What would you change if you could time travel to the Wild West?

In summary, the conversation revolves around the topic of time travel and where the individuals would go if given the opportunity. Many have conflicting ideas, such as going back to see historical events or going forward to a more advanced society. However, the concept of changing the past or future raises concerns about altering one's own existence and causing paradoxes. Some suggest a non-interference code to prevent altering events, while others see it as an opportunity to play out scenarios like Adam and Eve. Overall, the conversation showcases the fascination and complexities surrounding the idea of time travel.
  • #1
Kerrie
Staff Emeritus
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if you could time travel, either back or forward in time, where would you go assuming you could come back safely to your own time? would you change anything?

i would go to 19th century america and live in the wild west (preferably california during the gold rush)...
 
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  • #2
I would like to go back to 1947, to the Starlight Ballroom in Philadelphia and see my parents meet.

Njorl
 
  • #3
I would like to go then back to 1947, to the Starlight Ballroom in Philadelphia and see how Njorl was watching his parents meeting. Cheers Njorl.
:wink:
 
  • #4
I would go forward to a time where we have managed to create a society that is based on free and logical thinking, one that does not constantly get over ridden by stupid emotional concepts, where people don’t even think about not looking into something cause they don’t want to know that this is the answer. A time where we have managed to really figure out what’s going on in the brain, and have the technology to explore the real connections between physics and biology. But it all starts with a real philosophy for children being set up world wide, and people being willing to think outside their experience and dedicate their time to finding out alternative explanations to things they just presume to know the answers for. It demands intellectual honesty, and a new way of thinking, and a population who are willing to break from the yoke of existence and want to know something of the truth. (What ever that may be). So maybe I would go back a few hundred years, and start this program back in ancient Greece: watch the populace kill Socrates, and make sure the knowledge did get passed on, not just through various small close knit groups, but as a general education for all: the education of how to think. But humans hate to think, and hell, I love the yoke. So maybe I should just stay here and have another cup of tea.
 
  • #5
Time travel

I would go back to the days of socrates i would meet with him and discuss phylosophy for day on end.I would also as said before make sure that the knowledge of the great phylosophist would be passed on.
 
  • #6
1) go forward about 10 years
2) get stock-exchange data (and maybe some new inventions)
3) come back and take over the world
 
  • #7
Originally posted by Guybrush Threepwood
3) come back and take over the world
... Others will then go back ... and make you a poor fellow.
 
  • #8
I'd go back to the Paleozoic Era, the time before the first mass extinction (the P/T event). It was mostly reptiles and protomammals by the end of that Era, and we hardly ever hear about those creatures, but they must have been fascinating. Then, of course, I'd go forward to near the end of the Triassic period (before the T/J event) and see the new dinosaurs and larger protomammals, who were still holding some "authority" in the world. And then, finally, I'd go to the time 65 million years ago, just before the K/T event, and see if the dinosaurs were already dropping dramatically in numbers before the meteor wiped the remainding few out of existence (which is what I think is most likely what happened). I'd also like to go back to the time of Homo Erectus...I'd just like further proof of obvious truth, I guess :smile:.
 
  • #9
Originally posted by Mentat
I'd go back to the Paleozoic Era, the time before the first mass extinction (the P/T event). It was mostly reptiles and protomammals by the end of that Era, and we hardly ever hear about those creatures, but they must have been fascinating. Then, of course, I'd go forward to near the end of the Triassic period (before the T/J event) and see the new dinosaurs and larger protomammals, who were still holding some "authority" in the world. And then, finally, I'd go to the time 65 million years ago, just before the K/T event, and see if the dinosaurs were already dropping dramatically in numbers before the meteor wiped the remainding few out of existence (which is what I think is most likely what happened). I'd also like to go back to the time of Homo Erectus...I'd just like further proof of obvious truth, I guess :smile:.
Seems a nice program. Of course you could go first to the future, find a weapon that could destroy that meteor ... go to the time before the meteor crashed ... destroy the meteor before the impact ... and see what would happen ...
 
  • #10
Originally posted by pelastration
Seems a nice program. Of course you could go first to the future, find a weapon that could destroy that meteor ... go to the time before the meteor crashed ... destroy the meteor before the impact ... and see what would happen ...

Yeah, but then I definitely wouldn't exist...indeed, Homo Sapiens might never have existed, since, during the reign of the Dinosaurs, the only mammals were small rodent-like weaklings.
 
  • #11
Originally posted by Mentat
Yeah, but then I definitely wouldn't exist...indeed, Homo Sapiens might never have existed, since, during the reign of the Dinosaurs, the only mammals were small rodent-like weaklings.
... on your return (with your girlfriend picked up somewhere ) you can play then Adam and Eve.
For course every scenario can be undo.
Therefor there was in lot of time-travel SF-books a non-interfere code (which was broken of course!).
 
  • #12
Originally posted by pelastration
... on your return (with your girlfriend picked up somewhere ) you can play then Adam and Eve.
For course every scenario can be undo.

Actually, if I never existed, then I never traveled back in time, which means that I still did exist (since it was my traveling back that led to my not existing), which means that I did travel back in time...this is looping and thus logically impossible (yet another one of my problems with time travel: too many paradoxes).
 
  • #13
Originally posted by Mentat
Actually, if I never existed, then I never traveled back in time, which means that I still did exist (since it was my traveling back that led to my not existing), which means that I did travel back in time...this is looping and thus logically impossible (yet another one of my problems with time travel: too many paradoxes).

Mentat,

You still would exist since you caused that the meteor didn't hit earth. Maybe humanity would not exist but you would. The cause (you) couldn't cause it's own non-existence.
Since you still had that time-machine you could always go back to the moment before that you destroyed that meteor, and let it do it's original job. The problem would be to convince your other-self not to destroy it, which in your case could be a problem! Mentat discussing with Mentat ... whaow ! .
Indeed to much possibilities and nothing is for sure in such time-machine world.

My problem with time travel is that it's impossible to re-TURN all physical phenomena. (ie. inverse fires in California and have back the woods, make anti-spin of all electrons, undo radiation, reverse photons to the sun and stars, etc. ). Already just 'stopping' all phenomena (a condition for TT) would be a hell of a job ...
 
  • #14
3) come back and take over the world

That's not a bad idea. Come back from the future with an evil doomsday device I like to call a "tractor" beam and bribe the world for $1 million dollars and emit a evil laugh. All the while wearing a gray suit, holding rt. pinky to mouth, and petting a white kitty.
 
  • #15
Originally posted by pelastration
Mentat,

You still would exist since you caused that the meteor didn't hit earth. Maybe humanity would not exist but you would. The cause (you) couldn't cause it's own non-existence.

It doesn't seem that I should be able to cause my own non-existence (since that leads to the paradox that I mentioned before), but I am a human, and am the product of thousands of years of human procreation. If those do not happen, I do not happen.

Since you still had that time-machine you could always go back to the moment before that you destroyed that meteor, and let it do it's original job. The problem would be to convince your other-self not to destroy it, which in your case could be a problem! Mentat discussing with Mentat ... whaow ! .
Indeed to much possibilities and nothing is for sure in such time-machine world.

Well, actually, I couldn't go back and find myself, because stopping the meteor would create a chain-reaction that would rub-out my ever having existed.
 
  • #16
Originally posted by Mentat
It doesn't seem that I should be able to cause my own non-existence (since that leads to the paradox that I mentioned before), but I am a human, and am the product of thousands of years of human procreation. If those do not happen, I do not happen.
...Well, actually, I couldn't go back and find myself, because stopping the meteor would create a chain-reaction that would rub-out my ever having existed.
Wouldn't you in a ...kind of 'superpostion'? (like postulated by QM ... which I hate...:wink: as you know).
 
  • #17
Originally posted by pelastration
Wouldn't you in a ...kind of 'superpostion'? (like postulated by QM ... which I hate...:wink: as you know).

That's stretching it a bit, but then "stretching" things (spacetime in particular) is your forte, isn't it? :wink:
 
  • #18
This is what i would do if i had a time machine.

www.djblair.com.au[/URL]

Many Thanks,
Blair Styles.
11:11
 
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  • #19
oh lorrdy

I would really like to meet Moses. I would tell him not to put those... in stone because nothing is always written in stone. Laying anything in cement always muddies things up.

As far as changing things, I would not change one thing. I will say that I gave up regrets and stole the lessons.
 
  • #20
"The Moon"

I would go back to July 20, 1969, when mankind, accomplished its single greatest technological achievement, of all time, when a human first set foot on another celestial body, the moon..?

Why, to verify that the 14 minute video, is authentic that I posses, that Neil A. Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, took while there heartbeats rose to 160 pulses per minute.
 
  • #21
I would go back to the Buddha's time and sit in on his exposition. I would also try to approach him and kiss his hands, if I had not passed out by then.
 
  • #22
I would go back to see if I could make things turn out differently with a special girl.
 
  • #23
I'd see if this idea works:
Firstly, go a few hundred years into the future and bring back a really advanced spacecraft .
Go back to prehistoric times and take a few primitive humans, and settle them on an uninhabited planet somewhere. Use the time machine to bring back the most advanced technology of the far future and give it to your society. Then go forward about ten thousand years. Over ten thousand years you society will most likely have made enormous technological advances over what they had to begin with, and their scientific knowledge will have expanded greatly. Bring that technology and scientific knowledge back with you to when you first settled them on that planet, and repeat the process. Unlimited knowledge out of nothing, in nearly zero time!
 
  • #24
I'm very risk averse so I wouldn't push it. I'd go to tomorrow and find the stock that goes up just enough to make the amount I'm able to invest turn into the amount that I could retire on. Then I'd come back and execute. I wouldn't want to rule the world, yuk. You'd never see me again :smile:
 
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  • #25
within a timeless, infinite universe, isn't reincarnation a time machine?

is it possible that i can have lives outside of linear time sequence. can i get so enamored of a past era that i might choose to visit that period in my next life?? will it be different than the official history that we now accept?? could i influence a change??

is 'life' a time machine?

love and peace,
olde drunk
 
  • #26
I'd go to the mid-eighties and invest in Microsoft, Dell, Oracle, and other software/computer companies, then come back and cash out about half of it. Then I'd open a sports bar, get married and have some kids. I'd probably get a ton of degrees in my spare time as well.
 
  • #27
i will go back and seek guidance from Newton and einstein..and will promote peace and prevent WW2. Its simply our wrong placement of contention and greed has lead to wars. I hope the pple who started war regretted what they have done...
 
  • #28
I would need a time machine just so I would have enough time in my life to go back and see for myself all the things that I would want to see and verify and meet or at least see, witness for myself all the people that I would want to meet or see. I don't think that I would want to go to the future unless it was to make enough money to be able to afford doing all of the above.

As far as changing things in the past, it can't be done unless you believe in the many universes thing. If something was changed in our past then it is already part of our history. Can history change? Then the change in our history would be part of our history, ad infinitum, ad nausium.
All of these paradoxes and being locked into loops is probably why it isn't allowed by mere mortals such as ourselves.
 
  • #29
I would go back as far as time would let me(assuming I could come home safely)
 

1. What was life like in the Wild West?

Life in the Wild West was rugged and tough. People lived in small towns and communities, often relying on agriculture and ranching for survival. There were also frequent conflicts and violence among settlers, Native Americans, and outlaws. Resources and amenities were limited, and disease and harsh weather conditions were common.

2. What were the biggest challenges people faced in the Wild West?

The biggest challenges people faced in the Wild West were survival and adapting to a harsh and unpredictable environment. Settlers had to deal with harsh weather conditions, scarce resources, and conflicts with Native Americans. Outlaws and bandits also posed a threat to the safety and security of communities.

3. How did people travel in the Wild West?

In the Wild West, people primarily traveled by horseback or on foot. Wagons and stagecoaches were also commonly used for longer distances. The development of railroads in the late 1800s also revolutionized transportation in the Wild West, making it easier and faster to travel across long distances.

4. What was the role of women in the Wild West?

Women in the Wild West often had limited rights and opportunities compared to men. However, they played a crucial role in maintaining households and supporting their families. Many women also worked as teachers, nurses, and entrepreneurs. Some even became famous for their skills as sharpshooters and rodeo performers.

5. What were some notable events that occurred in the Wild West?

The Wild West was a time of rapid growth and change in the United States. Some notable events that occurred during this time period include the California Gold Rush, the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, and the Battle of Little Bighorn. The Wild West was also a popular setting for the iconic conflicts between outlaws and lawmen, such as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

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