basically, me waffling for a while

this post is less involved in the ‘free will – fate’ part of the above article, but more on the idea of time travel and the effects thereof.

travelling to the past is theoretically rather easy, as you can see where you will be going. any foray into the past will have no effect on the ‘future’ (or percieved present), as anything you do will, from your perspective, already have happened. this means, while it is impossible to change an event in any way, you may act as you damn well please, as it won’t have the slightest difference.

travelling to the future is somewhat more difficult. the future as we see it from the present is indeterminate – we don’t know what it will be like. unfortunately the simple act of observing any particular future will have the efect of making it the true future. travelling back from this future will have the same effect as travelling into the past from the present – the latest (most progressed) point in time will be determined and unchangeable: your actions to make it happen differently will have no effect at all.

that’s the time travel bit out of the way, now for what it means. a lot of people get worried about this sort of thing, as it seems to eradicate free will. however, my above description (if it is correct) shows that while each individual has free will, once you bring time travel into the the picture, whether back or forwards then back again, it doesn’t mean squat. the unchanging ‘future’ does seem to imply fate, howeveronly in the big picture. yes, nothing you do can change it, seeming to indicate fate for the whole human race, but what you do is completely up to you.

perhaps what this means is that each of us is fated somehow, at present indeterminately, until someone goes into the future to find out what happens to us. when (read ‘if’ if it makes you more comfortable) this happens, our ‘fate’ will be determined, however everything we do up until then will be a product of our own free will.