Would it be right to go back and change something?

I believe that if we were to go and change something the person who went back and changed the events would find themselves on an alternate worldline. So unless the person has something they could personally gain from that situation being changed, it is rather pointless.

 
If it were clear that alterations to the past created a new alternate universe within the broader multiverse rather than wiping the previous continuity out of existence, I would be considerably less anxious about not changing the past (and, indeed, my very existence and even minor interactions constitute changing the past to some degree). However, I would still be very cautious about not creating a paradox by changing my own past, would keep my true origins as a visitor from the future a closely-guarded secret, and would avoid tinkering with major events.

 
I wouldn't strive to change anything that happened in the past. Maybe if I was given the chance to time travel, I wouldn't change anything because first of all, I couldn't really do anything to stop Hitler or stop the terrorist attacks even if I knew the results. Second, I believe our future is already planned out and whatever happens in this world was bound to happen and has a reason, whether good or bad. So yeah I wouldn't try to change anything but I'd still grab the opportunity to time travel just for the sake of witnessing the events. However, if I were to go back to my own past, I'd probably only consider changing how I acted towards people, especially those I have offended. I hate to hold grudges and I hate being held grudges on.

 
I think that trying to change things, or stop certain events from happening, would definitely have certain consequences in the future. And there’s no way of knowing whether the alternate future would be any better. I have mixed feelings about things happening for a reason, but if the butterfly effect is real, even a tiny change could have drastic consequences. So eliminating some of the world’s greatest tragedies and screw-ups, who’s to say that something worse couldn’t end up coming along?

 
I believe in destiny and fate and that if something is supposed to happen it will one way or another. I have seen and experienced it in this life, where you avoid a course of action, but eventually it happens because it is meant to.

I don't think you can change things, even if you go back in time and you think you have changed it. Nature has a way of correcting itself and adjusting things back. As for should you? Well, many people would like to, but then it changes the person that you are as those experiences are part of you.

 
My own personal opinion, is that time should not be changed. I believe that everything happens for a reason. If you avoid one tragedy, what's to say that another separate tragedy won't happen in its place? What if the new scenario is actually worse than the original one? In any case, time will always find a way to catch up to you.

 
This is a more complex scenario than we can thought in my opinion. If we go back to the past to change something then our action will influence in some way our present right? Maybe we won't even exist? This is the perfect example of the paradox issue. For me, if it possible of course, it would be right to change something in the past if this has the aim to modify the things in a better way.

 
For me, if it possible of course, it would be right to change something in the past if this has the aim to modify the things in a better way.
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And the elephant in the room says, "Who decides what's better?"

 
You could change the past but you could erase yourself from this world in the process. It's not something that everyone can do and it can have a lot of repercussions.

It would be cool if we could change the tragedies from the past though.

 
Would it be right to go back to try to stop Hitler from going into power?'
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How do you know that stopping Hitler from getting into power would be the right thing to do ? Hitler had a mental disorder of some sort, he lost the war because of his mistakes. So maybe if you eliminated Hitler a leader which actually wasn't insane might have gotten into power. Germany and Japan would have won WW2, and things would have been even worse.
Modern American foreign policy is an example of this. USA attempts to fix a problem, but to fix it usually they cause a bigger problem. The whole middle east is an example of this.

 
This is a question that is always pondered in time travel. Do we have the right to stop a tragic event from happening knowing now what we didn't then. For example would it be right to try to go back and stop the events of September 11, 2001? Would it be right to go back to try to stop Hitler from going into power?
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Try this for perspective.
Let's assume that on the day your parents first met they were out for a walk two blocks from each other. They were on separate streets walking in opposite directions. Tragically there was a traffic accident that occurred between them somewhere in the neighborhood wherein the occupants of the cars died. Your parents were drawn to the sound of the accident. They're good people so they rendered first aid at the scene. That's how they met. The rest is love, marriage, your birth and history.

But...

Mr. Sad Face has a time machine. He also witnessed the accident and as a result suffers from PTSD because he saw it happen and couldn't do anything to stop it. He's decided to use his gadget to change history by saving everyone from the accident. And so he does.

There's no accident; there's no sound drawing your parents to the scene - they continue walking in opposite directions. They never meet and you are never born. In fact, they each marry someone else and have entire sets of children that were never born in the original history. A hundred years later all of the hundreds of resulting progeny have engaged in hundreds of marriages that never existed in the original history resulting in thousands of children being born that never existed in the original...et sic in aeternum.

Do you really want to change the past?

 
But...

Mr. Sad Face has a time machine. He also witnessed the accident and as a result suffers from PTSD because he saw it happen and couldn't do anything to stop it. He's decided to use his gadget to change history by saving everyone from the accident. And so he does.

There's no accident; there's no sound drawing your parents to the scene - they continue walking in opposite directions. They never meet and you are never born. In fact, they each marry someone else and have entire sets of children that were never born in the original history. A hundred years later all of the hundreds of resulting progeny have engaged in hundreds of marriages that never existed in the original history resulting in thousands of children being born that never existed in the original...et sic in aeternum.

Do you really want to change the past?

While I agree changing the past is not a good idea, I tend to believe fate would still bring your parents together. As @Einstein points out, "It probably doesn't matter if you change anything. If all the possibilities already exist, then you would merely just be following an alternate path through time." Or in the case of the OP and the suggestion of stopping Hitler, if not Hitler, someone else. After all, it was not a one man show and the tragic events were bound to happen either way.

 
One of the reasons I pursue Government and Military technology in regards to Time Travel are because, quite frankly we, as interested researchers, need more information as to what can, and cannot be done. For instance: How far can an entropy advance before it becomes far too chaotic to reverse?

You pour a bottle of green dye into your swimming pool-it dissipates, never to be able to be un-dissipated. Same with an explosion. How long after an explosion can it be reversed.

I suspect there is a very short time in which you could actually reverse an event/decay/entropy/chaos.

 
even if we did ..no one would know... people with time travel abilities might be doing this all the time and we will never know because the time line would change,,.. and as far as we know , thats the way its always been...your memories of your past would change and your world would change and this could be happening several times a day and we would be totally unaware of it,,, as far as I know , I could have been a millionare , living on my yatch yesterday... but if someone changes the timeline, I suddenly become a nurse, and as far as I'm aware.. I have been for 25 years !

 
No, it is best to deal with what has already happened and try improving from it. Changing the past can create more(and even worse) problems, the consequences of what has been done to change the past.

 
i would be careful to not go back farther than the birth of my son. Changing something before his birth which could result in him not being born wouldn't be worth any gain

 
I would say that its possible but not advisable to attempt to change anything the universe will have all things as it should, as hard as it would be to not to interfere in the 9/11 tragedy it was ment to have happened I know its not easy for the families to comprehend that but I think it was supposed to happen

 
I probably would change bad events in history if there were a multiverse.But it would probably cause a temporal war.Because some people would not want their history changed.You would have to figure out a way not to alert them of history being altered.So you can stay in your current time line.

 
I did some research into the time slip phenomenon and found that quite a few reported time slips imply physical time travel, so the possible effects of the witnesses' interactions (mostly in the past) on the present was an issue I had to consider. The scientific consensus is that such effects are possible, but the present is what it is as a result of all possible causative influences, including the present and the future, so if you know that Hitler existed and did what he did, you can't alter that. Therefore your attempt, assuming you still try, has already failed, and you cannot do anything to make it succeed. I did come across an interesting report of a telepathic effect on the past in the book "Journeys with a Sufi Master" by H. B. M. Dervish, where a dervish community demonstrated that they could change someone's life by making his son a financial success.

 
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