Depths in the Sparkling Waters II

Of even lighthearted posts

The Vat/Vacation post was intended as a humorous send up of gee-whiz type filler stories on TV and the marketing commercials of a distant decade (“But wait. There's more!”). But, as is usual, I wanted also to bring up some interesting philosophical questions.

The first would be that given the possibility of time travel being developed at sometime in the future and that if such travel is not logically impossible, then why couldn't there be travel agencies who would arrange trips in time as do our current agencies to various countries?

If we grant that it is not impossible and don't have a metric for assigning probability (given the imponderables surrounding the limitations or potentialities of such travel) then isn't it reasonable to conclude that such travellors may possibly be already among us currently and in our past as well as future?

This raises several questions. First, if we concluded travellors likely are here, what difference does it make?

If it makes a difference, how would we detect individuals and change our laws to better handle the situation? There are no laws prohibiting time travel currently. Should there be and what would they look like? In any case it would seem some regulation would be prudent. But what, and to achieve what aims. Public safety? Unfair advantage in various ways? False pretenses, inside trading, patent law violations, paternity/maternity issues. Skipping out on contracts, unpaid bills, mortgages, jail cells, etc. etc. etc.

Is such travel, in itself though, immoral? If so, why?

What happens to our certainty of first, the immutabilty of History, given the fact it can apparently be multiply altered and second, planning for the future since it too becomes highly subject to unforseeable alteration? Does our new knowledge actually change anything, save that we have new knowledge?

How does it effect our interpretation of History? Were the standout figures born in the times we think? Does anything change in the consequences of their lives and actions? If not, is the fact of their being possible time travellors amount to anything more than incidental information similar to knowing what flowers they liked the best?

A conclusion is forming that even if we had irrefutable evidence that visitors from the future have been with us through all of history, it wouldn't change anything! They have always been part of the world as we know it, have formed it, and as such are as legitimately citizens of it as we are. No witch-hunts need be mounted, no draconian laws need be promulgated; nothing changes.

But isn't that a paradox? That the greatest discovery in human history doesn't amount figuratively to a “hill of beans”?

What’s wrong with this picture?