Poll: Would you take advice from your future self? (Read First)

[bryanfuel]

i would instantly give all of it to charity

 

[_Cake_]

I would probably just go insane having won all that only to have it taken away. My family would be so mad if just gave it away when they work so hard. How would I explain it to them? They would think I'm crazy, I would too.

 

[Teh Roflchoppa]

snip.

I wish to know what "rules" there are in time, i see it very simply, if you took the money, it ruined your life, you go back to try and stop it, you tell yoursef not to, if your past self takes the money than all is right your past ruins his life and trys to fix it. If you dont take the money than you wont go back to warn yourself, if you didn't take it and went back to warn yourself anyways than it wouldn't matter, your past self woulden't, its still pre-determined...

Well, are the Back to the Future rules in play, in which you can change whatever you like and the timeline will just compensate for unforseen circumstances, thus allowing life to continue, but better or worse for your decision? In this case, your future self tells you not to take the money, you don't take it, the consequences of you not taking it continue to reveberate even though, vis-a-vis your point, you would no longer have a reason to travel back in time to warn yourself. Effectively you can change anything you want and because it is your timeline you remain unaffected. No ontological inertia would be a nice way of putting it.

Or, are Doctor Who rules in play, everything that can happen has already happened, thus your future self did not take the money because when your future self was going through the decision in his past the future self of you from the past already came back to warn him, thus creating a self-perpetuating stable time loop in which you always return to tell yourself not to take the money, the original timeline in which you did take the money having been erased by the fact that you time travelled. Ontological inertia which erases incorrect actions based on actions taken post the event contradicting the previous timeline thus rendering it invalid. (Big timey wimey ball as TimeLord might say)

Or, are the rules of pre-determination in play. You cannot change anything at all, you will always take the money, on the basis that your future self clearly took the money and invented time travel, which must be good, and instead find yourself in a dystopian hell prompting you to travel back to tell your past self not to take the money, but the cycle will be self-perpetuating. Essentially the above option but you cannot change the past ever. There is no such phenomena as the ontological inertia since effectively the act of the time travel was always pointless.

Or, are the rules of stable time loop in play, your reason for going back into the past was that the consequence of taking the money was that you ended up in a future you didn't like and so went back to warn yourself, however, the act of having warned yourself removes the need to create time travel in the first place thus you never went back to warn yourself. This is full ontological inertia, since your actions have a knock-on effect outside of your control, and your own personal time-line does not remain constant. In a situation with No Ontological INertia your timeline remains constant but everything around you shifts (presumably because you have access to the time travelling device, thus are capable of maintaining the integrity of your own self by the possession of said device), in a Full Ontological Inertia system there is no escape from changing events since the events change even your own timeline.

There we go, that's the big four. For more information go to TVTropes and read the pages on 'Ontological Inertia' and 'No Ontological Inertia.'

There's a reason we like to think of time as being linear. When it's not we have to deal with causality on a hypothetical basis. It hurts the brain.

Well the back to the future one is ridiculous, time fixing the little things itself, the last one dosent account for much, but the third is correct, you cant change the timeline in doctor who cause you can't go back and "change" something, cause your past self has already experienced that "Change" Which was never a change at all...

 

[klakkat]

I'd take it. Future me knows better than to try and change my past.

 

[Guffe]

I'd take it, No one has yet a clear answer on how the time machine/time continuum thing works so it might all be bull crap. If it was true and everything would go down the drain I would just write a book about the time space continuum and how it work, win a nobel prize and live a rich lives even if the first try got screwed!!!

 

[Sampler]

But how does future me know that if I didn't take the money I wouldn't still have a shitty life as he took the money?

It's not like it's a gaurantee life would be better.

Money may not buy you happiness but it can buy you the type of misery you desire most

 

[therookie95]

I'd believe him cause he'd already know what was about to happen but also I'd already be suspicious because where in Amersica can I get pounds?

 

[TheLaofKazi]

Keep enough left over to retire at the age of 17 and live modest life in air-conditioned house, spending the rest of my days achieving self-actualization, give rest to charity and to my parents so they can retire early and not have to worry about money.

And then I won't make the mistake that every other filthy rich asshole makes: Spending it on pointless shit that doesn't make them happy, and drugs. I know what I want to do with my life, and that is to spend it peacefully with friends and family and doing what I love. I would play and make music, play video games, watch movies, travel, ect. And anything I do would be because I want to do it, not because of money. So any music I make can be released for free, stuff like that.

And I would donate to charity anonymously, because I don't want to become famous, because that can also ruin lives.

I don't see how that could ruin my life...

 

[imnot]

if i dont take it i would never of turned up to tell myself that i musnttake the money and so would have taken the money meaning aaaaaah!

 

[imnot]

I'd believe him cause he'd already know what was about to happen but also I'd already be suspicious because where in Amersica can I get pounds?

good old amersica.

 

[The_Eskimo]

how much is that in a real currency? like usd?

 

[Kair]

I wouldn't take it, future self or not.

 

[AgDr_ODST]

I'd probably take the money and try to prove future me wrong only to wind up blowing it at and somepoint going back and warning me not to take it

 

[TheLaofKazi]

how much is that in a real currency? like usd?

Pounds are a real currency.

And it would be more then $10,000,000, because pounds are worth more then dollars.

I wouldn't take it, future self or not.

Of course you wouldn't, your an evil, filthy communist that eats children, hates America, and does other bad things judging from your avatar!

But no really, I understand where you are coming from here, that much money can give people power that they can't really handle, and a lot of people will just spend it on countless material possessions that don't really make them happy, and then will blow the rest of it on hard drugs or something like that.

 

[Plastic Muscles]

I'd take the money, why? Because I don't trust myself, it is a hobby of mine to play tricks on my own mind which is why I like things such as this http://www.smashinglists.com/10-amazing-tricks-to-play-with-your-brain/. Also I wouldn't think that it was me and it was just my mind playing a trick on itself.

 

[Les Awesome]

I'd never trust myself
I'm an asshole

 

[UBERfionn]

But i want to travel through time!
If i take the money i get to and if i don't take it i don't get to...

 

[Valksy]

Yes.

Because the warning from my future self should be enough to encourage me to think more carefully about the choices I make and hopefully not do whatever upset future me. I suppose that if you believe in the whole different time lines/history branching off thing then I could make another choice, take another branch and avoid paradox (is that quantum theory? honestly, time travel makes my brain want to melt and run out my ears).

I would tell future me to go back to when I was 16 or 17 or so and tell me to make better choices from that point on...I have already fucked up plenty and reckon there must be more opportunities in the past to fix things that I did wrong.

 

[The Geek Lord]

Future me is obviously a dumbass since he just created a nasty time loop, so fuck future me, I'm taking the money, if for no other reason than spite for future me.