Have You Considered What You LOSE By Knowing the Future?

[temporal recon]

Everyone,

The potential of Time Travelers visiting us provides us the rare opportunity to interact with someone from our future, someone who knows events before they happen. How? Because they are recounting events from their own past, a past that has not happened for us yet.

Over the short time that I have been inquiring into the Time Travel question, I have seen the same questions asked in different forms over and over again to the point that it becomes tiresome.

What will happen tomorrow?​

Why? Why is this same question asked time and time again? If you watch the news, the vast majority of the news isn't necessarily what happened that day, but rather what will happen tomorrow. Even the news knows nobody cares about what happened in the past. Chalk it up to simple human nature, it's been going on for centuries.

Now, it is easily understood what we could possibly have to gain by knowing our own future. We can prepare for what's coming, both mentally and materially. For example: If you knew that the lights would go out tomorrow and not come back for some time, what would you do today?

But have you considered what you might LOSE by knowing the future?​

It is here that the enormous responsibility that time travelers have to the residents of the time lines they visit reveals itself.

For example: If a time traveler gave you the exact date and time that your father will die in a car crash, what do you LOSE? What you have to gain is obvious, you could save your father from a horrible crash and death. You get to have your father for a few years more until he dies of some other cause.

But what do you lose? You lose the life experience and wisdom gained personally by his death. Working through the grief, coping with your sorrow.

How much poorer are you by avoiding this hard and difficult experience?
How differently would you lead your life (thus avoiding the hard experiences that shape us)? Eventually, every decision you make is colored by what you think will happen according to what an anonymous time traveler told you.
Yes, this is decidedly difficult to measure, but have you considered knowing our own future is a net LOSS in our own human experience?

Is THIS why time travelers are so circumspect?
Should we now change the questions that we ask from what the weather will be tomorrow to larger questions?

Temporal Recon

 

[titorite]

I don't quite feel the same.

The past is set in stone. We can know the past. It never changes. The future is not set in stone. we can forecast but until it actually happens uncertainty and chaos still applies.


And let us say our forecast is correct. What do we lose with an accurate forecast? I think that depends on what we do with the information. We could sit on it and just let it happen. What then? Life is all about our experiences. Even if we are told what tomorrows experience is gonna be we do not trully know it until we have lived through it.


So while (to use your example) We might try to save our father... succeed and miss out on all that grief and anguish until a later date.... that date must still be faced. No human being is immortal. Death is a part of the cycle. It must be faced. And even if you have fore knowledge of a death... one does not trully know till it happens....

Like a theif in the night.

 

[Samstwitch]

God told Noah about the coming flood. Noah and his family prepared for it and survived. A good, wise, and prudent person will make good use of knowledge of the future if it is available.

 

[temporal recon]

God told Noah about the coming flood. Noah and his family prepared for it and survived. A good, wise, and prudent person will make good use of knowledge of the future if it is available.

If we are to discuss this within a religious context, God is infallible and provided the information for His own purposes. John is a man and is fallible and flawed, as much as "we" are loathe to admit it.

The propensity to put Titor and other real time travelers on a pedestal simply by virtue of the fact they have access to a piece of equipment that allows them to "see the future" is, in my humble opinion, wrong-headed.
Do we put weathermen on a pedestal because they can look into the future as well? Do we wish a weatherman will tell us more, oh more, about what tomorrow will bring because they have access to the C204 Doppler Radar System? Of course not because we recognize them for what they are: A man with education, training and access to special equipment.

If we are to look into the time travel question (as a whole), we must keep things in perspective. They are not psychics. They are not Gods. They are not supernatural. They are men. Men with machines. Men with machines from our future. Nothing more.

Getting back to the original point of the thread:
So what level of responsibility do Time Travellers have to us that they DO NOT tell us our own future? To ALLOW us to live our lives as WE see fit? Allow for our OWN self determination, our own right to our own decisions in life.

@Titorite:
I believe that your statement could be its own discussion thread:
With the likelihood of multiple World Theory being an accurate description of the universe, how does a man's self determination integrate into the larger multi-verse with an infinite number of "yous" making decisions?


In a discussion I had with her some time ago, Linda Moulton Howe disagreed with the MulitVerse view because it invalidates free will. I say it does not. It does not because Howe finds separateness where there is none. All those alternate "yous" on all these alternate world lines are still you. But this digresses into an interesting, more esoteric aspect of time travel and is something I have also been researching and exploring. I would welcome a discussion on this aspect if anyone cares to follow up.

You also said:

And let us say our forecast is correct. What do we lose with an accurate forecast? I think that depends on what we do with the information. We could sit on it and just let it happen. What then? Life is all about our experiences. Even if we are told what tomorrows experience is gonna be we do not trully know it until we have lived through it.

The purpose of my question is to ask:

What right does a Time Traveller to take those experiences away from you and replace them with others?​

​

Does this imply the massive responsibility a TT'er has in his job description? I imagine the Law of Unintended Consequences likely figures large here.​

​

Delving a bit deeper into your statement:​

And let us say our forecast is correct. What do we lose with an accurate forecast? I think that depends on what we do with the information.

Actually, my friend, no it doesn't (respectfully).
Why? Because in a MWI Multi-verse, both options are acted/not acted upon. At the point of contemplating the choice, both choices are made. Being limited to only one universe, you only perceive one of the choice's outcomes.

The universe is a magical place, unfortunately, much of that magic happens behind the scenes and all we can do is infer its presence.
Phi anyone?

As Ever
Temporal Recon

 

[Sliders]

The benefits of humanity knowing it's future out weigh the benefits of not knowing them, farsight.org

"
Initial Results:
This project describes change between the years 2008 and 2013 across nine geographical locations with a global spread. The locations are

1. Vaitupu, Tuvalu
2. Fort Jesus, Mombasa Kenya
3. Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia
4. Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
5. United States Congress Building, Washington, D.C.
6. Malé International Airport, Malé, Maldives
7. KITV Building, Honolulu, Hawaii
8. The Vehicle Assembly Building at Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island, Florida
9. Key West, Florida

In general, these remote-viewing data suggest the following types of physical changes across many of the above geographical locations by mid-2013:

1. Impacts from what appear to be large meteors leading to tsunamis and possible volcanism
2. Extensive and forceful flooding of coastal areas
3. Excessive solar radiation
4. Storms and other severe weather

In terms of the effects of these changes on humans, these data also suggest:

1. Massive self-organized relocation from coastal areas (refugees)
2. The breakdown of rescue or other notable governmental functioning
3. The breakdown of the food supply system
4. The breakdown of the vehicular transport system
5. Extensive loss of buildings near coasts "

 

[titorite]

In a more simple context I kinda wonder what rights or obligations are any of us under? HUman A has the right to speak and human B has the right not to listen. Even in the face of the rock solid confrimable.


......


Or it may just be that you lose uncertainty.....

 

[Sliders]

Some one, once said. " Everyone is entiteled to their own opinions but not their own facts "

 

[Ren]

Locations,
Mali, North Africa, The Middle East
versus
France, Germany, England, Italy and the U.S.

Florida, The U.S. East Coast, The U.S. West Coast, The New Madrid Fault, the Cascades, Yosemite, Yellowstone.

Eastern New Zealand, Eastern Japan, Eastern Florida.

Meteors.
Flooding.
Earthquakes.

Economic Collapse
The Resurrection of the Islamic Caliphate

Now reorder this.

 

[titorite]

I would love to know my next ten years.

 

[temporal recon]

I would love to know my next ten years.

As would I, but my question then comes into play in that event.

What experience would you lose by knowing your future?

Imagine for a moment that you start a business, you've never worked so hard in your life. 60 hour weeks are the norm, no vacations, etc. During that time, you get a crash course in accounting, advertising, growing your business. You work for 10 years, building the business into a real success and when you're ready, you get an offer to buy your business for 4 million dollars. You accept their offer, and retire some place sunny.

But now let's pretend you met a time traveller who tells you all this ahead of time right now. You are told that if you start that business, you will work harder than you've ever worked before, 60 hour work weeks, weekends, few vacations, etc At the end of it all you will be rewarded for all this hard work with 4 million dollars. Congratulations!

Now you have a decision to make: do you go through with this idea of self employment or not? If you do, congratulations on your successful business in 10 years.

But let's pretend you decide that 4 million dollars after 10 years of no life just isn't worth it. Having this foreknowledge of just how much you'll work and how much you'll earn at the end of it all has served to dissuade you from starting the business. What have you lost in deciding to forego self employment?

Well, obviously, you gain the option of choosing differently. You also lose the education in accounting, advertising, management. But you also lose the self respect of starting, building and succeeding at this business that you own. Character building.

Granted, it is likely you would learn other things by having your life move in a different direction (with unknown results), but how does that balance with what you LOST by NOT choosing the self employment route?

Was it worth it?

My larger point here is that, while it might be nice to know what 's around the bend of our lives, it does not come without a cost.

As Ever
Temporal Recon