We cannot change the past. I can regret past actions and resolve to act differently from now on but cannot change how I did act.
The
past is partly known and completely immutable. Our understanding of
World War II can change but not the fact that there was a World War II
with certain dates, certain major events and turning points and many
details, known or unknown. It is conceivable that someone might seem to
himself to have been transported from 2020 to 1940, thus to be living
among the events of World War II. However, if he makes the events of
1940-1945 different from the way that he remembers they were recorded,
then, wherever or whenever he is, he is not in the World War II that is
part of our known history. There must be some other explanation of his
experiences.
All this has been discussed before, of
course, but maybe we can clarify a principle? The proposition that the
past cannot be changed applies not only to our familiar experience of
time but also to any time travel scenario. Travel through time would
involve travel to the past and the past cannot be changed. Anyone who,
e.g., assassinates Hitler in 1940 is not in our past, therefore has not
time traveled.
Hi Paul!
ReplyDeleteAnother proposition is that such an action would destroy our past and replace it with an altered version (and in the process, doing the same with our present!) Of course, the consequences of that are food for paradoxes aplenty...