Thought experiment: How far back would you go?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

So there's nothing that has happened since then that you would miss enough to stop you?

Not really other than a few friends which I'd hopefully be able to get to know again anyway.

Oh, and there is no alternate timeline - it ends with you using the machine - it's a bit of a cop-out otherwise.

Yeah that's a bit of a dilemma because it means I'm responsible for changing everyone else's lives as well. Not sure if I would do it in this case. There are a few people that I would have to discuss it with first at least - and if I start going around telling people I've got a time machine, and asking them if they think it would be OK for me to use it - and undo all their lives, who knows what would happen?

But they will never know. If they are young enough, they might never be born at all. It's your chance to do a part of your life over but you cannot predict the consequences. beginning to see the dilemma now? :twisted:

[PsychoSerenity]

So there's nothing that has happened since then that you would miss enough to stop you?

Not really other than a few friends which I'd hopefully be able to get to know again anyway.

Oh, and there is no alternate timeline - it ends with you using the machine - it's a bit of a cop-out otherwise.

Yeah that's a bit of a dilemma because it means I'm responsible for changing everyone else's lives as well. Not sure if I would do it in this case. There are a few people that I would have to discuss it with first at least - and if I start going around telling people I've got a time machine, and asking them if they think it would be OK for me to use it - and undo all their lives, who knows what would happen?

But they will never know. If they are young enough, they might never be born at all. It's your chance to do a part of your life over but you cannot predict the consequences. beginning to see the dilemma now? :twisted:

As far as my life goes it wouldn't really matter - I don't even know anyone younger than 15.

But potentially erasing Ian's children and marriage, when he clearly wouldn't want me to, crosses a moral boundary for me. And the fact that he would never know, doesn't make it any better - I would still know, and I just couldn't do that.

Edit to add: I think you should allow Ian's children continue to live in this universe while I move to another one - that way the dilemma is personal to the time traveller, and not a moral dilemma about whether it's right or wrong to undo the lives of others.

[Lion IRC]

....Again, that is the dilemma. Now, is there anything you would like a second chance at, or to correct, that much?

That really is the dilemma isnt it?

And it emphasizes the point that nothing much matters unless it is "live to air".

No "out-takes" or air-brushing. No editing your posts. No time travel "second chance".

Going back and changing something would dimish and devalue the importance/meaning of the original event.

You might think you were making a digitally "enhanced" improvement but you would always know that it was somehow not quite "real". You faked it.

Lion (IRC)

[ColonelZen]

Has anyone considered that they might be destroying this timeline, "killing" the people who live on it, particularly those who would not be born on the new worldline?

And for that matter, literally destroying the lives of the people of this timeline, whatever they've accomplished, whatever they've achieved.

We can extrapolate from the specified conditions that we may well lack the means to know whether the original timeline persists in any meaningful sense to it's participants after you push the button.

So let's presume that knowledge is intrinsically unknowable.

Now, would you push the button?

-- TWZ

[Twoflower]

April 21 2000.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Has anyone considered that they might be destroying this timeline, "killing" the people who live on it, particularly those who would not be born on the new worldline?

And for that matter, literally destroying the lives of the people of this timeline, whatever they've accomplished, whatever they've achieved.

We can extrapolate from the specified conditions that we may well lack the means to know whether the original timeline persists in any meaningful sense to it's participants after you push the button.

So let's presume that knowledge is intrinsically unknowable.

Now, would you push the button?

-- TWZ

I have already stated that the original timeline is completely lost here. (I missed it in the OP.) Once you go back, time resumes at exactly the point that you have chosen and things change - slightly at first, but the effects are cumulative and unpredictable.

Welcome to Ratz btw.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

April 21 2000.

I know why that would be.

[PsychoSerenity]

Has anyone considered that they might be destroying this timeline, "killing" the people who live on it, particularly those who would not be born on the new worldline?

And for that matter, literally destroying the lives of the people of this timeline, whatever they've accomplished, whatever they've achieved.

We can extrapolate from the specified conditions that we may well lack the means to know whether the original timeline persists in any meaningful sense to it's participants after you push the button.

So let's presume that knowledge is intrinsically unknowable.

Now, would you push the button?

-- TWZ

Yeah I considered it - and if it does destroy the timeline, I wouldn't do it - and if it doesn't, I would.

But if it's intrinsically unknowable then how do we know anything will be left when we use it? It might just be and end of the universe device.

Welcome

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Has anyone considered that they might be destroying this timeline, "killing" the people who live on it, particularly those who would not be born on the new worldline?

And for that matter, literally destroying the lives of the people of this timeline, whatever they've accomplished, whatever they've achieved.

We can extrapolate from the specified conditions that we may well lack the means to know whether the original timeline persists in any meaningful sense to it's participants after you push the button.

So let's presume that knowledge is intrinsically unknowable.

Now, would you push the button?

-- TWZ

Yeah I considered it - and if it does destroy the timeline, I wouldn't do it - and if it doesn't, I would.

But if it's intrinsically unknowable then how do we know anything will be left when we use it? It might just be and end of the universe device.

Welcome

I have updated the OP to reflect the fate of the current timeline.

[rachelbean]

17 years old. So much potential wasted. I'm still trying to fix it, but wow If I could go back

[Boyle]

August 5th, 2004. I missed so much in HS that I wish I hadn't. Oh, and getting proper marks this time, that'd be nice.

[Random Mutant]

I'm not even remotely tempted to use it... not that my life is perfect in any way, but I have a wonderful wife, a young son and another arriving in a month. I love and I am loved. What more could one want?

The conditions of the time machine mean that it is unlikely you'd be able to make any illicit gains, and since you need to work hard to get to where you are, it just means more hard work. I don't have enough regrets to want to try to do a makeover, and since my regrets are already in the past, they would stay in my memory whether or not I time travel.

Having said I'm not tempted, the salicious thought of humping my way through university again (knowing what I know now) might be attractive, but from my older, wiser, post-university perspective it's not enough in the grand scheme of things to warrant a reset of the second half of my life.

[Twoflower]

April 21 2000.

I know why that would be.

I use to dream of being able to go back in time and changing everything. Then I would wonder how much different my family would be, I can't see how we would end up in a position that is worse that how our lives turned out.

[orpheus]

I would use it to go back about twenty seconds.

The bit about two sets of memories existing side-by-side fascinates me. And I like the feeling of déjà-vu. Always have. So this seems like a good way to induce perpetual déjà-vu. It would be an interesting life.

[Hermit]

How far back would you go?

Thanks for the invitation, but I would decline to avail myself of the opportunity to travel back in time altogether.

For the first time I see some sense in this sentiment expressed by so many people: "I would not change anything, for everything I did made me what I am today." Anything, no matter how minor, that we change on the second go at our lives will have major repercussions (butterfly effect) down the line, and given the memory of the future past, changes are bound to occur. Under those circumstances I cannot conceive of the possibility that I would once more be where I am with the person I am with right now. The memory of this here and now will be something that will never have happened, making me possibly the most miserable person on earth.

As a side note, this is also the first time I could think of something even faintly useful to say in reply to a ridiculous hypothetical scenario.