time traveler problem

[thubby]

so after volunteering for a time travel experiment, you find yourself in your younger body some years before the experiment was conducted. you have no way to return, and only the items you had at that time.

how you you go about proving you were from the future, assuming you had to?

[rollfrenzy]

Well first, I would beat younger self up for all the stupid things I did back then. Then I would make a mint betting on sports games. Then eventually I would come back to whatever mission I have and use my knowledge of personal events to convince friends and family that I am from the future.

Depending on the time machines Paradox rules, I may try to kill myself, which shouldn't work, to prove I am from the future, since I am trapped in my younger body, And I have to grow up to travel back.

[AlterForm]

It might take a while, but you could predict enough important events to create a statistically significant reason to believe you are from the future. However, this assumes you are in a static timeline, and not a malleable one; since you are in a younger body with knowledge of the future, the latter seems (unfortunately) more likely.

[dehro]

so after volunteering for a time travel experiment, you find yourself in your younger body some years before the experiment was conducted. you have no way to return, and only the items you had at that time.

how you you go about proving you were from the future, assuming you had to?
that would depend on "how far in the past" I'd be going... I'm 31, so..it can't be really all that far.
there are enough world wide events that I would be able to predict though..unpredictable ones...like naming noble prize winners, the setting free of mandela, the results of world cups..the fall of the berlin wall and the ussr..
a quick read through the papers should bring to mind a few of these occurrences and I could anticipate enough of them to make my case.
if that didn't work, I'd track down the people who built the time machine in the first place.. (it could never be me, for lack of scientific know how)...
they would have to be working on it for several years before the experiment occurred, probably in secret...so the mere fact that I could tell them about their plans, maybe even sketch out the machine itself, use some of the expressions I'd have picked up during the experiment... should be enough to convince them I'm from the future (also, they'd be ready to believe me because they would WANT to believe me..as my existence would prove they're not nuts)
family would be easy to convince..there are enough family occurrences I could predict accurately..illnesses, pregnancies, accidents....as I said, it very much depends on when exactly one goes back in time to.

[Leecros]

why would you WANT to prove you're from the future?

i guess technically you could use your knowledge and sell it to the highest bidder(or stop tragedies you're aware of). Though depending on your Laws of Time(which fluctuate depending on one's interpretation) there's no clue how that knowledge could change the future and cause yours to be faulty.

Personally? i'd just live my life out like it was normal...i'm in my younger body(somehow) so i don't have to worry about running into myself. Meet my current girlfriend a few years earlier so i could stop her from...stuff that's personal. Improve what i could in my earlier life and recent past.

but i would NOT try to prove i'm from the future. That could cause so many...stupid issues and some you probably couldn't think up of until it happened.

[Telonius]

Write down a list of politicians or other public officials who've had affairs or other scandals brought to light within the last few years. Threaten to go public unless they endorse me as legitimately from the future. Collect a fairly large sum of money from them. Invest in housing, pull out before the crash, then go into hiding until the day that current-me gets zapped back to the past. Walk home and give wife and children a nice surprise, pay off the mortgage, and live happily ever after.

[Leecros]

then go into hiding until the day that current-me gets zapped back to the past.

This is when fun paradoxy stuff happens. Because there is no current you, you are current you.you're not zapped into the past and got younger, you're zapped into the past INTO your younger self. So technically unless you wanna cause an epic loop of D00M for your life you could just keep going into the past, living up till now, going back into the past. I think there was a movie like that. But if you don't get zapped into the past a number of things could happen.

1. You never went into the past so everything from the time you went back in time till now never happened and gets erased.
2. Things continue on as they are, you retain your knowledge and keep living on.(AKA Doctor Who Time Travel)
3. Same as 1 but your memories aren't erased and your head metaphorically explodes one day when you try to fathom that.

[thubby]

why would you WANT to prove you're from the future?

i could have probably conjured up some contrived situation where you would need to, but rather than deal with potential rules lawyering, it just made more sense to ask the question i was interested in.

i didn't want to make a set number of years for fear of making the younger playgrounders non-existent or too young to act.

[Cealocanth]

It all depends on how far back you were going. If a very old man at the end of his life had his body sold to science and he was sent on a time travel experiment that brought him back to life in a young man's body, He could either predict a world shaking event, like WWII, or predict and name the date of a person's death, find a person that he knows in the future but not in the past, and prove that he knows stuff about him and the only explanation for that would be that he's from the future, present a revolutionary theory that wasn't discovered when you were back...

I can't find a specific way that proves that he's not insane/psychic.

[Edit: I did the old man thing because I won't exsist if I went back to the point that I could prove it.]

[Dr.Epic]

so after volunteering for a time travel experiment, you find yourself in your younger body some years before the experiment was conducted. you have no way to return, and only the items you had at that time.

how you you go about proving you were from the future, assuming you had to?

Why would I? I mean, if I'm in a younger body, couldn't I just ride it out? Also, with my advance knowledge at that age I could be more successful and avoid mistakes I make.

But if I had to prove I'm from the future I'd just make predictions that would come true.