Theoretical Physics discussion

"For time travelling, people say stuff like "DO NOT CHANGE THE PAST, IT'LL IMPACT THE FUTURE".
But what does count as impact to the past? Isn't it an impact already to be in a time where you basically couldn't be?" -Carpesir

Once again there are many differing views and opinions on this topic so i will be giving you my preferred view, which by no means is correct.

I think that, assuming you can travel back in time, once you reach the destination you would no longer be in the same universe anymore. This is partly due to the fact that time travel backwards is a near impossibility. It seems easier to travel to a new destination than altering what has already been cemented and forcing a rewrite of time.

So you travel back and you are in a new universe which would mean that any goal you set out to do on behalf of your people is now completely irrelevant because the people who exist in this new place are not the same people who you know. If you went back in time to stop a cataclysm, well too bad, you cant save those you love, but, maybe, you could save those in this new universe.

I like this idea because it would make most, if not all, paradoxes impossible, because you are not altering the past so much as you are meddling in a different present. (and as a side note the whole idea of a present is completely debatable because of the way time works and the limits of our brain in processing information) It also opens up the argument in support of Nihilism with there being an infinite number of realities, each with an infinite number of versions of you, which, to me, really makes it hard to care about anything.