robchnz t1_j0wgidy wrote on December 19, 2022 at 10:47 PM

The difference is that we’re radically changing the future with our actions we just have no reference for that.

However if I went to the past and changed my future, if I ever came back I might never be able to reintegrate into my new life.

NavezganeChrome t1_j0xsf64 wrote on December 20, 2022 at 5:00 AM

I mean, if you changed your future intentionally, it stands to reason that you would have felt comfortable that any adjustment would be better than what you have.

And besides that, there’s no particular reason the ‘you’ that went back would exist in the same capacity to comprehend that a change took place at all. Short of the change having so little impact that you wind up in the same position trying to change it, anyway.

Queen_Kakapo t1_j0yiluc wrote on December 20, 2022 at 10:33 AM

if I went back in time and coerced myself into med school I kinda doubt the trip back would fill my head with 6 years of school and 15 years of doctor experience.

NavezganeChrome t1_j0yowq1 wrote on December 20, 2022 at 11:54 AM

Well, no, but at this point we get into what brand of shenanigans is taking place, which can probably parsed in r/timetravel. As far as r/GetMotivated is concerned, I think, the point is that if worrying is the only thing preventing a person from going back to change the future based on “what if I change too much,” that logic should be applied to the present for the sake of driving that same change intentionally, with a solid idea of a goal instead of a mystery box. . . . . .

Buuut if we want to get into the weeds immediately, I’ll comply; I don’t personally know of any proposed theories on time travel that would allow what you say wouldn’t happen, but it’s probably worth needling at. What I was meaning is that the ‘you’ that went back (u1) would either cease being (with the ‘you’ you convinced to do the hard work, u2, provided a solid impression someone else convinced them to do med school, and following through to the best of your ability) or nothing would change for u1, as what you’ve done is initiate a ‘potential’ future that u2 is now the driver for instead of fully retconning what you yourself did. Or your consciousness blends into a present version of u2, with no impression of what you went through as u1 to drive you to time travel (and so, no reason to need to do it, which doesn’t actually necessarily do a paradox).

Of course, u1 could also do things the long way and manually study for however long you feel appropriate to soak in the knowledge you seek, though at that point you’re less time traveling and more fully time displaced. But, again, something more appropriate for r/timetravel I imagine.

Tweeza817 t1_j0zbr9m wrote on December 20, 2022 at 3:16 PM

Watch the show Undone. A lot of this gets explained. Also, it's a cool show in general.

RobtheNavigator t1_j0yqm1y wrote on December 20, 2022 at 12:14 PM

Why do you doubt that? If you went back in time, and made the changes in the past that led to you having gone to med school, it would either create a new timeline, the version of you that went back in time wouldn’t exist, you would somehow destroy reality, or if there is some kind of persistent self across changes in time you would then have the knowledge. Even theoretically there’s no theory of time travel where you could go back in time, cause yourself to gain knowledge, go forward in time, and not have that knowledge.

DonaldJDarko t1_j10usx0 wrote on December 20, 2022 at 9:13 PM

> I mean, if you changed your future intentionally, it stands to reason that you would have felt comfortable that any adjustment would be better than what you have.

The problem is that you don’t know how things work out, because any small change can lead to large unintended consequences.

Say you always wanted to be a doctor, but a troubled home life made you choose the fastest path out of your house, so you ended up in some dead end desk job adjacent to the medical field, but nothing like how you imagined.

So you decide to go back in time, and through whatever method, convince your younger self to fight for your dream job and do whatever it takes to go to med school, because it has to be better than the life you have now.

So you go back to “your” present, only to find out that present you failed out of med school because you buckled under the pressure and became an alcoholic, just like your dad. So now not only are you stuck working some dead end job, you’re an alcoholic to boot.

I know this is just an example, and it’s easy to say “yeah, but that’s just one very unlikely case.” But the point is people don’t know what bad consequences might come with your changes. People only ever focus on the good.

Another example is, you go back in time because you decided to take that job in a nearby country/state that you turned down all those years ago. Present you: You’re happy with your job, you met a partner and had some kids, life’s great. Except for the fact that 3 years after you moved there your parents died in a car accident on their way to see you. If you hadn’t changed history to make it so you moved there, they wouldn’t have needed to make that drive, and they wouldn’t have been at that exact place at that exact time, and they would have been fine.

NavezganeChrome t1_j10x75x wrote on December 20, 2022 at 9:28 PM

The TL;DR of the following: Please check the other reply.

I went over that. If you went in with the intent to change the future, you’ve committed to changing it. There’s literally no purpose to what-iffing the after effects, as (a) if it drives you to utilize time travel to prevent that, you’re still doing something vs (b) the same risk is inherent in the initial timeline (something vaguely connected to your choice ruined or ended a life that wasn’t your own).

If it works, depending on the time travel involved, you are unlikely to know either way. If you spawned a timeline where you’ve caused a possibility, the ‘you’ that went back isn’t a part of it, because that ‘you’ didn’t experience it. Alternately, if the ‘you’ that went back gets fully overwritten by the new experience, you have no idea any time travel happened and are living your (changed) life as normal. Third-string, if ‘you’ get merged with your new life, whoopie, you probably have an idea how to keep changing the past as you want.

Whatever the case , the r/GetMotivated point comes down to “if you have time to worry about a hypothetical, you have time to shape the future to your will in the present.” Anything further concerning time travel is better left to r/timetravel .

LambKyle t1_j0zo9mq wrote on December 20, 2022 at 4:41 PM

You can't come back. If time travel was possible it would be another universe or something. If you changed the past, you'd either go back to a unaltered future, or going to an alternate future where you either don't exist, or there is a seperate version of you already there.

I mean.. The only reason people feel like they could make drastic changes to the past is because we know exactly how it plays out and what to change. We have jo idea how it plays or or what to change in the present to affect the future