For almost as long as man has been able to tell time (when Grog Smith, mentioned to Ugha Jones that he noticed the sun went down every night), mankind has been fascinated with the concept of time travel. And even the most erudite theoretic physicists in history have a hard time convincing one another that time may or may not be malleable, allowing us to move to and fro through event horizons of time/space.
Of course, popular culture has all but shredded any real commonsense thought about the possibilities of traveling to or from a single point in time…making us all believe that time is simply a linear string, with knots representing every second, minute, hour, day, and year of existences, that can be used as a road marker, or untied to alter the course of the rest of the string.
But, that is silly…no matter what Dr. Brown and Marty would have you believe.
And while the most brilliant minds in the world are all at CERN, breaking all of the standard rules of physics by shooting protons beyond the speed of light (which in itself destroys the traditional laws of physics), it is widely becoming an accepted theory that there is very clear evidence that much of what we see, touch and feel, is rooted in a dimension that is OUTSIDE this space/time…Time, and any clear definition of it, is more a perception than a reality.
As I have written about for years (as our old friends at TSTOFriends can attest), to me it isn’t really so much the measurement of time, but the value of how you spend that time. And let’s be brutally honest…there are few activities in this world that can suck up more time, or squander more of that magic “Life Currency” than tapping. It’s been so long ago that I grabbed that phrase, I can’t remember the source. But, I suspect it came during the first Sci-Fi update a LONG time ago. But, “Life Currency” is such an accurate description of the real value of time, that I purloined (a polite term for stole) it…and have used it since.
However, what if we COULD go back and forth in time? What if we could “get back that wasted hour or two or five,” if we had the ability to do so? And, if we became greedy with our time travel, what major life-changing events would we choose to alter to change the outcome of our existence today? WOULD YOU DO IT???
I’d like to say that with age, and an expansive expenditure of time spent, that I have stopped asking these questions. Sadly…I have not. But, I will admit that the time that I would travel would be far shorter, and have far less impact on the greater reality of others, if I had that ability. More like, “Eek…I would like to go back and hit a 6 iron there, instead of a 7, and I would have carried that water hazard.”
But, even something as mundane and insignificant as, “DAMMIT! I wish I hadn’t spent donuts on that stupid “Mansion of Solid Gold” so I had enough to buy the cool new thing that is going to come with the next event!” can actually have rippled effects on the outcome of your life. Yes…even the smallest actions of Free Will can alter your history.
Think about it…
If the time you spent today, was spent leaving earlier to get to work this morning, would you have been in a different place, at a different time, that may have resulted in you being sideswiped by a guy who was tapping on his phone while driving? But because you left a few minutes later, you missed the accident altogether? SPPPPOOOOOOKY! Time, Free Will, and Cause and Effect are like that.
Ask Homer…and the dinosaurs.
Which again, is silly…because time isn’t predetermined at all. What happened (if you ascribe to the multi-verse, or string chaos theories of physics) may in fact happen several different ways at the same time, resulting in several different outcomes, over several different realities. PHEW!! I think my head just exploded.
But…here is why I don’t play the, “If I could change something in my past” game (beyond the whole 6/7 iron bit).
When I was 20 years old…I made a snap decision after a football game, that resulted in me getting married too soon, becoming a father very early, and not finishing college. HUGE ramifications for a snap decision of Free Will. It changed the outcome of my life forever.
For the better…
Had I NOT made the decision I made that night…the chain of events that turned out to be my life as I know it today, would not have happened. I wouldn’t have my oldest daughter, or for that matter ANY of my five daughters and 4 grandkids. I would not have been forced to grow up, and learn to think on my feet, learning to create businesses and opportunities out of necessity, rather than take the “safe route.” And I would not have met the TRUE love of my life, after 5 years of torture that taught me who I really wanted in my life, and what true happiness could be…and…well...the list goes on and on and on…right up to the minute I decided to reveal that last bit here in print.
I am content with the way my life has played out. And I am guessing, that almost all of you, when you REALLY stop and think about it, wouldn’t trade the real benefits of who you have become, by the Free Will choices you have made, for all of the chances you think would alter your life for the better.
Because there is simply no other reality, than the one you exist within. And, that is the way it supposed to be. Every action you take, every choice you make, has a ramification that alters the next phase of your reality. Every second you spend of your “Life Currency” buys you the next decision…every minute, hour, day and year of your life.
Looking back is a waste of time. Spending your time wisely is the bedrock of the future you choose to make for yourself. But is is ALWAYS malleable…because every choice is a new course.
So…no matter what the next event brings…or how unlikely the physics that it will be based upon will seem…just know that the time you spend playing it, is only as good as the pleasure it brings you. Or something like that…
WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE if you could go back in time? And please…no politics. We all got what we deserved there… LOL!
The only thing for certain about this life, is that the total amount of time we have is the biggest unknown. So spend it wisely…with no regrets. Make every second count…
We are all time traveling all day every day – you just can’t adjust the speed or the direction you’re going in. 😉
There’s also a school of thought saying that our perception of time as linear is directly tied to our way of existence, and can’t be overcome. No time travel possible for us. For beings outside our perception, who exist in more than four dimensions, time would be like the spacial dimensions are for us – everything happens sort of at the same time, and you can go back to any given moment, just like you can turn around a car and go back to where you came from. But that also means, there is really no causality between events any more, so there is really not much point in changing anything.
I miss the old days… A new level now and then, not these annoying limited time events…… :/
Nummering the levels will give the long time players gigantic bragging rights 🙂
“The journey is the destination.” Enjoy what you’ve got, while you’ve got it because you never know what will happen next, good, bad, or unremarkable.
“One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can’t cope with. There is no problem with changing the course of history—the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.
The major problem is simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner’s Time Traveler’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you, for instance, how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be descibed differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is futher complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations while you are actually traveling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own mother or father.
Most readers get as far as the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up; and in fact in later aditions of the book all pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.”
Douglas Adams
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Time travel in my opinion is one of those things you just don’t worry about! It is a responsibility of mass proportions because your traveling would affect more than just yourself! Better to embrace what is in front of you! Learn from your past! Look forward to the future and bring what you’ve learned with you!
I don’t know I could have easily been an architect or electrician. If i had applied myself in school. I passed without trying imagine what I could have done with a little more effort. On the other hand I may not have been in the position I am in where I moved back home and was able to look after my father for 2.5 years. He Died April 7 🙁 . Anyway the position I was in is that I have been out of work for 7 years now. I decided I may as well go back home and look after my dad. In retrospect I wouldn’t change a thing.
I would have put my monorail on the OTHER side out the main road.
Love your posts Patric! I can’t stand hypotheticals. The game show Deal or no deal drives me crazy after they make the final deal & the host asks, “If you hadn’t made that deal, your next box would have been…..”
The contestant isn’t in the same frame of mind any more. They can’t say for sure which box they would have chosen. But I still love books & movies about time travel. Weird.
Thanks for the compliment…and I agree. The whole thing about Free Will, is that a decision starts the tumblers moving. “Do-Overs” are really just a chance not to make the same mistake again.
I do find it interesting that I seem to live my life in specific decades of focus and accomplishment. Not sure if that is something I innately do…or if it is kind of universal. But, I guess that’s a different topic.
Out of curiosity, are you still friends with Grog & Ugha? 😂😂😂 I probably have the same views as you Patric about not changing a thing. Like running behind & thinking I missed being in a terrible accident because of it, being in a terrible accident & the cause/effect of it. 3 failed marriages that either gave me my 2 beautiful children & 5 beautiful grandchildren 😍😍, or influenced what I and my children (whom I am so proud of), are today. I would not have been in the place and time (even mentally) to have met and appreciated the loving and wonderful friends and loves I have now. The influence & happiness I’ve given someone who might have needed even just a hug from a stranger, or a penny or two. I am believe I am where I’m supposed to be, the person I’m supposed to be (although skipping past this recovery would be nice 😂). To me, everything has a positive purpose that we might never find out, a purpose for the outcome or effect, on us or others. I believe in Karma, and I believe every single person on this earth matters in some way. Whether it be a tragedy that brings families back together, et all, or something wonderful that happens to take people out of our lives. I am right where I’m supposed to be… sometimes $h¡☦️☦️Ÿ as it is, but I never say why me. I know I have a purpose, as do we all. (At least I keep telling myself that about my neighbor that I’d like to choke 😂😂). Nobody’s perfect, we all fall, but when we do… it’s because we will come out on top in the end eventually. Maybe not in this lifetime, but beyond that. I’m not saying my thinking is perfect or correct, but it keeps me going every single day of my life. Time travel… yes I’d love to see my babies & grandbabies again. Lost ones, one more hug. (I know my grandmother is my guardian angel 😍). I like who I am, and I am who I am, flaws and all 😃😃 Thank you again for the post Patric, as always, great timing. Peace and love to all ✌️🖖👊🤝💖
Glad I could be of help…at just the right time.
I simply ascribe to the notion that looking back is only meant for remembering the good times. The bad times become relative and less powerful with age…as long as you don’t dwell on them.
With time, comes the power of ambivalence…the ability to say, “Meh…who cares?”
I had to read this twice Patric because it resonated so strongly in my life and probably in others living in similar circumstances. My wife has dementia and Alzheimer’s and is in the latter part of the middle stage of Alzheimer’s. I live in parallel universes daily. I never know in what part of our life she will wake up in. There are presently two of me , one she is married to and the other me she lives with. Some days she wakes up not knowing where she is or how she got here. Her brain is confused and trying hard to make sense of what she sees. As I explain to her where she is , I must relate experiences that she knows , to what she sees now. We have been married for 46 years and now our son is part of these parallel universes that I exist in. She has a son Andy and I also have a son Andy.
I have learned through these days to be calm and talk with her and relate experiences that we have had together with wherever she thinks we are.
So yes, because of very mentally debilitating conditions, we can travel in parallel universes at the same time.
It is not always pretty or happy, but we must make the most of what we have, cherish the good times together and when necessary, escape to simple things to comfort us, by tapping through the Simpson’s world.
My heart goes out to you, especially because you’re living it 24/7. The positive thing about what you’re experiencing is the joy of reliving the good times through her memories/travels in the past. Hold on to those moments, they hopefully will get you through the difficult ones now. Peace be with you and your loved ones 💖
I’m very sorry for the heartbreaking loss of your wife…or at least a large part of your wife. It sounds like your love for her is deep enough to traverse the canyon as it widens…and I know that she is in there…loving you for it. I often think of the John Prine song, “Hello in there,” when I hear these stories.
After my NDE in the mid-1990s…I am of the belief that most of who we are…the real us…is outside of this space time. And that horrible conditions, like the one from which your wife suffers, are mostly just the “computer going haywire, and not connecting to the data.” But that doesn’t change the intent or reality of the “operator,”
I have heard a number of reports about cannabis edibles being able to bring back those with your wife’s condition…for a few hours a day… I don’t know what the laws are in your state, but there is a ton of anecdotal evidence about it. Maybe worth a try?
My best wishes to you and your wife… love is hard.
Yes, I would go back in time and win every major lottery around the world for years, and would,have so much money I could rule the world, mwaaaaaa haaaasa haaaa haaaa haaaaaa!
Actually, on second thoughts, nope, would,not change a thing.
I am perfectly happy with what fate has given me, and the thought of losing anything that is precious to me is horrifying.
Mark
You get it…Good!
I’ve always liked Douglas Adams’ take on time travel, which is that spacetime is like a giant jigsaw puzzle, and you can’t actually change anything in the present by traveling to the past because it’s already happened. And even if you could (which happens all the time, despite the previous statement) it just sort of heals itself over (paradoxes are the scar tissue) and moves on.
Sure…what not? I like that…
One way to time travel is actually go to a parallel universe. But if you go back to 1970s and invest in Apple, it might go bust. It is a parallel universe after all. Your knowledge of teams, lotteries, etc might not work. But if you have some engineering knowledge you might be able to “invent” a few things.
I think focusing on the past (no longer exists) or future (may never exist) just distracts us from being in the present (you are here ⬇️). We only have a set amount of neurons in our brains, so I try to keep my focus on what’s here…now…in front of me. Not saying I’m always successful…it’s easy to miss “right now” if your not paying attention. Oops…there it goes…⌛️
It’s hard to enjoy (or even recognize) what is all around you if you spend even a moment lamenting the past or worrying about a possible future…the possibilities are infinite, and no matter how hard you try to control your future, it will do what it d%#n well pleases…and isn’t surprise one of the greatest gifts in life?
Perfect! Love that…
Just finished rereading 11/22/63 by Stephen King. Great story of time travel with all the ramifications.
He’s always been my favorite author, such a wide variety of writings for anyone to enjoy whatever catagory/genre they prefer. 😊 The screen versions haven’t transitioned well except for a handful (Cujo… ugh, rewrite the script by *only* adding a narrator for what the dog’s thinking is, to explain his actions, other than just being a big rabid dog).
I would never start playing this life running game.
Life is running. Or something like that…
I got’cha, not a life ruining game. A bridge/connection of the untold true purpose 😊
If I knew my parents would still love and support some of my life choices when I was young, I probably would have considered informing them so much sooner. At the time I finally informed them (roughly 3 decades later) I felt that I interned a parallel universe/time line. It still seems bizarre to me how things have changed and are continuingly changing.
Not only can I make a full post about the details of this personal topic (but due to multiple factors I’m sure I wouldn’t), I could very well write one about time travel – as some reader know is one of my favorite subjects. But the reality is if there was time travel we might observe some of the time travel side effects (don’t look up The Mandela Effect if you are someone that is a conspiracy theorist or highly gullible or freak out easily, otherwise you might try reaching out to random people like Wookiee or Patric….) but why waste time thinking about time? Because if you want to change the future just do your best to love and if you want to change the past just remember and forgive yourself and those in your past and move forward from there and let a higher power/skyfinger take care of the rest.
I now return you to your current space/time, get some sleep and hope EA has some fun things planned for the next event.
Loved that…
and for the record… I think time is just a plaything. It shrinks and expands to easily to be finite.
Your post piqued my interest, now I must read The Mandela Effect. (don’t worry Wookiee or Patric, I’ve never stalked anyone … I think 😂).
I have made mistakes and bad decisions in my past that have resulted in me being where I am today. I failed most of my school exams and could only get a filing clerk job, but I worked my way up very slowly to achieve more than I could have hoped for. I do not think I could be more happy as I have a wonderful husband that I would probably never have met if I had been more successful at school. I would not change a single thing in my life because I am very happy being where I am.
MY life has been affected by MY decisions which is fine in my case from a personal point of view. However, I have made decisions that are changing other people’s lives and they have no say in the matter. Do the children in Africa really want to have their future completely changed by the type of education that I failed to take advantage of? I don’t know the answer to this question and only the future will tell. We can all only try to do what we think is the best we can today to help try to make this world a good place for everybody. We cannot affect the past but we can do things that hopefully will make the future a better place for those that live in it.
I spend a lot of my time playing TSTO and I don’t feel I am wasting ‘life currency’ because the enjoyment I get from playing costs nothing. I also feel I am part of a bigger worldwide community of people through this site so it can’t be bad:-)
I think doing things for others repairs all sorts of personal introspection. Life has s just better doing what we can…and not dwelling on what we can’t…
Actually time travel to the future is possible, in a way. The closer you get to an object with a massive gravitational pull, the slower time is. But to notice a significance you would have to orbit a black hole. Spend a few minutes around a black hole would equal decades passed on earth. Return home and you’re virtually in the future. That’s if you survive the black hole.
But to travel back in time, the closest we will ever get, if it’s even possible, is to just look up in the heavens. A lot of what we see happened many, many, many years ago. Which is how I kinda look at life. I do look in my past but I don’t dwell on it. I try to learn from it. I see the explosions and the chaos, but I also see the beauty. I don’t look backwards to see what I could change, I look backwards to try and change the future. I wouldn’t change anything even if I could. If I never, or changed, the experiences I went through I don’t think I would be happy. Those experiences are what makes me the person I am today. Like my dad always says,” Experience is the best teacher.” To me changing my past to try and put myself in a better position would kinda be like taking the easy way out. But if I could travel back in time the only thing I would do is see some significant historical events, from a distance of course.
Nice!!
Unfortunately time travel is impossible. You would literally have to obliterate your physical form and be re-animated in the past or Future. Solid matter can’t move so fast that it would be able to pass through time. You would need to travel faster than the speed of light or sound. Essentially you would have to kill yourself and have a means of being able to copy the exact same verion of yourself in said past or future. Now I’m thinking of Quantum Leap…..hopefully this will be the leap home.
I believe eventually we all make the leap home 😊
Obviously, ignore all politics, wealth opportunities, catastrophes etc. and walk straight to my favorite football (soccer) club and tell them which youths to sign before they turn top players. And maybe the endless agony they cause me ends 😉
😂 my wish about sports would have been for the Ottawa Senators to win their conference to go for the Stanley Cup. BUT, I’ve made a few new friends from the OTHER team (reigning champs… ugh 😂), whom we love to agree to disagree. As long as the Anaheim Goons didn’t make it (nothing toooo personal guys), it’s all good 😊
Purely theoretical…..
I believe one can not change the past.
If tomorrow you go back in time to 2:00 PDT today (that is 15 minutes earlier than this moment in time), THEN
at this moment in time you already were ‘there’ 15 minutes ago.
It is history. It has already happened.
It would be interesting to watch me commit some of the really, REALLY stupid
(Dumb ass)
Mistakes, of which I have been guilty
Lol!!
😂😂😂 love it Tracy 😊
Time travel as it is depicted in film and novels is that the person who travels back in time never actually goes back in time, only the things around them do. If I went back in time ten years than I would be ten years younger and I would lose all memory of everything that happened in that ten years making me repeat the whole process over and I could get caught in a never ending loop. But you see in films that’s not how it happens. The person who goes back in time is still getting older, it’s only the environment around him that has gone back to an earlier time while he remains in the present in terms of his physical body and mind. So not only would going back in time be impossible (most likely) it would also be pointless. The only way it can make sense (in terms of writing good fiction) is if everything goes back in time except the person in the time machine.
Here’s a thought: we’re all time traveling right now…four-dimensional beings who believe that we live in three dimensions. But…every once in a while, we can see past that.
When i met my wife-to-be, i was smacked with déjà vu. Hard. I choose to believe that, at that moment, I was seeing past the moment.
Whether that’s true or not I have no idea. But I’ve had enough…odd moments…like that in my life to believe that something is going on.
As far as changing the past, meh. Better to orient yourself to change your future.
Loves me some me Deja vu! I always think it reminds that I am where I am supposed to be.
What would I change?… I would appear in front of one of our former leaders… Let’s say Louis the XIVth and command him as the ghostly apparition from the future that I would be to rename France the Kingdom of Whazooland just because it would be funny.
😂😂😂😂 I like it!
Time travel, what a quandary. If you change your own life, would you accept the disappearance of your kids, nephews and nieces, friend’s kids? Or maybe the kids are just different, a girl vs a boy. The only possible “good” of time travel is going back to time an item is destroyed (stamp, painting,etc.) by fire (bombing, etc) and rescuing it.