It is a statement that isn’t without some wisdom but…. It doesn’t make sense unless you already know the future. You KNOW your present, your family and relationships, where you live, your loves and losses and possessions and job and the world. Even if you don’t know how changing the past might impact the present upon your return, if you are mostly content in life you probably don’t want to change the present in unpredictable ways.
What’s more- we at least have SOME predictive abilities through probabilities. So, you don’t KNOW that if the Nazis won WW2 that the world would have been conquered by Nazis, but you know that certain events would t happen by default or would occur differently. You KNOW that if you assassinated Tolkien before LOTR was written that there are good odds it would not have been written or perhaps at best it would have been published based on his notes. Things of this nature. Now, it is speculation- but so is the present.
Maybe not going to college is the best thing g for your future? Perhaps if you chop off your arm you will have a brilliant scientist fall for you and they will be inspired to create a revolutionary prosthetic that will help millions and eventually lead to a utopian (or dystopian) future where humans can live forever with artificial body parts- but like… on probabilities- chopping off your own arm probably isn’t a wise move for the future. That’s probably not the best trajectory your life can take. But it might be. Perhaps it’s your low point or the turning point that gives you perspective or helps you find purpose or whatever. I don’t know. You don’t know. We are speculating what is most probable when we talk about the future and how we seek to change it. A good intention or deed can lead to bad things and vice versa, but some things seem more probably at the time.
But that key difference is that we know what the present looks like based on what did happen and we do not know what the future is like. Changing the future from the present tos trading one unknown probability for another. You start to run because you are told you are at risk for health issues from being sedentary, then you have a heart attack. Or you get in shape and live longer. You have no way to know what either choice does. When you change the present from the past you have the knowledge of one definitive outcome based on a set of events. You are trading known for unknown.
Gane theory and probabilities often favor taking a known and sub optimal certainty over an unknown and/or slim possibility.
What’s more- we at least have SOME predictive abilities through probabilities. So, you don’t KNOW that if the Nazis won WW2 that the world would have been conquered by Nazis, but you know that certain events would t happen by default or would occur differently. You KNOW that if you assassinated Tolkien before LOTR was written that there are good odds it would not have been written or perhaps at best it would have been published based on his notes. Things of this nature. Now, it is speculation- but so is the present.
Gane theory and probabilities often favor taking a known and sub optimal certainty over an unknown and/or slim possibility.