1) Assuming time travel is possible . .. . .. .

2) Assuming the human race survives/endures long enough to achieve/accomplish time travel .. . .. .... .


Then are we not currently enduring the reprocussions of choosing to travel back in time, perhaps negating the very future humanity that originally altered our very existance?

Then, the result of introducing knowledge to man far before man should have had such knowledge would result in man achieving time travel capability sooner and sooner with each such tampering, in effect Phiing time itself?

How would history be altered, and how would we know?

Perhaps this makes sense, because there is no other basis for comparison:

-5,200 B.C. Mankind is utilizing beasts of burden to get from Point A to Point B.

7,200+ years later ... ... .. . .. ..

-1901 A.D. Mankind is still utilizing beasts of burden and horsedrawn carriages to get from Point A to Point B.

-1902 A.D. Mankind begins the mass production of the automobile with the Ford Model-T.

67 years later .. . . .. .. .

-1969 A.D. Mankind is walking on the moon.

Summary: 7,200 + years of horsedrawn carriages. With the mass production and invention of the automobile in 1902 .. . . . 67 years later we are walking on the moon.

Ya, makes perfect sense to me, too.


Without having to prove what facts are true, using a little or a lot of your speculative deductive cognitive skills . .. . . . what is the "ultimate speculation thoughts" you've had, about whatever subject matters you ponder?

I'm going to give this thread another attempt to see if anyone wants to contribute. I have a similar thread with a lot of the same viewpoints in another forum. Here is a little more information:

My brother holds a rather high position in a certain branch of the military. When I shared the whole speculation and conjecture that began this thread he shared this with me:

"Interesting. Even if we consider a generation to be 100 years, that means that there were 750 generations from the time we had chariots and vehicles powered by beast of burden, that means there was 750 generations from humanity knowing how to master the use of fire until the mass production of the combustion engine, and the same generation that supplied us with the combustion engine also supplied us with the experience of walking on the moon. Interesting."

I also asked him a hypothetical question:
Q"Hypothetically, if we were being visited by extra-terrestrials, what do you think their intentions are?"

A"Well, technically they are not extra-terrestrials until they come in contact with the ground, because if they only remain in the air there is nothing whatsoever terrestrial about them. But, hypothetically, if we were to assume time travel is possible, and if we were to assume that any lifeforms anywhere and anytime throughout the existance of the entire universe were to simultaneously exists and achieve/accomplish time travel, then, hypothetically, .. . .. . .. .. .. if we were to accept at face value that time travel is possible, and intelligent life anywhere, anytime achieves time travel, then we must accept that we are not only known to them, but they have visited us, hypothetically of course."

Just thought I'd share that with you guys.

I don't think it's fair to say that the only way humanity could have advanced so far in technology in the 20th Century is through "cheating" (whether through time travel, aliens, etc.)

Once the combustible engine and the computer were invented, everything took off. Lots of inventions that had been drawn up on paper for decades or centuries was suddenly possible to build for the first time. And those inventions could be used to discover other inventions, etc.

It's just that humanity finally had its second breakthrough in technology in the 20th Century (the first being the steam engines and mass produced products of the Industrial Revolution). The next breakthrough will be similarly dramatic -- and who knows? It may be of the Star Trek transporters/warp drive/holodecks etc. variety. We could go from barely making it to our own Moon and back to exploring a quarter of the galaxy in a matter of decades.

But whatever the next big breakthrough is, it'll be fun to watch.


[edit on 12/5/2005 by ThunderCloud]

You have touched on something that has been puzzling me for a very long time.

+/-7, 000 years of horse drawn carriages, candles for light, not knowing how the atom works and who knows how many other primitive beliefs and such, as well as the 30 million years before that when the human race was developing after the dinosaurs, then, in a matter of 100 years, just one hundred, we suddenly have internal combustion engines, nuclear power, the radio, television, fibre-optics, space-travel, a probe leaving our solar system, air travel, electric trains, two world wars, our population sees an unprecedented increase, satellites go up, and electric computers have gone from absolutely not existing to what I am typing on, a state of the art thing capable of who knows how many calculations per minute that is available to the public, so who knows what the military's are using.

After all that time, those advancements, and many, many, many more unnamed here, just all crop up in the tiniest fraction of all time, and revolutionize society as we know it.

I, for one, definitely think some is, or did, go amiss.

Perhaps the ruler you are measuring by is the wrong one....

How long has man physiologically been essentially the same?

I believe estimates vary conservatively from 250,000 to 400,000 years...

If that is true, the question should be why has it taken man so long to advance? What have we been doing for 250,000+ years? Remember, physiologically we have been the same for that entire period...in other words, with the capacity for the same level of intelligence. Does anyone really believe it took us all that time to get with the program?

Personally, I think not. It seems most logical to me that man may have attained technological sophistication many times in his history- perhaps even beyond what we have today. And, whether by his own hand or by natural catastrophe, he has been set back to start all over again on repeated occasions.

How much of what we have today would endure 500 years from now? 1000 years? 10,000 years? 100,000 years? Get the picture?

We only think of 6000 or 7000 years, because it is roughly all we have in terms of recorded history. Does it really make sense to you that we spent the previous 250,000+ years wearing skins, living in caves, and waiting to get a clue, when during all that vast amount of time, we had the same potential intelligence we have today?

Make no sense to me....

[edit on 5-12-2005 by loam]

I like speculative threads like this one, here are some of my thoughts.
First, let me just say that I believe that the inventions of the last 100 years are the product of a sort of "critical mass" of human population, interaction and knowledge. But this is ATS and it's time to get interesting:

Suppose time travel is developed by humans in 300,000 years from now, 302,005.

Why would they choose the 1700s to begin enlightening early man?

Wouldn't they want to make sure that they didn't mess up their own existence, ala "Back to the Future?"

So then, they would have to move about, undetected (which they could, with their superior tech) and study mankind. Just imagine if we had a time machine now. You don't think we would go figure out just what was up in ancient Egypt?

So then, what would these humans look like? Would our nations mean anything at all to them? Would they have evolved? How would they view us, like apes? Would they see us as test subjects, archeological curiosities?

Just some mind juice,
Enjoy!

maybe we have (in the future) mastered time travel. I don't think so, because history would change exponentially due to returns earlier and earlier and earlier. Our world would not survive.

I think we would not be here if time travel were possible. The end would end up at the beginning.....what a peculiar thought.......

Originally posted by sexymon

I think we would not be here if time travel were possible. The end would end up at the beginning.....what a peculiar thought.......

"I am the Alpha and the Omega .. .. . ."