Your priorities

K

kana_marie

Chrono Cadet
What do you personally hope to get out of time travel? Is it to change something that you don't believe should have ever happened ( 9/11 or Hitler maybe)? Is it to witness something ( who REALLY shot Kennedy maybe)? Maybe it's to learn from histories brightest in person rather than books (coffee with Einstein maybe)? Or maybe just meet someone you never had the chance to talk to (dead relative maybe)? To make money? Or possibly even get back at someone who wronged you, or correct your own mistakes? The possibilities are endless. I doubt any 2 people really want to go back, or forward, for the exact same reason.

I want to witness history for myself. I've read books and I've seen pictures, but it isn't the same.'imagine if you could watch an atomic bomb explode (from a very safe distance). Stand in the crowd to hear Martin Luther King Jr speak. Watch a dinosaur egg hatch. Or even go to the VERY beginning and watch the Big Bang happen, (that would have to be the grand finale. I don't think there is a safe distance for that one lol)

 
This is a very good question. What exactly are peoples' motives for time travel? We already know what the government would want to do.

Me? I'm not interested in money. Like you, I'd like to explore different historical periods to experience them first hand. Being a technology lover, I'd love to see what the future brings as well, especially all the new gadgets in the home. I'd be a time tourist. :) Wouldn't mind meeting a few interesting people like Tesla, either.

 
When I think about TT, for some reason it never leads to me to think about traveling to the future. I am a firm believer AGAINST "ignorance is bliss". But when dealing with the future any prior knowledge of what's to come is going to cause me to do one of two things:

1. Dread. I am not one to say "I am going to die one day. I should make the most of life." If I start allowing myself to think about dying, I'm going to lock myself in a closet hoping to avoid it as long as possible. When in all actuality, my cause of death will probably be listed as "spontaneous closet collapse."

Or 2. I will see something I am REALLY looking forward to and I will go out of my mind waiting impatiently. I will tell myself to calm down because going nuts over it won't make it happen any sooner. Meanwhile, I will do any and everything I can come up with to make it happen sooner. At least until I went total nuts, locked myself in a closet to hide from the monsters in my head, and died when the closet collapses on me.

My best bet is definitely sticking with the past.

 
I find history, especially pre-christian religions to be absolutely fascinating. I would love to visit those times for myself to observe their practices and lives. It would be the ultimate learning experience to actually be there instead of reading books written about that time period that are full of modern prejudices.

 
If we develop the ability to time travel i don't think we will have the power to influence or change anything in the past or future. I just have a feeling that time travel will be more of a mind orientated thing than a physical thing. Even though we may use machines to transport our bodies backwards or forwards and we may be able to move around and use our arms and legs i think that part of it will be of little significance.

I'm not sure we will have the power of speech or be able to make ourselves understood in another period of time, i am not certain either that people from the past or future will even be aware of our presence when we are there. I believe our role will be an observational one, we would be able to visit a time from our past and observe what is going on and feel the experience but we would not have the power to change or influence anything. The mind would be the primary tool, not the body in time travel.

 
If we develop the ability to time travel i don't think we will have the power to influence or change anything in the past or future. I just have a feeling that time travel will be more of a mind orientated thing than a physical thing. Even though we may use machines to transport our bodies backwards or forwards and we may be able to move around and use our arms and legs i think that part of it will be of little significance.I'm not sure we will have the power of speech or be able to make ourselves understood in another period of time, i am not certain either that people from the past or future will even be aware of our presence when we are there. I believe our role will be an observational one, we would be able to visit a time from our past and observe what is going on and feel the experience but we would not have the power to change or influence anything. The mind would be the primary tool, not the body in time travel.
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I actually really hope you're right. Things could be so much better right now. But things could also be a lot worse. I don't think it's possible to determine exactly what effect it will have if anything is changed.

 
If we are abiding by the definition of time travel where it is just a type of traveling, some things couldn't be accomplished. How would you find out who killed Kennedy with time travel? How would you see the big bang with time travel?

 
Personally, I would like to time travel to visit some of the great writers like Kerouac and see some of the musicians that I love so much that were unfortunately before my time, like Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Byrds, The Doors, etc.

 
If we're just traveling, I guess my first priority would be to figure out what sort of paradoxes are going on if we're zipping around time. If we're just simply changing things, and creating alternate timelines, there really is no point going back and changing things, since conceivably any outcome that CAN happen has already happened, and we'd just be making a redundant time line where the only thing that's changed is we intervened. Heck, think already to how many timelines there are out there now where Hitler died before rising to power.

If we can effectively manipulate the timeline and zip back and forth along it at various different points to witness the change in outcome though. I'd probably more than likely at first just use it for selfish gains. I know, I admit, I'm a pretty selfish person. I'm only human after all. but I think afterwards? I think afterwards I'd probably use that sort of power as a guiding tool for people. To bring back news of the future and try to prevent major catastrophes.

 
I would think that one could time travel as a sort of ghost.. think Ebeneezer Scrooge...although I must admit, that Adam Sandler in "Click: comes more to mind....where you can see everything, including yourself, but you can't be heard and cannot interfere, would be the best bet if one wanted to be a spectator. However, I don't know that one could ever NOT have some selfish motives if one intentionally changed the warp and woof off the web of time.. because whatever you changed, is what YOU wanted to change, not necessarily what the guy next to you would want. Not good or bad, necessarily, but it is what it is.

 
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