Yesterday Leila and I came up with a concept of trying to get us to write more frequently: me on here and her either in some random notebook number 842, or on her long neglected blog. We didn't really get around to it yesterday (not a good sign), but today I'll give it a go.

So.... today's topic of writing comes about from the idea of time-travel. Not so much if it's scientifically ever possible (I know that something to do with the theory of relativity means that if you travelled close to the speed of light time would pass at a different rate for you than it would for objects not travelling so quickly, which therefore means that at least in some respects you could be described as time-travelling), but rather whether the concept of time-travel can actually fit with your philosophy of the world. Clearly the idea of going back in time and also forward in time both seem problematic. Going back in time does seem a bit "less weird" to me, because at least you're delving back into something that's fairly set in concrete as having actually happened. You know, to some extent, that if you popped up in 1970, what you'd see in a particular spot. Travelling forwards, into the future, gets really messy as you potentially see results of actions you haven't already taken in your life, and then wonder what would happen if you went back to the present and deliberately took a different course of action.

Yet, if I think about it, perhaps travelling forwards wouldn't be quite as messy as travelling backwards in time. Sure, if you were to go forwards and come across aspects of the world that you may affect in your future, it does get bizarre (as you would kind of steal your own future "free-will" to choose a different course to your life). But if you kept fairly clear of that, at least by travelling forwards you would be screwing with the real present that you've come from. Let me explain that a little more carefully. If one was to go back in time, unless you have a pretty deterministic viewpoint that things turned out the way they were always going to turn out, then every little action you take has the potential to multiply into a different outcome to the 'real present' that you came from. Do the wrong thing and you may accidentally delete your existence, or at the very least something along the 1 in a trillion series of events that actually led to your being. However, by going forwards you can't really mess this up, your actions wouldn't effect the 'normal' course of time, because in a way you're just jumping ahead and briefly seeing what things "might" be like in the future. If you mess with something in the future, or see an event happening that you don't like and could be prevented through some action back in the 'real present', then you can make that change and - at least in my opinion - changing the course of the future isn't nearly as messed up as changing the course of the past, thereby undermining the 'integrity' of the present that you came from.

OK so that is probably a little confusing. The whole conversation from which this rather crazy philosophical rant comes from, was originally instigated by Leila reading through my blog and thinking how it could be pretty interesting if one was able to read future blog posts - perhaps through some random event blog posts of the next couple of years were surprisingly visible on this site. It would be kind of like time-travelling, as you would be able to see the future. This thought rather unnerves me though, this ability to see into the future. Sure it'd be useful to find out the winning numbers for this coming Saturday's lotto draw. It might also be comforting to find out how exactly some situation that continues to annoy and stress you may turn out - to know that everything will be OK in the end and that you will manage to find a way to make it all work. However, what if you came across something bad happening in the future? Would you be able to change it, would it affect the normal present, would you being aware of something happening in the future change whether it actually happened still? All these questions just form a massive brain-mess when i try to figure them out.

A lot of books/movies etc. on the topic of time-travel seem to try to get over this by somehow "locking in" events. I suppose that it's through the idea that in a way, the future is set, and although it is us who will decide upon what the eventual outcome is, that particular outcome will happen in the future. In a few years time I either will still be living in my current house, or I won't be - there isn't any grey area there. It is the same for all other possible options in the future, in that there will be a definitive situation that I am in at a particular point in the future. Although I have the ability to affect that particular situation, there will be an outcome, there is one particular future out there and that is the only one that will ever happen. I suppose a few people take that one step further, and think that 'the future situation' is locked, and in a way no matter what we do, that situation will still happen. I find this deterministic viewpoint a little depressing, in that it seems to take away our ability to affect change in the world and renders us seemingly powerless. I suppose there's a midway point where one takes the opinion that the future is locked, because although you don't know it, you will always choose to make this decision and that decision, as will everyone else, leading to a particular outcome. This still leaves you with some sense of freedom to make choices, but it's as if the future always knows what you'll choose.

Whilst I like to think of myself as a believer in free will, there is something about that third option that seems to make a lot of sense. I often do have 'faith' (gosh it's annoying that religion has taken over that word so much) that things will sort themselves out, rather than feeling like I actively need to do something NOW in order to ensure that whatever situation is bothering me changes around. Perhaps it's my semi-deterministic subconscious mixing with an overall sense of optimism, and coming together to create a general idea that things will come to a good outcome as long as you make the obvious right choices, and as long as you have a bit of a think about how to get something done.

OK well I've fulfilled my part of the challenge. I wonder what Leila wrote.

Edit: Oh lame, her last blog entry was partially on this very topic. Now I have to come up with a writing topic. OK the next writing subject will be to explain our political views, including a history of them and how they may have changed in more recent times. And to justify why we have them.