Forward Time Travel

[Stanley Doble]

Another examination of forward time-travel by a science-fiction author, (albeit involving no futuristic technology), is in the Spider Robinson short story, The Time Traveler. It concerns an American missionary who early in 1963 had been imprisoned in a Central American country just as a revolution occurred. After being forgotten about for ten years, he is released into the world of 1973. Robinson describes what his character faced was not The Time Traveler's Dilemma, future shock, but instead was The Time Traveler's Second Dilemma, transplant shock. Whereas everyone else had been time traveling forward in time at a rate of one day per day, Robinson's protagonist had effectively traveled forward in time at a rate of 10 years per day. The story went on to describe the difficulties he had in adapting to the social, cultural, and political changes that had occurred in the intervening time.

Similarly, and much more succinctly, I remember there was a Doonesbury strip in the early-mid 1970s where one of Trudeau's characters was sitting at a counter talking with a just-released Vietnam War POW. It ended with the ex-POW saying he was looking forward to watching Ed Sullivan on TV.

The Doonesbury gag:

POW: Have you got this week's Life magazine?

Host: Ah.... about that...

POW: Never mind, it's almost time for Ed Sullivan.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

That's why time travel is such a fascinating subject.

Travel to the future is presupposed on the assumption that 'the' timeline' is following a distinct path, whatever that may be.

Anyone can alter their own, as well as others' every minute of every day.

Quantum physics insert: my life goes on the way it does pretty much every day. If I chose, one day, to do something completely outside the realm of what I normally do, and it is to whatever extent harmful to one or more of my charges (students), my life could almost suddenly shoot off in a completely different direction, and my timeline will be altered forever. And depending on what it was I did, someone else's timeline could be affected, as well, including students, families (my own included), and anyone subsequently involved in processing the results of my actions.

That's a pretty extreme example, but it does illustrate the point that free will does indeed exist. We all make choices every minute of every day. Most of us make the same boring choices all the time, thankfully, and don't say and do things that would put our lives spinning out of control. But the potential is always there to either mildly or drastically alter various timelines.

So if you were to travel into the future, let's say your own future, and not someplace on the other side of the world where you've never been before, which timeline will you be on? The simple answer is whichever one you ended up on due to the choices you have made, whether the same ones you always make, drastically different ones you will make, or, and here's a big or, something that happens to you in spite of your every day sameness. Who is to say, if I was time traveling today into the not-to-distant future, that tomorrow I wasn't t-boned on the way to work, either gravely injuring or killing me, and how that affected everyone acquainted with me?

Fascinating subject.

And what if, free will (as we perceive it) is just an illusion & that everything we do, even drastically changing our lives, is supposed to happen.
Look at evolution. New species are 'created' as others become extinct which suggests that evolution/life, call it what you will, had already planned in advance that all life forms will come & go & so put into action a species replacement strategy right from the start.
If everything in the past was meant to happen & whatever we did, the choices we made, the decisions we took were in effect,'predestined' then that would imply that everything in the future is already programmed too & that even if we think we are changing our destinies, we are merely following some invisible path laid out for us ever since unicellular life forms appeared in the primeval oceans.
On the other hand this is probably just bunkum as everybody knows, destiny or fate doesn't exist..............................or does it ?

 

[Lean'n'mean]

In such a case you just mess around for forty-five minutes, then get back into the Tardis and go somewhere else.

Ah, but the TARDIS needs coordinates, if you're trapped somewhere with no time or location, you ain't going nowhere as there ain't nowhere to go......ain't that right Doctor ?

 

[Lean'n'mean]

I'd think that many religious people would consider your very existence, post-death (without any recollections of 'Heaven') to be an affront to their beliefs.
I'm not talking smack about religious people, but I am saying it's a given that enough of them would go nuts upon hearing of this, that your life would likely be in jeopardy... again.
I could also see a cult being founded around that as well.
It's an intriguing concept, one that a fiction writer could have a lot of fun with!

I wouldn't worry about it. Should mankind ever be able to raise the dead, there'd be no more need for religion.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Ah, but the TARDIS needs coordinates, if you're trapped somewhere with no time or location, you ain't going nowhere as there ain't nowhere to go......ain't that right Doctor ?

Right then! I'll just reverse the polarity of the neutron flow! That should get us moving!

 

[scottyrocks]

And what if, free will (as we perceive it) is just an illusion & that everything we do, even drastically changing our lives, is supposed to happen.
Look at evolution. New species are 'created' as others become extinct which suggests that evolution/life, call it what you will, had already planned in advance that all life forms will come & go & so put into action a species replacement strategy right from the start.
If everything in the past was meant to happen & whatever we did, the choices we made, the decisions we took were in effect,'predestined' then that would imply that everything in the future is already programmed too & that even if we think we are changing our destinies, we are merely following some invisible path laid out for us ever since unicellular life forms appeared in the primeval oceans.
On the other hand this is probably just bunkum as everybody knows, destiny or fate doesn't exist..............................or does it ?

Pre-destination is a concept akin to higher beings - not proveable in any sense, but certainly a concept worthy of discussion.

Yes, everything up to now, and even these words that I type, could have been planned in advance, but that's such a wide open concept that it doesn't even matter.

Things unfold as they do, and each of us has at least the perception of choice, if not the real thing.

If we don't know that everything has been preordained and go about our lives making choices, then we go about our lives making choices. It doesn't matter.

 

[MikeKardec]

The magic bullet at the time was DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) - a cryoprotectant that protects the tissue cells from rupturing during freezing.

Wasn't DMSO used by druggies in the 1980s to get substances through their skin without punctures?

It concerns an American missionary who early in 1963 had been imprisoned in a Central American country just as a revolution occurred. After being forgotten about for ten years, he is released into the world of 1973. Robinson describes what his character faced was not The Time Traveler's Dilemma, future shock, but instead was The Time Traveler's Second Dilemma, transplant shock.

I've got to read this it sounds fantastic!

• Someone dies, gets frozen, then somehow they get 'fixed' and woken up.

• Just think of how religion would handle that, especially if there was no memory of bright lights and being in heaven or hell.

• How about the legal aspect? All their worth was long ago given to family. They're now broke!

Interestingly, I have two friends who have had "near death" or possibly just DEATH experiences. They both reported slightly subtler versions of typical mythology: a body-less heaven where they were "existing' in some way with their deceased loved ones. Reality? DMT explosion? Who knows or cares? But it does show you where the stories come from!

I like the Heinlein plan, insurance companies offer the equivalent of life insurance to cover your future expenses. Better hope they stay solvent!

Should mankind ever be able to raise the dead, there'd be no more need for religion.

My Dad wrote a short story about a traveling "prophet" who proves he can raise the dead. He's really a con man. The con is that, realizing the complications, people pay him NOT to.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think there's a good reason why every good fiction piece about some character or other stumbling onto a way to "live forever" ends with that character pleading for the release of death. I was reminded of that the other day when I saw a piece in the paper about some scientist in Austrialia who was 104 years old and finally got so fed up with living so long that he traveled to Switzerland and took advantage of their assisted-suicide policy. His last words were "This seems to be taking awfully long."

 

[Bugguy]

Wasn't DMSO used by druggies in the 1980s to get substances through their skin without punctures?/QUOTE]

Yes - it was, and in spy novels as a way to spray a sedative in someones face.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

I think there's a good reason why every good fiction piece about some character or other stumbling onto a way to "live forever" ends with that character pleading for the release of death. I was reminded of that the other day when I saw a piece in the paper about some scientist in Austrialia who was 104 years old and finally got so fed up with living so long that he traveled to Switzerland and took advantage of their assisted-suicide policy. His last words were "This seems to be taking awfully long."

Indeed, many elderly people & aged animals are condemned to live when the alternative would be kinder. Death when it eventually comes in such circumstances, is both sad & a relief.

 

[Haversack]

MikeKardec wrote in regard to the short story, The Time-Traveler: "I've got to read this it sounds fantastic!"

It is from Spider Robinson's collection of short stories entitled, Callahan's Crosstime Saloon. He has written dozens of science fiction short stories set in a certain Long Island bar and which have been collected into four or five books. (WARNING! Read at your own risk if you have a low tolerance for puns and word-play). Most are humourous, some are poignant. They are very much in the same genre as Clarke's Tales From the White Hart and DeCamp and Pratt's Tales from Gavagan's Bar.

 

[MikeKardec]

I think there's a good reason why every good fiction piece about some character or other stumbling onto a way to "live forever" ends with that character pleading for the release of death.

Well, stories aren't about a lack of change. It is interesting, however, that it is absolutely archetypal to end a story with the potential of another generation being born, a healthier form of immortality.

I felt so strange about the Aussie guy. We've all got the capacity to check out where and when we choose as long as we are healthy enough to pull it off ... ironic! I suspect the main reason to go to Switzerland is so that we don't make a mess. That said, if a person won't commit suicide just because they don't want to leave blood all over the floor then they might consider hanging on for a few more years, the next sunrise might be beautiful. The poor dude decided to travel halfway around the world and let a bureaucracy manage his last moments, and then he expected speed ... I hate to say it but that's ironic too. Quick or not I wish the guy safe travels.

 

[MikeKardec]

And what if, free will (as we perceive it) is just an illusion & that everything we do, even drastically changing our lives, is supposed to happen.
Look at evolution. New species are 'created' as others become extinct which suggests that evolution/life, call it what you will, had already planned in advance that all life forms will come & go & so put into action a species replacement strategy right from the start.
If everything in the past was meant to happen & whatever we did, the choices we made, the decisions we took were in effect,'predestined' then that would imply that everything in the future is already programmed too & that even if we think we are changing our destinies, we are merely following some invisible path laid out for us ever since unicellular life forms appeared in the primeval oceans.
On the other hand this is probably just bunkum as everybody knows, destiny or fate doesn't exist..............................or does it ?

There is some evidence that everything you experience goes through a half second delay as it's processed consciously. The unconscious reacts MUCH more quickly which is why in sports and theater, and most particularly improv comedy, you consciously train yourself to do the right things unconsciously when you are "on." Within that half second delay, which your mind tricks you into thinking doesn't exist, there is the possibility of all sorts of unconscious (trained in or not) behavior. We may have free will but it's not as free as we'd like to think! People do a lot of rationalizing of what they just did, much of the time without ever noticing. We are better people if we bother to train in the unconscious responses that we'd like to see consciously ... or our parents train us or teachers or church or whatever.

Is it forward time travel, or backwards? A thing happens and you know what to do and start doing it, then you realize what it was that happened and pretend you decided. I think I catch myself doing this many times when the phone rings.

 

[Zombie_61]

Ah, but the TARDIS needs coordinates, if you're trapped somewhere with no time or location, you ain't going nowhere as there ain't nowhere to go......ain't that right Doctor ?

Doctor Who's TARDIS handily solved one conundrum of time travel that many writers don't take into consideration--location, location, location. What I mean by that is this: Suppose someone invented a device that could transport you either forward or backward in time. And lets say that device is in a basement in a building somewhere in New York. You enter the device, set the controls for exactly 100 years in the past or future, push the "start" button, and you're transported those 100 years in either direction. But Earth is in a constant state of motion (or so we believe), so 100 years in the past or future that basement (if it exists) could be hundreds of thousands of miles away from where it was when you left and you'd find yourself floating in space. So any time travel device would have to include a computer with precise programming to determine where Earth would be when you arrive in the past or future, propulsion that would take you to those exact coordinates, and probably some form of life support that would enable you to survive the trip.

Of course, this has nothing to do with being cryogenically frozen in the hope that you would/could be revived at some point in the future. To me this has always been nothing more than proof that some people are so afraid of death that they're willing to try anything to avoid it; perhaps the grandest boondoggle in the history of mankind. Nothing lasts forever--nothing is meant to. I'm very aware I will die someday, and I'm fine with that. If there is an "afterlife", I will continue on in some form so there's nothing for me to worry about. And if there isn't, I'll be dead and won't know it so, again, there's nothing for me to worry about. Either way, events will unfold as they should.

 

[p51]

Interesting concept about location. The only sci-fi I ever read that mentioned changing locations being a hazard in time travel had the time machine on a boat, engaging at high tide with the understanding that everything had to be secured for a almost-certain instant fall to whatever level the water was at (on the water due to the extremely unlikely event of colliding with something already there) and had checked for tides to be sure they didn't show up in high seas.
But positions of the planet? I think of stuff like this all the time and even I never thought of that before!
But watch this, it's hilarious:

And as for movies on the subject, I recently saw the 2012 movie, Safety Not Guaranteed and found it to be a really good small-budget film. It didn't hurt that it was filmed not terribly far from where I live, too. But if you're curious, watch the movie. If you read the Wikipedia plot, it's not nearly as fun as watching what happens. I thought it was great watching the whole concept escalate and it had a neat ending, I thought.

 

[Zombie_61]

Interesting concept about location. The only sci-fi I ever read that mentioned changing locations being a hazard in time travel had the time machine on a boat, engaging at high tide with the understanding that everything had to be secured for a almost-certain instant fall to whatever level the water was at (on the water due to the extremely unlikely event of colliding with something already there) and had checked for tides to be sure they didn't show up in high seas.
But positions of the planet? I think of stuff like this all the time and even I never thought of that before!...

Fascinating, isn't it? Hell, I created my own conundrum in my example above by putting the time travel device in the basement of a building. Assuming you've sorted out the other issues, you could research 100 years in the past to find out whether or not that building existed then so you wouldn't materialize 50 feet underground, but what about 100 years in the future? That building could have been demolished any number of ways and have been rebuilt or had something else built in it's place, so again you could materialize 50 feet underground, or inside of a concrete and steel foundation; I'm pretty sure that would end the trip rather quickly.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Doctor Who's TARDIS handily solved one conundrum of time travel that many writers don't take into consideration--location, location, location. What I mean by that is this: Suppose someone invented a device that could transport you either forward or backward in time. And lets say that device is in a basement in a building somewhere in New York. You enter the device, set the controls for exactly 100 years in the past or future, push the "start" button, and you're transported those 100 years in either direction. But Earth is in a constant state of motion (or so we believe), so 100 years in the past or future that basement (if it exists) could be hundreds of thousands of miles away from where it was when you left and you'd find yourself floating in space. So any time travel device would have to include a computer with precise programming to determine where Earth would be when you arrive in the past or future, propulsion that would take you to those exact coordinates, and probably some form of life support that would enable you to survive the trip.

Of course, this has nothing to do with being cryogenically frozen in the hope that you would/could be revived at some point in the future. To me this has always been nothing more than proof that some people are so afraid of death that they're willing to try anything to avoid it; perhaps the grandest boondoggle in the history of mankind. Nothing lasts forever--nothing is meant to. I'm very aware I will die someday, and I'm fine with that. If there is an "afterlife", I will continue on in some form so there's nothing for me to worry about. And if there isn't, I'll be dead and won't know it so, again, there's nothing for me to worry about.

Unless of course you only travel in one dimension, that of time, so then your location remains constant.
As for an 'afterlife', it's neither here nor there.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Nothing lasts forever--nothing is meant to.

Only eternity lasts forever & that's a long time, especially towards the end.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Doctor Who's TARDIS

Sorry to be a nerd but it's just the Doctor .........doctor who ? you ask...... no, just the Doctor.

 

[Zombie_61]

Unless of course you only travel in one dimension, that of time, so then your location remains constant...

Ah, but that's exactly my point. Earth is moving through space at an estimated 18.6 miles per second/30 kilometers per second. If you travel only forward or backward in time and your location is fixed, the odds that Earth will be in the exact same place when you arrive are infinitesimal. I'd hate to be the person responsible for doing the math on that trip.

...As for an 'afterlife', it's neither here nor there.

Ohhhh no, I'm not biting at that bait.

Sorry to be a nerd but it's just the Doctor .........doctor who ? you ask...... no, just the Doctor.

Valid point. Poor choice of words on my part--too vague. When I made that comment I was referring to the show, not The Doctor specifically.