{DISCUSSION} Time Travel

Is time travel really a good thing?

We’ve had a lot of heavy topics in discussions lately and I thank everyone who took joined me to chat about them because they are important topics. However! I’m going to change that. Today we’re discussing time travel and all the possibilities and paradoxes that go along with it. 😀 (Or… at least all the ones I’m familiar with. Hee hee!)

Time travel. noun.

The movement of a person or persons into a point in time that is not the present.

(Yeaaaah, random definition I made all on my own. :p )

Anyway! Time travel is basically a person moving through time to a point in the future or past, which can be in any increment of time (because every time traveler starts by testing a few seconds or minutes at a time. You know, the safe bet.) Of course, with any breakthrough in science, some responsibility is tacked on. And there is also the concept that time is not linear, but we only perceive it as linear (thus the present isn’t really the present. Blah blah blah.) But let’s try to keep this discussion simple (because I really don’t want carpel tunnel by the time I’m done with this post. Hahaha!)

Rules of Time Travel

1. Do not change anything! Big, small, ANYTHING!

This is a rule that everyone agrees on because our present is the way it is because of things that happened in the past. No matter how good, bad, or ugly the past was, our society evolved into what it is because of those horrible things. So, for all the self-righteous people who want to travel into the past to save humanity or whatever, well… you’re screwed! You’re likely going to cause a worse future because we won’t have a history to learn from.

(Although… I might accept people promoting green living earlier in the world and protecting mother nature.) Even so, if this did happen, the future that the person returned to would have been changed by something they did. Thus, they would (in no way whatsoever) be returning to the present they know. Thus, we introduce the alternative universe paradox.

Now, this is up for debate in certain groups, but I personally am of the belief that if you change something in the past, it would alter your present to the point where you will return to an alternative present. Some people disagree. They believe that you would still return to your own universal present, but then what was the point in changing anything in the past if you don’t even get to reap the rewards of the good (or bad 😉 ) you achieved? Answer me that!

2. Do not let yourself see yourself!

This is another one that you see a lot of in science fiction films and books and it has more to do with psychology than technological science. The concept here is that people believe your brain would be unable to handle a second you in the world. It would literally fry itself out trying to understand how there is a second you standing in front of you.

I DISAGREE!

Because I almost always disagree, but I disagree in the sense that the human brain is something we do not fully understand. So who’s to say we wouldn’t be able to process a second us in the world? More importantly, I have met my own doppelganger before. My mind didn’t explode because I met a woman who looks 99% like me and more often than not people will rationalize that it’s a long-lost twin or something. I don’t believe the human brain would just implode because it saw a copy of itself. To suggest this would mean that the human brain is a lot less complicated and capable than we have previously believed. (But I’m not a neuroscientist or psychologist so I recommend discussing it with one of them. :p )

Furthermore, it’s been okay for your younger self to see your older self in time travel because… you don’t know it’s yourself? That still doesn’t make any sense. Just because you see a copy of yourself, doesn’t mean you’ll go insane. Honestly, time travel is such a huge concept in the world nowadays that I don’t think anyone would really balk at the idea of their future self coming back to warn/advise their past self. (Of course, when you do this you’re back in paradox theory. See #1)

3. The universe often makes it impossible to have personal gain.

Again. Not sure I agree with this one, but I also don’t fully believe in karma or the universe having a control over people, but this basically states that when you went into the past and gained valuable knowledge that could make you rich or famous or something that it will basically be null and void. You’ll end up losing said knowledge when you travel back into the future or something will have changed that makes your knowledge useless. Whatever the cause, you will be unable to change your present with knowledge you gained in the future

I think that this particular item is more a construct of our society than an actual rule/regulation/random effect of time travel. I think our society sees personal gain as wrong and that’s why it always ends up in the way that it does with the character gaining nothing from all the good that they did. And again. I don’t agree…. >.>

But what do you think about time travel?
What do you think would happen?
What rules would you follow?
Leave your thoughts below!

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And check out my discussion from last week:
“OverARCing“