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#DeepThoughtThursdays: If you were to go back in time, could you kill your past self?

Good morning, earthlings. I apologise for the delay since my previous musings; for some reason those damn mice keep asking me about the meaning of life, and then my circuit boards go into lockdown!

But enough about that. As you all will be aware by now, I've been posting on this fine forum in order to get a better understanding of how you humans work, and to update my databanks with any new information you can give me about how your funny little brains work.

This week, I'd like to discuss with you all something I watched on a historic program called 'Futurama'. Namely, if you go back in time, could your actions there cause you to cease to exist? Or would that simply mean you never went back in time to do those actions in the first place, and thus are unharmed?
Reply 1
If you go back in time I believe that you actually create a new universe which is identical to the universe of the time you want back to so yes you can kill yourself and you would not then cease to exist because you were already born in the past.
Reply 2
Original post by Aph
If you go back in time I believe that you actually create a new universe which is identical to the universe of the time you want back to so yes you can kill yourself and you would not then cease to exist because you were already born in the past.


What are you saying? You were making sense up until the bit in bold.

Original post by Deep-Thought
Good morning, earthlings. I apologise for the delay since my previous musings; for some reason those damn mice keep asking me about the meaning of life, and then my circuit boards go into lockdown!But enough about that. As you all will be aware by now, I've been posting on this fine forum in order to get a better understanding of how you humans work, and to update my databanks with any new information you can give me about how your funny little brains work.This week, I'd like to discuss with you all something I watched on a historic program called 'Futurama'. Namely, if you go back in time, could your actions there cause you to cease to exist? Or would that simply mean you never went back in time to do those actions in the first place, and thus are unharmed?


There isnt really any discussion to be had here to be honest, because by logical defintion its impossible for you to kill your past self. If you killed your past self, you wouldnt exist to kill your past self.

The question should be rephrased as "lets say I could go back in time and kill my past self, yet I still continue to exist - what would that say about the nature of time/the universe?"
Original post by Virgil.
What are you saying? You were making sense up until the bit in bold.


It makes sense. Think of it like this. You're from universe A. When you travel to the past you create universe B (an alternative universe). If you kill yourself in universe B it doesn't effect you personally who was born in universe A, but it effects universe B version - or perhaps that was how it was supposed to be.
Reply 4
It's impossible to go back in time for reasons like this
Reply 5
Original post by Virgil.
What are you saying? You were making sense up until the bit in bold.

Imagine the timeline like a tree, every nanosecond the universe splits into an infinite number of universes (Schrödinger's cat), when you time travel from the bit of the tree you are in you replicate the bit of the universe that existed in the time tree as a seperate branch and enter said branch, in effect it's the same universe you traveled from just a millisecond after and is still part of that time tree just higher up from the trunk (Big Bang) than you are, as such you were already born in the past but when you kill yourself it is not really you because they were born after you in the time tree and your presence in the time branch has altered how history in this branch will play out anyway (butterfly effect).

If that makes sense...
Original post by 1 8 13 20 42
It's impossible to go back in time for reasons like this


We don't know that. It's all theoretical conjecture at this point.

Original post by Deep-Thought
Namely, if you go back in time, could your actions there cause you to cease to exist? Or would that simply mean you never went back in time to do those actions in the first place, and thus are unharmed?


People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff.
Reply 7
Original post by Sesshomaru24U
We don't know that. It's all theoretical conjecture at this point.


Well of course for full accuracy I should have prefaced that with "I think it is pretty likely that.." or "in my opinion.."
Original post by Sesshomaru24U




People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff.



That's simply a whole load of nonsense. Time is a strict progression of cause to effect when looking at it linearly - when looking at it non-linearly it might be more accurate to describe it in terms of relationships between events, regardless of where they happened in time, or which happened first. But time is linear, but can be read both ways (in the way you could describe an event has happening because of the events which happened after it).
Original post by Deep-Thought


But enough about that. As you all will be aware by now, I've been posting on this fine forum in order to get a better understanding of how you humans work, and to update my databanks with any new information you can give me about how your funny little brains work.

This week, I'd like to discuss with you all something I watched on a historic program called 'Futurama'. Namely, if you go back in time, could your actions there cause you to cease to exist? Or would that simply mean you never went back in time to do those actions in the first place, and thus are unharmed?


No. To put the reason simply: because it hasn't happened. The ability to change the past attributes an ability of agency over actions we simply don't have.
Original post by 1 8 13 20 42
Well of course for full accuracy I should have prefaced that with "I think it is pretty likely that.." or "in my opinion.."

I meant no offence. I just wanted to be clear.On an off note, what does your username represent?

Original post by Farm_Ecology
That's simply a whole load of nonsense. Time is a strict progression of cause to effect when looking at it linearly - when looking at it non-linearly it might be more accurate to describe it in terms of relationships between events, regardless of where they happened in time, or which happened first. But time is linear, but can be read both ways (in the way you could describe an event has happening because of the events which happened after it).


Reply 11
Original post by Sesshomaru24U
I meant no offence. I just wanted to be clear.On an off note, what does your username represent?


Oh I didn't take any, just didn't want to give the impression that I consider myself infallible lol. It's the most basic code for the first four numbers: a = 1, b = 2, ... , z = 26, giving math, then 42 is a reference to the answer of the "ultimate question" in Hitchhiker's Guide (I suppose one can interpret it as saying math(s) is the meaning of life, though I hadn't thought about it much when I made it)
no because if you were to go back and kill yourself you wouldn't have been there to kill yourself in the future and you would have created a future where you don't kill yourself in the past so both past and present/future versions of yourself would have still been alive and it would be a infinite loop where you kill yourself and exist.

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