If time travel was possible, what would be the effect of going back & accidentally killing your younger self?

Question

would you disappear magically as your future self never existed past this point?

Would a branch of an alternative reality open up?

Would something happen to prevent you killing yourself?

Is this the sort of question that makes your brain hurt?

Answer 1

Eh... Traveling back in time somehow should cancel future or at least change its shape very much... Lack of you doesnt seem to be much problem but your presence in past should change the balance or even break it... Killing your younger self is even more easy to consider because the effect is more crucial... We dont consider break in balance anymore but... we have reason why your future should be canceled.... as so all your memories and life you had from moment of your death... I think it wouldnt kill you... Not in a clinical meaning... I think mattery of your body would accept new alternative but your mind would have a problem... Its possible you would remember things that didnt happen... and you would not fit into alternative world... People would perceive you as crazy unless you would deny or not share it... I think its even more possible that something worse would happen to your brain and mind... Loss of all life time from your caused death to your younger self to moment of your travel could erase physical base of your memories... like you would have photos with nothing on them... becasue they were taken on something that dont exist any longer and didnt happen yet in your new future... It means you would feel like you should remember soemthing but you will have nothing to remember... like a bunch of empty files in computer... taking place... but containing nothing readable.. True time traveling seems impossible or costing in destructive effect... Erasing memory can damage your mind so you could become less inteligent than plant... I think faster its easier to change shape of whole world around you than to send little peice of it into world that happened on timeline... You can bring past back in meaning of rebuilding or restoring... but travel back in time escape reality... Think of it like traveling a path... Let say you are near its end and then you wish to travel to some point you were on few minutes ago... You have to walk back... It means you have to sacryfice your advantage in distance, use some energy to get back (maybe a car lift to travel much faster) and then you have to repeat distance you didt cross before but as older of that few minutes, with knowledge of that piece of road but... with awareness that new things can happen... You cant reapeat all the steps perfectly... Change can be slight but is very possible... like you could avoid hitting of leaf before and now it hits you... Still walking is not so heavy idea like traveling in time but consequences are relativeable... with huge proportion of difference I guess... I guess we better keep more grip to present... keep on avoiding mistakes and keep on trying to fix thigns we broke in past instead of dreaming how it would be if we won ticket to alternative universe... Hehe... Just having it popped up in my head when thinking about reasons why you asked for such thing...

Answer 2

A universe in which you travel back in time and kill your younger self simply cannot exist. Explaining why this is so is a bit difficult, which is why so many people don't seem to grasp the idea.

It would be helpful if you could put all the possible universes into a Feynman diagram, then add them up and see what you have left. To understand Feynman diagrams it might be easiest to give an example. We all know that light travels in a straight line from point A to point B. (Actually a straight line through time) But why does light travel in a straight line. In a Feyman diagram you allow light to take every possible path, including forward and backward in time. The light is allowed to take every possible path from A to B. Then you add up all the possible paths, and see what you have left.

Hopefully everyone is familiar with the interference pattern that a two slit experiment produces. This happens when waves meet, and they either reinforce each other, when a crest meets a crest, or they cancel each other out when a crest meets a trough. What a Feyman diagram does, is it adds up all the ways that light could possibly get from point A to point B. It takes all of the paths that will get to point B at a crest, and all the paths that will get to point B at a trough, and totals them up. It turns out that for every path that you can think of that brings the wave to point B at a crest, there is a path that will bring the wave to point B at a trough. So for every path that you draw, you can draw another path to cancel it out. Except for straight paths. There is no path that you can possibly draw that will cancel out a wave that travels in a straight line. So when you draw up a Feynman diagram for light, all possible paths will cancel out, except, for the straight paths. Which is why light travels in a straight line. Because all other paths cancel each other out.

So how does this relate to the problem of you traveling back in time and killing your younger self. Well for every scenario that you can think of to go back in time and kill your younger self, I can think of a scenario to stop you. I could go back in time and wait for you to arrive, and kill you when you do, thus preventing you from killing yourself. For every scenario that you can think of, I can think of a scenario to stop you. So when we take all the possible scenarios and add them up, the only one that we can't cancel out, is the one where neither of us do anything. Just like light traveling in a straight line, the only path that remains, is the one that can't be canceled out. The straight path. Light travels in a straight line, and time travels in a straight line. There is no universe where light travels in a crooked line, and there is no universe where you can travel back in time.

Hopefully I explained that clearly enough. I tried.

Answer 3

w8 till u meet ur doppelganger!

Answer 4

Like they say in Star Trek - "Don't try to explain temporal anomalies."

Answer 5

There is a theory that prevents these paradoxes from happening and it is the theory of parallel universes.  According to the theory, there are an infinite number of parallel universes so if you did go back in time to kill yourself, you would have created a parallel universe in which you do exist and the original universe you traveled from is the one in which you don't exist.  

Answer 6

i agree with STEVE D

Answer 7

According to String Theory you would have created a new time line. BUT then anything you would do if you went back in time would create a new time line. You would still be from the same time line and could not effect your past or history.

Answer 8

Since time travel is just fiction you can really just make up any answer you like.

Answer 9

That's a temporal paradox! Maybe your 'little self' in a parallel universe but the possibility of paradoxes in in your own Universe has yet to be confirmed whether it's possible or not! In other words if you go back in time you might end up in a parallel Universe!

Answer 10

i once thought i had gone back in time, then i discovered i had,nt taken down last years calender.

Answer 11

People have speculated about this for a long time. It's a variation of the "grandfather paradox." There are loads of theories.

Here's one interesting way of finding the truth about time travel:

http://rlexperiment.blogspot.com/2008/08...

Answer 12

Bigger brain = more pain.

Just leave it alone my friend. Leave well alone.

Answer 13

Watch less science fiction ok it might keep your brain from hurting so much

Answer 14

this is the sort of question that makes your brain hurt

Answer 15

who knows, why they dont wanna time travel