102. Snowowl - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:52 PM PDT
Huh Random? You don't need to time travel to meet the Dalai Lama, he's alive and well and living in India.
103. JJBiener - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:54 PM PDT
After ScottLoar's mine is kind of minor. I would like to jam with Elvis when he was at Sun Records. Hang out with the Beatles at the Carvern in Liverpoole. Play backup for Janis Joplin at Monterey Pop. Sit in with the Allman Brothers at the Filmore East. You get the idea.
104. cigarlaw - Sep. 9, 1998 - 10:06 PM PDT
I wouldn't go back in time. I have already hit the beach at Normandy, stood at the high-water mark and watched Pickett's charge, rode with Custer at the Little Big Horn, fought at the Alamo, stood by Napoleon at Liepzig, charged the field at Culloden Moor, fought Saxons with Arthur, listened to the Sermon on the Mount, knew King David and saw Achilles die. The future is far more exciting.
105. patsyrolph - Sep. 9, 1998 - 11:28 PM PDT
The name of the movie with Tyrone Power and the Dalhi Lama is The Razor's Edge.
Assuming an amazing ability to read any language and with proper innoculations, I'd like to browse through the Library at Alexandria before anyone had messed with it.
Time travel having made me young and lovely I would like to meet Archilocus.
In reality, I'll play this hand.
106. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 1:05 AM PDT
What to do?
I'd:
observe Jesus of Nazareth, Mohammed, Siddharta Gautama and probably others, and take lots of notes. From these notes I would write a best-seller novel that no one would ever believe and I'd be strangely reticent about all my days, only handing the secret down with much care to a handpicked cadre. Inadvertently, I suppose, I would resurrect the Knights Templar or something;
stand at Roswell at 1947 with a camera, and perhaps be pleasantly surprised to see a UFO;
have a couple of lawn chairs on the Grassy Knoll, and Felipe and I and whoever else came along could sip iced tea and watch (of course, if there *was* a gunman on the grassy knoll, we'd probably all just get whacked);
sit in seedy bars with Ernest Hemingway, John Berryman, Dylan Thomas, and any number of others and just bullshit for hours, to try to find what happened that they let their demons comsume them, but mostly just to talk;
photograph everything;
walk the streets of Cahokia, Teotihuacan, and Tenochtitlan;
sit in the gallery and listen to Socrates, because I doubt he said all of that;
be one of Queen Elizabeth's lovers, unless she was horrid;
(no, not the second one, I might otherwise inadvertently be responsible for Prince Charles);
find out the truth about William Shakespeare;
watch Alexander of Macedon thrash Darius again at Arbela and pick up an arrow, procure a little vial of the water running in the Rubicon when Julius crossed it, take a sword from one of the fallen knights at Agincourt, and start my own antiques shop;
see Stonehenge in its prime, the Sphinx with a nose, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and the Ark of the Covenant;
Take Petrarch out and get him laid so as to spare the world his whiny, slobbering sonnets;
watch Shoeless Joe play;
be a roadie for Liszt;
remember Woodstock;
get high with our hemp-smoking first president and talk politics with my man TJ;
tour Europe during 1848;
107. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 1:06 AM PDT
patiently explain to a frantic Chris Columbus that he was nowhere near India and ask him if he'd ever gotten anywhere with Isabella;
stand in the eye of Hurricane Camille and howl like Whitman on crack...
I'd visit my aunt for years, and watch my parents dance at their prom, and meet my grandfather so I could finally have a chance to learn a lot of things I'll never know about my father's family. And I'd come up with a new list, then.
108. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 1:12 AM PDT
I would probably also win the 109109 Shallowness Cup and go back and tell my ignorant high school self who I should hit on and who I shouldn't. And I'd probably also do whatever it took to buy shares in IBM or Microsoft or Wal-Mart.
Maybe I'd be corruptible enough to set myself up as a god or something.
I do know that I would relentlessly mock Rousseau and see how good Voltaire would be at spades. I think I might take 'Little Nico' Machiavelli as partner, though, were we to have a cross-temporal card game.
109. Fraaank9 - Sep. 10, 1998 - 2:47 AM PDT
Great thread!
( I am taken back a bit to that old Irwin Allen TV show the "Time Tunnel" after reading some of these posts.Good posts )
I would like to pay Florence Italy a visit at the time Leonardo made it his stomping grounds.I'd observe and follow him around as much as possible to see just what made this genius tick ? Who were his friends and peers ? Where did his ideas originate,etc., Also,I'd want him to reveal just who was this "Mona Lisa" chick that fancied his heart.What is she smiling about ?
I would also go back to Liverpool circa late fifties,and see if I could squeeze out not only Pete Best,but also Ringo Starr for that coveted drum stool.Hey,I would know all the songs right ? "Lennon and Frank",Hehehehe.
Go back to the mid 40's to see if I could prevent the Cold War somehow...I would need help here.If I could just show those in power how this lunacy bankrupted both countries for generations to come.
It's late.Time to hit the sack,night all!
110. TheDiva - Sep. 10, 1998 - 5:39 AM PDT
Oh boy. This is the one I've been waiting for.
First, I'd go far back enough in time so that I could meet the Blessed Mother and be with her as she meets and marries Joseph, gives birth to Jesus, and rears him to adulthood. I'd find out what went on with the Holy Family from when Jesus was 12 until he was 30. I'd follow him on his ministry and through to the Resurrection. It gives me chills just to think of it.
Then I'd probably go to Renaissance Italy and watch Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel, and bash around with the de Medicis. I *definitely* want to have dinner with Machiavelli. I think I'd also like to meet that patron saint of Pushy Italian Women, Catherine of Siena.
Hop on over to listen to Bach improv for a while (Philistine, move over), and hear Mozart conduct "Le Nozze di Figaro" for the first time.
I'd visit with Jane Austen and talk to her about her novels.
I'd visit with Sun Tsu and ask him to expound further on "The Art of War".
Fast forward to New Orleans, circa 1900, to watch jazz being born. Of course, then I'd be anointed with the most awesome sax chops ever, so I could play with all the greats.......Billie, Ella, Basie, Bird, Duke, all my heroes.
I'd dance with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and the Nicholas Brothers.
I'd sit at the Round Table and listen to Dorothy, Edna, Alexander et al trade bon mots until late in the evening. Then we'd go to a speakeasy and dance until the wee hours.
I'd move in next door to my grandmother and grandfather just after they were married, so I could have the years with them that I never did. God, I miss them.
111. Bubbaette - Sep. 10, 1998 - 5:58 AM PDT
I would return to 1974 and not meet my first husband and not get married.
112. TheDiva - Sep. 10, 1998 - 5:58 AM PDT
I'd have to meet and spend time with:
Abraham(the connection that Islam, Judaism and Christianity have to him is so fascinating to me)
Mohammed around the time that he received the Koran (if I've got the name and the mode of transmittal correct)
Also, Moses and the Buddha. Oh! And Queen Esther, and King David.
113. marjoribanks - Sep. 10, 1998 - 6:16 AM PDT
I'm more actively interested in the future: How will things turn out? So, my pressing use for the Time Machine would be to travel ahead, first just five years hence, then to every tenth or twentieth year thereafter.
After satisfying my curiosity I'd check out some of the historical events and individuals who still hold some mystery for me.
1) Alfonso da Albuquerque's establishment of a European colony in the Indian subcontinent (to try and dissuade my ancestors from collaborating with him).
2) St Francis Xavier (to confirm that he was an unholy, mean-spirited individual)
3) Alexander the Great (see whether or not he deserves the nickname)
4) Jesus ( to discuss the implications of his cult)
5) The Buddha (to ask advice)
6) Gandhi, MLK, Bobby Kennedy, Sadat, Rabin, Lumumba (to warn of assassination attempts)
114. Msivorytower - Sep. 10, 1998 - 6:16 AM PDT
ScottLoar Message #95
I'd like to observe some events in pre-history, gather information on lost peoples, and clarify our beliefs about those times. Otherwise, I agree that the past is best undisturbed.
Personally, I see no value in changing past events, since it's likely that other events would unfold that are equally unpleasant (perhaps moreso).
Haske Message #98
I like the way you think. Can I accompany you?
115. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 6:32 AM PDT
MsIT,
Why would you think that changing the past is any more likely to lead to bad events than the actions that you take in the present are likely to lead to bad events? (got that?) Given that you have more knowledge about how the past DID turn out than you know about how the future will turn out, it seems much more likely that you would improve the present by visiting the past. (At least, "improve" as a function of your value structure, of course.)
116. Msivorytower - Sep. 10, 1998 - 6:40 AM PDT
Selene
You assume that the events you went back to change would have the intended effects on the present. An event that caused signigicant problems in your time line might, when corrected, have a completely different impact on the new time line you created.
IOW, it's as likely that the change could result in unintended consequences as the act itself did. The probability of anything improving then, is exactly the same as it was when the event took place, only the consequences that unfold are completely unknown or unknowable.
117. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 6:49 AM PDT
MsIT, you sound suspicially like a fatalist. I repeat - you have more information to work with if you change the past than you do when you act in the present. The only way that this information would make things worse in the past is if you make negative use of that information - you act against your own best interests.
All actions have unintended consequences. You would know more about the likely consequences of past actions than of current ones, so the likelihood of bad consequences from "new" past actions is necessarily less than that of bad consequences from current actions.
I'm not saying that you couldn't wreak havoc with time-travel, but that the chances of doing so are less likely than from your current actions.
118. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 6:50 AM PDT
make that "chances of *unintentionally* doing so."
119. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 6:52 AM PDT
MsIT -
More: you might not know the full impact of your past actions, but you would know what other actors are doing at the same time, and what other actors will be doing in the "future" before your actions interact with them. You have a tremendous advantage.
120. Msivorytower - Sep. 10, 1998 - 6:55 AM PDT
"You would know more about the likely consequences of past actions than of current ones, so the likelihood of bad consequences from "new" past actions is necessarily less than that of bad consequences from current actions."
No, you'd know more about the likely consequences as history unfolded in your old time line, you'd know NOTHING about the consequences as new events unfolded in the changed time line. The information you have pertains only to a limited set of actions and results, what the change brings to any one of these actions is unknowable. That is, the probability of knowing the effects is exactly the same as when the original event occurred.
"I'm not saying that you couldn't wreak havoc with time-travel, but that the chances of doing so are less likely than from your current actions."
And people call *me* arrogant.
ScottLoar is correct, the past belongs to those who lived it, and we really have no right to change anything.
121. DocBrown - Sep. 10, 1998 - 6:55 AM PDT
Wow, TIME TRAVEL! Here's a subject I've never thought of before!
Recreation in the past: I would be delighted to go to Auburn, Indiana in the summer of 1932 and take a brand new Duesenberg SJ for a test drive.
Personal gain from the past: I would go to the 50s and buy one of the few Tucker 48 preproduction cars, which were dirt cheap then but sell for millions now. I know there are better ways to make money with a time machine, but this is a prestige thing.
Changing history: I would go to the mid 70s and discourage the British government from financing John DeLorean. Everyone would have been better off if he had built his plant in Puerto Rico with American money.
122. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 6:58 AM PDT
Doc, Not to repeat myself (well, ok, to repeat myself):
Don't waste time picking stocks - just go back a few hours and buy today's lottery ticket. Hell, buy one from every state. Bill Gates - move over.
MsIT - what would the bad consequences be from what I doing what I just suggested? Don't tell me that my going back a few hours, hundreds of miles away from the drawing, would change the winning lotter number!
123. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:09 AM PDT
MsIT,
"No, you'd know more about the likely consequences as history unfolded in your old time line, you'd know NOTHING about the consequences as new events unfolded in the changed time line"
Ok - I think that we're operating from different assumptions. My assumption is that the only things which change in the past are those which my presence directly effect. In other words, nothing outside my time-cone (nothing farther away from me than could be reached at the speed of light from the time I arrived) could possibly change. And that's just the upper bound.
You seem to be operating from the assumption that if you go back in time, then ALL quantum uncertainty is still uncertain. If that's true, then I couldn't even go back and buy a lottery ticket, different numbers would win every time.
124. DocBrown - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:11 AM PDT
All of these causality concerns about changing history make a huge assumption that human beings have a causeless Free Will. I see no reason to make that assumption.
If you instead assume that all human actions and thoughts are caused, then you don't need to worry about changing history.
I cannot go back to the year 1910 and kill my own grandfather because I know survived longer than that. But I might be able to go back and talk to him, assuming he remembers me doing so. In fact, if he remembers our conversation in 1910 then I have no choice . . . I must go back in time. Taking it a step farther, I must *want* to go back in time at the appropriate moment and have the appropriate convertsation. At the same time it is impossible for me to want to go back and kill him.
Causality, Time Travel, and Free Will: if any two of them exist, then the third cannot.
BTW this implies that by far the best use of Time Travel would be to go forward in time to obtain information about the future. It also implies that time travel to our era or earlier will never be possible, since we are not currently being visited by time travellers.
125. stostosto - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:17 AM PDT
Gee, what an intriguing thread, FrayVader!
I have often wondered what Johann Sebastian Bach would think of modern music - and what kind of music he would make if he had access to all the bells and whistles of our time... I should think he'd be able to relate to artists like Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach, Quincy Jones, Eric Clapton, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, and - why not? - Sam Finkelstein.
126. TheDiva - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:19 AM PDT
Now there's an intriguing trio.....Bach, Duke and Bird. God, what a jam session *that* would be.
127. marjoribanks - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:21 AM PDT
Maybe Time Travel has certain incontrovertible rules.
1) You can only observe from a distance
2) You cannot interfere with what you see
3) You cannot enter the Future
If these indeed are the case, my interest in Time Travel would be much more casual. I'd use is as I use the internet, to satisfy idle curiosity.
128. ScottLoar - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:22 AM PDT
I would not want anyone disturbing my present for the sake of curiousity or vicarious pleasure then flitting away to the safe familiarity of their own time, even if it were so slight as a dragonfly upon water.
129. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:22 AM PDT
Doc,
Your paradox only holds if causality does not "time-travel" with you. For time-travel to be meaningful at all, you must be able to change the past (if nothing else, you convert some O2 to CO2 while you're there.)
130. marjoribanks - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:22 AM PDT
" use IT"
131. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:28 AM PDT
marjori -
That scenario was explored in Asimov's short story: "The Distant Past." WARNING - ENDING-SPOILING INFO TO BE REVEALED! In that story, he makes the case that time-viewers would become the equivalent of peeping toms, watching what other did just nanoseconds ago. Mothers of children who died would waste their lives watching the accidents over and over. Like having a permenant VCR installed everywhere, for all time.
132. stostosto - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:29 AM PDT
Irrelevant question: Why do some of the headlines on the list of threads have the letters "R.I.P." in front of them?
133. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:30 AM PDT
The only non-paradoxical time travel is into the future. But we do that now, minute by minute.
134. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:31 AM PDT
stostosto,
Because - once fraysters realized that the thread was about to be pulled, they started posting to it again. (RIP = Rest In Peace.)
135. TheDiva - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:32 AM PDT
Sto
"Rest In Peace"....means the thread is on its way out.
136. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:32 AM PDT
Oops, Doc, make that "causality DOES time travel with you."
137. TheDiva - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:33 AM PDT
The only thing I would *change* about the past would be where I was when my grandmother died. I never got a chance to say goodbye to her.
138. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:38 AM PDT
Ariel (or anyone),
I remember a book about time travel where only your consciousness time-travelled, and then only within your own person. That is, you could go back and relive experiences, changing them as you wished, sorta like the quantum leap tv show but only in your own past life. The protagonist traveled back and forth, reliving everything until his life was absolutely perfect, everything exactly how he wanted it. Only then did he quit moving backwards, and let his consiousness proceed to his death.
Anyone remember the title or author?
139. stostosto - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:39 AM PDT
Diva,
That is pretty unambtious... Why not travel back to, say, Vienna 1912 and kill Hitler?
Btw, has anyone yet debated the idea of an infinity of parallel universes? That would solve the causality paradox --- or would it complicate it?
140. TheDiva - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:43 AM PDT
Sto
No thanks, I'll leave that to someone else to fantasize. I don't think I'd change anything other than what I've mentioned. Anyway, see my Message #110 and Message #111 for all the other things I mean to do. Ya want ambition? We got ambition! ;-)
141. DocBrown - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:00 AM PDT
AdamSelene, the Asimov short story is actually called "The Dead Past." It's a classic on two levels, one about time travel and the other about technology creating rapid, radical social change.
Earlier someone mistook "The Philadelphia Experiment" and "The Final Countdown" as the same movie. These were seperate theatrical movies that both came out when I was a teenager. Both movies stink, although Final Countdown's scenes of Japanese Zeroes and American F14s flying side-by-side are amusing.
142. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:05 AM PDT
Right - "the DEAD past."
I enjoyed Final Countdown. Much better than the usual tv TT crap. I especially enjoyed the trick ending with the limo occupants.
143. DocBrown - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:05 AM PDT
AdamSelene said:
> Your paradox only holds if causality does
> not "time-travel" with you. For time-travel
> to be meaningful at all, you must be able
> to change the past (if nothing else, you
> convert some O2 to CO2 while you're there.)
It is not a paradox, and it holds true no matter what. The only way I can travel from 1998 back to 1910 and consume oxygen is if I have already done it. If I never arrived in 1910, then I cannot depart from 1998 . . . I probably cannot even *want* to depart. As I said, this would be a rock solid case of no Free Will.
144. hashke - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:07 AM PDT
MsIt Message #114:
You'd be great company! We should possibly invite FV along as sapper, a heavy to probe for Black Holes. I have been informed that we would have to stand back from The Bang at least six aeons to avoid flying, high-velocity void. Hmmm...avoid void? It's enough to make one quark in his boots.
145. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:08 AM PDT
Doc,
You're assuming only one timeline. If causality from one time-line can enter another time-line at any point, you get true time-travel. That is, the past you go back to is NOT the same one that you arose from.
146. Msivorytower - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:16 AM PDT
Brown
"As I said, this would be a rock solid case of no Free Will."
I completely reject the notion of "no free will" wrt time travel, because it has implications for free will in the present. Second, I agree with Selene, another implication is that there is only one time line possible once actions are undertaken.
The assumption of not having any free will if traveling through time would mean we never have free will, all events are pre-ordained. In this sense, our ability to affect both the present and the future is constrained by the actions of our past. There'd be no point in trying to change our behaviors, our actions toward others, our attitudes, since they wouldn't matter anyway to what future is already going to happen based on the cumulative actions of the past.
Brown, you have some very strange ideas.
Haske,
Hahahaha. I *might* consider inviting the FV along, he appears to have a good track record of playing lineback in a tight situation.
147. ScotusAntonovich - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:26 AM PDT
Re: Message #129, AdamSelene.
"For time-travel to be meaningful at all, you must be able to change the past (if nothing else, you convert some O2 to CO2 while you're there.)"
It would be impossible to change the past, imo. The present, as we know it, is completely defined *by* history or the past as it is. Any changes to the past would have already been made due to that fact. Therefore, any "changes" would be necessary to make the "present" reality.
148. DocBrown - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:28 AM PDT
> I enjoyed Final Countdown. Much better than
> the usual tv TT crap. I especially enjoyed
> the trick ending with the limo occupants.
If you liked the tricks in "Final Countdown" then you must have loved a certain movie in which a very handsome character creates a time travelling sports car which travels back to 1955. That movie had many delightful little tricks, especially at the end.
149. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:32 AM PDT
Doc,
Sorry for my poor comprehension this AM. I just noticed that you said Final Countdown was a theatrical release - I didn't know that. My first memory of it was on tv, and given it's low special-effects budget, I assumed it was made for tv.
BTW, my teenage movie memories are much older than yours. 2001, Planet of the Apes... I was already in the Army when Star Wars came out.
150. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:34 AM PDT
Doc,
Ya, the first of those were quite enjoyable. But "going back" each time got progressively worse.
151. DocBrown - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:35 AM PDT
Msivorytower said:
> Second, I agree with Selene, another
> implication is that there is only one
> time line possible once actions are
> undertaken.
Best evidence tells us that there is only one timeline. Otherwise, every time a new timeline is created a new Universe must be created. It takes an awful lot of energy to create a Universe! From whence would this energy come?
Unless someone comes up with a good explanation for the source of energy at Universe creation, discussing multiple timelines is taking this thread to a much higher level of fantasy.
152. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:37 AM PDT
Doc, I'd be happy to know where the energy for *this* timeline came from!
153. DocBrown - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:46 AM PDT
Msivorytower said:
> The assumption of not having any free will if
> traveling through time would mean we never have
> free will, all events are pre-ordained. In this
> sense, our ability to affect both the present
> and the future is constrained by the actions
> of our past.
I agree with these two statements. They are inescapable consequences of living in a cause-and-effect Universe.
> There'd be no point in trying to change our
> behaviors, our actions toward others, our
> attitudes, since they wouldn't matter anyway
> to what future is already going to happen
> based on the cumulative actions of the past.
I absolutely do not agree with this conclusion. Human life is a complex optimization problem, constantly attempting to improve our situation. This would not change. However, knowledge of the future would certainly make our lives more efficient. Efficiency is always good.
154. Msivorytower - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:48 AM PDT
Brown
Your view of time travel is right out of "Millennium". That was, in fact, how those time travelers knew when they needed to return to the past.
I see that scenario as only one of many possible ones wrt time travel.
155. DocBrown - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:02 AM PDT
MsIvorytower, I am not familiar with "Millenium," but I am pretty confident that my time travel scenario is the only one possible. Even that is pretty far-fetched, I will admit that it probably better to assume that time travel is impossible in our Universe, and that the light cone is an absolutely impenetrable wall in the laws of physics.
But getting back to the original theme of this thread, I wouldn't mind going back and having dinner with Mark Twain, R. Buckminster Fuller, and Will Rogers. William Shakespeare would be fun, too, but we probably couldn't understand each other.
Maybe it *is* my destiny to go back in time! Perhaps I am to be the inspiration for Shakespeare's gutsy, macho hero Petrucchio!
More likely our conversation would inspire him to write "A Comedy of Errors."
156. arielthesprite - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:25 AM PDT
No, Adam, I've never heard of that book, but I'd love to read it! Lemme do a little research.
Btw, I've decided to turn in my Time Travel kit and opt for a scrying glass. That way the past (or one of the futures) can come to me, instead of my making errors by bungling.
If I had one of those...
157. Fraaank9 - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:25 AM PDT
I could never make sense of the final scene in the limo of "Final Countdown".Yes,yes,I know that it was more of a Navy recruiting film more than anything,but how could he be the aircraft carrier's designer if he had...Oh nevermind.
...nevermind
158. Random - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:42 AM PDT
102-Snowowl: Yes, but didn't the Chinese take the boy Dalai Lama. And I was
thinking more of the past Tibet, the trek up the mountain to meet the
"Holy Man" (serenity). Doesn't the current Dalai Lama live in America?
159. trouserPilot - Sep. 10, 1998 - 1:19 PM PDT
I'd like to go back to last week and eat that great lunch I had on Wednesday all over again. Mmm-mmm!
160. AzureNW - Sep. 10, 1998 - 2:00 PM PDT
FrayVader -
Can we return after our time travel visit?
I would prefer to go forward in time about 200 years, about two lifetimes, to the place I am right now. I have tremendous hope for the future, and there are many, many things I would love to live to see. Two lifetimes seems about as far into the future as I could go and still learn to fit in.
If I were to go into the past, one time and place I would want to visit is the Mississippian cultures that flourished in the valleys of the Mississippi and its tributaries throughout the US Southeast from 900 AD to 1750 AD. These complex and mysterious societies were obliterated so quickly by diseases brought to the New World from Europe that almost nothing of them could be saved. I would like to know what they were like.
161. norwoodr - Sep. 10, 1998 - 2:17 PM PDT
I would be very unhappy living in any time except the present. I think most people would. What I would like is a time television, so I could watch and hear what the past was like from my comfortable, air-conditioned, disease free living room, with indoor plumbing just a few steps away.
www.io.com/~norwoodr
162. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 2:55 PM PDT
Oy vey, here goes Brown.
MSIT, it doesn't matter how logically you point out the flaws in his notion. I think he's stuck with it.
The notion of infinite universes, one arising from another with each possible quantum change, is not new, and widely accepted. It handily accomodates the concept of time-travel, and removes the common, third-grader paradoxes that plague DocBrown's rigid thinking. The act of going backwards in time, itself, just like any other quantum change, causes a new universe to arise the instant that you arrive back in the past. That new universe, and your actions in it, proceed unhindered by any form of causality loop, because they do not impinge upon anything leading up to your attempt at time travel. They can't, because you don't time travel in that universe -- you travel in the one you came from. And if for whatever bizarre stroke of luck you do come to be born in the other universe, as you were in the old one, and you do go on to travel time, you start your own universe all over again.
163. BunEBear - Sep. 10, 1998 - 3:34 PM PDT
If I could travel in time, I would mostly want to visit those key points in time which had extraordinary effects on our history but which may not otherwise ever be understood due to lack of lasting traces of unambiguous data. Most of the obvious examples have already been cited. How did life actually begin on the earth (i.e. how did the first protocells come to be)? How did the early Christian church actually start, and did this Jesus Christ guy actually bear any resemblance to the person described in the New Testament? What was it that Fermat was going to write in that margin?
If I could turn the time machine in the other direction I would go maybe 5000 years ahead just to see if we are still around. 10000? 100000 (I wouldn't count on it!)? If anyone intelligent were still around I would ask some of the big questions. What is the mind? Are the fundamental parameters that determine the physical nature of the universe (e.g. fundamental masses, coupling constants etc.) what they are because they had to be that way or are there many different universes that could have been.
164. lemwalker - Sep. 10, 1998 - 4:11 PM PDT
If given the opportunity to travel in time (impossible, the planet has either left the spot or not there yet) would like to be one of the first humans to arrive in the Americas. The hunting would be superb. Know a fellow who, on felling a giant cedar, jumped into the the hollow center of the stump and proclaimed; "no one has stood here for a thousand years". It ain't easy to find a spot untrod for that length of time.
165. labarjare - Sep. 10, 1998 - 6:20 PM PDT
I agree with those who have said to hell with the past (as much fun as it would be to kibbitz on various events over the years). Going forward and seeing what happens is the ticket.
166. wabbit - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:34 PM PDT
I'll be in the library with Patsy.
167. PseudoErasmus - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:37 PM PDT
As far as I can tell, no one has talked about going back in time in order to see famous ancient cities in their original and intact splendour. The ones I would definitely like to have seen:
Rome (of course)
Alexandria (of course)
Ephesus (now in ruins, in Turkey)
Königsberg (today Kaliningrad)
Carthage
Persepolis
Novgorod (before the Germans redecorated it)
168. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:38 PM PDT
This is a little off topic, but one of the saddest stories I ever read was about a group of galactic citizens gathering for a reunion in the year eleventy-gazillion or so. One started reminising about an old friend, and another asked why the old friend didn't come to the reunion. The first one replied: "Don't you remember? He died in 1998, just before we discovered immortality."
169. FrayVader - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:51 PM PDT
PE:
When you visit Alexandria, you'll find Patsy and wabbit in the library.
170. PseudoErasmus - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:55 PM PDT
Ah, yes, I had already covered that when I said that I would take a copying machine to copy all the original manuscripts.
171. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 7:57 PM PDT
I thought about checking out the first cells on Earth, until I realised that I'd just end up contaminating it with the bacteria that all animals carry.
I'd like to see the Globe, and I would spend a great deal of time examining those artifacts we cannot yet satisfactorily account for, like the stone urns in Thailand and the Nazca lines. Preferably, I'd get to see the people making them.
I would follow young Koba Stalin around and learn whether or not he really was an agent of the tsarist secret police for a while. And I'd get wine from all the best years.
No, no, no, I've got it!!!!! I saw this in a movie once!
I'd get a good, accurate log of times and locations of eclipses and comets, and just wow the natives big time. Maybe set myself up with a spiffy little kingdom.
172. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:00 PM PDT
lemwalker,
"[Time travel is] impossible, the planet has either left the spot or not there yet."
Which is why many of the good modern TT stories include time machines which can travel in all 4 dimensions. Of course, computing all those multi-body orbits in reverse gets just a little bit tricky.
173. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:00 PM PDT
I'd bump into Philistine and Mon as they diligently searched for the Lost Chord.
I wonder if I'd ever have to steal the line... 'All right, you prehistoric screw-heads! This... is my BOOM STICK!'
174. godless - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:02 PM PDT
I would go to O'Henry's New York. The one he wrote about in his anthology "The Four Million". It would be fun to visit Bagdad on the Hudson at the turn of the last century, before it became an overcrowded rats nest.
Of course I would take a pocket full of Cubic Zirconia for expenses.
175. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:03 PM PDT
Oh, my.
I would chisel Lee Harvey Oswald's face into Mount Rushmore, and then hop back and check the Conspiracy Theory aisles at the nearest bookstore.
176. wabbit - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:07 PM PDT
PE, Message #170
Bucephalas will be parked out front -- don't step in anything.
177. AdamSelene - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:16 PM PDT
No, on second thought;
The saddest story was the lady who went back to give young Newton a calculator so he wouldn't waste all that time doing manual computations. Of course, she punched in a calculation to show him, and the answer came up 666 in red LED lights.
Newton promptly spent the rest of his life writing religious texts in repentence.
178. JustSayYo - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:16 PM PDT
I'd find a way to endear the Kayan to James Brooke. Ending a slaughter by the Iban (Sea Dayak) and making a firmer foundation for one of the long term residents of Borneo. The Iban arrived some 400 yrs ago from Sumatra and Java. Then allying with J.B., obtained guns and slaughtered the Kayan, Kenyah and others whose people have been in Borneo for thousands of years. The Bedayu were among the first and may be among the least now, except for the Punan of course.
179. tmachine - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:34 PM PDT
I would like to go with a doctor to help me figure out exactly what Mozart and Jane Austen died of and whether we could prevent their deaths. Then I would get them cured and spend the rest of my life reading Austen's ten later novels while listening to Mozart's 80th symphony. Imagine having so much more of BOTH of them.
180. coralreef - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:40 PM PDT
I would go back to the months after D-Day and let Eisenhower know the path between Patton and Paris offered little German resistance and the war could be wrapped up much earlier than thought.
181. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:42 PM PDT
I dunno. What if Mozart got fat and started wearing skin-tight white bodysuits and medallions, and grew muttonchop sideburns?
182. tmachine - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:46 PM PDT
and played Caesar's Palace, with "Viva Vienna" as the crowd-pleaser?
183. thomasd - Sep. 10, 1998 - 8:46 PM PDT
If I could travel to any past period of time, I might choose the 1890's. With a little preparation, I could singlehandedly invent the airplane, the vacuum tube and most of the electronic advancements based on it up until at least the '40's, propose the theory of relativity and perhaps find a way to defuse the situation that led to WW1.
184. CharlieL - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:00 PM PDT
I have an image of PseudoErasmus standing in the library at Alexandria with a copying machine, looking for an electrical outlet...
185. Random - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:03 PM PDT
We need to time travel forward and complete the 'genetic fix' research for SOB liars, sick sexual perverts, power mad Rasputins who
are so disgustingly immoral, corrupt,and insane they would destroy
their children's nation for another act of sexually diviant gratification.
186. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:15 PM PDT
Well, I've tried to be non-invasive in my dabbling, except where I was plainly joking.
Things I would do to change the path of history (by no means an all-inclusive list)
I would try, very hard, to get the original constitution drafted so as to outlaw slavery.
I would have given the Native American vaccinations, and maybe the compound bow.
I would grab a whole busload of fundamentalists and let Martin Luther observe them for a few weeks.
I would have initiated economic aid to the Weimar Republic.
Elvis, Buddy Holly, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon, (yes) Kurt Cobain, and John Lennon would be running a record company for me, and moonlighting in a bar to make 'House of Blues' look like a cardboard box in a Queens alleyway.
I really don't know what shape the resulting changes would take, but I would have made JFK put the top up, told Bobby to be careful, had somebody stuff Ted in a closet and keep him there, and brained James Earl Ray with the butt of his own rifle.
I'd have convinced them not to film 'Ishtar' and gotten them to film the sequel to Buckaroo Banzai. (The lack of the last is tragic, IMO).
I'd have done whatever I could to make the folks in Nagasaki and Hiroshima want to get the f@#$ out of Dodge.
I would have collected every last scrap of banned writing, ever, and made sure it never disappeared.
I would have given Alfred enough money to perpetuate his college.
I would have funded secular colleges throughout the world, with the gold I'd get cashing in all the lottery tickets I'd buy. And suspicion be damned.
I think I'd get a hold of Jesus of Nazareth and bring that dude to 1998 and let him take a gander. Maybe he could bunk with Martin Luther.
Given their stint at the Library of Alexandria, I'd endow Patsy and Wabbit with chairpersonship on Ancient History at Yale.
187. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:17 PM PDT
Well, maybe Stanford for Patsy, though it's distinctly second best.
(smiling and waiting for the Ms to notice that one)
188. coralreef - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:24 PM PDT
Noninvasively...
I'd see if Fermat was joking. Take a look at Istanbul/Constantinople at its height. And set up a photocopy paper store outside the library of Alexandria.
189. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:25 PM PDT
Oh, yes. And I'd drop in on Psmenudo, as he was looking for an outlet in the Library of Alexandria (peering behind bookcases and curtains, muttering gnomic phrases such as 'This is preposterous!' and 'I'll bet Pinochet never would have stood for this!').
And I'd lend him a generator.
190. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:27 PM PDT
That, I believe is almost a crosspost.
(I can just hear him... 'WHAT? You Neandertal! Twenty American Dollars for a sheet of paper?')
191. thomasd - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:27 PM PDT
Re. 188 -
hahaha! Re. the Library of Alexandria: just as long as you don't use book rate to mail scroll copies.
192. CharlieL - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:28 PM PDT
Now I have an image of PE thanking res for the generator, while res goes looking for a gas station...
193. CharlieL - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:30 PM PDT
...and there sits CR, with a sign that says "Regular - $29.99 9/10 per gallon.
194. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:31 PM PDT
haha, yeah. I'd fill it first, you sly devil.
195. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:31 PM PDT
Reef, the capitalist rat.
196. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:33 PM PDT
No, no, nononononono.
I'd set up the first Temporally Duty-Free shoppe.
197. CharlieL - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:35 PM PDT
Of course, we won't mention that the British electrical plug on the copying machine that PE brought won't fit into the US socket on the generator that res brought...
198. resonance - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:39 PM PDT
...
Maybe we'll just bring the library HERE.
199. harper - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:40 PM PDT
At last, a thread that's up my alley.
A few time travel wishes:
To be at Bosworth Field in 1485 and tell Richard Plantagenet (III) to screw Stanely and Northumberland and to kick that usurping Welsh bastard's ass.
To be in Ireland in 1601 at the seige of Kinsale and convince Hugh O'Neill NOT TO LISTEN to that twerp Hugh O'Donnell. Just sit tight and starve the English out. For good.
To find out what REALLY became of the Amber Room during World War II.
To find out the real orign of the Shroud of Turin.
To be in England during the (2nd) Civil War and kill Cromwell. (Sorry Niner, the man had no redeeming qualities).
To be in Scotland in the 14th century and see if the English got the REAL Stone of Scone or if the monks hid the real one and gave Edward a fake.
To be in Italy during the Renaissance -- all of it.
That's a start.
200. coralreef - Sep. 10, 1998 - 9:47 PM PDT
Message #198 Yes! With everyone in it.