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If you go with the pop-sci idea that intervening in the past changes the future, then we are just on the timeline in which time travel never occurred in our rec

If you go with the pop-sci idea that intervening in the past changes the future, then we are just on the timeline in which time travel never occurred in our recorded past, by definition. It's not that people from the future _don't_ time travel to our period, it's that each time they do travel to our period, a timeline branches off that we don't have access to. We _might_ be on a timeline in which some time travelers appear some time in the future, but maybe not. It's sort of like the question 'why did life arise on Earth and nowhere else that we are aware of?' - the only reason we can ask the question is because we are the result of exactly the factors that would produce a consciousness that _could_ ask that question.

rbanffy 10y ago
We could as well be the result of a series of pranks perpetrated from time travelers from other saner timelines.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
How would you know if we are on a timeline where intervention from the future has changed the past? In our timeline, it hasn't changed. That is: The original timeline is timeline A. Travelers from the future come back, intervene, and the result is timeline B. But to those on timeline B, nothing has changed - it just looks the way timeline B always looked. (Unless the intervention is blatant - people show up in a flying saucer and use death rays to assassinate Hitler before he becomes Chancellor, say...)
- CognitiveLens 10y ago
  yeah I'm thinking about it in the way that is assumed by the original author, with the idea that visitors from the future would be somehow identifiable.
dandelion_lover 10y ago
> It's sort of like the question 'why did life arise on Earth and nowhere else that we are aware of?' - the only reason we can ask the question is because we are the result of exactly the factors that would produce a consciousness that _could_ ask that question. Sounds like the Anthropic principle, which is not accepted by all scientists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
- parenthephobia 10y ago
  It's the weak Anthropic principle - we find ourselves on a planet that supports life because we couldn't have arisen on a planet that didn't - which is necessarily true.
  - dandelion_lover 10y ago
    It is necessarily true, but it does not explain anything.

rbanffy 10y ago

We could as well be the result of a series of pranks perpetrated from time travelers from other saner timelines.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago

How would you know if we are on a timeline where intervention from the future has changed the past? In our timeline, it hasn't changed. That is: The original timeline is timeline A. Travelers from the future come back, intervene, and the result is timeline B. But to those on timeline B, nothing has changed - it just looks the way timeline B always looked. (Unless the intervention is blatant - people show up in a flying saucer and use death rays to assassinate Hitler before he becomes Chancellor, say...)

CognitiveLens 10y ago
yeah I'm thinking about it in the way that is assumed by the original author, with the idea that visitors from the future would be somehow identifiable.

dandelion_lover 10y ago

> It's sort of like the question 'why did life arise on Earth and nowhere else that we are aware of?' - the only reason we can ask the question is because we are the result of exactly the factors that would produce a consciousness that _could_ ask that question. Sounds like the Anthropic principle, which is not accepted by all scientists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

parenthephobia 10y ago
It's the weak Anthropic principle - we find ourselves on a planet that supports life because we couldn't have arisen on a planet that didn't - which is necessarily true.
- dandelion_lover 10y ago
  It is necessarily true, but it does not explain anything.