Time
Time travel. I believe this is the final frontier. Through space and time itself.
After watching a great show it helped asked some (real life) questions concerning how much man would gain in time travel, and how much we could potentially lose.
First, I like the idea of being able to send memories back in time from the future. Not an actual physical self because this leads to too many paradoxes like the Grandfather Paradox but doesn’t remove the thought of the Butterfly Effect. You’d be able to send memories of your future experiences to yourself and as a result you can alter any actions you deem worthy.
And this is probably the most plausible means of time travel I can think of. Being able to send a physical presence back in time poses too many problems: meeting your other self, altering small details in the world by just stepping on a butterfly (hence the butterfly effect) which could potentially change an entire landscape dramatically.
The idea presents the theory of parallel universes. Imagine a line of string as one reality. Your reality right now. You living in this universe is you climbing up this one string. Then suddenly you gain the ability to travel back in time. You can suddenly take a path back down the string line and alter one event. By altering this event you essentially cut yourself off the original string and build up a whole another line path.
Completely new and fresh with different outcomes and whole new possibilities all because you had a sort of “vision” of the future to avoid that particular string path.
Sounds absolutely perfect doesn’t it? How about second chances? Having unlimited forms of it?
I may not believe in a particular God, but I do believe the universe has an unusual way of imposing itself on humans and their belief of gaining the powers of a God.
“The universe has a beginning, but no end. — Infinity.
Stars, too, have their own beginnings, but their own power results in their destruction. — Finite.
It is those who possess wisdom who are the greatest fools.
History has shown us this.
You could say that this is the final warning from God to those who resist.”
-Steins;Gate
Now let’s take this a little deeper into the potential dark aspects of time travel. Think of the one person who you could not live in this world without? Who’s death would leave a dreadful pain in your heart. A black hole. A rift in everything you know to be good and happy? By the first question I can imagine a face or name popped in your head already. Maybe even two.
Given the power to control time, you know how this person you love will die and thereby have the means to prevent it. You then end up at that event and save that person, only to realize they are to die again by some other means. You go back in time again to prevent both tragedies, only to witness another. You repeat. Then another tragedy. You repeat. Another. Repeat…..Another….
You suddenly realize no matter what happens there seems to an element of “fate” that you cannot avoid. That said person must die, in order for order in that universe to continue. Is it just a desired outcome in one universe?
Would time travel enable us to even say leap into completely different universes altogether? What if our time travel leaps let us change the path of our string but not enable us to leave the string altogether? Would there need to be certain conditions to leave this string universe and leap into a completely different one?
A universe where fate dealt different cards for us.
Some part of me is hoping for time travel. While a larger part is hoping humans never reach it. “Stars, too, have their own beginnings, but their own power results in their destruction. — Finite.” I don’t believe humans have the capacity to hold such power. I believe it would inevitably lead to their complete and total annihilation in all universes that exist.
Humans have proven time and time again to be careless with power. And those who climb the power ladder tend to lose a large part of their humanity. Making them no more qualified to hold the power to destroy the world than an easily tempered four year old child holding the end of the world button in their hands.
Some part of me thinks that somewhere in some place and time, humans already gained the ability to time travel. It’s just that, when they used its power they understood its frightening capacity for destruction that they destroyed it. Removed all traces of their methods and knowledge. In order to save humanity from itself.
But on a lighter note.
After experiencing the great story Steins;Gate, there seemed to be an element that was always constant and never changing in all strands of time: friendship, comradery, and love (of course all the bad things too, but that’s no fun to talk about) and I have a good feeling that such things will never change no matter what time line you walk. Friends seem to converge to one another, and love always brings two people together.
I have a feeling that this so vast universe wants to take us to places we can never ever dream of. That by design it wants us to be happy, but we need to just work it out ourselves in our own ways and methods. There may be dark and horrible times, but maybe its to teach us to appreciate and truly know happiness. Two sides of the same coin. Without one we can’t know the other right?
