Thought Experiment

Consider the following:

Yesterday I visited my mom in Topeka. While she was at work, I sat on the back porch of the house drinking a beer. I wondered if a magical time machine would appear in the backyard, and my future self would greet me.

This prompted me the following thought experiment.

Lets say I drive out into the middle of an empty field tomorrow night. I would wait there all night, alone, waiting for my future self to show up. If my future self does not show up, I will then get a tattoo of the date, time, and geographical location of the field tattooed onto my body. From that point on, I will have one mission: to go back in time, to that exact point, and tell myself not to get the tattoo.

So lets look at this for a second. Logically, there are 6 possible outcomes:

	Time travel does not exist in my lifetime, or it does and I do not have access to it.	Time travel exists in my lifetime, and I have access to it.
I got the tattoo, and still have the tattoo.	1. I remembered my mission, and was unable to go back in time.	5. I remembered my mission, and chose not to go back in time even though I could have.
	2. I forgot my mission, and was unable to go back in time.	4. I forgot my mission, and did not go back in time even though I could have.
I never got the tattoo.	3. Something beyond the limits of this experiment stopped me from getting the tattoo.	6. I remembered my mission, went back in time, and stopped myself from getting the tattoo.

Now lets say I actually did this, and got the tattoo. As long as I have the tattoo, then I know the only possible outcomes that exist are outcomes 1,2,5, and 4. Assuming I have the tattoo for the rest of my life, outcomes 2 and 4 would be less likely. Now outcome 1 is most likely to occur. But what about outcome 5? Is the chance of this outcome occurring negligible?

The only thing I can say for certain is this:

If I completed the experiment and got the tattoo, I'm choosing to live in a world where outcome 5 has the possibility of existing. 

And as I wait in that field, a small part of me would be a little excited, hoping to greet my future self.

And to me, that's pretty cool.

Maybe it's time for me to get a tattoo.