Timeout!
In April of 2017 as part of the A to Z Blog Challenge, I wrote 26 pieces on the theme of “What if…?” One of those pieces, posted on April 24, 2017, reflected on “What if we could travel through time?”
If you want to read that piece you can by going to: https://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=896 The last line of that line in that piece was:
“Now, What if we could stop time? There’s something to think about. You’ll have to hold that thought; I’ll get back to you.”
Well here some 5? years later let’s explore that question. What if we could stop time?
First thing you have to decide is how you want to stop time.
Do you stop time for everyone, so that everyone and everything freezes in position exactly where they are and you and whoever you are with get to move around and do things until you release time.
This works great if you are a magician. Think of all the tricks you could do making things disappear. People would never figure out that you moved items while time was frozen.
It would solve the dilemma of the Trolley Car problem, the gist of which is: A trolley car is speeding down the track and is about to kill 5 people. You have the ability to pull a switch and divert the trolley car to another track. On that track there is only one person that would be killed. You have to choose, should you pull the switch or not. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem) This is not an ethical/moral problem if you can stop time and just move the people.
This also would help if you have a deadline to complete an assignment or are moving or going on a vacation. Imagine being able to take as much time as you want to prepare and pack for a trip instead of rushing around, getting all stressed, and eventually forgetting something. You could stop time, finish up all your prep at your own pace, double, triple check your work, and restart time ready to go.
Do you stop time for specific individuals?
This could be similar to the process of cryogenics: having your body frozen, with the hopes that you can be unfrozen when a cure is found for whatever terminal disease you have. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uOSHjI3QtIo Only in this case you don’t have to freeze anyone, you just stop them in time.
Think of how this would work for space travelers, traveling light years away. I’m sure you’ve all seen science fiction movies or shows, or you’ve read books where space travelers are put into suspended animation and are released hundreds, thousands, or millions of years later, and haven’t aged a day, while the people they left behind are all dead because they lived in their normal time span.
Or, do you stop time just to take a breather? You’ve had enough of this crazy world with its politics and environmental crises and personal issues so you stop it all. You just sit back and read all those books you have on your wishlist.
You get a lot of choices when you have the ability to stop time. It can help if you have some foreknowledge of things that are going to happen so you can prevent them, but that would take some time travel capabilities, or divine intervention, which is a different topic of discussion.
So how would you use the power to stop time? Would you use it only to help yourself, or be more altruistic in its use. Feel free to think about it and let me know. I’ll stop time for you while you think up a response. You have all the time in the world.
Oh, I don’t think I was supposed to tell you I could do that.
