about doing your average good deed, IMO. If you go back in time and just stop and do a good deed that you had no prior knowledge of, I don't think that's a big deal. You just did what you did while you were there, and it's what you would've done anyways.
The problem comes when you go back in time, with knowledge of an event and how it turns out, then attempt to change that event. You're exercising your idea of what "should" have happened on time and the Universe. And you're not giving the rest of the world a chance to decide if they would want time to change. Since they're already living in the time that occurred, I think they should be given that choice.
quote:Originally posted by Midgard_Dragon: It's not about doing your average good deed, IMO. If you go back in time and just stop and do a good deed that you had no prior knowledge of, I don't think that's a big deal. You just did what you did while you were there, and it's what you would've done anyways.
The problem comes when you go back in time, with knowledge of an event and how it turns out, then attempt to change that event. You're exercising your idea of what "should" have happened on time and the Universe. And you're not giving the rest of the world a chance to decide if they would want time to change. Since they're already living in the time that occurred, I think they should be given that choice.
The events I've dicussed have been the biggest war in history, and the biggest terrorist attack in history. It seems reasonable to assume that people would be against those. Granted, my own idea of stopping "Feed the World" from being recorded has never been put to the vote, so I'll nix that for the moment.
But, honesly, when I reach for a pear, I don't feel the need to ask anyone else in the world for their permission. Why should I need such permission if stopping some historical atrocicity?
Posts: 1699 | From: New York | Registered: Oct 2002
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Here's what I know. One of the people who has already contributed to this thread is an actual time traveler. The way it works is that the yet to be invented machine allows the traveler to jump back in time and affect events in what we know as the present. Traveling forward in time happens just as it does now. . . in real time.
If the traveler's actions inhibit the invetion of the time machine, it doesn't matter. The traveler was sent to thwart a catastrophic event in a future "present". So now that you're here, you have no kowledge of the catastrophy in the future. If it happens, you've failed. If it doesn't happen, the future (your future) arrives without incident. Maybe your actions will cause the time machine to never be invented. As far as your knowledge, 'what time machine?' If you are the traveler, you wouldn't even know it.
Future generations have already traveled to a time in our past. Today is an altered reality.
- P
Posts: 1856 | From: Milwaukee, WI | Registered: Jul 2001
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You don't ask the world if you can pick a pear because picking that pear doesn't effect the entire Universe and fabric of time itself. I'm really not getting how it's hard to see that difference. :x
quote:Originally posted by Midgard_Dragon: You don't ask the world if you can pick a pear because picking that pear doesn't effect the entire Universe and fabric of time itself. I'm really not getting how it's hard to see that difference. :x
Of course it does! There's probably going to be a hurricane in Brazil, or a tornado in Nebraska, or a, a, well, some other bad weather pattern in some other part of the world, just because I reached for that pear. Honestly, I'm like two weeks away from a building a real time machine in my garage*. And if you people want to stop me from stopping World War II, you're going to have to do better than merely pointing out to me that I'll be stopping World War II.
*Just kidding. I don't have a garage.
Posts: 1699 | From: New York | Registered: Oct 2002
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lol You can stop World War II all you want, we are obviously just discussing theoretical situation. my point is that I believe you are screwing with the free will of those in the current timeline. Feel free to disagree with that, but that's how I feel. Until you do invent that time machine, or better yet build a garage, neither of us has proof.
quote:Originally posted by Salamander: Yet by coincidence it appears that we have the knowledge, skill or connections to prevent this from ever happening.
Let's say we do.
quote:How do you know that it wasn't your attempt to prevent the event from happening that actually triggers it in the first place?
For argument's sake, let pretend it was the assassination of a world leader (doesn't matter who). The future's history book were quite clear that this event was the turning point.
Would you act to stop it?
The problem is that as I understand time travel to work, I can't.
Rather than bore people with long-winded examples, let's just say that it is a matter of fulfilment. I only know of the assassination because it happened and I read about it in the future. If I could actually succeed in stopping the assassination, then I could have never read about it in the future could I? If I prevented it, it never happened and in my glimpse of the future I wouldn't read about it to know to stop it.
The paradoxical nature of time travel.
Again, let's pretend there is no paradox for a moment and compare acting in the present and acting on information gleaned from the future.
If I found out about the assassination attempt now, and felt I could stop it? Absolutely, without hesitation. The future is not yet written, I am not consigning anyone to non-existence.
If I found out about the assassination attempt from the future? Then I stumble on a moral quandry. In essence, I'm "cheating" the system -- I now know that my actions will indeed significantly alter the history that I already know exists. If I act to change it, I am therefore purposefully acting to make it so that some people in the future no longer exist. This act compounds with each generation of ever increasing numbers of people that now do not exist.
Balanced by it is the thought that I am now allowing many who would have died as an indirect result of the assassination (wars, famine, or whatever happened) to bear offspring and allow those children to exist where they would otherwise have never existed.
As I said before though, I'm trading off those that I know *do* exist for those that might potentially exist. I'm trading certainty for possibility. I don't know that I am comfortable with that choice.
Just like Silas said, we are all equal when we live in the present -- the future is like a thick fog, we only see what is almost upon us with any sort of clarity and beyond that lies only vague shapes. I do not have a problem acting in the present -- yes, the decisions some of us make may radically affect the future but can never truly know of all the possibilities that lie ahead. Acting on information from the future? That seems inherently wrong.
ETA: Unless of course it is proven that every decision we make splits reality into two (or more) paths where in one reality you did pick the pear and eat it and in the other you left it alone and ate something else.
In which case, since every possibility comes to pass, changing the present based on the future is simply making sure that your consciousness is steered down the path most to your pleasing. It wouldn't consign anyone to non-existence since they would exist, just in a different reality.
I actually once came to ponder this model of diverging reality and after some cogitation I wondered if perhaps there was a reality "stream" in which every possible choice I made always lead to the best outcome and if there was another stream in which every possible choice I made always lead to the worst outcome. I wondered if these two pathways could be in some way considered to be heaven and hell? It was something to think about anyway.
-------------------- "victory thru self-deception" Posts: 2211 | From: Western Australia | Registered: Jun 2005
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What about going forward 2 weeks, then coming back and putting a bet on the Aussies knocking over the Poms in 4 days? Or don't you need a time machine for that?
-------------------- "I always tell the truth. Even when I lie." - Tony Montana Posts: 890 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Damian: What about going forward 2 weeks, then coming back and putting a bet on the Aussies knocking over the Poms in 4 days? Or don't you need a time machine for that?
If ever there was an argument for the future to be pre-determined...
-------------------- "victory thru self-deception" Posts: 2211 | From: Western Australia | Registered: Jun 2005
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There is also the issue of whether or not *other* people have access to time-altering technology. Suppose Hitler had a time machine and went back and prevented Churchill and Roosevelt from being born! Can you be certain, for always and for ever, that a bad person won't get control of the time machine and alter history for his benefit?
quote: Osama’s time machine: President Gore concerned. - Charles Stross
-------------------- The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale. Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - ) Posts: 244 | From: Ventura, CA | Registered: Sep 2005
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You are continually traveling through time - in one direction: forward, at a more or less constant pace (1 second for you = 1 second for everyone else on the planet - give or take some trivial relativistic and quantum adjustments).
Unlike the other scenerios you do not possess 'perfect hindsight' of the future, though with some thought and reflection you are to make some general observations about potential trends and future events, along with some ability to make a rough guess as to the probability of some possibilites.
What actions do you take? What risks do you consider more or less signifigant. Do you dare to mess with an unwritten future? Do you diet and excersize knowing the potential effects on your own longitivity, or hit the greasy burger spot for a triple cheeseburger with extra bacon. Do you take any action, however trivial, to use gasoline/oil, or do you hop in your SUV and figure you alone can't make much of a difference.
Back in the summer of 2001 I wrote my congressman (at the time, Brad Sherman), and voiced my concern about the rising threat of terrorism. I didn't have any mystical foresight of 9/11, or any sources in intellegence agencies, nor any connection information on specific terrorist orginizations. I didn't even know who Bin Laden was. What I did know was the massive debate was over an SDI system which was not only flawed but designed to deal with an enemy which no longer existed. It was pretty clear for anyone paying attention that for the past several decades the use of terrorism had been an increasing tactic by extremist groups, and that stateless groups seemed to be on the rise. So I suggested to the clever bald fellow who had given me a comb on a campaign stop that it would be a very good idea not to waste taxpayer money on such a massive boondoggle, but instead increase border security, intellegence gathering, and special forces availability to deal rapidly with threats in a relitively precice manner.
So now (and now, and now, and now...) what do you do with the timestream you are currently in, with the resources you have, and the knowledge you possess...
It's your move - anything you do could affect the future timestream whether you see the timestream as a persistant river or as fragile as a butterfly (ballot?) in some way. What do you choose, and why?
-------------------- The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale. Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - ) Posts: 244 | From: Ventura, CA | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Steve: Of course it does! There's probably going to be a hurricane in Brazil, or a tornado in Nebraska, or a, a, well, some other bad weather pattern in some other part of the world, just because I reached for that pear. Honestly, I'm like two weeks away from a building a real time machine in my garage*. And if you people want to stop me from stopping World War II, you're going to have to do better than merely pointing out to me that I'll be stopping World War II.
*Just kidding. I don't have a garage.
Please don't stop World war II, Or I guess, at least if you do, say goodbye to me, because World War II was instrumental in my appearance on Earth. Or I guess my posts will just disappear anyway, and the rest of you will never know that I could have existed.
-------------------- On the crusade to eliminate Moral Asshattery wherever it exists Member: AAMAH Posts: 2940 | From: Michigan | Registered: Feb 2004
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