Musings on Time Travel

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Musings on Time Travel

A question that has sparked many a lovely mental musing is:  “is time travel possible?” 

I don’t pretend to understand the actual theories people put forth on how it could be possible, I do love to watch the shows and pretend I understand.  Of course the best and most basic argument that it’s not possible is that we haven’t had anyone appear and say, “Greetings from the future!”  It’s a valid point. 

Still, if someone were to travel to the past, just how would they behave?  I see there being three basic sorts of people who’d want to time travel.  The first is the simple gawker.  They don’t want to change or interfere in anyway, but just see and experience some past time.  The scientist who wants to see dinosaurs in action – just what color was their skin?  We really have no idea. 

The second is the profiteer.  This person wants to take his or her knowledge of the past to make a vast fortune.  A few well placed sports bets or picking just the right infant companies in which to invest.  Still no real desire to change anything, but just to profit from one’s knowledge and live a life of hedonistic bliss. 

The third, or course, is the meddler.  This person wants to go back in time to change something.  Perhaps something grand like stopping a world war or something more personal like avenge a wrong or to take revenge.  In some way, large or small, they want to change the past. 

Let’s take a little longer look at the last two.  If someone wanted to be a profiteer, would we really know he or she was from the future?  After all, there are some people wo seem to have an uncanny luck about choosing what to do.  Assuming that the traveler were smart enough to avoid attracting too much attention, one could choose to invest in an early Microsoft or IBM and live quite well.  Well, provided one had the money to make the initial investment.  If you think about it, one could make the argument that Warren Buffet fits this bill.  While I’m not seriously proposing he’s from the future, he has a lot of the traits such a person might have.  He extremely crafty at picking just the right companies in which to invest.  He does this, despite the attention he gets for being so good at it, in a very low-key way.  He’s also not immune to the occasional misstep, but that’d actually work quite well to keep one’s identity as a visitor from the future a secret.  If he never made a mistake, he’d attract too much attention.  No, it’s best to be good, but not infallible. 

What about the meddler?  Would the goal of going back in time to stop a world war really be a laudable goal?  Would the person who found and killed an infant Hitler be praised forever more as some sort of saint?  I rather think not.  First of all, let’s set aside the paradox issues and say you were to achieve this goal.  You travel back in time and fit an adolescent Adolph Hitler and kill him.  This would mean he never grows up and has not role in World War II – this war may still happen, but certainly in a somewhat different fashion of course, but one person doesn’t make or break a war.  It would also mean that no one would know or care about what you did.  You could return to the future and declare, with all the bravado you can muster, “I just stopped the Holocaust!” and you’d probably end up in jail for murder once you explained you stopped it by killing someone. 

Why?  Well, since you killed Hitler, he was never involved in World War II or anything else, which means there’d be no record of him ever doing another other than being killed.  You just admitted you killed him, so you’re a murderer and off to jail with you.  You really couldn’t argue that you’d done a good thing since Hitler hadn’t yet done anything wrong.  A bit convoluted, but it’s true. 

Moreover, let’s say that you had some sort of proof of what Hitler would have become and people accepted this proof.  You go on to successfully argue that what you did wasn’t a crime, but more along the lines of self-defense or justifiable homicide.  Let’s go on to say that your act has the best possible outcome, that not only are there no concentration camps, but the whole war is averted.  World War II just doesn’t happen.  In fact, another World War doesn’t happen at all, perhaps due to the efforts of other time traveling meddlers like yourself.  What would this mean?

It would mean you’re still guilty of murder.  I don’t mean Hitler’s murder, but the murder of millions upon millions of people.  If the war never happened, think of all the people who’d never have met.  In fact, it’s quite likely that by stopping the war, you’d change the conditions under which two of your ancestors met, meaning they never met.  After all, thanks to the war, how many simple farm boys turned soldiers met their wives in Europe or at some military base or hospital?  Not too likely they’d ever meet without a war to cause such a great mixing of people.  You’d be guilty of killing off an entire generation of people and all of their offspring. 

I think a lot of people think if I’d stop the war, everything else would be the same, but there just wouldn’t be a war.  That’s just not true.  A great many innovations and inventions are due, directly due, to war.  War is one of the greatest sources of inspiration for the creation of new and better technologies.  While its true that many of these innovations are used to harm the enemy, but they are put to good use in, for example, the medical field.  It’s really impossible to speculate what life would be if Hitler were killed and/or the World War II avoided.  The ripples of such a change are more like a tsunami that complete obliterates all that we know. 

What if the meddler were to do something on a much smaller scale?  Perhaps the Meddler’s mother were killed by some serial killer and the goal is to stop the killer first.  No grand impact to the rest of the world.  At least, not directly.  There’s a couple ways one could save her life.  Perhaps just ensure she’s not home when the killer strikes.  Just give her a flat tire so she’s late getting home and the killer has to pick another target.  Life saved, no grand impact.  Of course, this means the killer likely finds and kills someone else.  Another choice is find the killer and kill him first.  A more direct option to be sure.  But you still can’t be sure what you’ve done is a net good.  What if, a few years later into her life, your mother ends up in a traffic accident and kills someone else?  Perhaps she hits a minivan and kills a couple children?  Before you saved her from the serial killer, this accident never happened.  You’re now guilty of causing the death of those people.  Who knows what they may have grown up to do or what their offspring may have gone on to do. 

Said another way, any sort of meddling in the past, no matter how noble the basic intent it is, is going to have lasting negative impacts in unanticipated ways.  There’s just not a way to either save a life or take a life in a morally pure way.