Ok, I've had this idea kicking around in my mind for awhile, and I want to see what some people with knowledge in the area think about it.
Anyway, last year, in my senior year in high school, I did a presentation on time travel (in my English class, strangely enough) and since then I've been formulating an idea that ties religion and science together in an interesting way. I can't claim that it's new, but I've never heard about it anywhere that I can remember.
Supposing somewhere far in the future humanity (or possibly even some other intelligent life form) develops time travel. After all, the universe is going to be around a LONG time, so if it's possible, it's probable. Now, assuming that our current assumptions about the nature of time are correct (that we do not live in a "multiverse" of multiple, different outcomes for each probability, but rather there is a definite relationship of one event leading to another) they could not travel to the past, because such a thing would alter their own reality, including them, causing paradox.
They might, however, be able to upload personalities into a computer at the moment of death, thusly not changing anything in that reality. After all, once a person's dead, their consciousness can't interact with anything.
To a person living now, this future would be akin to heaven. They would be
with everyone they ever knew, and, as the cliched thought goes, who the hell
knows what "they" will think of a thousand years from now?
Furthermore, might it be a viable alternative to cryonics, especially once
we have created self-evolving AI technology?
-Eric Ruud