Cuz, see, it's all about time.
I'm no physicist (heck, it took me two backspacings to spell physicist without a redline showing up underneath it), but it is my opinion that time-travel [into the past, anyway] is impossible.
1) We would've seen time travelers by now. Or effects thereof.
Yeah, people will argue that if the past has been changed, how would we know, but I think that if time travelers existed, they'd make things ...better.
Or..you know, maybe they wouldn't. Because messing with the past would alter their present (our future), and it might make things worse for them. And besides, maybe they don't care about making our present better. I mean, if I could go back and change, say, events of World War 2 (heh. Almost typed '3' there.), would I? PRobably not.
For the very reasons stated above. Namely, if I killed Hitler or Eisenhower, how would that change the present? What if by doing so I wound up being born 2 months earlier? Or not at all. Can't have that.
Also, all the people who died in WW2... well, they're dead. They don't have an impact on my life *now*, so I should just let them die when they were supposed to die. Right?
But, assuming I could go back and forth at will, and I saw that my actions in the past altered the future negatively... all I'd have to do is go back again, and not do that.
So. Either time travelers don't exist, don't care about changing the past, or, have determined that what we have is the best that we can get. Hmm.
2) Dude. Even God couldn't go back in time.
Of all the powers that God (Christian God from the Bible, we're talking here. Although, come to think of it, none of the gods from other mythologies that I know of have this ability either...) has, one of the biggies that He's lacking... is time travel.
When Adam & Eve disobey him in the Garden of Eden, if God were truly all powerful, you'd think he'd just turn back the clock. [or, you know, if he were omnipotent, he'd've seen it coming]
Again, with Noah and the flood. Pissed at how the world's turning out? Going back and starting from scratch might be easier than, say, drowning 99% of the world.
Hell, when Lois Lane died, all Superman had to do was fly around the world backwards a few thousand times, so you'd think that God Almighty would have that ability...
So, with the exception of Terminators and Bill & Ted, and DeLoreans and Billy Pilgrim (and the aforementioned Man of Steel), once the past is past, it's.... well, past.
3 comments:
Well, both Robert Rankin and Piers Anthony have examined the idea (both in humerous ways) of someone travelling back in time, changing something, returning to the present to find in changed negatively, then going back to tell themselves not to do it. Then the changes are again not good so they go back again, ending up with an army of protagonists all at the same point in the past.
I'd explain more, but that kind of stuff makes my head hurt.
Also, they examined the idea of Superman changing the Earth's rotation on an episode of Quirks and Quarks. They explained that if the Earth's rotation was to stop, let alone reverse, it'd be like we and everything else on the planet were all in a car going 1670 kmph (or 1070 mph) that just stopped dead. We'd keep going and smoosh (that's the scientific term).
Hypothesis number two precludes the possibility that God is a jerk who likes to fuck with people.
Incidentally, I would also like to postulate that I, myself, am an obscure reference to the Beatles. I will stand by this.
I've thought about what I would do if I had the ability to go back and prevent myself from making particular stupid mistakes. But if I did that, I wouldn't be the person I am now, and I rather like myself. So maybe if I could do it both ways and then be able to choose the one that was better, yeah.
I've always thought that the reason God didn't go back and change things is because we have free will. He let us make mistakes, and punished us for them to help us learn to make good decisions. Like a parent.
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