AVOIDING OR CHANGING THE PAST?

Atomic Academic

Atomic Academic

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Abstract

Some philosophers argue that any attempt to model changing the past will either be contradictory or really model avoiding the past. Using Nicholas Smith's (1997) argument as a basis. I argue that the Avoidance Argument fails because (i) it involves an equivocation of what is meant by 'bifurcation of the time of an event' and (ii) resolving the equivocation results in the falsity of at least one of the premises. Hence, the Avoidance Argument will not support the claim that changing the past is logically impossible.
 
If we could change the past, anything we did in the past would do something that would affect the future. If I could change the past I would, to bad we can't.
 
There are three models of thought regarding the function of time (something you will learn in any general philosophy course).

Hard determinism - all events are set in stone and causally precede in a unalterable fashion from event to event.

Soft determinism - Some major events are set in stone, but choices can still exist between those major events

The dreamer's gambit - All things are changeable, including things that have already happened.
 
[FONT=georgia, bookman old style, palatino linotype, book antiqua, palatino, trebuchet ms, helvetica, garamond, sans-serif, arial, verdana, avante garde, century gothic, comic sans ms, times, times new roman, serif]What you need to know about the past is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment. Changing that means changing the real you, changing the world as you know it, and that wouldn't be a very nice thing.
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Past can be changed only with a time-travel machine. The best thing to do is accept it and learn what you can from your own and other's past.
 
Definitely, we can't change or outdo the past. However, we can change how we view the events that had happened and we can modify the conclusions based on the past. This is called history revisionism. ;)
 
I totally agree with you all. If we are able to change the past then all people would not decide wisely because of the fact that they can always go back to the mistake that has been done.

Well, I guess God has created everything wisely including time. It runs continuously and it can never be undone.
We humans just have to let go of the past and move on for the better tomorrow.
 
If we could change the past, all are probably changing things in their past since all had committed mistakes or have things that they wished they had done before. But we can not change the past so we should be learned from our mistakes, feel stronger in our defeats, become more courageous on times that we fear doing something for good and move on with a stronger faith. Time is endless and we all have endless tomorrows that bring us endless chances in this life.
 
We can't change the past. We learn from the things, bad or good, that happened in the past and continue to move forward with that knowledge.
 
I agree that we cannot change the past. That does not, however stop me from wishing pretty frequently that I could. I disagree that every mistake we have made are learning experiences. Some of my mistakes have simply been stupid, and I would love to be able to fix them. There really is no way to change anything, so we do need to move on and accept them, but it is not always as easy to be at peace with your past as many philosophers would like us to believe.
 
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