Trevor Jameson1
Temporal Novice
It is probably a mute point, because once 'time travel' has occurred, once the energy has been expended, there is no going home.
Timeline change? Or no effect? Discussion
- Thread starter Trevor Jameson1
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RainmanTime
Super Moderator
Darby
Epochal Historian
E. Or........ (your views)
You'd return to the present and either find that you (along with a zillion other folks) had won 2 cents each or, more logically, you wouldn't make the journey for that purpose because there would be no lottery or any other games of chance.
In this sort of world where time travel to the past is both possible and invented then everyone has the ability to cheat. You wouldn't be the only time traveler. Secrets get out and time travel implies that it has "forever in an instant" for the secret to get out and for the technology to permeate all of history. From all perspectives time travel simply "is, was and always will be".
If its always been there, if everyone can go to the past then there are no games of chance because everyone can cheat with a 100% chance of knowing the outcome. They don't even have to cheat. It's enough that they all have the ability to cheat.
In this sort of society it's unlikely that anyone would even contemplate games of chance, insurance or financial investment markets. They are all based on uncertainty of outcomes. In this world everyone knows or at least has the ability to know the outcome of all such events.
AskLaplace
Temporal Novice
This is a brilliant list you got here. Ok, here's my thoughts.
I think all of them hold equal value in argument. If I'm going to think rationally and take the answer that take the best chances of being right instead of choosing one that appeals to me, I'd say follow Occam's Razor. The theory with the least amount of assumption is the best theory. I'd say the least would be the one where it is absolutely impossible to time travel. But this is not a good idea because long ago they said airplanes are impossible too. It is very difficult to say some technology is non-existent in the future.
If you ask me what best appeals to me, it is the letter B. It is like your soul is shaped by the timeline.
I think all of them hold equal value in argument. If I'm going to think rationally and take the answer that take the best chances of being right instead of choosing one that appeals to me, I'd say follow Occam's Razor. The theory with the least amount of assumption is the best theory. I'd say the least would be the one where it is absolutely impossible to time travel. But this is not a good idea because long ago they said airplanes are impossible too. It is very difficult to say some technology is non-existent in the future.
If you ask me what best appeals to me, it is the letter B. It is like your soul is shaped by the timeline.
This is actually a really interesting question. I guess it depends on what you believe happens when an individual time travels. In this scenario, I would be going back in time and deliberately associating with myself from the past. If I were to inform him (me) of the winning lotto numbers, only he would be able to benefit from using them. So if he were to win the jackpot, that wouldn't necessarily delete me from that time line, I would still exist. So in theory, you could benefit yourself, but only another version of yourself, your past self. The version of you that went back in time would not be able to reap the rewards of the winning number (unless you and your past self came to some sort of agreement).
I think that if we do have the capacity to time travel we are fully aware of it and of the consequences it might carry. I don't know if this is something most people have the capacity to understand, but at the same time I don't think anyone would time travel just to win the lottery or to achieve material gains, it's a matter of accessing true knowledge.
Okay, this is the way I think it would happen. Might be missing some stuff, so forgive me.
If I went back in time a week and gave myself the winning lottery numbers, I'd have first done my research and seen how many winners there were and what the prize was. So I go back in time a week, and meet myself, convince him I'm from the future, and we successfully complete the plan. By going back in the first place, I've already forked into an alternate reality. In my original reality, I'm gone forever and nobody will ever hear from me again, but assume I didn't plan for that.
So I get back on my pad and go back one week into the future, roughly to where I was when I traveled back. Now that I'm in the future/present of the alternate reality, and not my own, I'm a clone of myself in that reality, and there will be two of us from now on. Alter-me has won the lottery, and he has the bucks, so I'd have to find some way to convince him that we have to coexist. It probably wouldn't be hard since we'd be identical in nearly every facet, so he could probably get a second job in the next town over that I'd work instead of him.
So what would happen is that I'd set myself up to be well off/rich as well as have a duplicate of myself in the world. That's just the way I think it would work, because in order to go back to my reality the time travel device would have to be able to transition realities on the return, and my assumption is that it wouldn't.
If I went back in time a week and gave myself the winning lottery numbers, I'd have first done my research and seen how many winners there were and what the prize was. So I go back in time a week, and meet myself, convince him I'm from the future, and we successfully complete the plan. By going back in the first place, I've already forked into an alternate reality. In my original reality, I'm gone forever and nobody will ever hear from me again, but assume I didn't plan for that.
So I get back on my pad and go back one week into the future, roughly to where I was when I traveled back. Now that I'm in the future/present of the alternate reality, and not my own, I'm a clone of myself in that reality, and there will be two of us from now on. Alter-me has won the lottery, and he has the bucks, so I'd have to find some way to convince him that we have to coexist. It probably wouldn't be hard since we'd be identical in nearly every facet, so he could probably get a second job in the next town over that I'd work instead of him.
So what would happen is that I'd set myself up to be well off/rich as well as have a duplicate of myself in the world. That's just the way I think it would work, because in order to go back to my reality the time travel device would have to be able to transition realities on the return, and my assumption is that it wouldn't.
Okay. I thought about your questions and read the responses, thus far. I choose B. Return to the present and find myself rich and remember winning? Yet, as mentioned this would change events for not only ourselves , but others too.
If I were to time travel in hopes of winning the lottery, I would make two time travel trips into the future. The first one to find out the winning numbers and the second one to a time just a few days before the winning numbers drawn. This way, when I went back to the point of my original point in life, I would not have changed events up to this point, but would know and plan for my winning in the near future.
mr_paradox
Chrono Cadet
Most events are based on a variety of factors, so to actually change the outcome of things, you would have to change multiple events in the past. Lets say you managed to get back to 1918 and killed Adolf Hitler. This would still not change the fact that the Germans lost WW1, and the economic crisis that Germany faced after WW1. Europe was always anti Jewish and blamed Jews for their economic woes. Hitler's ideas where popular since they where common ideas. So if there was not an actual Hitler, there probably would have been a guy very similar to him.
It would be more effective to change events leading to the formation of the Nazi party, than to kill Hitler. Without the party, Hitler couldn't have used it to rise to power. He'd already had his own ingrained beliefs by that time of his life, but without some political force to back him, he would have been what he was - an art college reject down on his luck.
It could result in you winning in that time, maybe some money but not enough to make you rich since in this time you don't know if you will win and if you meet the other you he could want the money for himself and try and cheat you after the hard work is done or just give some money to you. If you set the correct date and time, than you will go to the right period otherwise you will go somewhere else and also will be hard to get back if the machine breaks down or a glitch happens. It would be good to go back in time, and get the lottery numbers and come back and use them and enjoy the benefits and know you have the money there for your use.
This is actually a fascinating question to which I have already give it a lot of thought. Sadly, I only reach the conclusion that my mind cannot understand what would happen. Strange things do happen in our lives, so in the same way we have seen it in so many movies, so eventually there are time travelers out there changing things and we don't even notice it.
Oh, you made me laugh aloud, with your comment, we could cheat ourselves. If this was the case, I think our current self, upon return, could find ourselves in a different financial position, thus not cheating ourselves. You know similar to Back to the Future scenario. Again, you would have the possibility of changing a number of areas in your life, that you may surprise you. Maybe, to your surprise in ways that may not appreciate. After all, as the saying goes, money does not always equal happiness. Exactly what your former self does with the winnings seems kind of risky, indeed!
Do you really think that those with the capacity to time travel would make it for financial reasons? If so those who can are most likely those who rule the word?... I just wish there were no selfish reasons behind these powers and that we could benefit mankind with them.
spectrumisgreen1
Temporal Novice
As O.P...Looks like I started a lively debate... with regard to the Hitler thing, Stephen Fry wrote a novel entitled 'Making History' which was one of the best killing Hitler plots I've read (Spoiler alert, he actually prevented the birth of Hitler)
in relation to the lottery..... I don't know the outcome as much as the next person ... but if it ever happens I'll let you know.....
in relation to the lottery..... I don't know the outcome as much as the next person ... but if it ever happens I'll let you know.....
I find this presentation pretty good myself. Not to mention, Katherine Heigl is not hard to look at.
The Twilight Zone (2002) Season 1 Episode 5: "Cradle of Darkness".
Katherine Heigl is chosen to "stop" Hitler.
“What if you had a chance to go back in time, to save millions of lives by killing one man? Andrea Collins will soon discover this mission to be more difficult than she ever imagined, as she takes a one-way trip into The Twilight Zone.”
(opening narration)
The Twilight Zone (2002) Season 1 Episode 5: "Cradle of Darkness".
Katherine Heigl is chosen to "stop" Hitler.
“What if you had a chance to go back in time, to save millions of lives by killing one man? Andrea Collins will soon discover this mission to be more difficult than she ever imagined, as she takes a one-way trip into The Twilight Zone.”
(opening narration)
What ever happened to the thought that if you went back in time you could not go to meet yourself because this would cause some sort of temporal whatcha ma jig it? Same energy in the same place if I recall, but it has been a long time since I read that idea. I think the thought was it would cause some sort of annihilation of energies or something like that, because it would be the same force meeting itself.
Anyway, I think if you could go back and give yourself the winning numbers, the you that did that would not enjoy the gains, I agree you would probably be stuck in that time line and start a new life in the new (older) time span. As far as the "you" that gets the winning numbers goes, there are many different scenarios that could play out, they could win (but you would never have experienced that on your original path), they could forget to play, lose the ticket or any other number of probabilities.
I feel like we live all probabilities simultaneously, to go back in time does not mean that you will necessary go back to the exact time you experienced, it might look like it, but it would not be it. The you then would be a stranger in many ways because the experience would be different, even if just slightly. This is definitely a great question that I will no doubt be pondering for awhile.
Anyway, I think if you could go back and give yourself the winning numbers, the you that did that would not enjoy the gains, I agree you would probably be stuck in that time line and start a new life in the new (older) time span. As far as the "you" that gets the winning numbers goes, there are many different scenarios that could play out, they could win (but you would never have experienced that on your original path), they could forget to play, lose the ticket or any other number of probabilities.
I feel like we live all probabilities simultaneously, to go back in time does not mean that you will necessary go back to the exact time you experienced, it might look like it, but it would not be it. The you then would be a stranger in many ways because the experience would be different, even if just slightly. This is definitely a great question that I will no doubt be pondering for awhile.