Time Travelling is Pointless
I am not going to tell you why we can't build a time machine yet. There's a boatload of information about that, just Google it. I'm, however, going to consider that we somehow do manage to build a time machine- or wait. I'll ask you to imagine. Let's say we do have a time machine now. Don't get too excited right now. I need to tell you a few things you've to be careful about.
The very first thing? For God's sake don't try to recreate the 'Grandfather Paradox' yourself to see if it works. One rule, DO NOT CREATE PARADOXES. I hope that it is clear now. The second thing? I think you might know this: Do not run into yourself and I'll even add that do not even go see yourself. Stay as far away from your past self as possible. But wait, why? Okay, let's say you don't run into yourself but see yourself. Let me really take you back in time for this one.
You take the time machine and go a day back in time. You are aware that you should not meet your past self, but the curious cat that you are, you decide to just go and see yourself. In our typical lives, we've always experienced ourselves in the first person mode. How interesting would it be to see ourselves live from a different perspective? It would be really like you were someone else completely. You know, that what-if fantasy many have: What if I wasn't myself but you? Now's your chance to see yourself from beyond yourself. As before mentioned, you know what curiosity does to a cat, and maybe you'll end up with a similar fate. So what exactly happens even if you see yourself?
You are back in time and head to get a glimpse of your past self. As you are just about to take a peek around the corner, you pause. Taking a deep breath and preparing to face the consequences. Gathering all your courage, you peep across and find yourself sitting on the couch, watching your favourite show. Now, how is it possible that you are both sitting and standing at the same time? Both of them are exactly you. How come you are, at the same time in two different states which can't exist at the same time? And can you control your past self via your thoughts? Maybe you should be because your past is exactly you. But if you are able to control two bodies, then your past self already knows that he's being watched or more like that you know you are watching yourself. There aren't two minds, there's only one—yours. If that's the case, then whenever there will be more than one 'you' at any time, you will be aware of your both selves no matter what the distance of separation. Because you have the same mind you have the same consciousness. Your past self is watching TV but he's also able to see himself. How? That's hard to imagine or explain. Even your present self is watching your past self, but he's also watching the TV. Again, I can't imagine or explain.
Or maybe, consciousness or minds don't function that way. Maybe you are only conscious of your present self and are detached from your past self. That sounds weird but let's just try to avoid the confusion we were having earlier. So, now your past self isn't aware you are watching him and is only watching the TV show, while you are only watching him and not the TV show. Simple? Yeah, but it has some fearful consequences. That implies that consciousness is something the brain itself produces. It isn't something beyond us. It is contained within our heads. Maybe consciousness is like the tip of the iceberg we feel, while the rest of the iceberg or complex brain processes are abstracted from us. The tip is the consciousness. This sounds well but has profound consequences. This means that there's nothing like souls or afterlife. Since consciousness is a product of our brains, after the death of the brain, the consciousness dies too. If consciousness were beyond our brains then it would have definitely extended from your mind to that of your past self or vice versa, since you're the same individuals, having the same brains and thus the same consciousness or soul. This also means you should stop seeing the psychic or that person who claims to be clairvoyant. That can now be explained by imagination, coincidence and certain tricks these individuals use to convince you of their so-called 'magical' powers.
It is evident you want to avoid either of the cases, but what if you still go and see yourself? That really puts a huge question mark on your individuality and your self. Whether you are able to be conscious of your two selves or not, both cases will have a very different degrading effect on your psyche or if I can't say for sure, maybe you'll just put a period over your sanity.
So, let's go ahead. Running into or even stealing a glimpse of your own self will not be a good idea, then what will you do with your time machine? Some people will definitely have this evil smile carved on their faces when they'll invent or either somehow manage to get themselves the time machine. You know, you will have tremendous power if you get the time machine and no one will be able to stop you from carrying out your plans. You're really unstoppable. You can go back in time and alter the history to suit yourself, you can prevent yourself from making decisions you didn't want to make. There's just so much that you can do, there's no limit.
Didn't I warn you that you are not to create paradoxes? But the curious cat you are, you are going to get yourself killed. So here you are, back in time again and have some dark plans to carry out. You have come with the intention of altering your one decision which can make you filthy rich. You do your thing; prevent yourself from making that mistake and a wide smile spreads across your face. Let me take away that momentary smile of yours, because, congratulations, you've gotten yourself into a paradox and you'll be stuck here now. What? Yes. Since you prevented yourself from making that one decision which got you that average life, you became filthy rich. Nice right? Yeah, good for you, but then that also means that since you were rich, years later, you never created the time machine to come back and correct yourself. That average life leads to the invention of the time machine. Since you were rich, you never had any motivation to invent the time machine and hence you never came back. If you never came back, then you never corrected yourself and thus, ended up with an average life. See? You lost your wealth. But then that means you invented the time machine and now can get wealthy again? Yes. You'll keep looping here at this moment, unable to do anything.
Forgive me, for I can't take this looping copy of you with me anymore. I'll have to import one from a different timeline. What am I talking about? I'm referring to a 'Quantum Multiverse', meaning that each and every possibility that exists does so simultaneously in a different universe. Ours is just one of the countless universes which exist. That means, there are infinite copies of you doing everything you could possibly do. The best thing about living in a Quantum Multiverse is that there are no paradoxes! What a relief, right? Not quite. Let me first import a copy of you which hasn't gotten itself into a paradox and then we'll continue ahead.
Okay, we're paradox-free here. That means you can go back in time and kill yourself too! If you'd have tried this in a single universe model of reality, you'd have gotten yourself stuck in a loop of being able to kill yourself and not. But here, you can. Let me actually lend you my new time machine for that. The previous one is still looping with your other copy, but I have many time machines from different universes.')
So you get in and set the time for yesterday, the time when you were watching that favourite show of yours and I lend you my kitchen knife. Everything is going as planned for now. I push the button and our time machine starts to disintegrate and de-materialize from this time and it begins to reassemble into your bedroom, your bedroom yesterday. We get down from the time machine, as silent as possible and tiptoe towards the corner of your room. You're holding your breath. A bead of sweat trickling down your forehead. I've assured you that you won't be left looping forever like the last time, but your last experience still causes you some worry. I give you a slight elbow nudge and a nod, meeting your eyes. You turn, your eyes fixated on your past self. You take one step, then one more, zooming in on your target. Your hand comes into position, the knife ready to slit his throat.
I'll skip the gory details, but you finally did it. You come running to me, with tears in your eyes. It was your first murder, a time crime. You look at me and wait. Nothing happens. I push you and shove you into the time machine and you're still alive. We come back in your time and nothing happens to you. You still can't believe this. You just evaded a merciless time paradox. How did you do it?
You never killed your own past self. I mean, you did kill your past self, but it wasn't your past self or the past self from your timeline. That means, when you were about to kill yourself and generate a paradox, we just ended up splitting the universe. You merely killed your past self from a different universe—in a universe, where that possibility of being murdered by his own future self from a different universe was going to be manifested and it did. Oh! Wait before cracking that satisfactory smile of yours, I'm not done yet. I understand that you're finally happy that you can alter your past without worrying about creating paradoxes or having to face those consequences but with a quantum multiverse, come a set of new problems that need to be addressed.
There is something known as the butterfly effect, meaning your one little action could be amplified over time and cause a drastic change as time flows ahead. To give you an example, let's say you are back in time and board a bus. Now, remember, that day has already happened which means you are occupying someone else's seat. Now that person skips that bus since it's full and catches the next bus because of which, he gets delayed. This person was carrying a message which he didn't know would prevent the next world war, and as a result, his delay kicks a series of other changes which cause the third world war—all because you took his seat. But, now since we are in the quantum multiverse, you merely cause a world war in a different universe. When you come back to your time and also your universe, everything is at peace. Sounds good? Actually, this renders time travelling useless. If you go back in time to alter your present in any way, you would be able to avoid any paradox but you'd not be able to affect your present—not a single bit. Every time you'd change things, you'll shift into a different universe where those things happened and your universe will have no effect. This is because the past has to follow the present, which follows the future. This link can't be broken and generates paradoxes. If you wish to learn more about timelines, why past follows the present and present follows the future or why it is impossible to have time travel possible in a single universe, check this.
So, if you want to use a time machine to alter your present, then time machine can't help you to do that. Or what if you just want to see some amazing moments from the past? Like when dinosaurs roamed the earth? When Christ was resurrecting? When Gods flew in the sky like superheroes? When the Egyptians were building the pyramids? Just anything? Okay then, let me take you back in time. Let's see how the Egyptians built those pyramids. I'll cut to the action.
You see in front of you, giant metallic orbs parked neatly. They are hovering above the Egyptian dry land. A few of them can be seen in the sky, carrying what looks like the heavy stones with which they built the pyramids. At some distance, to your right, you spot the pyramids, halfway done. The stones are perfectly polished and a white stone layer covers the pyramid from the outside. The outer white-ish stones would be no more in the future, and even the sandstones would lose their sharp edges and polished surfaces. No doubt those ancient alien theorists were probably right. How else were they supposed to quarry and transport those many heavy stones when all they were supposed to have was bones, stick and stone tools? And yet here you see them flying in top-notch crafts and welding technology several folds advanced than us. You're sure no one would believe you when you'd come back to your time and people will never be able to understand how these mega structures were created. People from your time considered ancient Egyptians to be grossly backward in terms of technology. Therefore, they would never understand something that was made using technology superior to theirs. The question that's haunting you now: Where did all this technology go? What happened now?
Meanwhile, I catch some crafts zooming towards us. We have a time machine, not an invisibility cloak. I run towards the time machine and holler at you, you seem engrossed in your philosophical thoughts, out of no options; I push the levers and fade in before seeing the crafts capture you into a blue tractor beam. No worries, I'll import another you from a different universe.
Okay, other than the little issue we had, of you getting captured, everything else went smooth right? Nah, not quite. Even the pyramids were not made by ancient Egyptian construction pilots. I'm again saying that not in our universe. In the universe we visited, that's how the pyramids were made, but necessarily not in ours. So, we didn't run into paradoxes, we didn't even try to alter the past. What went wrong then?
Remember the butterfly effect? When we went back in time, maybe we did really go back in time in our own universe but then, we intruded a time where we were not there originally. Even if we did nothing, we were taking up space we were not supposed to, there was more matter and energy in the universe at that time, which should have not been there. We breathed in there, moved around, allowed our cells to shed there, or our microbes to flutter around. We definitely altered the past on a very minuscule level, and this little alteration would mean a shift in the universe. These little alterations would amplify ahead and bring in changes which were not supposed to exist and that universe would develop into a different universe. Therefore, chances were likely, that we visited not ours, but a different universe where that's how the pyramids were made. So, that still means we still can't say for sure that the same events might have happened in our universe too. Quite to say, the pyramids were maybe created with those stone-and-stick tools.
If we travel back in time, we can't alter it to change our present and we can also not be sure if the past we visit is the past from our universe. Now, that we've crossed out backwards time travel entirely—since it generates paradoxes, could affect your sanity and also that it is pointless. What about time travel to the future? While you still have to worry about running into yourself or even seeing your future self, you can murder your future self and there is nothing holding you back this time. However, the quantum multiverse that we live in, which thankfully prevents paradoxes, renders time travel useless. Even if you were to go ahead in time and kill yourself, you'll again shift your universe to one where you get killed by your past self from a different universe. Time travel is unnatural and brings in a lot of changes which can't be justified. To protect that from happening, the universe shifts. Because you not being murdered by your past self was the original timeline and that was going to happen (since your present follows the future) you going ahead to take your life shifts your timeline to not break this golden rule:
You are back in time and head to get a glimpse of your past self. As you are just about to take a peek around the corner, you pause. Taking a deep breath and preparing to face the consequences. Gathering all your courage, you peep across and find yourself sitting on the couch, watching your favourite show. Now, how is it possible that you are both sitting and standing at the same time? Both of them are exactly you. How come you are, at the same time in two different states which can't exist at the same time? And can you control your past self via your thoughts? Maybe you should be because your past is exactly you. But if you are able to control two bodies, then your past self already knows that he's being watched or more like that you know you are watching yourself. There aren't two minds, there's only one—yours. If that's the case, then whenever there will be more than one 'you' at any time, you will be aware of your both selves no matter what the distance of separation. Because you have the same mind you have the same consciousness. Your past self is watching TV but he's also able to see himself. How? That's hard to imagine or explain. Even your present self is watching your past self, but he's also watching the TV. Again, I can't imagine or explain.
Or maybe, consciousness or minds don't function that way. Maybe you are only conscious of your present self and are detached from your past self. That sounds weird but let's just try to avoid the confusion we were having earlier. So, now your past self isn't aware you are watching him and is only watching the TV show, while you are only watching him and not the TV show. Simple? Yeah, but it has some fearful consequences. That implies that consciousness is something the brain itself produces. It isn't something beyond us. It is contained within our heads. Maybe consciousness is like the tip of the iceberg we feel, while the rest of the iceberg or complex brain processes are abstracted from us. The tip is the consciousness. This sounds well but has profound consequences. This means that there's nothing like souls or afterlife. Since consciousness is a product of our brains, after the death of the brain, the consciousness dies too. If consciousness were beyond our brains then it would have definitely extended from your mind to that of your past self or vice versa, since you're the same individuals, having the same brains and thus the same consciousness or soul. This also means you should stop seeing the psychic or that person who claims to be clairvoyant. That can now be explained by imagination, coincidence and certain tricks these individuals use to convince you of their so-called 'magical' powers.
It is evident you want to avoid either of the cases, but what if you still go and see yourself? That really puts a huge question mark on your individuality and your self. Whether you are able to be conscious of your two selves or not, both cases will have a very different degrading effect on your psyche or if I can't say for sure, maybe you'll just put a period over your sanity.
So, let's go ahead. Running into or even stealing a glimpse of your own self will not be a good idea, then what will you do with your time machine? Some people will definitely have this evil smile carved on their faces when they'll invent or either somehow manage to get themselves the time machine. You know, you will have tremendous power if you get the time machine and no one will be able to stop you from carrying out your plans. You're really unstoppable. You can go back in time and alter the history to suit yourself, you can prevent yourself from making decisions you didn't want to make. There's just so much that you can do, there's no limit.
Didn't I warn you that you are not to create paradoxes? But the curious cat you are, you are going to get yourself killed. So here you are, back in time again and have some dark plans to carry out. You have come with the intention of altering your one decision which can make you filthy rich. You do your thing; prevent yourself from making that mistake and a wide smile spreads across your face. Let me take away that momentary smile of yours, because, congratulations, you've gotten yourself into a paradox and you'll be stuck here now. What? Yes. Since you prevented yourself from making that one decision which got you that average life, you became filthy rich. Nice right? Yeah, good for you, but then that also means that since you were rich, years later, you never created the time machine to come back and correct yourself. That average life leads to the invention of the time machine. Since you were rich, you never had any motivation to invent the time machine and hence you never came back. If you never came back, then you never corrected yourself and thus, ended up with an average life. See? You lost your wealth. But then that means you invented the time machine and now can get wealthy again? Yes. You'll keep looping here at this moment, unable to do anything.
Forgive me, for I can't take this looping copy of you with me anymore. I'll have to import one from a different timeline. What am I talking about? I'm referring to a 'Quantum Multiverse', meaning that each and every possibility that exists does so simultaneously in a different universe. Ours is just one of the countless universes which exist. That means, there are infinite copies of you doing everything you could possibly do. The best thing about living in a Quantum Multiverse is that there are no paradoxes! What a relief, right? Not quite. Let me first import a copy of you which hasn't gotten itself into a paradox and then we'll continue ahead.
Okay, we're paradox-free here. That means you can go back in time and kill yourself too! If you'd have tried this in a single universe model of reality, you'd have gotten yourself stuck in a loop of being able to kill yourself and not. But here, you can. Let me actually lend you my new time machine for that. The previous one is still looping with your other copy, but I have many time machines from different universes.')
So you get in and set the time for yesterday, the time when you were watching that favourite show of yours and I lend you my kitchen knife. Everything is going as planned for now. I push the button and our time machine starts to disintegrate and de-materialize from this time and it begins to reassemble into your bedroom, your bedroom yesterday. We get down from the time machine, as silent as possible and tiptoe towards the corner of your room. You're holding your breath. A bead of sweat trickling down your forehead. I've assured you that you won't be left looping forever like the last time, but your last experience still causes you some worry. I give you a slight elbow nudge and a nod, meeting your eyes. You turn, your eyes fixated on your past self. You take one step, then one more, zooming in on your target. Your hand comes into position, the knife ready to slit his throat.
I'll skip the gory details, but you finally did it. You come running to me, with tears in your eyes. It was your first murder, a time crime. You look at me and wait. Nothing happens. I push you and shove you into the time machine and you're still alive. We come back in your time and nothing happens to you. You still can't believe this. You just evaded a merciless time paradox. How did you do it?
You never killed your own past self. I mean, you did kill your past self, but it wasn't your past self or the past self from your timeline. That means, when you were about to kill yourself and generate a paradox, we just ended up splitting the universe. You merely killed your past self from a different universe—in a universe, where that possibility of being murdered by his own future self from a different universe was going to be manifested and it did. Oh! Wait before cracking that satisfactory smile of yours, I'm not done yet. I understand that you're finally happy that you can alter your past without worrying about creating paradoxes or having to face those consequences but with a quantum multiverse, come a set of new problems that need to be addressed.
There is something known as the butterfly effect, meaning your one little action could be amplified over time and cause a drastic change as time flows ahead. To give you an example, let's say you are back in time and board a bus. Now, remember, that day has already happened which means you are occupying someone else's seat. Now that person skips that bus since it's full and catches the next bus because of which, he gets delayed. This person was carrying a message which he didn't know would prevent the next world war, and as a result, his delay kicks a series of other changes which cause the third world war—all because you took his seat. But, now since we are in the quantum multiverse, you merely cause a world war in a different universe. When you come back to your time and also your universe, everything is at peace. Sounds good? Actually, this renders time travelling useless. If you go back in time to alter your present in any way, you would be able to avoid any paradox but you'd not be able to affect your present—not a single bit. Every time you'd change things, you'll shift into a different universe where those things happened and your universe will have no effect. This is because the past has to follow the present, which follows the future. This link can't be broken and generates paradoxes. If you wish to learn more about timelines, why past follows the present and present follows the future or why it is impossible to have time travel possible in a single universe, check this.
So, if you want to use a time machine to alter your present, then time machine can't help you to do that. Or what if you just want to see some amazing moments from the past? Like when dinosaurs roamed the earth? When Christ was resurrecting? When Gods flew in the sky like superheroes? When the Egyptians were building the pyramids? Just anything? Okay then, let me take you back in time. Let's see how the Egyptians built those pyramids. I'll cut to the action.
You see in front of you, giant metallic orbs parked neatly. They are hovering above the Egyptian dry land. A few of them can be seen in the sky, carrying what looks like the heavy stones with which they built the pyramids. At some distance, to your right, you spot the pyramids, halfway done. The stones are perfectly polished and a white stone layer covers the pyramid from the outside. The outer white-ish stones would be no more in the future, and even the sandstones would lose their sharp edges and polished surfaces. No doubt those ancient alien theorists were probably right. How else were they supposed to quarry and transport those many heavy stones when all they were supposed to have was bones, stick and stone tools? And yet here you see them flying in top-notch crafts and welding technology several folds advanced than us. You're sure no one would believe you when you'd come back to your time and people will never be able to understand how these mega structures were created. People from your time considered ancient Egyptians to be grossly backward in terms of technology. Therefore, they would never understand something that was made using technology superior to theirs. The question that's haunting you now: Where did all this technology go? What happened now?
Meanwhile, I catch some crafts zooming towards us. We have a time machine, not an invisibility cloak. I run towards the time machine and holler at you, you seem engrossed in your philosophical thoughts, out of no options; I push the levers and fade in before seeing the crafts capture you into a blue tractor beam. No worries, I'll import another you from a different universe.
Okay, other than the little issue we had, of you getting captured, everything else went smooth right? Nah, not quite. Even the pyramids were not made by ancient Egyptian construction pilots. I'm again saying that not in our universe. In the universe we visited, that's how the pyramids were made, but necessarily not in ours. So, we didn't run into paradoxes, we didn't even try to alter the past. What went wrong then?
Remember the butterfly effect? When we went back in time, maybe we did really go back in time in our own universe but then, we intruded a time where we were not there originally. Even if we did nothing, we were taking up space we were not supposed to, there was more matter and energy in the universe at that time, which should have not been there. We breathed in there, moved around, allowed our cells to shed there, or our microbes to flutter around. We definitely altered the past on a very minuscule level, and this little alteration would mean a shift in the universe. These little alterations would amplify ahead and bring in changes which were not supposed to exist and that universe would develop into a different universe. Therefore, chances were likely, that we visited not ours, but a different universe where that's how the pyramids were made. So, that still means we still can't say for sure that the same events might have happened in our universe too. Quite to say, the pyramids were maybe created with those stone-and-stick tools.
If we travel back in time, we can't alter it to change our present and we can also not be sure if the past we visit is the past from our universe. Now, that we've crossed out backwards time travel entirely—since it generates paradoxes, could affect your sanity and also that it is pointless. What about time travel to the future? While you still have to worry about running into yourself or even seeing your future self, you can murder your future self and there is nothing holding you back this time. However, the quantum multiverse that we live in, which thankfully prevents paradoxes, renders time travel useless. Even if you were to go ahead in time and kill yourself, you'll again shift your universe to one where you get killed by your past self from a different universe. Time travel is unnatural and brings in a lot of changes which can't be justified. To protect that from happening, the universe shifts. Because you not being murdered by your past self was the original timeline and that was going to happen (since your present follows the future) you going ahead to take your life shifts your timeline to not break this golden rule:
In conclusion, we can one day invent a working time machine and even deal effectively with the paradoxes but time travelling would be pointless. Maybe, someone has really made a working time machine and has even used it, but we stay oblivious since his changes don't affect our universe. One of the arguments that time travelling hasn't been discovered in the future because people from the future haven't visited us yet can thus be explained. They have, maybe, discovered a time machine, and might have even come back to our time, but it was a different universe they went in. It wasn't ours. Even if we in the near future construct a time machine and go back to visit ourselves, we would but then that wouldn't be our universe. Reality knows how to protect itself and it's quite wise. (I'm personifying reality; don't assume I'm hinting at an intelligent creator.) Remember Stephen Hawking's party where he invited time travellers? Maybe someone did turn up that day at the party, but it just wasn't our universe ;)"The past copies the present which copies the future in a single timeline."
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