If you could change the past would you?

[Spdstr]

I was just wondering how many people would change the past besides the possible consequences, this is kinda like the mirror idea, but you can actually change the past if you wanted to, but you can't change them back.

Member,
~ Spdstr

[incubich]

I don't think I would change the past if I had the chance. As much as there are things that I wish I would've done differently, if I go back and change it, everything right now would be different. Wouldn't your life be completely changed? I don't think I would want that to happen, just because I like where I am at right now. You would never know if it would change for better or for worse. It would be cool if I saw what would happen if I changed the past before I actually did it. Summing it up though, if I could change the past, I wouldn't. I don't have any regrets.

[thomasJ]

I wouldnt mind winning that $18 million lotto a month or so back. I even know the numbers. But thats because Im greedy. I think everyone wishes they could change some things or do them better, but at the end of the day things cant be changed anyway, and probably for the better. Imagine the chaos that would reign if everyone had the ability to change the past.

[Frattimonde]

No.

Because by changing the past, you might undo exsistance.
Or create a very unstable future.

So even If I could.
I still wouldn´t change the past.

[peace_machine]

There are so many things I would love to change, even kill for it but in the ned its just not possible. Well mabey not kill for it but I have screwed up so many things (none which you guys are going to find out about), hehe imagine what I can complain about when im 50+.

Some mistakes can teach us and prevent the same thing happening in the future, but thats only if you choose to learn.

[XTERMIN8OR1]

I have done and said some stuff wrong in my life too. And I regret I did or said those things. But I wouldn't even want to go back and change all that. Cause if I change them, I would change myself. I wouldn't be ME anymore. And I'm fine with what and who I am.

[thomasJ]

You can never change who you are as long as you're in control.

[Spdstr]

Great replys, good everyone sees that changing the past is dangerous ;).

Member,
~ Spdstr

P.S. Just posted this poll to see if everyone else felt the same way :D.

[singo]

if you were to change the past it would result in exactly the same future as now.

to take the classic "stepping on an ant" paradox, if you were to step on "your own" ant then you would not exist, so therefore you never existed to come back and step on it, so you could never have stepped on it, but you did, so it wasnt. (okay, crap explanation but....) so anything you do do only alters the future INTO the one that you came from

which means that history already DEPENDS on you making the changes you make when you go back in time.

as you can tell i have no patience with temporal paradoxes

for a far better explanation of this idea read "The Last Continent" by Terry Prattchet

[GiaDragoness]

Some mistakes can teach us and prevent the same thing happening in the future, but thats only if you choose to learn.
There are so many things I wish I could change in my past, but as peace said, sometimes the things that happen to you make you learn, whether the experience was good or bad. You never learn good tactics in battle if you never face defeat, for all you fellow stacraftians out there ^_^ . Your experiences dictate who you will become, and your choices dictate who you are. If you could change the past, you would change yourself, so you really have to ask, are you really that desparate to change who you are? I on first response would say no many times, but then again, the more I look back on this, the more I long to change who it is that I am. Do any of you suppose, this makes me shallow, or souless?


:smash: Smashy Smashy! :smash:

[Cygnus]

If I could change the past, would I? It's an interesting possibility if I could change the mistakes I've made in order to make something work out for the better. But the question is by inevitably changing the past I would alter the present, one which I've come to find out is actually better than what I had before.

So in the end, although the past can be horrible and one might wish to change it I'd rather be happy in the present that I came about by learning from the situations that occured as well as the mistakes I commited. Ironically from the ashes of pain and depression, happiness and love grew.

[Ender]

I definitely would. I regret a lot of stuff, lol. Plus, I could make my life so much easier. Go back and give myself the math tests with the correct answers...yummy...

[hammocksleeper]

Heh it would be cool to change the past, but I would only like it if when I changed the past, it didn't also change the present. A way of covering your tracks, if you will. ;)

[Cygnus]

But then how would that work out? If you change the events that lead up to the present how would your present remain the same?

[GiaDragoness]

But then how would that work out? If you change the events that lead up to the present how would your present remain the same?
It's like the old paradox, how can you change the past, when it would prevent you from doing so?

Say you go back in time and kill your grandmother, when she was a kid. She would never have had your mom, then you. Then, who or what would then travel back and kill her? Quite the paradox is'nt it?

I beleive that if time travel was possible, It would be somewhat like Christopher Loyd explained in Back to the Future part 2:
The second you arrived in a past time, a new timeline would be created, that would co-exist with other planes already created, where you would exisist in that dimenson, as a "Rift Spike" from another world, free from any consequences or paradoxes you created there in the new time-plane. Kinda like a parallel universe type thng. If you traveled forward in time, it would be like you just ceased to exist the second you went out, then re-entered existance on the specified date and time. At least that's my personnal theory

[hammocksleeper]

In the case of my previous post, each moment in time would have to be unconnected from every other moment.

[Kamikazie190]

to take the classic "stepping on an ant" paradox, if you were to step on "your own" ant then you would not exist, so therefore you never existed to come back and step on it, so you could never have stepped on it, but you did, so it wasnt. (okay, crap explanation but....) so anything you do do only alters the future INTO the one that you came from

I think thats more commonly refered to as the "Grandfather Paradox". If you could go back in time, you could kill your Grandfather, thus making it impossible for you to be born, thus making it impossible for you to of gone back in time and killed your grandfather, which means that your grandfather lived to raise your mother/father, which means that you will of been able to go back in time and kill him, and so on.

Either way, I'm pretty sure killing wouldn't be involved, but if we went back in time to change something, the results would change in our present, perhaps more suitable to what we wanted, and thus we will not of had a need to go back in time and change it, thus we never did and it could not of happened. As much as I'd like to change a few major screw ups I've had, it would result in the Paradox of time travel and.... well, just look at The Butterfly Effect

[GiaDragoness]

I think thats more commonly refered to as the "Grandfather Paradox". If you could go back in time, you could kill your Grandfather, thus making it impossible for you to be born, thus making it impossible for you to of gone back in time and killed your grandfather, which means that your grandfather lived to raise your mother/father, which means that you will of been able to go back in time and kill him, and so on.

lol, you realized you kinda copied me just now?

[singo]

lol, you realized you kinda copied me just now?

not really, that paradox has been around for decades so technically you are both copying someone else.....but who cares?

[overdramatic]

im saying yes.... because (well for me at least) if i started learning volleyball earlier, i could be on a better team then i am right now, which could help me get a Scholarship to a college that i wanna go to. and (if i changed things in the past) i could have studied harder, which would also help me to get into college...... so yes i would change things in the past, if i could that is

[GrassDragon]

I wouldn't change anything. I'm still alive today, so life can't be so bad.

[singo]

yes but getting horribly tortured is also "alive"...thats reasonably bad

you get used to it after a while.


"OK mr.inquisitor, you can turn the rack up a notch now"

[Montgomery]

Well, it depends if you can undo the results of what you did - like go back to a "pristine" timeline.

Then you could just screw around all you want - you could do everything!
But I'd probably go back in time and... assassinate a few people, like Nero, the generals at the Teutoberg Forest, Adolf Hitler, Lenin, Bismarck, Wilhelm, Luther and Calvin, Napoleon, Lee, among others. Or you could alter things a TINY amount (see Harry Turtledove's How Few Remain - the near-loss (but not complete loss) of a certain cigar box causes the South to win the American Civil War.

Mostly because their deaths would severly alter history (not for any twisted ideological agenda). Or maybe you could just make sure they were never born? An evil way, but... hey, it makes for good history. All those alternate history books I read wouldn't be so far fetched after all.