Poll: Would you take advice from your future self? (Read First)
- Thread starter MrFluffy-X
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I don't put a great deal of importance on money to begin with. Nor do I believe that any money received truly comes without strings attached. So it wouldn't take much urging from future-selfs for me to turn it down.
There's a problem with this theory.
If I have the opportunity to take the money and then my future self appears to say 'don't take the money' then is the reason I have invented time travel because I did take the money or because I did not? Is time travel based along a solely linear path, in which case my not taking the money would diverge into an alternate timeline where nothing is stable because of my not taking the money?
If time is linear as well, by not taking the money I have removed the need to go back in time and tell myself to not take the money unless the object of the time travel was, as aforestated, in order to make sure I had the ability to time travel because I had not taken the money?
It all boils down to:
Time travel makes my head hurt because you haven't even included exactly whose rules of time travel are in play here. Is everything predetermined in which case it doesn't matter which action I take because there is no way to change the future, present or past, or can we affect our own fates?
Never ask someone studying time travel at university this question.
If I have the opportunity to take the money and then my future self appears to say 'don't take the money' then is the reason I have invented time travel because I did take the money or because I did not? Is time travel based along a solely linear path, in which case my not taking the money would diverge into an alternate timeline where nothing is stable because of my not taking the money?
If time is linear as well, by not taking the money I have removed the need to go back in time and tell myself to not take the money unless the object of the time travel was, as aforestated, in order to make sure I had the ability to time travel because I had not taken the money?
It all boils down to:
Time travel makes my head hurt because you haven't even included exactly whose rules of time travel are in play here. Is everything predetermined in which case it doesn't matter which action I take because there is no way to change the future, present or past, or can we affect our own fates?
Never ask someone studying time travel at university this question.
Well, in such a hypothetical scenario, it would be likely I know best; in the future. However it could never happen, so I'am happy to ignore the scenario completely. Although, I haven't.MrFluffy-X said:
trueTeh Roflchoppa said:
but as far as your concerned you have a choice since you dont what your future self chose so to you you can pick either even though in reality you're always gonna pick the same option
if that made sense
kinda like how you every morning you choose what to have for breakfast completely independently and that choice happens to be the exact same choice your future self made 3 seconds ago and your past self will make in 3 seconds
Future me knows the future, however he has affected his own timeline by coming back in time to tell me.
So the real question is:
Is this a never ending chain of evens, or is what future me did the first time it happened.
If the latter then the consequence of taking the money and it ruining my life can be avoided. If this is an endless loop destined to repeated itself then I would leave the money.
So the real question is:
Is this a never ending chain of evens, or is what future me did the first time it happened.
If the latter then the consequence of taking the money and it ruining my life can be avoided. If this is an endless loop destined to repeated itself then I would leave the money.
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...MelasZepheos said:
I have a quick 5 answer system for myself if I ever have to time travel. Access code and password (To verify identity), whether we're stuck in a loop paradox (if I take it, did he take it having the warning), time he came from, and (if theres time) what went wrong.
If my future self came back to tell me not to do it, then knowing myself, I'm sure that another one of myself would appear when he does to lecture him for fucking off and leaving without explaining WHY I shouldn't take the money.
Reminds me of that movie, "Paycheck" where Ben Afleck gets paid a ton of money to work, but he left himself a note not to take the money so he would investigate what was going on.
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.Teh Roflchoppa said:
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.
I'd have to say that I'd take my chances. Things might go to hell later, but the ride would be worth it.
