If you could take a time machine, would you go into the future or the past?

[Renew Deal]

Poll question: If you could take a time machine, would you go into the future or the past?

If you could take a trip in a time machine, would you go to a date in the future or one in the past? Explain your choice.

[Ohio Joe]

1. Future

Just to see if we ever learn anything.

[Matilda]

3. Do we have a future?

n/t

[Ohio Joe]

4. yeah, I think so

The quality of that future is in question though.

[Voice for Peace]

2. present (other)

[Xicano]

5. To the past somewhere around 66.

n/t

[Webster Green]

8. 1966?

That was a great year. I was tripping on the Sunset Strip.

See you there! :hippie:

[Xicano]

10. One of my thoughts exactly. :)

:hippie:

[Renew Deal]

11. I thought you wanted to meet St. Peter.

[raccoon]

39. Are you of draftable age? If so, you might want to rethink that. nt

[Ozymanithrax]

6. I would go to the past, but only if I could change things...

If I could only be a JAFO, then I would go to the future, because assuming it hasn't happened yet, what I learned about what happened could be changed by my actions, well assuming that going to the future doesn't just look at one snapshot of an infinite number of quantum probabilities.

Have you heard the song "I'm my own grandpa!" Your question puts whole new complications into this song.

[Motown_Johnny]

17. but when you are assuming you can return to this time to change things.

This would be traveling into the past (from the point of view that the future you travel to would then be the/your present) and your premise is that you can't change things in the past.

[Ozymanithrax]

38. The premise, theory actually, is that the universe protects itself from time travel...

If, time is set, then nothing past or present would change. However, if our view of time and history is just our shared view of a series of linked instances in quantum probability, then visiting the past just moves us through new streams of alternate time universes. In effect, we just enter Schroedinger's box by a different door and exit through a window.

[Motown_Johnny]

45. .

I understand the theory.

I was just pointing out that you were not being self consistent. Your original premise was that you could not travel into the past to change the present. You then go on to say you would travel into the future so you could come back and change it. That is the same as traveling into the past to change the present.

[hyphenate]

55. In one sense, yes

However, the same, alternate universe theory comes into play for the situation.

If you went into your own future, which you view without changing, you see an accurate future at that moment in time only. You become stuck in it, because nanoseconds after your arrival, that future will be changed by the first significant event from any point on the timeline you have skipped to go into the future. I am not a believer that a butterfly's wing movement can change history, but anything from a sudden car crash, a major life decision by someone or even someone changing jobs can alter that timeline, even into your own personal history.

Why? Because when you left that timeline when you did, you were taken out of time, and your participation in any future events from that moment changed. You can keep that visible future once you return to the present at the exact moment you left, but if you stayed in the future, you are living in a world that may or may not have existed if you had not traveled to it.

Multiverses do help to relieve the paradox by creating infinite combinations of changes based on your actions and those of others.

The past becomes immutable because it's the past you are familiar with, the past that you know and remember from both experience (within your own lifetime) and historical literature. Changing anything will result in the creation of another stream, an alternate universe, but it won't be the one you will return to, because your memories--and those of billions of other people-- won't reinforce it. You will return to your own universe, and an altered history will continue on in that other universe.

The least dangerous way to travel through time is to become "invisible" through some method, and observe and record history with an eye for correcting inaccuracies in historical texts only. Of course you can do things like taking soil samples, air samples, and other scientific collection methodology if that is your goal, but physically changing events in any way would not work. A great way that observation could be used would be to return to scenes of crimes, and observe events in order to arrest and convict the correct person--or persons--in the present, and correct, if possible, unjustices.

[InvisibleTouch]

49. A geology professor of mine used to sing that song.

I haven't heard it since my undergraduate days. Thanks for the link! :)

[hyphenate]

7. The truth is, unless you are in some way able to

glean every single event between your time and the future time you choose to go to, trying to understand how event #1 got to #2 or #3, your experience will likely be a failure except as a curiosity.

OTOH, there are so many things we could learn from the past, and make them relevant to our own time, interests, or history lessons. Understanding these things can relate to so many things of which we already have some knowledge, and will therefore be far more enlightening.

[Renew Deal]

12. That seems backwards to me.

If you go to the past, your knowledge will be limited to the time you visit. If you can go to the future, you can learn about the past.

[hyphenate]

64. A large component of what you are saying

is how long you are planning on spending in the future. Are you planning on living out the rest of your life? Are you planning on merely spending a day, or at most, a week? Unless you are going to spend that time in an archive someplace, you aren't going to make the most of your experience.

If you are going the route where you are planning on making the trip in a limited time frame, like next week, next year or such, why bother at all? Yes, you can learn the lottery results, but then, you're still changing history, as the results will be out already and the news would be out on who won it--you're still going to change history, and negate the history period you're in. There is no paradox in simple logic. You see the recent past, you go back and change it, and what you saw in the future will change irrevocably. This happens when you return to your present regardless of when you show up in the future.

And it's a 2 way street--change the past, and you change your present, unless you embrace the parallel worlds theory. Regardless, you're not affecting your own past or future, because it's written already, theoretically.

[Motown_Johnny]

26. what if I just went to next week and got the lotto numbers for the $290 million

drawing?

[hyphenate]

29. Sorry

it's not going to do you any good. I already have that winning ticket.

[Motown_Johnny]

46. we can split it

I'm not greedy

[hfojvt]

62. I could just go one week into the future

and write down the powerball numbers. That would change MY future, if not the future of the planet. Although presumably if I am trying to do good, then having more money will increase the amount of good that I am able to do.

[El Supremo]

9. The past. In order to find the "truth" about some things.

Did FDR allow Pearl Harbor to happen?
Did Oswald act alone?
And many more.

[Renew Deal]

13. How would you find out about FDR or Oswald?

You could never get close enough. There are events or people you can get close to. How about going back to meet Jesus? You could get closer to him for some period of time. That could be interesting. And as you know, Jesus speaks American. :D

[El Supremo]

16. I have no basic doubts about Jesus.

Just some minor inconsistencies. But it would be fantastic to see him BEFORE I die.

I'd only go back if I could be at the right place. For instance, I was only a few miles from Dealy Plaza in 1963. But if I could be there again, I'd want to be on the Grassy Knoll.

[saras]

22. For how long?

If you were on the grassy knoll, likely your lifetime after that would be very short.

But while you're there, say hello to Kerry Thornley for me.

[Capitalocracy]

42. Waterboarding. nt

[Motown_Johnny]

47. mini spy cams that now exist but that they would never imagine?

[pacalo]

14. I'd go to the past -- about 1969. And if going back in time were possible in the first place,

it might just as much be possible to erase the Viet Nam war from existence; & social equality would not have been an issue because in my magic time warp, everyone would be smart enough to understand we're all in this together.

[PhillySane]

15. Aren't we already going to the future?

Haven't we already been to the past?

[Renew Deal]

18. We haven't been to all of the past.

Just a very short amount of it.

[PhillySane]

24. Speak for yourself bunky. I'm a Buddhist.

We believe in reincarnation. (snickle-snickle)

[Renew Deal]

43. lol

Touche! :D

[Earth_First]

19. 1960 for me...n/t

[virgogal]

35. Me too-----cigarettes and martinis. Yum !

[Motown_Johnny]

20. Past, even if I am just an observer

The Giza plateau as the pyramids are being built would be first.

Göbekli Tepe around 12,000 years ago would be second.


Then depending upon what I found there I would most probably go back further, I am kinda curious what color dinosaurs really were.




The future can wait.

[RKP5637]

21. I liked the 60's/70's - 80's started to suck and it's been pretty much downhill

since Reagan IMO. I'm concerned about the future, we well might end up as a bunch of robotized slaves to the system as cyborgs. The ultimate corporate state.

[jkirch]

23. mid-nineteenth century.

I like the clothes.

[MurrayDelph]

25. As much as I would like to go back and try to change some things

(both personal history and world-wise)

I would rather take my chances that at some time in the future we would get away from all of superstition-driven nonsense, and come up with more meaningful nonsense.



"it's a lie....it's a lie...let me down..." -- Karl Glogauer (Michael Moorcock, "Behold the Man")

[Aleric]

27. Do I get to come back or is it a one way trip? n/t

[notesdev]

28. Future baby!

I want to see how the human story ends

[InvisibleTouch]

50. We may just have a front-row seat for that...

...in the here and now.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

30. Past

Don't have kids and don't think much of our future. But I like history, so I'd go on a historical tour of Europe, find my family in Italy, learn a language or two, stuff like that.

I'm not required to work on my expedition, am I? After all, I can't find work in the present.

[kgnu_fan]

31. Be Here Now!!!!!

[kgnu_fan]

32. Because it is Past and Future rolled into one!

[applegrove]

33. The past.

[JBoy]

34. Future. When I come back I could make a shitload of money betting on sports.

[greyl]

36. You could make a shitload betting on sports if you went back in time, too.

When you come back, you'd already be loaded. ;)

[Renew Deal]

44. Yes, but with buffalo head nickels and gold eagles.

Which are probably pretty valuable. :D

[Blue_In_AK]

37. I always wanted to be a Mycenaean.

I'd like to go back and check that out.

[malaise]

40. Past

And Prescott Bush et al would have been in prison for life.

[raccoon]

41. I don't know. It's an intriguing idea, but if it WERE possible, I think I'd chicken out.

One thing, what if something went wrong and you couldn't come back to your own time?

[InvisibleTouch]

48. I think there's an overwhelming preference for "Past" because...

...we know we've already survived that era, either collectively or personally, so it feels "safe." That also explains nostalgia, IMO. It's not that things were necessarily better in the past, but we know from our current perspective that we've already survived those times, the world didn't end, so it must not have been *all* that bad. We have the luxury of remembering the good times rather than the fears we had at the time. As opposed to the present, where we're facing anxiety about the unknown.

I voted for "Past" too, btw. But my "Past" would be *way* back, before humans existed to ruin the planet. Lower Cretaceous sounds about right to me.

[Ganja Ninja]

51. To the past of course.

You could get in on the ground floor investing in stocks like Microsoft, Apple and Home Depot.

[Renew Deal]

54. You wouldn't have to go that far in the past to invest in Apple

Something like 1996 will do.

[SteppingRazor]

52. Future.

I already know the past, but I don't know how everything turns out, and I'd really like to.

[ThatsMyBarack]

53. ...

http://plaidstallions.blogspot.com/

[Liberal_in_LA]

56. future. we know the past

[Xenotime]

57. Past so I could tell everybody how things work.

and save MLK Jr. too.

[11 Bravo]

58. The past, just to give Poppy Bush a rubber that didn't fucking leak!

[hootinholler]

59. My other answer is YES!

I would go into the future or the past.

Most likely the past first to make a small investment.

I would seriously think before I gambled on the future, conditions could be harsh.

-Hoot

[treestar]

60. a few hundred years into the future

I'd be curious about the technology and what they'd be able to do.

[bikebloke]

61. If we can have mulitple trips...

..then I'd go in both directions.

[Motown_Johnny]

63. I'm kinda surprised nobody is talking about going back and killing Hitler

or some other such thing.


I guess Liberals are just not into playing God.



It would be interesting to see someone with a troll account "Over there" post a similar thread and see if "they" would take the same approach we did.

[hunter]

66. Killing Hitler makes things worse.

A saner Germany gets the bomb first.

:nuke:

[renate]

65. that would depend completely on whether I could pick whom to be

And where to be. If it were all completely random, I wouldn't budge from the here and now, thanks. (And if we couldn't come back, I wouldn't leave either.) If I could choose to be a wealthy member of the English aristocracy before WWI, I would love to try that for a little while. But if we could only pick the location and nothing else, the odds would be wildly in favor of my being a scullery maid for a member of the English aristocracy, or a lady of the evening in a London slum, so unless I could also choose my economic circumstances, I'd pick the future in America, just to see what happens technologically. Sure, we still have a socioeconomic caste system that probably is going to get worse, not better, but I don't think we'll get back to the absolute abject poverty of a society without a single safety net other than the workhouse.

[semillama]

67. As a birder, I would definately say the past

I'd love to be around for migrations ca. 1490 or so. Plus, there's all those extinct species I'd love to see: Carolina Parakeet, Great Auk, Labrador Duck, Passenger Pigeon...