If you had a choice...

[DorieTesla'sMom]

My problem is I see time as linear, but it may be dimensional. It really bugs me if there is time travel in a story line, and a character goes back in the past and sees himself. As asked by the Firesign Theatre: How can you be in two places at once when you're really nowhere at all?


Now that I think about it it's a tossup between wanting to be an Australian aborigine, back before the colonists arrived, just living my life. Or maybe I'd like to live in a more enlightened future on a big natural preserve, just serving a higher Life Form, the noble elephant!

[Dera]

My problem is I see time as linear, but it may be dimensional. It really bugs me if there is time travel in a story line, and a character goes back in the past and sees himself. As asked by the Firesign Theatre: How can you be in two places at once when you're really nowhere at all?


Now that I think about it it's a tossup between wanting to be an Australian aborigine, back before the colonists arrived, just living my life. Or maybe I'd like to live in a more enlightened future on a big natural preserve, just serving a higher Life Form, the noble elephant!

Dorie, your time travel aspirations blow me away. I'd just like to go back again to "going west in a covered wagon" one more time (if the Indians didn't get me the first time), or maybe have a home and family such as seen in the TV show, "Little House on the Prairie", or live in the times and places of other Laura Ingalls Wilder novels. Woo-boy! would I ever have to get in shape through, and learn a bunch stuff! The life of a pioneer woman wasn't easy, I've heard! Whew!

[Topper]

Could you be more precise ... does this mean in the physical, the mental or is this in the spiritual realm?

[Dera]

Could you be more precise ... does this mean in the physical, the mental or is this in the spiritual realm?

Topper, I guess I don't "get it". Which one of us (posters) are you questioning?

[earthist]

Dorie, your time travel aspirations blow me away. I'd just like to go back again to "going west in a covered wagon" one more time (if the Indians didn't get me the first time), or maybe have a home and family such as seen in the TV show, "Little House on the Prairie", or live in the times and places of other Laura Ingalls Wilder novels. Woo-boy! would I ever have to get in shape through, and learn a bunch stuff! The life of a pioneer woman wasn't easy, I've heard! Whew!

They do a "passion play" of the murder of JB "Wild Bill" Hickock in Deadwood. I remember passing a sign (looked like an old fashioned Wanted Poster) with a picture of Hickock on it. The pic had him with a mustache and fairly long hair. At the time, I had those, too, and a cowboy hat, too! I passed the sign, stopped the car and backed up again to look more closely, and started looking back and forth: first the sign, then the rear-view mirror (at myself), and back at the sign, back to the mirror. Probably sheer coincidence, but I swear, I could have posed for that picture.

Hmmm.....

[Dera]

They do a "passion play" of the murder of JB "Wild Bill" Hickock in Deadwood. I remember passing a sign (looked like an old fashioned Wanted Poster) with a picture of Hickock on it. The pic had him with a mustache and fairly long hair. At the time, I had those, too, and a cowboy hat, too! I passed the sign, stopped the car and backed up again to look more closely, and started looking back and forth: first the sign, then the rear-view mirror (at myself), and back at the sign, back to the mirror. Probably sheer coincidence, but I swear, I could have posed for that picture.

Hmmm.....

So now we know earthist. Like this, eh?

[DorieTesla'sMom]

We visited the Ephrata Cloister in Pa and I was impressed with the lifestyle of those late 18th Century hippies.
They worked and worshiped. Period. No dying in childbirth (being female that concerns me) because they were celibate.
But I decided I wouldn't want to travel back and be one of them because a) they slept on cold old stone benches and b) they got up at 3 a.m.for prayers, and I'm not that devoted!

[earthist]

So now we know earthist. Like this, eh?

Please note that was more than 30 years ago, but yes, complete with the fringed, buckskin jacket. (not the bowtie, or pleated shirt, though)

Not your average hippie-freak, eh?

[RedDog]

Also, how do we know we're not in a virtual simulator (I.E. The Matrix) and just lost memory of this in the transfer. All this could really take place in a few seconds in the real world.

That is an even better observation Emo! How would you know?
You would not. It makes for a very interesting storyline. One that author Daniel F. Galouye wrote about in a book titled "Simulacron 3". Later turned into a gripping movie titled "The Thirteenth Floor"

What we are noticing is that Time itself is something of an anomaly.

If we are in a virtual world, then the tools to move forward and backward, stop replay are all built into this universe.

For another perspective on reality check out this webpage. It raises some interesting questions.
This same fellow has a page titled "Is Time Travel Possible?" which will raise more interesting points.

[coopfan1974]

I'd go with the past. I don't think living in an even more advanced world in the future is something I want to live in. People can't even live peacefully the way things are now. That said I can imagine witnessing the events unfolding for a day or two while sitting in a time machine but do you really want to know what the future holds.

As for the past. I realize that not everything was as bright and easy as it is today. I don't think I'd want to risk getting a chronic or serious disease and not having the right medicine to help me recover.

Life was different in those days, I'm thinking 1930, 40s, not necessarily 1800-1900. People socialized more, there was no internet, people still delivered your milk, eggs to your doorstep and you had to go to the bakery to buy rolls, bread because there was no such thing as mega stores.

Kids spent more times outside since they did not have a Sony Playstation or other gadgets.

People generally had more style, they dressed better.

It seems cheap for us when we look back at the prices you paid for admission to a movie theater but when you compare them to today's prices and what 10 cents is in US $ today or any other currency for that matter, you realize it wasn't that cheap in those days either.

My favorite time was and still is the 80s, no doubt about it.

I think most of us would love to take a peak, maybe spend 1,2 days to see what life was like in the past or what it will be like in the future but I don't think we would actually want to live in it since we are absolutely not prepared for such a drastic change.

[Insignis]

Alpha may have a point.

What makes you think we are not already in the past or in the future right now? We may have forgotten.

Good point! How would we differentiate?

[BeenSqueerm]

excluding the initial outlay on a flight, and a month in which to travel, how would you spend it, where would you go, and what would you do?

[Divinorumus]

Wow, (approximately) 133 days to go until the reason why I chose NOW to be here arrives. The anticipation is intolerable. ( ) ( ) ( )

Now, I must go and get all dressed up and ready for tonight's shutdown party! SHUTDOWN!!!