As long as I can take the information I have now with me I would've stopped a few things from happening.
As long as I can take the information I have now with me I would've stopped a few things from happening.
Signature by rubah. I think.
Would I still age normally while time travelling? If so then there's really no smurfing point in going back to not fail where I've failed. It'd just be a waste of time that wouldn't change the present anyway. I don't wanna do all that bullagain.
Last edited by kotora; 03-31-2011 at 02:08 AM.
This twenty-year-old boy was distinguished from childhood by strange qualities, a dreamer and an eccentric. A girl fell in love with him, and he went and sold her to a brothel...
Ok first up bitch bitch bitch yes, wall of text post. However this is a really complicated subject. I could try and put a simple answer up but smurf it I'm not going to give something half arsed when the subject interests me, read it you might find my ideas and my thoughts interesting if you don't read it you won't know.
If in going back to the past you change the present/future merely because you went back with prior knowledge of world events then you would have inescapably changed the present, every sports result/lotto number you take back with you is subject to change. Therefore if you're going to take something back to make you rich it's better to take back the wisdom of age to ensure you get a better job.
If I had to go back and do a mulligan/do-over on my life I would probably go back to when I was around 12/13 and change high school regardless of my mom's wishes so I could escape the systematic bullying which eventually led to me losing focus on my studies and also to a routine of extreme weight loss and erratic weight gains and eventual drug abuse and if my life seemingly was heading in that direction I would have moved to my brothers aged 16 to further avoid it.
These would all be wise changes considering my past, moving in with my brother aged 16/17 would have seen me avoid having my upper jaw shattered and get out of the drugs use which had by that point become habitual. A healthier approach to life and a change of high school would have generally been better and could have resulted in my joining the RAF as a fighter pilot which is what my childhood dream was and given half a chance, I'd still go for it.
However heres the problem I have with the mulligan option...
You go back in time now to your past armed with the fore knowledge of what you did wrong, what you need to change and what you want to do. Using myself for an example here: I'm 25 I would go back to when I was 12 thats 13 years nearly 14 years ago. I was a kid, I thought like a kid and I acted like a kid. If I was to transport my mind back to then sure as
For example: I'm watching a program on TV now and Paloma Faith is on it, I have the knowledge that I've not just met her numerous times but that I've flirted with her a little and she's a fantastic person if bat
I think of my closest friends away from this place, people like J who I met in high school and as I have often said to him and others who have known me ages my friendship with him was perhaps the only good thing to come away from the long years I was there. He's like a brother to me and whilst on occasion he has let me down and failed me I understand he is just human and he has always tried to make it up to me and on the occasions where I am sure I have done the same and let him down I've made it back up to him. I think of people like Hicks or Jaime and Dom who I would never have met if it wasn't for how my life is now and the events what I have been through. Sure there are small things what I could change and still have my life over all play out same but I wouldn't be the same person without the experience of it and the option of not having gone through these small things whilst still keeping the lessons learned from going through it is tempting, everyone could do with breaking a few less bones but then the pain I've subjected my body to with repeated fractures and breaks has toughened it so that now I can pretty much shrug off a cracked rib unless I catch it and 2 weeks past the event I could all but forget it. And what is experience without the scars to show how you got it? Everyone has their battle scars perhaps mine are more noticeable than most but I'm happy to have them I can sit here and show these scars and explain where I learnt or didn't learn my lessons. I don't think I could pay the price of going back in time and thats why I would reject the do-over not some sense of not deserving it because I feel that if it was offered to me I would deserve it, it would be offered for a reason.
On the other hand, if we're talking about going back say Source Code style and getting to change things but it not actually changing the world of the present with a view to seeing how things could play out. The options are endless I would definitely see the following:
How changing school would have affected my life
How leaving London when given the chance could have affected my life
How things could have worked out if I had not done some things which caused romantic issues in certain relationships.
Where my life would have led if I had joined the Army when I had the papers in my hands ready to sign.
The idea of seeing these events would intrigue me. I'd be curious to the outcome but knowing I would have not changed the present for me with anything but a gained insight to the idea that perhaps I did the right or wrong thing on some subjects but then really would anyone want that kind of information? I doubt they truly do.
So over-all, I would be curious about the idea but I don't know if I would want to actually know that my life could have been so much better if I had done things differently. I can decide that for myself based on where I am now.
I guess it all comes down to the lyric I've often quoted as my inspiration in life:
"We've all been sorry, we've all been hurt, but it's how we survive what makes us who we are."
I'm who I am because of what I've been through. Changing things in the past isn't possible and even if it was, I think changing things in the now and taking the good and the bad together and moving on from that is more important.
I would take the blue pill.
Eyyyyyyyyyyyyy
I'd be a goddamn genius baby and leverage my brains to get a full scholarship to Harvard or something by the age of 12.
I fantasize about being able to do this on a daily basis, being able to move my consciousness freely throughout time. And then I can switch between any timeline I have generated through my exploits.
I would go back and invest a huge load of money in a race or football match that I remembered the result of and I'd become a billionaire.
I know for a fact all I would ever need is money, aside from things like my family and friends dying I'd give up anything to become filthy stinking rich.
I think I only have one major regret that's been sticking with me that was the result of a bunch of bad decisions a few months back, so I'd probably go back and tell myself not to do that! Otherwise, idk. I always used to imagine my future self going back in time and giving young me advice. Like, 30 year old Stu telling 7 year old Stu about how to live life. I pictured myself being a lot fatter than I am now but I guess I still have a few years to go before I have to worry about time traveling.
Well, I can't call Iceglow stupid, he/she/it is the only respondent who actually took the question seriously/put any real thought into it.
Before I go into my responses, I'd like to take a moment to address a recurring answer: winning the lottery. This is a thought experiment--the laws of physics do not change, and you cannot use time travel to win the lottery any more than you can go back in time and become a wizard instead of a sales clerk. The fundamental principle of quantum physics is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. It originated with the famed two-slit experiment, where wave-particle duality was discovered. When left alone and only the interference patterns were recoreded, the electron stream fired at the two slits acted like a wave, but when an attempt was made to observe its progress, it acted like a stream of particles. In short, the entire science of quantum physics is predicated on the fact that by observing something, you influence it. If you go back in time with the winning lottery numbers for the next draw memorized, initially you do nothing, but as soon as you act upon it, you alter the future, essentially re-randomizing the lottery numbers. You can go back in time to stop Señor Douchebag from winning the lottery, but you cannot control who wins. I can't really explain it well, it has some dreck to do with waveform collapse and that makes about as much sense to me as Buddhist gangsta rap.
And you don't think that would have deleterious effects on your life? Lack of leisure time is linked to crippling mental illness. Sure you could study harder at the beginning, but that would just land you a more high-pressure, stress-filled job. Also, you may find that it's harder to get into a romantic relationship if the people around you see you as nothing more than a workaholic, soulless automaton. I grew up in Alberta, where jobs are plentiful and salaries are excellent. What I've observed of Albertans is that they are tightly-wound, stressed-out d-bags who don't enjoy a minute of their life. The further East I went, the more laid-back--and happy--the people have been. By going back in time, you've destroyed your happiness.Originally Posted by Peegee
You can go back in time and avoid the mistakes you've made in the past, but that's no guarantee you won't just make different ones. Remember, even with hindsight, you are still the same person, just more experienced and hopefully wiser. Even mistakes, though, guide your course in life. If you make different mistakes, everything can turn out differently. There's a good chance you never meet those who are your closest friends in a natural environment, and if you go up to somebody and say, "Hi, my name's Tom, we were close buddies in an alternate reality," you wind up in the sanitarium. By going back in time, you've just exchanged your present home for a wonderful place where they have rubber on the walls.
Same argument I used against G13
Sorry about Hitler
Baby geniuses live their entire lives under a crippling amount of pressure, causing them to have a higher suicide rate. Rest in peace.
Trying to be more productive robs you of life experience and leads to a high stress lifestyle. Punching people lands you in prison. Are you sure you want to know how many cigarettes your ass is worth?
Whoops, enjoy your botulism.I would order the soup instead of the salad.
Han shot first.
Methinks the lady doth protest too much
(snip "win the lotto/sports events" answers I've already addressed
You're going to have to be more specific than that if you want to know why it'd be a bad idea. For example, if you want to leverage Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle to stop the 9/11 attacks, all you have to do is start telling people that they're going to happen. Then, when they don't, you get thrown in an institution for the mentally ill. Small price to pay? Perhaps. But what if instead of preventing them, you just make them turn out differently? Worse, even?
Assume it can change the present. You go back in time to your own body at the time--so if you go back to when you're 12, you're a(n) [insert your age here]-year-old (wo)man in a 12-year-old child's body, with all of your memories intact.Would I still age normally while time travelling? If so then there's really no smurfing point in going back to not fail where I've failed. It'd just be a waste of time that wouldn't change the present anyway. I don't wanna do all that bull
That was cyanide. Well done
See: Reply to Hypoallergenic
If you really, honestly think all you ever need is money, they I wish I could send you back in time with some sort of defense against Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.
7 year old Stu would likely not believe 30 year old Stu and call the police. Other than that, I can't comment without specifics.
What brought this on was an "I wish I could go back" moment of my own when I realized how much money I'd be making if I'd joined the military when I was 20. Now that I'm 31, if I want to earn a full pension, I have to join fulltime within the next 4 years, which means taking a pay cut. (It would take 3-5 years for my military pay to achieve parity with what I'm making now, after which it would skyrocket). Then I remembered what I was like at 20. I lacked the drive and focus necessary to get through BMQ, let alone a career. I'd have washed out, and not be eligible for re-entry when I'm ready on that score. So, because I spent my 20s playing instead of working, I still have that option available to me. I've also met a lot of friends and had a lot of good experiences that being serious and joining the Forces at 20 would have denied me. If I were to go back in time to when I was 20 and sign up, I'd likely return to the present to find myself in the exact same place I am now, but with fewer prospects and a higher blood pressure. No thanks.
Last edited by Citizen Bleys; 03-31-2011 at 05:02 AM. Reason: adding my own folly.
I think this can be more easily explained by the fact that the delayed-choice variation of the double-slit experiment (where the choice to view an electron or not is not made until after it passes through the slits) shows that the past is not a set history, but only a set of probabilities until observed. Thus, the observation of an electron changes the slit it went through in the past. And therefore since the outcome of a (truly randomized) lottery was not set until it was observed, and if you go back in time before it was set, all of the particles that can affect the lottery are just another set of probabilities again -- with no guarantee as to how it will turn out this time. The new lotto, according to a strict application of current quantum theory, would just be the same one in a billion chance.
However, that only works if the system which generates the lottery is truly randomized, and not some computer program which must act a certain way and so may in fact be more inclined to repeat itself if you go back to right before the numbers are picked. The lottery is also a finite set of possible outcomes (limited by the numbers it uses), so it's not an infinite set of probabilities like quantum theory predicts of matter in general, but it seems like the above would still apply if it's randomized. And, of course, we also have no idea what effect any hypothetical time travel would have on anything, including quantum mechanics.
On topic, I would not risk going back in time further back than very recently (say days/weeks) to change anything.
I just realized that if I could go back in time and join the Forces at age 20, I never would have come to EoFF, and therefore never would have met Raistlin.
Sorry, everybody, you're not morons after all. You CAN change the past for the better!
You wouldn't know what to do without me, Plushiebunny.
Smoke and drink less, belike
I would go back to when I was at playschool and change nothing, everyone wishes they could be young again at some point in their life, this would be the perfect opportunity and lets face it, being a kid was smurfing awesome.
You wouldn't be bored? I'm afraid I couldn't entertain myself by running around and pretending to be Superman, even if it wouldn't land me in an institution for the criminally insane.
Bored? are you kidding me? it would be awesome, just because I have the information I have now doesn't mean I wouldn't have the mentality of a child and so doing these things wouldn't be boring to me, and besides just because you watch a movie once does that mean you will be bored when you watch it again at a later date? I don't think so.You wouldn't be bored? I'm afraid I couldn't entertain myself by running around and pretending to be Superman, even if it wouldn't land me in an institution for the criminally insane.
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