Question We know for now, at least, it's impossible to go back in time scientifically. But what if you really needed to, say if you had done something really bad and had ever desperation to go back in time and correct what you did, so you don't suffer the consequences you are suffering in the present. Provided you would not cause a disaster by going back in time, and that you would only change the bad things you did, it is an interesting concept. With this context, if you could be given a drug, that would leave you asleep for the rest of your life (coma), would you do it? Read on, there's more. In this sleep, you will have a dream, which is set from just before your mistake. So essentially, it causes you to simulate the past and the rest of your life in your head. It seems real, but it isn't. My question is, would this be the same as going back in time and changing things in reality? Does reality matter more, or our interpretation of it?

Accepted:
December 27, 2015

Comments

By "scientifically impossible

First a terminological quibble. By "scientifically impossible," I take it you really mean just "technologically infeasible," i.e., impossible given the limits of current technology. As I see it, what's scientifically possible or impossible depends only on the laws of nature, which are standardly regarded as unchanging over time (or at least over any time that humans will experience). I think the jury's still out on whether backward time-travel is scientifically impossible in this latter sense.

To your question: I think there's something self-contradictory in the idea of "correcting what you did" if that means "bringing it about that you never did what you in fact did." Either (1) you did it, or (~ 1) you never did it. I can't see how any consistent story features both (1) and (~ 1).

In that sense, then, there's no such thing as (2) "going back in time and changing things in reality" and therefore nothing that's "the same as" (2). See section 1.2 of the SEP article on time-travel.