So what would excite you more?

[Walsingham]

Don't beat yourself up. I used to regret working for years in a dead-end. But I realised it taught me a lot about humility, and to not assume that someone's worthless just cause their job is. Good for the soul, you could say.

[alanschu]

I agree.

 

I have no regrets having spent a couple years working as a liquor store clerk, as well as a short order cook.

[astr0creep]

I agree.

 

I have no regrets having spent a couple years working as a liquor store clerk, as well as a short order cook.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's not working there that I regret. It's working there for 6 years, full time, with all the sacrifices that it involves. Sacrifices that were ultimately in vain since I am now old and stupid.

I guess I was back then too.

[alanschu]

I spent 3 years full time at my local Boston Pizza, plus some part time years.

 

I am finally free of all that though :D

[Walsingham]

I certainly think i too worked too hard. Overcompensating like that guy in 'Clerks'. I worked bloody hard, and even contributed management advice that was only accepted by a couple of senior managers, and which never earned me a penny. However, i now get paid three times that pay, and am my own boss, so I can take advantage of overachievers.

 

I also missed out on a great woman because I was too worn down by the job to chase her properly. That was bad.

[astr0creep]

Well, you guys are lucky and you learned from your mistakes. I did too but I'm still struggling out of that 6 year period. I'm not making enough money, barely getting by.

On the good side though I managed, with more sacrifices, to get rid of all those debts I accumulated during the PH years AND I'm getting married this weekend. Yippee! :D

 

So I'd go back in time and change that(the Pizza Hut thing, not the marriage...).

 

I would also stay in Indonesia longer(lived there 6 months a while back) and I would sleep with that girl I went to California with instead of going on that stupid Star Trek pilgrimage.

Edited May 1, 2006 by astr0creep

[metadigital]

Do you by any chance have a link.

 

Doing a search for "Parallel Universe Theory" on Google resulted in no academic sources, and just references to Fred Alan Wolf, whom after What the Bleep Do We Know left me somewhat skeptical about his research.

 

Even then, it was just talk about Parallel Universes, not tangent timelines.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There's also some interesting theory covered in recent Scientific American issues (say, the last five years) about multiple universes.

 

Basically, even though Kyle Reece and the Terminator came back to 1984 to save and kill sarah Connor, respecitvely, the original universe and timeline would be intact, and the changes to the timeline would be in an alternate universe, when the time travellers appeared (because in the original universe, they did not appear).

 

This is how such paradoxes as "killing your Grandfather" can be exsplained.

 

I am very interested in the idea behind time travel, but some of the relativity courses I have taken lead me to believe that the only way you can "time travel" is by exploiting time dilation...and that only takes you forward.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's my understanding, too.

[Walsingham]

I'd go forward in time, and kidnap myself. Then go back in time and force my old self to act as a sort of monk-like zen master to my young self. And I'd teach my young self how to make pancakes, wearing a huge false moustache. Because even though the moustache would be obviously fake my young self would never seee through the disguise because the reality of what was underneath would be too terrifying.

 

And now I shall go to the pub.

[alanschu]

Basically, even though Kyle Reece and the Terminator came back to 1984 to save and kill sarah Connor, respecitvely, the original universe and timeline would be intact, and the changes to the timeline would be in an alternate universe, when the time travellers appeared (because in the original universe, they did not appear).

 

This is how such paradoxes as "killing your Grandfather" can be exsplained. original.gif

 

I know. I just think it's a wee bit too convenient. I wonder if there are people out there that just want to believe in time travel.

 

I am typically of the mind that if time travel existed, someone somewhere would have been sloppy and not covered his time travel very well. Given that every trip back would create a new branch, you'd essentially have a branching factor of infinity. Which means that the probability that we are currently in the one branch that time travel did not occur would be zero.

 

In fact, the continuous distribution means that the likelihood that we are on a time travel path of any small number is exceptionally tiny).

Edited May 1, 2006 by alanschu

[Walsingham]

One of the key thoughts behind much alternate time travelling is that your time traveller has to fix something, like prevent a war and so on. But I was thinking that this is surely pretty damn tricky. I mean suppose you go back to ancient babylon. You might get all excited about teaching the natives pro-womens wrestling. But there are plenty of places in the world now that are effectively at the same level.

[metadigital]

Is that Babylonian mud wrestling?

[Dark_Raven]

Is that Babylonian mud wrestling?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Babylonian bungee jumping.

[metadigital]

No, that was the Pentocostal Land-Divers of Vanuatu.