I read H.G. Wells The Time Machine this afternoon.  Short little book, but thought-provoking.  I somehow missed it even though I read many of the classics growing up.  The book triggered a question for me about what it would be like to look into the future.

So let’s say you had a time machine at your disposal and you could go twenty years or so into the future.  (You pick a number, more or less, doesn’t matter to me how far you decide to go.)  But the stipulation is that you could only be an invisible spectator into the future you are entering, AND you could only look at (a relatively brief span of) your own future and the future of those whom your life touches. 

My first question is: would you make this trip at all?   My second question is: do you think you would try to change your current behavior (in the present) based on what you discovered about your future?

I think this is a tricky question.  It’s a question about what you think about fate and also what you think about the power of our free will on life events.  And would trying to change it actually change it or just lead directly into the future you witnessed.  (It gets circular pretty quickly with time travel.)

For me, I don’t think I could muster the willpower to REFUSE such an opportunity, although I think it would be potentially frightening.  I would probably only want to see a little tiny bit, but I think I would definitely go out 20 years or more to make it worthwhile. 

It’s a scary premise.  What if I had to give up eating french fries because my cholesterol became such a serious problem for me later in life?  What if, in my future, I’ve turned into a Morlock who only lives in underground catacombs under the cover of darkness?  What if I find out that my wife and kids (who now adore me!) are estranged from me for some unknown reason?  Conversely, what if I see an untimely end that allows me to begin to appreciate my life (second-by-second) more fully in the here and now?  I could keep going, but…

My conclusion:  God doesn’t give us time machines because he knows it would make us all neurotic messes.

But it’s sure fun to think about.  Makes me want to break out the old VHS copies of Back to the Future…  (No duh, McFly, helloooo, anybody in there?)  I’d have to go back in time however in order to purchase a VCR.