• Question: If you ever could go into the future, when would it be and where and why?

    Asked by saintjimmy to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 18 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      I’d like to go forward in time about 20,000 years and see where we are as a species. If you think where humans have come from in the last 20,000 years (from cavemen to where we are now) then it is incredible to think how much we have developed as a society and how much we have learnt.

      We may have incredible new technology available – perhaps we will all be immortal but living in a computer – virtual people! (This would have seemed incredible 20 years ago but isn’t the internet sort of the same thing?)

      We might have moved out in space and colonised new planets. Or we may have discovered amazing new ways to travel (teleportation may become a reality). Perhaps we will even have discovered ways to time travel or move between parallel dimensions!

      Do you read any science fiction books? Some of these types of ideas are explored in a lot of stories – try reading some books by Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke and see if they catch your imagination!

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      If it was the near future, I would fast forward all the writing I have left to do for my PhD and arrive at the day I’ve finished… then I’d celebrate, BIG TIME! 8)

      Buuut if it was the distant future, I like Edd’s idea of going thousands of years into it… to see how humans have changed OR if indeed, we’re still around!!

      I would only go that far into the future if I could come back though, I would miss my friends and family too much to stay there! But I wouldn’t mind a wee adventure 🙂

    • Photo: Nicolas Biber

      Nicolas Biber answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Since it is impossible for us to predict the future, it’s very hard for me to decide when and where I would like to go. I am also a bit scared of it, because I might be expecting something and then be really disappointed to find something different. Also, have you considered what it would mean if you found out about the future? Maybe you would see things you would rather not have there, and then you would try to change things in the present so they don’t turn out that way.
      The United Nations recently filed a report about how the world’s human population is going to develop over the next century, and they are predicting that the human population will start declining sometime after 2040. I really wonder if they are right. I am interested in this because the never-ending increase in human population may be the reason for all the environmental (and other) problems we have. In a way I guess I would like to travel to a future that holds a healthy Earth … but I’m scared that I might find quite the opposite.

    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      hey saintjimmy,

      I would love to travel quite far into the future when I am much older, if possible. I would like to see what kind of research is going on- are there lots of many new diseases that are causing loads of problems or if any new planets, animals, plants that are different from now. What human beings might look like in the future- if we evolved in any way!? that would be interesting 😛 I guess..it’s just due to curiosity to see how we have developed and how the world still looks because just a decade or so ago – there was no such thing as internet or facebook! And now we rely so much on it 😛
      So if we go forward a few hundreds in time I think I probably won’t even recognise it! That’s a cool thought though!

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