Another Question To Ponder

[Sandy]

If you went back in time and stopped your parents from meeting each other, you would never have been born. But then, if you had never been born, you wouldn't be able to go back and stop them. Would you?

Courtesy of Paul Jennings, Australian children's author

[MadMike]

I've thought about that before. It really starts to screw with your head if you think about it too long. :D

[iradney]

I think you would continue to exist up until the point you stop them from meeting. Then, anything could happen - you could disappear, the universe could explode, choc-mint milkshakes would never have been invented...
but then again, i was never really into quantum physics

[blas]

Instead of stopping my parents from getting together....I'd rather go back in time and change everything so that they would have met two years earlier than they did, so I would have been born in 85 instead.

[Geek King]

Well, I would theorize that you would cause a reality fork where in one reality things are going like they always did, and a new reality where you wouldn't exist. You would then default back to your "home" reality, so you would accomplish nothing noticable really.

Of course, you could cause a reign of Spam lasting a thousand years, each more terrible than the last.

[Broomjockey]

I'm personally a fan of the "whatever you do causes what was supposed to happen" theory.
That basically means, the universe incorporates your actions in to the timeline, and you're prevented from radically corrupting the universe, so if you tried to kill your past self, things would keep happening to stop it from happening.

[Knightmare]

I went back in time once, but ended up in 1955 instead. My Delorean ran out of gas and.. well, we all know what happened.

[Kiwi]

I would stop them from meeting... even if it meant I would never exsist...if that makes sence

I still believe I would have been born, to different parents....

anything to keep that dickhead they tell me is my father (I want a paternty test) out of my and my families life.

[stormtreader]

Or since you clearly ARE still here, they must have met, so even though you stopped them meeting where they met originally, they still met later on.

Maybe if you kept going back and stopping them each time, theyd continue to meet up in increasingly unlikely ways?

[MadMike]

I went back in time once, but ended up in 1955 instead. My Delorean ran out of gas and.. well, we all know what happened.

"Wow, in 1955, everyone was on fire! I did not know that!"

[Cia]

If you stopped your parents from meeting, doing the horizontal dance and conceiving you then you'd be a completely different person hypothizing the same question which makes this a very long run on sentence.

[Mr. Rager!]

And for that question, I might need to do some heavy drinking.

[Jpurple]

" Time-travel gives me a nosebleed."

[Crazyredhead]

I don't want to stop or start anyone meeting each other, I just want to go back to when I was 12, with what I know now, and start over. I want to see my grandma and grandpa again and tell them that I love them and hug them forever. Then play the lottery.

[BiscuitMunroe]

well, I COULD go back in time and stop Mom and Dad from never meeting and still be born. I'm adopted. but i guess that's cheating.

[Writer Cath]

Gah, you can't ask this, Back to the Future has been playing on the English movie station all the time.

Although if you follow the Marvel Comics theory, once you step outside of time, you're no longer part of the time stream and thus are unaffected by changes.

Inside joke:

Damnit, Mysty, you've corrupted me.... more.