Can one change the past?

If time travel were possible, would you be able to change the past?

You're probaly thinking 'Why won't you be able to change the past?'. Well, I just watched the film, The Time Machine. The film is about time travel obviously, A man's wife is murdered, he loved her so much that he built a time machine so he could go back in time and change the past so that she would be alive and wouldn't have been murdered that evening. But when he goes back, she dies again. He finds out that he cannot change the past, no matter how many times he goes back. She will die again because it has already happened. Even if they went somewhere else, away from the murderer, she would still die another way.
He goes far into the future to try and get a question asked - 'Why can't one change the past?'. He then finds out his answer. He built his time machine because of his wifes death. If his wife had lived that evening, then the time machine would have never existed. So how could he have used his machine to go back to save her.

It is explained very well why he cannot change the past, but in all over films where time travel is possible, you can change the past.
My question is - If time travel was possible, would you believe that you can change the past? Or would you believe that you cannot change the past, due to the reason above?

A very complex question indeed. Please do not attempt to answer this question without reading all of the above.

well i couldn't base my opinion on a film, but we'll never know until we try it. i wouldn't like to try time travel though, seeing as i like my life right now.

i don't like that film.
and i dont think time travel and whatnot will ever happen.

Man, the film is COOL. Very complex and informative, not what I usually watch but I like it. :P

i dunno.
kind of depends on whether you believe in fate or not doesn't it?
i wouldn't want to try to change it, things could end up far worse. changing one tiny wee thing could probably have a major affect on your future life.

That argument that if things hadn't happened, you wouldn't have built the time machine works quite well actually. Even the tiniest things have impacts on something, which will impact something else and so on... so any change could affect the future drastically. Me stopping to scratch my ear just then could have major implications on the far distant future ^_^

nope because once destiny is set, no matter what you do, it'll result in that same event.

Now that everyone is online, discuss!

Right, there's two things here.

If you did travel it time,, and you could interact with the environment, then yes, you would definitely be able to change things.

But if you could travel in time and not interact with anything/anyone then no, you would not be able to change anything. I believe they call this time viewing

If I went back in time I'd like to warn my Nan to check out her arteries so she wouldn't of had the Heart Attack a few years ago :(

But only problem is it could change the whole future for the worst.