Is/Would Time Travel Be Moral?

[FaithLikeARock]

So assume that time travel is possible and some inventor just created a machine that can warp people into the past and future. Would you think it's moral?

According to Saturday morning cartoons, just the slightest change in the past can alter the present and beyond. So if it is possible, should we even bother? Or should the study of time travel be banned?

I personally, thinking about it, don't think it's such a great idea. It's not necessarily immoral with the right ideas in mind, but it's too unstable. Like say someone went back and prevented the Holocaust. But because of that change Russia used W.O.F.M's to destroy the world and now we're ruled by malevolent communism (heh, I should write science fiction).

 

[True_Blue]

So assume that time travel is possible and some inventor just created a machine that can warp people into the past and future. Would you think it's moral?

According to Saturday morning cartoons, just the slightest change in the past can alter the present and beyond. So if it is possible, should we even bother? Or should the study of time travel be banned?

I personally, thinking about it, don't think it's such a great idea. It's not necessarily immoral with the right ideas in mind, but it's too unstable. Like say someone went back and prevented the Holocaust. But because of that change Russia used W.O.F.M's to destroy the world and now we're ruled by malevolent communism (heh, I should write science fiction).

I believe that since human beings are incapable of understanding time because our bodies fall within the confines and parameters of time, we are likewise incapable of ever traveling through time. Whether some is right or wrong depends on whether it is in accordance with God's will. God himself is outside of time altogether--he created it. Because he can prophesy, He sees all the alternative futures at once. In essence, time is a completely malleable substance to him, so he is the ultimate time traveler. I find it unlikely that God would create a being with that same power. If such a being existed that could travel through time, it is likely that such power would be within God's will, and would not be wrong unless God ordered that being to the contrary.

 

[Washington]

So assume that time travel is possible and some inventor just created a machine that can warp people into the past and future. Would you think it's moral?

According to Saturday morning cartoons, just the slightest change in the past can alter the present and beyond. So if it is possible, should we even bother? Or should the study of time travel be banned?

I personally, thinking about it, don't think it's such a great idea. It's not necessarily immoral with the right ideas in mind, but it's too unstable. Like say someone went back and prevented the Holocaust. But because of that change Russia used W.O.F.M's to destroy the world and now we're ruled by malevolent communism (heh, I should write science fiction).

Two points. Generally the default approach to new developments is that they are moral until shown otherwise; not, that they are by default immoral until shown otherwise. So, a more honest and less biased question would be, " Is/Would Time Travel Be Immoral?

Second point. I would suggest finding better sources for your science information than Saturday morning cartoons. Believe it or not, an anvil falling on the head will render one permanently incapacitated. That is, you would not be able to get up after being hit and then tear after your assailant with a huge chainsaw or a 70 pound mallet.

 

[FaithLikeARock]

That was a joke Washington (that totally isn't editted).

Even in serious theory, the idea of time travel requires one of two mindsets: Either time is absolutely set and no matter what we do it has been predestined or time is very delicate and the slightest change anywhere in history can mean preferment changes to the past. It's not really rocket science.

 

[DeathMagus]

Actually, it's far more complex than rocket science.

But anyway, I don't see it as intrinsically immoral. After all, everything I'm doing right now has some impact on the future. Why does it matter when my actions are occurring, and what future I'm changing? The only way I could see it being immoral is if -
A) I'm attempting to make immoral events come to pass.
B) We're already living in the best of all possible existences (hint: we're not).

 

[TheReasoner]

Ehm... Moral? Well, assuming it would be at all possible we have other questions which need to be answered before we can find out if it is moral or not.

Are we in a universe, for example. Or are we in a multiverse. To simplify - if we go back in time, will we alter the timeline of THIS universe, or will we end up in an alternate reality?
If we are (which I doubt) in a single universe existence then I would consider it extremely dangerous, if not immoral.
If this is also the case, the grandfather paradox will stop you from doing things like stopping communism or anything of the sort. You will be unable to alter the past. Not that you'd know the outcome of such a change.If you traverse universes while time traveling Killing Hitler, for example, might turn out to make the world a thousand times worse.

And all this assumes you'd be able to travel beyond the point in time when/where the time machine existed. Many think you could send information through time. Back and possibly forth. But only between points in time when a time machine exists. I agree that this might be possible and that sending a human being or more would probably be far too much information and mass to handle.

I would say time traveling to alter the past is extremely dangerous and immoral. However, observing the past through a form of time machine could be extremely beneficial and I would consider it a great asset in research.

Either way it will - if it comes - change our civilization drastically. For the better maybe. Maybe for the worse. I think for the better.

 

[TheReasoner]

That was a joke Washington (that totally isn't editted).

Even in serious theory, the idea of time travel requires one of two mindsets: Either time is absolutely set and no matter what we do it has been predestined or time is very delicate and the slightest change anywhere in history can mean preferment changes to the past. It's not really rocket science.

No, it's not rocket science. Time travel is extremely much more complex.
Oh, and I don't think any serious scientists think it is likely that time is absolute. Einstein proved it wasn't.

 

[cantata]

In New Scientist a few years ago, there was an article about a potential time machine involving some slow light travelling in a spiral, but - importantly - you'd only ever be able to travel back as far as the point when the machine was switched on.

 

[TheReasoner]

In New Scientist a few years ago, there was an article about a potential time machine involving some slow light travelling in a spiral, but - importantly - you'd only ever be able to travel back as far as the point when the machine was switched on.

Yes! I remember that. I wonder if the work has progressed any.

 

[Trevorocity]

We've learned through countless temporal incursions that its extremely difficult nay foolhardy to attempt to manipulate past events to achieve a desired outcome in the present. How many times have we erased entire civilizations from existence, brought them back, only to wipe them out again? Oh we try to justify it to ourselves, "They're not really being destroyed because they never existed" but we know what we've done.

When we went back and sabotaged the Manhattan project to prevent the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki we only succeeded in prolonging the end of WWII. As a consequence the US military was forced to commit virtual genocide in order to conquer the Japanese home island. This also gave the Soviet Union ample time to develope their own atomic weapon which they used to destroy Tokyo. The Soviets then forced all of Western Europe to submit to Communist rule. It took us ten years of study to determine a way to undo that alternate timeline without causing a paradox that would destroy the universe.

Time is just too complex and too risky to mess with unless you're a being of unlimited power.

 

[stan1980]

Yes! I remember that. I wonder if the work has progressed any.

Well if you ever notice a scientist getting extremely lucky down the bookmakers, or winning the lottery for the 4th week running, I think there will lie your answer.

 

[TheReasoner]

Well if you ever notice a scientist getting extremely lucky down the bookmakers, or winning the lottery for the 4th week running, I think there will lie your answer.

lol
The funding such a machine would require would mean it wouldn't be profitable to use it to cheat in gambling. I think, anyway.