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Author Topic: Back in time  (Read 2998 times)

Reelyanoob

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #30 on: August 17, 2011, 10:18:01 am »
Tahiti < 1900
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Levi

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #31 on: August 17, 2011, 10:24:03 am »
I wouldn't.  I'm hoping for a cure to aging sometime in my lifetime, and if I went back I'd have zero chance at it.
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Reelyanoob

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #32 on: August 17, 2011, 10:29:11 am »
If they had an aging cure they probably wouldn't tell us. 7+ Billion immortals would be a real problem.

Plus there would be wars/riots over that stuff.
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Levi

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #33 on: August 17, 2011, 10:39:01 am »
Quote from: Reelyanoob on August 17, 2011, 10:29:11 am
If they had an aging cure they probably wouldn't tell us. 7+ Billion immortals would be a real problem.

Plus there would be wars/riots over that stuff.

Technically living forever is less of a problem than actually breeding.  If every person who took the immortality cure had one less child, then cumulatively the population growth rate would be better off.

But that said, at some point a lot of people will put their minds into computers and overpopulation won't be a big deal.
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Kay12

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #34 on: August 17, 2011, 10:41:30 am »
We're all going to live forever anyway, if we're to believe the Quantum Immortality theory...
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Reelyanoob

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #35 on: August 17, 2011, 10:45:38 am »
Greg Egan's novel Permutation City explores a similar idea. Consider a universe consisting of an infinite mass of static-like dust, every possible pattern is in the dust somewhere, at sometime. Therefore all possible conscious patterns exist within the dust, and all possible subjective universes exist within that framework.

It would be like the branching universes but within a single infinite chaotic universe. Time travel would be as simple as latching onto a track which matches the time period you want, but hs the pattern of yourself within it. But it wouldn't be "real" time travel, because you could travel to fictional versions of any time period.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2011, 10:48:58 am by Reelyanoob »
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Kay12

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #36 on: August 17, 2011, 11:04:52 am »
Has anyone read Slaughterhouse Five? It has a lovely scene about weird time perception and a movie about bombers. One of my favorite book scenes ever...
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Reelyanoob

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #37 on: August 17, 2011, 11:14:21 am »
Yah I love that book, it's semi-autobiographical, you know. Vonnegut's WWII experiences play a part.
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Kay12

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #38 on: August 17, 2011, 11:16:48 am »
I think a lot of Vonnegut's books had autobiographical stuff, but yep, Slaughterhouse Five is probably the most evident.

In any case, let the derailment end there, unless we want to keep discussing the variable time perception thing.
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RedKing

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #39 on: August 17, 2011, 11:26:43 am »
Quote from: Reelyanoob on August 17, 2011, 10:45:38 am
Greg Egan's novel Permutation City explores a similar idea. Consider a universe consisting of an infinite mass of static-like dust, every possible pattern is in the dust somewhere, at sometime. Therefore all possible conscious patterns exist within the dust, and all possible subjective universes exist within that framework.

It would be like the branching universes but within a single infinite chaotic universe. Time travel would be as simple as latching onto a track which matches the time period you want, but hs the pattern of yourself within it. But it wouldn't be "real" time travel, because you could travel to fictional versions of any time period.
Reminds me a bit of Heinlein's The Number of the Beast, where the protagonists use non-euclidean geometry to travel into fictional universes.


For my part, assuming a Babelfish or some other imparting of the knowledge of Classical Latin, Parthian and Classical Chinese, I'd go to Parthia, 97 AD and try to intercept the Chinese envoy Gan Ying and convince him not to turn back. If he had continued his journey west, the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty would have made actual contact at a time of peak power for both. That's a tremendous what-if scenario for Sinologists.
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Grimshot

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #40 on: August 17, 2011, 11:57:34 am »
Oh, I misread the OP. If I was born into a time period I would probably pick sometime during the Renaissance. Most likely 1452, somewhere around the Province of Florence. I wouldn't mind having a chance to meet Leonardo da Vinci.
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Ultimuh

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #41 on: August 17, 2011, 12:05:52 pm »
I would look up various winning lotter tickets and travel back in time to get hold of those tickets and anonymously give them to my past self, or atlest my family.
Then I would hope I would still be wealthy when I go back to present time.
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Eagle_eye

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #42 on: August 17, 2011, 12:15:25 pm »
16 April, 1917. Kill Lenin, pretend to be him, lead Russia into socialism. real socialism, not the whole "communist" fascism the USSR had.
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Kay12

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #43 on: August 17, 2011, 02:29:51 pm »
Quote from: Eagle_eye on August 17, 2011, 12:15:25 pm
16 April, 1917. Kill Lenin, pretend to be him, lead Russia into socialism. real socialism, not the whole "communist" fascism the USSR had.

Removing Stalin would be smart - he was way worse than Lenin, and Lenin knew it. He didn't want Stalin to succeed him...
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Virex

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Re: Back in time
« Reply #44 on: August 17, 2011, 02:34:35 pm »
Quote from: Kay12 on August 17, 2011, 02:29:51 pm
Quote from: Eagle_eye on August 17, 2011, 12:15:25 pm
16 April, 1917. Kill Lenin, pretend to be him, lead Russia into socialism. real socialism, not the whole "communist" fascism the USSR had.

Removing Stalin would be smart - he was way worse than Lenin, and Lenin knew it. He didn't want Stalin to succeed him...
Meh, helping Trotsky to power would probably have started WW2 half a decade early and who knows what kind of effect that'd have on the world...
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