Ship of Fools: If you could travel back in time...

Thread: If you could travel back in time... Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

Would you? If so, where would you go and what would you do?

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

First port of call would be London at the turn of the last century - 1890-1900ish. Equipped with a small, discreet camera I could get some wonderful photo opportunities on a stroll through the centre and enjoying seeing what had and hadn't changed between now and then. Some shopping, as well. Books, and maybe that parasol I've always wanted.

A bit further back in the 16th century I'd be seeing a Shakespeare play performed for the first time. Ideally one where the author was present.

Medieval Oxford would be interesting to see too - many of the current colleges wouldn't exist, and some would be known by different names. I'd love to see how the town had changed.

Still in London, but now back in Roman times, safely after Boudicca had set fire to the city and all the fuss was over, a wander around Roman London to get an idea of what the newly built capital-to-be looked like.

And of course, like a lot of people, I'd want to see how Stonehenge was really built and why.

That would do for starters, before I began travelling abroad...

Posted by Kitten (# 1179) on :

Yes, I'd go back to a time when my Dad was still alive so that I could see him once more

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

There are many obscure bits of the Middle Ages I'd like to see. But I'd be interested in a trip into the future too!

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

If you are going back to the past, before departure consider:
*Getting -all- available inoculations, including the obscure diseases that nobody much gets any more.
*Getting all your dental work done. White fillings, only! Also, if you wear eyeglasses, get that cataract/retina operation so that you can do without them. You do not want to be explaining to that Roman centurion what your prescription Ray Bans are.
*Packing gold coins. Canadian loonies or South African krugerrands would do. Ingots, not so useful but better than nothing.
*Renovating your wardrobe. Remember you want to pass, unremarked. Consult the SCA for garment sources. You may be forced to learn to sew. Buy leather sandals from Ebay, again shopping carefully for how things -look-. Consider dressing like a monk or a peasant.
*Acquiring a secret medical kit. This should fit under all your clothing, and include antibiotics, sterile wipes, and a needle and thread, plus a plentiful supply of all the meds you have to take. Show this to nobody and share it with no one.

Do not bring anything that will need recharging, even if you have solar. Do not bring anything plastic, aluminum or nylon. Oh! And learn to ride and drive if you can, otherwise you are doomed to shank's mare.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Don't worry, Brenda. We assume that our Tardises, or other time machines, will be suitably equipped with appropriate costumes and accessories, etc etc.

Posted by Uncle Pete (# 10422) on :

Warder at the Tower of London where I could quietly observe Tudor's minions performing the murder of Gloucester's nephews thus removing some live obstacles to his usurping the Crown after said minions had slew the Last King of the English.

In this way I could be sure, even if others continued to believe Tudor and his spin doctors.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
A bit further back in the 16th century I'd be seeing a Shakespeare play performed for the first time. Ideally one where the author was present.

It would be even better if the author were playing one of the roles.

Moo

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

I think I would go to Byzantium at its peak and try and find the secret of Greek Fire. It would be wonderful to see Hagia Sophia in all its glory.

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

Sort of along Kitten's line my first thought was to go back and be nicer to my mother, but now Ariel has me thinking of tourist attractions. I, too, would love to go to a few big parties during the Gilded Age but I would choose New York. I would plan to go to some of the same house parties as Edith Wharton.

I would save my trip to England for the Regency period and rent a house next to Jane Austen's family. I hear she made fun of her neighbors in some of her books, but I would be honored to be so used.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

If going back more than 150 or so years, I would stand upwind from everyone, and not too close. They are all smelly and have fleas, even if some found this sexy.

quote:
John Donne, link to:"The Flea"
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be....

Other than that, I would arrange for day care socialization and mental health care for Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, rather quite a number of EFG royalty*, several prime ministers, grand poohbahs and presidents of various countries. Or I'd get the fleas to mingle up all their blood.

I'd also arrange for the non-extinction of the passenger pigeon, the great auk, the auroch, various species of moa, and Neandertals. I'd particularly like to introduce Neandertals to some of the grandees mentioned in the previous paragraph. I'm sure they have much in common.

*EFG=English, French and German

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

There are SF stories about the tremendous crush of time-traveling tourists at the Crucifixion (Moorcock, "Behold the Man" is one, I believe) or in the Forum in Rome on the Ides of March. some more witty ones involve the intrusive time traveler who went to intercept the Person from Porlock, only to discover that he really was that person.

The theory and practice of time travel is much discussed and worked on in the genre; I've done it myself and will again.

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
There are SF stories about the tremendous crush of time-traveling tourists at the Crucifixion ...

I am reminded of Spike's comment in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (although I am paraphrasing): "If every vampire who claims to have been at the Crucifixion was actually there, the place would have been like bloody Woodstock!"

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

Serious:

I would like to go back in my own life and um, fix some mistakes.

I would like to visit ancient Alexandria and see the library.

I would like to visit the Ancient Wonders of the World (and take pictures).

Whimsical:

I would like to back to the Golden Age of Hollywood and try to make it in show business as a song-and-dance man, or a Latin Lover type.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
Serious:

I would like to go back in my own life and um, fix some mistakes.
.

This.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

This thread got me to thinking more. I found my copy of Irving Layton's book For My Brother Jesus.

His poem "Adam" starts "I wish we could go back to the beginning" and then lists a series of things in history, back to the beginning. He then writes: "There's only God and myself in the cool first evening in Eden discussing his fantastic creation.... we talk softly and for a long time and very, very carefully."

Maybe this is too far back? Can I be Adam with all of my ribs still intact, and ask the Big Guy a few poignant questions? Or do I have to ask the Trinity?

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

I second the trip to Hagia Sophia! AD 900, after the Iconoclastic Controversies and before the Fourth Crusade.

Tenochtitlan in 1450 (maybe on a non-sacrificing day) to see one of the largest cities in the world before its fall to Cortez.

My house, AD 1750, to see what this area was like before European settlement.

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Uncle Pete:
Warder at the Tower of London where I could quietly observe Tudor's minions performing the murder of Gloucester's nephews ...

Right on, Uncle Pete!

Having said that, if I could go back, I think I'd want to meet some of the musicians who flourished under the Tudors and Stuarts, in particular William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and Thomas Tallis.

And on the same lines as Ariel's Stonehenge exploration, if my inter-chronological Oyster card had enough left on it, I'd go to Stone Age Orkney and find out what the Standing Stones were all about.

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

The library at Alexandria with auto translation. A side trip to the workshop that built the Antikythera Mechanism.
Stopping in for a performance of Lysistrata and one of the Tempest.

Posted by angelica37 (# 8478) on :

I'd quite like to see some of the natural world which we have lost, to see the giant moa, the dodo, the original flora and fauna of New Zealand and all those places before introduced species wiped them out. And mammoths

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

I would like to hear Beethoven play the piano. Beethoven includes fingerings in his manuscripts that are monstrously, absurdly difficult, to the point of being practically unplayable, even by the greatest concert pianists. Question: was Beethoven really that gifted that he could play them or was he just trying to intimidate the opposition?

Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on :

Every one of these excellent ideas needs an addendum: "... and take along a camera so that other people can see and hear it too when I come back."

I'd like to see those rural places that have since vanished under the spreading cities, particularly the ones that I know well in the present. (For some reason the small hamlet of Heathrow has always held a romantic spot in my imagination.)

And I'd go back to 1963 with a VCR, rent a flat on a lease of 6 or 7 years so it could just be left undisturbed, and video every missing episode of Dr Who.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

Of course, here in 2130, we can travel back in time. I chose to travel back to here, just before....

Oh sorry, I can't say. You don't know yet.

As you were.

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

I've had an idea, inspired by the short story, Let's go to Golgoltha!, that the mystery of who built the pyramids is solved by time travel.

What happened was that people were intrigued by ancient Egypt (though in their timeline, there were no pyramids), travelled back in time and were enslaved by the Egyptians. The Egyptians then used these time travelling slaves to build the pyramids, which stimulated further interest by later time travellers (now on a different timeline) and this then builds in a loop.

So the size and slendour of the pyramids is proportional to the number of iterations of generations of time travellers who have gone back to find out how they were built.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Nice to go back to my early twenties and fix some of the 'if onlys'

On the other hand, it would wreak havoc with my present-day life so maybe not a good idea.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
I'd like to see those rural places that have since vanished under the spreading cities, particularly the ones that I know well in the present. (For some reason the small hamlet of Heathrow has always held a romantic spot in my imagination.)

Have you been to the Museum of London? They have many excellent things, one of which is a small display in a glass case of a model Boeing on the runway at Heathrow. As you look, the modern scene slowly fades out to be replaced by Iron Age huts and people of the time... then back again. They also tell you about some of the finds dug up during construction of the airport.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

I'd certainly nip back to my 15 year old self with the following pieces of advice:

1. the worst she's likely to say is "no". OK, it might be "get lost" or "I'd rather stick my legs in a blender" but it means "no".
2. you'll get over it.
3. if she does say that, you'll be Not Going Out With Her, just like you are now, so no loss.

Then I'd nip back to 500AD and scout around to find out if King Arthur ever existed. Oh, and I'd be able to record the otherwise virtually unattested British and proto-Welsh languages, not to mention Pictish and Cumbric.

Then I'd bounce back to the 21st century trying to pick up any evidence whatsoever that the so-called Cumbric Scores were real and not invented in the late 19th century by someone having a laugh.

And expose Iolo Morgannwg at the time, rather than letting everyone find out it was bollocks later.

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

I would have stayed in southern California and finished my degree before leaving my parents house, even if we had to raise our daughter there until she was ready for school and my wife and I had good jobs!

I would have spent more time talking to my dad in his final years and I would have written a book about his ship in World War II.

I would have spent more time with my mother also.

I would have saved more money and made wiser investments when I was young...

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I would go to a time early in Microsoft's existence, and tell my younger self to invest in shares. Also, to invest in Apple shares when they nearly collapse.

I would also tell myself at that time that the church would fuck me over, so just give it a miss, and get laid. It wouldn't kill me, and it might make me happier.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

And here we open one of the major cans of paradox worms with TT. If you go back to give wisdom to your younger self (and always assuming that that dozy berk will even be sober enough to listen), that will change the past -- change you. Will you then be the same person that you are now? And, if you change so drastically (sitting on a pile of Apple stock dividends), then will you even wish to go back in time and talk to your younger self? And, if you do not, then what happens to the alteration in time?

Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on :

If a duck goes back in time and meets itself then you have a time travel pair'o'ducks.

If the time machine also includes the ability to travel in space - other than the minimum needed to keep you in the same relative position on a spinning planet orbiting a sun that is orbiting a galaxy that is moving through the universe - then travel to other worlds becomes possible. I'd like to see all the planets of the solar system, starting with Mars. Also to hide behind the rocks and watch Apollo 11 land.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

In 1889 I would stop by an asylum in Auvers-sur-Oise, and buy a lot of paintings from one of the inmates.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Only if I could take my dentist with me!

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
And here we open one of the major cans of paradox worms with TT. If you go back to give wisdom to your younger self (and always assuming that that dozy berk will even be sober enough to listen), that will change the past -- change you. Will you then be the same person that you are now? And, if you change so drastically (sitting on a pile of Apple stock dividends), then will you even wish to go back in time and talk to your younger self? And, if you do not, then what happens to the alteration in time?

Easier to resolve than you might imagine. Consider the many worlds solution to quantum indeterminacy - I go back in time, I find my younger self, I advise him. He may take my advice, he may not. In universes where he doesn't, his course is not changed and he learns the wisdom the hard way to impart to his former self. In universes where he does, he is changed and does not return. It's not a problem, though, because the point at which the future me enters the timeline is before these universes split off from each other, so both sets of universes are potential futures for a me who has learnt the hard way to return from to impart advice.

Alternatively, the wiser future me returns because he recalls the visit and wants to make sure it happened.

The former resolution also resolves the going back and shooting my grandfather paradox, of course. Trousers of time and all that. If I change one leg, a future me can still return from the unchanged leg to the indeterminate flies.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

I think some of the 'must see' sights have been mentioned already.

I'd like to stroll around Elizabethan London, I think - and also London before the Great Fire of 1666.

I'd be quite interested in visiting my home town before it existed ...

I'd be interested in strolling around through Regency English countryside and also having a look at things in 1913 -- pre WW1.

I'm not quite sure how I'd go about finding out what was going on but I'd also like to visit Britain in the last years of Roman rule and then visit at 50 year intervals to see how and why things changed ... and why urban life apparently ended so abruptly as the coinage collapsed ...

A visit to the various standing stones and prehistoric sites would be fascinating too, I think.

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

I agree with Palimpsest. I suggest the library at Alexandria (and photograph/photocopy everything). Likewise I suggest the Cotton library before the fire (undamaged Beowulf) and the London Museum before the Nazis bombed it. I wouldn't stay long at any of these. There are probably more.

(There is a theme involved here and I have notes on a planned science fiction story.

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :

My favourite ideas have already been well covered (Shakespeare and Austen) but I have got one idea that hasn't come up yet: Ancient Greece. Provided you weren't a slave (or a woman) wouldn't it be great to sit at the feet of Plato, or any of the early philosophers? And you could work on your tan at the same time!

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
And here we open one of the major cans of paradox worms with TT. If you go back to give wisdom to your younger self (and always assuming that that dozy berk will even be sober enough to listen), that will change the past -- change you. Will you then be the same person that you are now? And, if you change so drastically (sitting on a pile of Apple stock dividends), then will you even wish to go back in time and talk to your younger self? And, if you do not, then what happens to the alteration in time?

That really only applies if it were actually possible. Yes there are a whole lot of potential paradoxes (I use them occasionally in my writing) that need to find a resolution, however I would probably not care being a)extremely rich and b) having had piles of fantastic sex in my early life.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Don't be a female, then. Or a person of color.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

I definitely agree with the Hagia Sophia and opening day of a Shakespeare play.

Closer to the present, I'd like to return to my wedding day so I could answer "Hell, no!" and leave him at the Altar. (Or at least break things off before it got to that point.)

Posted by Meerkat (# 16117) on :

Brenda... what the hell is 'a person of color'? Apart from the fact you can't spell the word correctly in English...

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

She's spelling it correctly for American English, and a 'person of color' is the American equivalent of saying 'somebody from an ethnic minority'.

Posted by Meerkat (# 16117) on :

Racist!

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

Why are you insulting me ?

Posted by Meerkat (# 16117) on :

Not you, Think2! Brenda.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

OK, why are you insulting her ?

Posted by Meerkat (# 16117) on :

Commenting on someone being racist is not insulting them. Fed up with the sniping in this place. Closing my login!

Posted by georgiaboy (# 11294) on :

2 choices:
1) St Thomas Leipzig to hear on of Bach's cantatas premiered -- maybe even one of the Passions. Given the amount of time in which he turned them out, and some of the uncomplimentary things he said about his pupils, AND the difficulty of the works, one imagines that they sounded pretty scrappy. And those gut strings, and the trumpeters who were the night watchmen. OY!

2) Salzburg Cathedral to find out how Mozart managed to get a complete high mass over in 45 minutes, and what a mess the liturgics must have been.

OK, I admit it. I'm a geek.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Gamaliel: I'm not quite sure how I'd go about finding out what was going on but I'd also like to visit Britain in the last years of Roman rule and then visit at 50 year intervals to see how and why things changed ...

I like the 50 year hops idea; I'd like to do that into the future too.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

I would love to go back in the past and see some of NZ's now extinct native birds including Moa, Poukai (a huge eagle) and Huia [Tear]

Huia

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Meerkat:
Commenting on someone being racist is not insulting them. Fed up with the sniping in this place. Closing my login!

Meerkat, failing to comprehend cultural difference makes you no advertisement for tolerance.

Flounce if you wish.

Firenze
Heaven Host

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Now that is actually a worthwhile idea, and would get you past all this difficulty with krugerrands and the color of your skin. Photos, of dinosaurs. And if they're feathered, a feather.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

I'd rewind my life back to my trip to England in 2008, email a dear john letter to my place of employment at the time, and f'in stay in Portsmouth.

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I'd rewind my life back to my trip to England in 2008, email a dear john letter to my place of employment at the time, and f'in stay in Portsmouth.

Stay in Portsmouth??? [Ultra confused]

Why-o-why-o-why?

Nah. Go along the coast a little to Southampton. Much better people.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

Everyone says that. I loved Portsmouth. Reminded me of Berkeley, CA.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Now that is actually a worthwhile idea, and would get you past all this difficulty with krugerrands and the color of your skin. Photos, of dinosaurs. And if they're feathered, a feather.

I'd be reluctant to take a Huia feather. Huia feathers were prized among Maori and someone in the 1900s gave one to visiting royalty sparking a fashion for them amongst Pakeha ( people of European descent). This contributed to their extinction. Maybe I'd just stop the initial feather being handed over.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Everyone says that. I loved Portsmouth. Reminded me of Berkeley, CA.

I had a holiday in Portsmouth once many years ago and liked it so much I went back several times over the next few years. The place has its downside, but it can be quite an interesting place to be and a good base for exploring the south coast. I got altogether less out of Southampton. </tangent>

Posted by Galilit (# 16470) on :

I think I'd like to meet:

1. The Bloomsbury Group.
2. Joan of Arc
3. Hildegarde of Bingen
4. Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Galilit:
I think I'd like to meet:

1. The Bloomsbury Group.
2. Joan of Arc
3. Hildegarde of Bingen

Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! to all of these, but I would replace Hopkins with the Algonquin Round Table.

Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :

I'd go back to Greenwich Village 1960, and become a big star by stealing all Bob Dylan's songs before he had a chance to write them.

Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Huia:

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Now that is actually a worthwhile idea, and would get you past all this difficulty with krugerrands and the color of your skin. Photos, of dinosaurs. And if they're feathered, a feather.
I'd be reluctant to take a Huia feather. Huia feathers were prized among Maori and someone in the 1900s gave one to visiting royalty sparking a fashion for them amongst Pakeha ( people of European descent). This contributed to their extinction. Maybe I'd just stop the initial feather being handed over.

I think this is an interesting addition to the discussion of changing the past, that something as small as the gift of a feather can change the destiny of a species.

I like the idea of visiting pre-fire London, that appeals to me the most. I might visit Long Melford in Suffolk while I'm around, to get some tips on being a local Tudor for re-enactment purposes..

Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
I'd be reluctant to take a Huia feather. Huia feathers were prized among Maori and someone in the 1900s gave one to visiting royalty sparking a fashion for them amongst Pakeha ( people of European descent). This contributed to their extinction. Maybe I'd just stop the initial feather being handed over.

But with time travel, no species need ever be extinct, just temporarily and temporally inconvenienced. So, don't just bring back a Huia feather, bring back a breeding couple of Huias!

Having, of course, prepared a suitable habitat for them in the present, which you researched via earlier (or possibly later) time jaunts.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

Having stashed my Van Goghs, I am now making my way through 17th century Amsterdam to the house of Mynheer van Rijn....

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

My PhD would have been soooooo much better, more accurate, more nuanced, if I could have gone back 150 years and carried out a few interviews....

Firstly I'd go back to Edinburgh, 18th May 1843, and watch the Disruption procession.

Then I'd dot about Aberdeen at various dates between 1843 and 1901 just soaking it all in; I'd be veiled so that I could see without being seen, as it were, an anonymous woman on the streets, watching the people, the clothes, the shops, the schools, the bustle.

I might also pop back to my village circa 1908, round about the time my church's Bassendine Bible went AWOL and find out what happened to it.

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

If anything, I'd go back and meet my grandfather. I know, looking at photos, that I resemble him more than any other relative. As he died 2 years before I was born, I never knew him and can only rely on what my mother tells me.

I'd go back to when he was young man, before he took part in the D Day landings (which we know he did, but he never spoke of what he did or witnessed) and just spend an evening with him in the pub, playing cards.

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Having stashed my Van Goghs, I am now making my way through 17th century Amsterdam to the house of Mynheer van Rijn....

I think I'll save my TT tickets for the Bloomsbury group -- now that I've been given the idea -- and just go to Firenze's house in present time to look at her art collection.

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by georgiaboy:
St Thomas Leipzig to hear on of Bach's cantatas premiered -- maybe even one of the Passions.

That's where I'm going, too! [Big Grin]

I want to talk organ stuff with old Bach. Maybe have a lesson or two and check some fingering. And I want to see if there was a child named David.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
If anything, I'd go back and meet my grandfather. I know, looking at photos, that I resemble him more than any other relative. As he died 2 years before I was born, I never knew him and can only rely on what my mother tells me.

Yes! In my case my maternal grandfather died four years before I came along. Mom also told me how I'd inherited a lot from his looks and personality. He led an amazingly fascinating life, all over the world, and I have always regretted not having known him. He would have made a wonderful grandpa.
[Tear]

Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:

Then I'd dot about Aberdeen at various dates between 1843 and 1901 just soaking it all in; I'd be veiled so that I could see without being seen, as it were, an anonymous woman on the streets, watching the people, the clothes, the shops, the schools, the bustle.

I'm now picturing you as Madame Vastra from Doctor Who...

Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :

I would like somehow to go back to my own christening and tell my parents to take a photograph of my godmother Joanna, after whom I was named, and who died shortly afterwards. For some reason they were just interested in the baby... [Disappointed]

Assuming that the TT included a Babel fish or something similar, I would also like to go back to the time of Pharaoh Hatshepsut to find out what relations between her and Tuthmosis III were really like. If I could come back also knowing how Ancient Egyptian really was spoken, that would be cool.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

In early Victorian Chelsea, JMW Turner opens the door to a woman with a wheelbarrow....

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

The library at Alexandria, just before the fires (several trips)
The villa of scrolls in the Bay of Naples, August 79 AD
The place the Irish Druids kept their Ogham records before Patrick got at them
The library of the Thomasine church in India, before the missionaries got at their documents
The Chinese books destroyed by the first Emperor.
Somebody with a copy of the book by Pappias (?) that my friend keeps on about, with its interviews with the apostles, or people who knew the apostles.
People who could translate Linear A and Cretan hieroglyphics
Timbuktu libraries before the current lot of idiots started burning

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
In early Victorian Chelsea, JMW Turner opens the door to a woman with a wheelbarrow....

Back in 2014, Firenze is trying to convince a sceptical art dealer of the merits of these pictures by two obscure artists. The pictures aren't without artistic merit, but nobody's heard of them in the intervening centuries since they were painted. He offers her £25 for the lot, but can't be persuaded to take any pictures by the bloke in the lunatic asylum.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

I didn't say I was buying all their stuff - just a few late works. And I need the wheelbarrow: Turner wasn't exactly a miniaturist when it came to oils.

Anyway, must dash: I'm seeing a Mr Constable at 1830.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:

quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
If anything, I'd go back and meet my grandfather. I know, looking at photos, that I resemble him more than any other relative. As he died 2 years before I was born, I never knew him and can only rely on what my mother tells me.
Yes! In my case my maternal grandfather died four years before I came along. Mom also told me how I'd inherited a lot from his looks and personality. He led an amazingly fascinating life, all over the world, and I have always regretted not having known him. He would have made a wonderful grandpa.

Hm. My grandma Addy-- who apparently was a force of nature-- and my great great grand- aunt who founded the field hospital that eventually became Santa Rosa General Hospital.

[ 13. November 2014, 22:57: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Jonah the Whale (# 1244) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Meerkat:
Commenting on someone being racist is not insulting them. Fed up with the sniping in this place. Closing my login!

This was the first post I read this morning, and I was about to post "Wow", but refrained, thinking I was so dopey I'd missed something. But now, seeing it again, I would have been right. Wow!

As for me I would love to be able to go back a few thousand years and see how the neanderthals were getting on. I'd have to have a decent time machine which could get me back to present, so it should be good enough for me to be able to stop every few hundred years and see how homo sapiens was doing in comparison to his neanderthal cousins.

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

I'd go back to the time before World War One and talk my grandparents out of taking up smoking. I miss them. Only my paternal grandmother lived beyond her seventies...

(My aunt just turned ninety: like her mother she never smoked.)

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:

I might also pop back to my village circa 1908, round about the time my church's Bassendine Bible went AWOL and find out what happened to it.

That's easy...pinched by a time traveller to keep it safe from being stolen (or something)

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

Maybe I would go back and visit Guttenberg, and get him to print me a special copy of his bible.

And no, not for money making purposes, but because it represents one of the most important changes to society ever. To actually have one would send me into orgasmic delight.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

Hello.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

If I could time travel, I would go back two minutes to say Hello.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Actually, thinking of things that no longer exist, I've always wanted to see the Crystal Palace and ideally the Exhibition of 1851. I was quite disappointed as a child when my father told me it had burnt down in 1936.

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Actually, thinking of things that no longer exist, I've always wanted to see the Crystal Palace and ideally the Exhibition of 1851.

My preference would be for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Colossus of Rhodes.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Nah. They'll be packed full of tourists with timed tickets.

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :

I'd like to visit Detroit when it was still French. And I also would like to see Hagia Sophia back in the day. I might also turn up with Kelly at the Algonquin Round Table.

As for biblical events, I would not like to see the Crucifixion. Sounds too gory and disturbing. I would want to go hear the Sermon on the Mount, or maybe witness the feeding of the multitudes or something like that. Or turn up at Mamre on a particular day. But even the most advanced time machine could probably not pinpoint any of those events, assuming they literally happened.

Posted by Ferijen (# 4719) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I'd rewind my life back to my trip to England in 2008, email a dear john letter to my place of employment at the time, and f'in stay in Portsmouth.

I wish you'd stayed too Kelly. Also, will back Portsmouth on the Portsmouth vs Southampton stakes, despite an SO postcode...

When I was a kid, there was a series of history books - 'the time travellers guide to...' and the time traveller was a little ?boy? who floated over scenes, with illustrated diagrams of what they could see. I had, I think, a medieval one.

I think I'd like to float* over where I live now at several points in time. I'd start perhaps several thousand years ago, expecting to find it empty, and then see how things changed by regular drop ins every two hundred years or so, but I'd be most interested in about 1200-1500. The old village church would have recognisable bits (although part of a bigger settlement than now), and the nearby Abbey would be fairly recognisable. I imagine that some of the farms I know now would have older sites, but I'd like to see where the people lived, what they looked like. If I could get close enough to listen to them - perhaps singing in church on a sunday, or something - then I'd be intrigued.

I'd love to see the great medieval cathedrals - well, in particular, Durham - being built. Go back to the day when someone said 'we're going to build something <<<< this big >>>> on top of that bit of rock there. Of course we can do it, I saw it over when I was Crusading.'

I'd like do 'the van gogh thing' from Doctor Who, and let some of those 'greats' from history who didn't die knowing that they'd have a legacy how they would be respected. But I'd like to know an ordinary person too, because the names we will never know which have faded into obscurity deserve recognition too.

For entirely selfish purposes, I wouldn't mind going to ask an older version of me what I thought I could have done better with my life so I could attempt to set it right. There are a number of choices I'm making with my life now that I wonder if I'll regret later, but I'd like to find out.

*Of course, by floating, I'd avoid as much odour and dodgy diseases as possible.

Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
...]But with time travel, no species need ever be extinct, just temporarily and temporally inconvenienced. So, don't just bring back a Huia feather, bring back a breeding couple of Huias!

Having, of course, prepared a suitable habitat for them in the present, which you researched via earlier (or possibly later) time jaunts.

I'd love to do that with the dodo, but that would mean single-handedly destroying the Mauritian touristy nick-nack trade.

Arachnid, owner of a dodo mug...a brass dodo...a dodo keyring... a fluffy dodo... dodo letter opener...you get the idea.

Ooh, maybe I'd visit the Synod of Whitby and watch Abbess Hilda crack some heads.

[ 14. November 2014, 15:01: Message edited by: ArachnidinElmet ]

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
If I could time travel, I would go back two minutes to say Hello.

Smartass.

Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :

The trouble with reading the rest of this thread is that I now want to go

EVERYWHERE!

I'll settle for watching Bradman to see just how good he really was... perhaps batting against Nuncargate's finest, Harold Larwood?

AG

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Kelly Alves: Smartass.

One day, you'll wish that you can travel back in time and take that back.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

yes, I'd like to see the crucifixion and one of the resurrection appearances. But I am haunted by the fear that Jesus would suddenly look across the crowd and say, "What are YOU doing here, instead of where I put you?" [Hot and Hormonal]

At which point I'd feel like a naughty child sent to the principal's office.

That aside, though, I'd like to visit and if possible live among the Cherokee pre-1700 or so.

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

I think he'd be more likely to say, “Put your finger here and look at my hands! Put your hand into my side. Stop doubting and have faith!”

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
yes, I'd like to see the crucifixion and one of the resurrection appearances. But I am haunted by the fear that Jesus would suddenly look across the crowd and say, "What are YOU doing here, instead of where I put you?" At which point I'd feel like a naughty child sent to the principal's office.

I think he'd smile and wink at you. Isn't The Word the ultimate time traveler?

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

Actually, I suspect that he might decide to do things differently from what you expect, just to mess with your mind.

There was that sense that he always refused to offer the "proof" that people wanted. I think he would continue to do that. Maybe the stories we have are him avoiding showing proof to a time traveller from a different time-line.

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

To be honest, I'd hate to go back in time to Calvary, just in case hordes of PSA-believing Con-Evos were there, all blissfully murmuring "Thank you, Jaysis" instead of being appalled at what they saw.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Oscar the Grouch: To be honest, I'd hate to go back in time to Calvary, just in case hordes of PSA-believing Con-Evos were there, all blissfully murmuring "Thank you, Jaysis" instead of being appalled at what they saw.

i would try to keep people from crucifying Him. If that wouldn't get them angry at me, then I don't know what would.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
Actually, I suspect that he might decide to do things differently from what you expect, just to mess with your mind.

There was that sense that he always refused to offer the "proof" that people wanted. I think he would continue to do that. Maybe the stories we have are him avoiding showing proof to a time traveller from a different time-line.

Yeah, that's the Jesus I know. Definitely messing with my mind! And normally in a direction entirely different than any of the possible responses I've thought of myself. [Ultra confused]

... which is why I'd be really a bit hesitant about approaching him in such a situation. He's definitely not somebody you can have taped, and his responses to egotistical people all too often send them yelping away.

[ 15. November 2014, 22:24: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

A couple of people have mentioned scanning history in (say) 50 yr hops. I wonder if there's something egoistic in my assuming that 1265 might have been quite a lot like 1315...whereas 1965-2015 would be a really big jump with all sorts of detail missing which would make it hard to hold onto the threads.

It reminds me of once trying to drive 500 miles from LA to SF on 'the small roads' ( [Big Grin]

) and sensing that to me, an outsider, California was pretty self-similar - whereas I can find a lot of (geographic, linguistic, cultural) variety around my city on a pushbike, in a 50 mile trip.

(This would not have worked in Essex, where I grew up, which to me is more like CA / the 14th century [Big Grin]

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

I suspect so.
But a lot of the changes are now familiar and you'd notice the changes from the big step more (and know the backstories for your time).

So you'd look at the church and go 'oh it's got a clock now'.
Whereas they'd go Music's loud and discorded, not really appreciate the difference between interweb and tv/arpanet* etc...

Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:

(This would not have worked in Essex, where I grew up, which to me is more like CA / the 14th century ).

Dengie boy, are we? [Big Grin]

I ccan think of one of my ancestors I'd like to travel back in time to meet, if only to find out where the bloody hell he vanished to in 1832 - he just disappears from the records, no burial, no nothing.

AG

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

[Tangent]

quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
It reminds me of once trying to drive 500 miles from LA to SF on 'the small roads' ( ) and sensing that to me, an outsider, California was pretty self-similar - whereas I can find a lot of (geographic, linguistic, cultural) variety around my city on a pushbike, in a 50 mile trip.

If you had just stuck to cruising around Los Angeles on a pushbike I bet you twenty Korean barbecue tacos that you would've found just as much or more variety as in your city. The same goes for San Francisco (and you would've done a lot more wheezing on those hills).

[/Tangent]

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Sandemaniac: I ccan think of one of my ancestors I'd like to travel back in time to meet, if only to find out where the bloody hell he vanished to in 1832 - he just disappears from the records, no burial, no nothing.

1832 you say? Was that in England? I may have taken him to a party on the planet New Byzantium in the year 5947 and, er ... accidentally forgotten him there.

[ 16. November 2014, 20:01: Message edited by: LeRoc ]

Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
1832 you say? Was that in England? I may have taken him to a party on the planet New Byzantium in the year 5947 and, er ... accidentally forgotten him there.

Oh, so it's your fault? Outside - now! I'll give you time travel - I'll kick your backside into next week!
(just kidding, mods!)

AG

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

quote:
If you had just stuck to cruising around Los Angeles on a pushbike I bet you twenty Korean barbecue tacos that you would've found just as much or more variety as in your city.

I was in a dodgy hostel in Venice Beach, where the proprietor hired me a dodgy push bike. Hollywood Blvd was only an inch away on the map... [Big Grin]

... G*d knows how many miles and 10,000 traffic lights and used-car lots later, I reached it having narrowly avoided joining the freeway. The tarmac had been laid with a generous helping of glass particles (to make it sparkle, glamorously?) but to my by-then jaundiced eye, accustomed to inner-city life in a northern UK city, it looked like there'd recently been a riot. Then one of my pedals fell off.

Up around the reservoir by the 'Hollywood' sign was nice, mind. And SF was nice too, in that public transport existed and (sorry Pancho) it wasn't LA! But public loos had no doors. Ah, for the days when I used to travel.

cheers
Mark

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

You need some ground rules here. If you are simply going to survey the past, there is no need for true human travel at all. Any more than there is a need to send a human being to stand on a comet. Send a drone, with a camera, and get a nice view of your church through the ages without any stress.

Accosting Jesus you might get away with -- it says so in the Gospel, that tons of things happened with Him that did not get written down, and why should you not be one of them? But tinkering with the past, especially your own past, should have some interesting paradoxical effects that you might wish to evade. (Long list of SF novels assumed to be placed here.)

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Accosting Jesus you might get away with -- it says so in the Gospel, that tons of things happened with Him that did not get written down, and why should you not be one of them? But tinkering with the past, especially your own past, should have some interesting paradoxical effects that you might wish to evade. (Long list of SF novels assumed to be placed here.)

That is only assuming that you can have a paradoxical effect. But to do that, you have to assume that, when you travel in time, you are essentially seeing a "replay" of history where you can do something different from what actually happened. But history doesn't replay just because you are traveling. As Isaac Asimov (or is it "Isac Aasimov," I can never remember) observed in one of his stories, when you travel in time, you join the history that you inherited. You literally cannot "change" history. That has interesting philosophical issues for the concept of free will, but allows you to time travel with impunity because you literally cannot change what has already happened.

Note to self: Really should avoid posting when drunk.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

I have written three time-travel novels, in which I have succeeded in uniting the concept of free will with that of quantum mechanics. I'll let everybody know when they are published.

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

I think the best rebuttal of time travel nonsense that I have seen for a while was in a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory, when they were talking about "Back to the Future". Sheldon proved conclusively(!) that the whole premise was shot to bits.

I must admit that whilst I enjoy the "what if" ideas of going back in time, I find all films and TV programmes that have time travel to be riddled with absurdities. Some, like BTTF, are fun and so you can suspend disbelief for the duration. But others just leave me screaming at the scream. I could just about take "Quantum Leap", but even then I wanted to ask the question "OK, so you've righted a terrible wrong - but what other things have you thrown out of kilter as a result?"

Although I am a great Asimov fan, I can't remember the story that Hedgehog refers to. But it seems that Asimov (as so often was the case) came to a clever answer to the normal time travel paradoxes. History is history and you can't redo it.

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

Mohenjo-Daro, the great ancient and, I think, remarkably sophisticated city in the Indus alley, vanished for several millennia.

GG

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
Sandemaniac: I ccan think of one of my ancestors I'd like to travel back in time to meet, if only to find out where the bloody hell he vanished to in 1832 - he just disappears from the records, no burial, no nothing.
1832 you say? Was that in England? I may have taken him to a party on the planet New Byzantium in the year 5947 and, er ... accidentally forgotten him there.

Or my great-grandfather, who apparently shot through somewhere about 1889, leaving his eldest son to bully his mother and siblings until someone put him in an Industrial School.

GG

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
Although I am a great Asimov fan, I can't remember the story that Hedgehog refers to. But it seems that Asimov (as so often was the case) came to a clever answer to the normal time travel paradoxes. History is history and you can't redo it.

Oh dear. For a story that I remember so much about, I can't recall the title. I am almost certain it was Asimov. The basic plot is that a group of scientist have developed time travel. A whacko breaks in and gets into the machine to go back and change history. The scientists calculate that the time machine will take 3 days to get back the 500 (or whatever it was) years that the guy was heading for. They sit around fretting that, in 3 days time, the world and history will change because of this.

But then, as the last moments are ticking off before the 3-day time limit runs out, a wise man tells them not to worry. History is made of such little coincidences. How did you meet your wife? She sneezed and I turned around and said "God bless you"--but what if she hadn't sneezed? You never would have met. History would be changed if even a slight thing was altered. A person going back would make a major change. But you are worried about 3 days when the villain is going back 500 years (or whatever). 3 days is nothing in that time. He is already there. Has already been there. Has always been there. This is the future that was created by him going back. Nothing will change.

Yes, this is how my memory works. I can remember darn near everything about the story except the name. And I am a little shaky about the author. But the plot? That I remember in detail. I distinctly remember that the "how did you meet your wife" bit was in there.

Does it sound familiar to anybody?

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

There's one about the G&S play Thespias (or something like that),

And the one where the guy goes back to Greece which sounds like it (except has another twist-which I think gives it's title).
In which case it is Asimov but I can't remember it's name and I thought I'd know it if I see it.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

For Time paradox fiction, read Wyndham - he posed some interesting questions, and looked at implications.

I too have published a time-travel-type book (Bubbles) - see my sig.

The thing is, you can never really have a paradox, because a)the events have happened, and so our recorded versions are set; and b) our memories of events are very flexible and unreliable, especially more than a few days past. For them to be adjusted, or demonstrated to be wrong, would not cause too much trouble.

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

Recently, I really enjoyed Kate Atkinson's, Life After Life with a protagonist who was determined to kill Hitler. She didn't so much time travel as keep being re-born until she finally got it right. We see a bit of how each of her lives caused changes in the lives around her. It was presented as though we had parallel alternative worlds to chose from. It was fiction, not science fiction, so don't judge. [Biased]

Posted by Sherwood (# 15702) on :

If it's a probe being sent, I'd send one to record my paternal Great-Grandfather's life in five year chunks. Not going into detail here, but there are some issues that I'd like to get some more info on as far as my father and his side of the family are concerned.

If it's going in a TARDIS, I'd so go and meet my maternal Great-Uncle Arthur. He was a funny guy and died when I was 2, so I don't remember him at all.

As for big events:

1. Coronation of William the Conqueror.
2. Go on a pilgrimage to Canterbury before the Reformation.
3. Watch the dramatic reading of 'Dracula' at the Lyceum with Bram Stoker.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sherwood:
2. Go on a pilgrimage to Canterbury before the Reformation.

That could be good. You'd need to travel in a large group to avoid being robbed, and try not to stay in dodgy taverns, but interesting otherwise.

I wouldn't mind doing one to Jerusalem. (Famous last words, as I'm suddenly transported to the Med and faced with a rickety old boat with a drunken crew as the only means of getting there.)

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Recently, I really enjoyed Kate Atkinson's, Life After Life with a protagonist who was determined to kill Hitler. She didn't so much time travel as keep being re-born until she finally got it right. We see a bit of how each of her lives caused changes in the lives around her. It was presented as though we had parallel alternative worlds to chose from. It was fiction, not science fiction, so don't judge.

I think it is a debatable distinction - a wonderful book, but I would call it science fiction. Constant rebirth - with some residual memory - sounds like SF to me.

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

Well good then. I'm glad you liked it too, I was afraid all the SF fans on board would find it too fanciful and lacking in hard science.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

By definition time travel (and FTL) are at the very borders of hard SF. Since Einsteinian physics says they are impossible, you know. (But! there are always wiggles. I wrote an entire novel around the idea that if you could prove time travel, you could prove FTL. And a time machine is cheaper to build than a star ship....)

Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on :

I'd love to meet some of my Scottish ancestors, the ones who made the decision to sail to NZ, but before they left. Most particularly I'd like to meet Catherine Wilson Sellar, who made the decision for her husband and children, booked passage, found him a job and then cheerfully set about learning to live in a raupo shack on the shores of Lake Taupo, with not another European woman within 400 km. My mother just remembers her, and family legend says she was kind and very funny.

I'm guessing I wouldn't be able to understand her very well, so I'll need a babelfish.

In a sadder way, I'd like to go back to 1898 to find out what happened to my paternal grandmother, whose mother was sent to prison for mistreating her. She was a very difficult character, and having discovered the court case, I have begun to see why.

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :

I'd go back and try to get my mother to realize that drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes incessantly aren't the innocent pleasures she thinks they are...somehow, perhaps posing as her guardian angel, I could counsel her about the depression that runs in her family and tell her what her life will be like if she continues to drink...

[Waterworks]

I suppose I'd have to try to talk some sense into my dad, as well. Both smoked like chimneys and drank alcohol like it was going out of style.

How come no one has said much about going back in time and meeting Jesus? I wouldn't even necessarily go up to him and introduce myself...fear of Him saying, "Now, 5thMary, you know you don't belong in this time. I love you bunches but you can't stay here." But, it would be comforting to be a few yards away from Him, anyway...

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The5thMary:
How come no one has said much about going back in time and meeting Jesus?

Maybe there's something wrong with me but I can't really say that I'm that interested in meeting him.

Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:

quote:
Originally posted by The5thMary:
How come no one has said much about going back in time and meeting Jesus?
Maybe there's something wrong with me but I can't really say that I'm that interested in meeting him.

And I think he would feel likewise. He was firmly of the view that his contemporaries had all the information they needed about him; I doubt he would be more forthcoming to someone from the future. He was also master of the put-down that goes precisely to the heart of what you're doing wrong and how you need to change; I wouldn't want to run the risk of being on the end of one.

Though it would be quite cool to peek over his shoulder as he drew in the sand and see what he was writing. Possibly "go away", in English ...

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I am not sure I would actually want to meet him, in person. I do meet him is all sorts of other people, but I suspect that if I were to time travel to tourist him, he would be scathing. That missing piece of the gospel, where he turned to someone dressed in strange clothes and said "fuck off".

I would like to hear him, to be in a crowd and listen to him. To get a sense of what he was like as a teacher. To experience his care and passion for others.

But I think he came for his time, to teach and pass on the presence of God for all time. We can meet him today through others, but I think he has a sens of time and place that mean going to hear his would be wrong, broken. "You ask to see me," he said, "and yet don't recognise me in those around you. If you cannot see me in them, you cannot see me."

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

I'd like to meet him - I'm curious about what he looked and sounded like, and I'd love to be present at one of his open-air gatherings while he was speaking; but also I'd bring along a sick relation and ask him to heal her.

I wouldn't want to be present at the Crucifixion, but would be interested in being in the garden when the stone was rolled back from the tomb.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

I can only urge you (and others who want to hear Jesus) to start studying Aramaic and Greek right away.

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I can only urge you (and others who want to hear Jesus) to start studying Aramaic and Greek right away.

What do you mean?

Jesus spoke Queen's English, didn't he?

And if he didn't, then I'm sure that if time travel is invented, then the Babel fish will also become a reality.....

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

It's cracking me up that so many of us are wary of meeting Jesus for fear of his tongue (yeah, me too). [Big Grin]

And to think there are people out there who say the Gospels give us no sense of his personality!

Really, though, he goes for motives--and is very good at knowing what they are. I suspect the mere time tourist would get the rough edge of his tongue, but those who come for reasons of love or need would find a better reception.

ETA: screwed up my tenses!

[ 18. November 2014, 18:48: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

And that opens up a broader theological question. Does Jesus want us to approach Him on his terms, or on ours?
Assuming you could get past the very high hurdles of TT and the Aramaic, you would have put enormous effort and some expensive technology into sitting there at the feeding of the five thousand, or wherever it is you wind up.
I think, given His past record, that Jesus will meet us where we are. (If He insisted that we were perfect before approaching Him, the halls of Heaven would echo in their emptiness.) And therefore there is hope that if you show up with your smartphone for a selfie, that He might oblige you in a way that, say, Brad Pitt might not.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
He was also master of the put-down that goes precisely to the heart of what you're doing wrong and how you need to change; I wouldn't want to run the risk of being on the end of one.

I don't fear any risk - I am just not interested.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I think the problem is that meeting Jesus in the here and now is fine. But if I went all fan-boy on him, which I would be doing by travelling back in time to meet him, I suspect he would be unhappy. He would imply something like "Why didn't you go and help someone instead?" I think the disappointment, and realisation that he was absolutely right that I should have used the chance to do something worthwhile, would be chilling.

"And the time-tourist went away very sad, for he was extremely rich, and had squandered his chance."

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

It does feel a little like you would be making yourself rather like King Herod (Luke 23:8):

quote:
When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform a sign of some sort.

Jesus was unimpressed by the fan-boy attitude.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

So I guess there would be no autographs -- or selfies.
[Frown]

Posted by chive (# 208) on :

I'd like to go back to the twenties and meet my Great Aunt Peggy as a young woman. I only knew her as a grumpy, sarcastic old lady in her late eighties, early nineties before she died and I was never very fond of her.

Then, when we were clearing out my Gran's house when she died I found some photos of her and her sisters when they were young. Included amongst them were some photos of my Aunt Peggy sitting topless by a burn in Deeside. I would love to meet a woman who was comfortable to be photographed like that despite the social constraints of being part of a very middle class family in a very small village in the Scottish Highlands. A whole new side of her I'd like to have known.

Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I can only urge you (and others who want to hear Jesus) to start studying Aramaic and Greek right away.

Borrow my babelfish.

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chive:
... photos of my Aunt Peggy sitting topless by a burn in Deeside ...

Bearing in mind your Ship title, does nudity run in your family? [Devil]

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
... Jesus spoke Queen's English, didn't he?

Absolutely. Cranmer's matchless prose. [Devil]

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The5thMary:
I'd go back and try to get my mother to realize that drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes incessantly aren't the innocent pleasures she thinks they are...somehow, perhaps posing as her guardian angel, I could counsel her about the depression that runs in her family and tell her what her life will be like if she continues to drink...

I suppose I'd have to try to talk some sense into my dad, as well. Both smoked like chimneys and drank alcohol like it was going out of style.

How come no one has said much about going back in time and meeting Jesus? I wouldn't even necessarily go up to him and introduce myself...fear of Him saying, "Now, 5thMary, you know you don't belong in this time. I love you bunches but you can't stay here." But, it would be comforting to be a few yards away from Him, anyway...

I'd be much, much more worried that he'd say "Sorry, KLB, but those fundies are actually right about me, and you're gonna fry!"

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:

quote:
If you had just stuck to cruising around Los Angeles on a pushbike I bet you twenty Korean barbecue tacos that you would've found just as much or more variety as in your city.
I was in a dodgy hostel in Venice Beach, where the proprietor hired me a dodgy push bike. Hollywood Blvd was only an inch away on the map... ... G*d knows how many miles and 10,000 traffic lights and used-car lots later, I reached it having narrowly avoided joining the freeway. The tarmac had been laid with a generous helping of glass particles (to make it sparkle, glamorously?) but to my by-then jaundiced eye, accustomed to inner-city life in a northern UK city, it looked like there'd recently been a riot. Then one of my pedals fell off.

Up around the reservoir by the 'Hollywood' sign was nice, mind. And SF was nice too, in that public transport existed and (sorry Pancho) it wasn't LA! But public loos had no doors. Ah, for the days when I used to travel.

cheers
Mark

Hmmm, I'm just saying there's a whole, whole lot of variety and things to see in the U.S's second largest city that you somehow missed between Venice Beach and the Hollywood Hills. I mean, are there Korean taco trucks in Manchester? Oil fields? Speaking of which....

I'd like to travel back time and see the La Brea Tar Pits as they were in ancient times. I want to see all the prehistoric animals that gathered there like ground sloths and mammoths and saber-toothed cats.

Obviously, in this fantasy I'm invisible and guarded by a powerful force field that would keep me from being stomped on by a mammoth or chomped to bits by a saber-toothed cat.

Fun fact: "la Brea" means "the tar" in Spanish so that anytime you say "The La Brea Tar Pits" you're really saying "The the tar tar pits".

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

I'd rather be able to move around on a part of a steam-powered railway system, UK in the 1950s or Us in 1930s or Canada in the 1940s.

Having said that, I want to offer The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy's discussion of Time Travel which attempts to define the tenses needed to even discuss the idea of Time Travel.

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

Thank you, HB - that was (is/willan onbe) very helpful. [Killing me]

Posted by Rev per Minute (# 69) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Piglet:

quote:
Originally posted by chive:
... photos of my Aunt Peggy sitting topless by a burn in Deeside ...
Bearing in mind your Ship title, does nudity run in your family?

Given the average temperature in Scotland, I would imagine that early death runs in the family... (How did she persuade the chemist to develop the photos, or did someone have a darkroom?)

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
Hmmm, I'm just saying there's a whole, whole lot of variety and things to see in the U.S's second largest city that you somehow missed between Venice Beach and the Hollywood Hills. I mean, are there Korean taco trucks in Manchester? Oil fields?

Los Angeles is the American city with which I am most familiar. It is one of the easiest large cities in the world to misunderstand. Everything is there, but finding it takes effort. Everything is spread out and the space between filled with blandness, either urban or suburban. Even many of the locals are clueless.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:

Accosting Jesus you might get away with -- it says so in the Gospel, that tons of things happened with Him that did not get written down, and why should you not be one of them? But tinkering with the past, especially your own past, should have some interesting paradoxical effects that you might wish to evade. (Long list of SF novels assumed to be placed here.)

I am really, really loving the image of Jesus swatting away a drone. Like he didn't have enough problems.

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