Are you capable of travelling in time? [1]

Dear visitors of my site!

This test will help you to determine whether you are capable of travelling in time, whether you have psychological and intellectual qualities which are necessary for such endeavours. To be more precise – and more honest – the test will determine whether you possess the qualities which I consider as necessary for any time-traveller. Of course, I can be as mistaken as any other human being.

You will see a list of questions. First of all try to produce the answers on your own. Then look at the next page and read the versions of the answers that I have proposed. Try to choose the answer which coincides with yours, even if only partially. For example, the answer “I feel a longing for the past, because my youth, my health and my happiness are left there,” – should be chosen even if you yearn only for youth, or only for health, or only for happiness.

Any question for which you couldn’t produce an answer without my prompts, subtract one point from your results.

The List of Questions:

1. For what purpose would you like to travel in time?

2. Have you ever been upset that the past cannot come back? If you have, why?

3. How did you feel as a child when you first understood that humankind has existed for many centuries before you were born?

4. Let’s suppose that you have a chance to travel in time. Which period would you prefer to visit: the past or the future? Why?

5. In which case would you feel more comfortable: when you have the possibility to meliorate human history by changing the past or when you surely have no such possibility? Why?

6. What will become the worst evil for a time-traveller and why?

7. How do you picture the ideal version of life after death?

8. How do you envision the ideal future of humankind?

Questions with My Versions of the Answers:

1. For what purpose would you like to travel in time?

A) This is an amusing pastime; moreover, I could become famous and / or rich.

B) I’ll have the possibility to talk with interesting people, to restore lost knowledge, and, maybe, to meliorate human history.

C) Another epoch is akin to the fantasy world existing in the tales of our childhood; visiting another time period is as attractive as travelling to other planets or parallel worlds.

D) My daily existence and the normal passing of time in my life to new days, months and years has lost its purpose. All possibilities for self-improvement in this direction have been exhausted. Time-travelling would give me a new possibility for spiritual development.

2. Have you ever been upset that the past cannot come back? If you have, why?

A) No, never. Let bygones be bygones, one must look ahead and not back.

B) Of course I have, because the past is my youth, my health and my happiness.

C) Yes, I have; moreover, I even felt this way in my early childhood when I had nothing to hanker after. I still cannot understand why the irreversibility of the past made – and makes – me so upset.

D) Yes, I have. I perceive the impossibility of returning to the past as a kind of violence against my personality, as a kind of spiritual unfreedom.

3. How did you feel as a child when you first understood that humankind has existed for many centuries before you were born?

A) I cannot remember that I was somehow especially impressed by the fact.

B) I thought that it would be cool to visit the past and to see how our distant ancestors lived. Such an adventure would be cooler than any attraction at the best amusement park!

C) I felt that I must go there; why can we easily visit another country but not other epoch? At the same time I felt a little offended because so many centuries of human history had passed without me.

D) I felt as if somebody put a heavy burden onto my shoulders. Why is history so long? At the same time I felt an unbearable shame; so many other people have lived and died, and I know nothing about them.

4. Let’s suppose that you have a chance to travel in time. Which period would you prefer to visit: the past or the future? Why?

A) Of course, I prefer the future: I’ll find so many new and interesting things there!

B) Of course, I prefer the past: at least, I know what I will meet; and the future looks so daunting, it troubles me.

C) It’s all the same: both the past and the future are different from our epoch; consequently, they are both interesting for me.

D) It’s equivalent, isn’t it? When coming back from the future I’ll enter the past; when coming back from the past I’ll enter the future.

5. In which case would you feel more comfortable: when you have the possibility to meliorate human history by changing the past or when you surely have no such possibility? Why?

A) For me, it’s all the same; I’ve never thought about such things.

B) I propose that it would be better if we couldn’t change history, for dangerous things may happen through lack of caution. Let the past remain as it is.

C) I would be eager to change history! So many injustices have happened in the world!

D) It would be better if we couldn’t change history. Otherwise I would never return to the world from which my time-travelling began, for I’d change history in any case, even if unconsciously. However, I don’t want to lose – and lose forever – the world where I spent my childhood.

6. What will become the worst evil for a time-traveller and why?

A) It’s so dangerous when one visits another epoch. One may be taken for a warlock or a spy, one may be killed, or one may get a disease unknown in our epoch, etc.

B) I would be obliged to endure injustices without any right to interfere in history and change it. While living in the past, I would often know perfectly about future events, but I wouldn’t be able to meliorate them.

C) I may begin to meliorate human history and make it even worse as a result.

D) I would be obliged to abdicate from all that gives sense to the life of ordinary people. I would abandon my epoch, my homeland, my family and my friends. Would I find something else instead? Who knows…

7. How do you picture the ideal version of life after death?

A) I believe that a remedy for ageing and death will be invented soon and the problem won’t arise at all.

B) I believe that my next reincarnation will be more successful than the current one. (Another version: I believe that my virtue will be enough to deserve paradise).

C) Who knows? It may turn out that there is no existence at all. I’ll only know after I have died.

D) I believe that the movement of my human self from past to future will stop and transform into something essentially different.

8. How do you envision the ideal future of humankind?

A) I would prefer gradual progress in all directions: prolongation of life, outer space exploration, and the creation of a more fair society.

B) Alas, very soon humankind will destroy itself once again and history will begin anew, from barbarism to civilization.

C) I don’t want to think about this. For some reason, it makes me feel ill to consider this eternity before us.

D) I think that, in the optimal case, humankind, already having explored space properly enough, will improve upon its morality and then will begin to explore time. For instance, I hope we will learn to return to the past, relive our lives one more time, or something of that kind.

Key for the test

1.  A) — 1 point;	B) — 2 points;	C) — 3 points;	D) — 4 points.
2.  A) — 1 point;	B) — 1 point;	C) — 3 points;	D) — 4 points.
3.  A) — 1 point;	B) — 1 point;	C) — 3 points;	D) — 3 points.
4.  A) — 1 point;	B) — 2 points;	C) — 3 points;	D) — 3 points.
5.  A) — 1 point;	B) — 3 points;	C) — 2 points;	D) — 4 points.
6.  A) — 1 point;	B) — 2 points;	C) — 3 points;	D) — 4 points.
7.  A) — 1 point;	B) — 1 point;	C) — 1 point;	D) — 4 points.
8.  A) — 1 point;	B) — 1 point;	C) — 2 points;	D) — 4 points.

Now calculate your result:

— From 0 to 14 points. Most likely, you preferred answers A or B. If you have really dreamed about time-travelling then your motives are an itch for adventures and a desire for personal gain, in the worst case, and curiosity and thirst for knowledge, in the best case. You should not travel in time; you won’t find in other epochs the treasures you are seeking to find.

— From 15 to 20 points. Most likely, your main answer was C, and you are a classic example of someone who has a warm heart but a lack of cold reason. You know what it means to be obsessed with time, obsessed with other epochs. This passion cannot be described in words; only those who have experienced it can understand it. However, you need some training in intellect.

— From 21 to 30 points. You have chosen answers C and D, mostly D. Well, you really could travel in time and I don’t know if it’s better to give you my congratulations or my condolences. It is also very well if the answers for C are familiar to you; you would have chosen them many years ago when you were a child, before you grew up and gained the wisdom of the answers for D.

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1 Translated from Russian by V.V.Shulikovskaya; edited by R.J.Myers.