20. COULD THE PAST HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT? - A Student Grapples With The Futility of Historical Counterfactuals

Many questions in history revolve around what could have been, what if an event in the past happened at a different time or under different circumstances. For example what if Britain had declared war on Germany in 1938 instead of 1939? Many historians predict that Britain would have lost the Second World War because she simply would not have been prepared for a full scale war in 1938 and that of course would mean that from 1938 the past would have been completely different to as we know it. Or what would have happened if the 13 colonies of America had lost the American war of independence in the 18th century? How about if Pope Alexander VI had not essentially cheated his way to the top of the Roman Catholic Church. The list goes on. I will show that these ‘what ifs’ would have not been possibilities, there is only one path that the past can take.

The past could have been different by three possible ways:

1. The way we perceive the past can be changed through new evidence
2. People are free to choose what to do,somebody could have chosen to do A Over B as it was perfectly possible for B to be chosen over A
3. A person could invent a time machine and travel back in time to change the past

I will go through each point and explain why they are not sufficient in changing the past itself and the past will always be the past, it will always be fixed and will always be there.

We can deal with point (1) quite easily, yes the way we perceive the past can be changed but the past itself cannot, it will always be fixed no matter how many interpretations we have of it. For example, you may think that the Titanic sunk because she hit an iceberg. But why did she hit an iceberg? Because she was travelling too fast. Why was she travelling too fast? Because the fireman needed to clear the coal stores as there was a fire in one of them that they needed to locate in order to put it out. Another question could be asked as to why there was a fire on the ship and then more questions could be asked. It seems the questions could be infinite and so could the answers. I have shown that the way we perceive the past can change. Before, you probably thought that the Titanic sunk because of one reason; I have shown that this was not the case. Even though it seems like I am changing the past by giving this new interpretation to you, I haven't changed the past itself. Therefore the past could not have been different through how we perceive it.

The main idea in (2) is the idea of freeness. Free Will is to decide A or B without outside influence. However can we really make a completely independent decision without any factors outside of our control influencing our decisions. For example let us take the example of the declaration of the Second World War to show that it was not a possibility for Britain to not declare war in 1939.

P1: Either Britain wanted war in 1939 or they were forced to go to war in 1939
P2: Doing something by force is not free
C1: Therefore if Britain was forced to go to war Britain had no choice in declaring war
P3: To be free is to make a decision without outside influence
P4: Britain was influenced in declaring war by the Nazi invasion of Poland, France wanting war and threats to their empires, all which was outside of Britain’s control
C2: Therefore Britain was not free in declaring war against Germany because they were influenced by factors outside of their control, meaning Britain was not free to make a decision.
C3: Therefore either way Britain was not free in its decision to declare war in 1939,

The past could not have been different because Britain did not have a choice in declaring war due to factors outside of its control that it did not have complete control over. If she didn’t have complete control over them then the actions of Britain were not free. Therefore the choice between declaring war and not declaring war is an illusion, Britain did not have a choice. Therefore the past could not have been different because there is only one path our choices can take.

However let us assume that we have a time machine that could transport us anywhere like Jake Epping has in 11.22.63 or Emmet Brown has in Back to the Future (both of which are a must watch). If we do go back in time and change somebody's decision from A to B, then from that point the future or the past that we now know would be completely different. Therefore, on the face of it past could have been different.

P1: I have lived in a world where A, B, C have happened
P2: I go back in time and prevent A from happening so D happens
C1: Therefore instead of B, E happens and instead of C, F happens and so on
P3: I then go back to my present where D, E and F events have happened
C2: Events D, E and F are not part of my knowledge of the past, therefore I have changed the past as it is different from A, B and C
P4: Only I have experience of changing A, B and C to D, E and F
C3: However D, E and F are not different to everybody else, only I have knowledge that the past has been changed from A, B and C to D, E and F
C4: Therefore the past is what it always has been to everyone else except to me where it is a different past
C5: The past will only be different to me yet to everyone else it would be the same
C6: A, B and C have changed to D, E and F so the past has changed

Bear in mind C4, if you went back in time to kill your parents, grandparents or perhaps changed an event which then prevents your ancestors from being born, when the time traveller went back to the future he may not remember the alternate timeline as he was not born. As the time traveller is the only person which can remember the original past and he cannot remember it anymore because his ancestors did not exist, therefore nobody has knowledge of the fact the past changed. Therefore even though the past has changed from A, B and C to D, E and F we do not know this change and we would never know it. Therefore we will never know if the past could have been different.

It is important to note that because nobody we know has been involved in time travel we have to assume the laws of time travel. Like the fact that a time traveller could not remember his past if he went back in time to kill his parents when he arrived at the new present. The assumption does not detract any worth from my argument because we cannot be sure that this is not the case. Also even if time travel existed we could not show that this would be the case. This is because if T travelled back in time to kill his parents and was being monitored by Y, when T travelled back to the present to meet Y it would be a new present, T would have not existed so could not take part in the experiment. Y may experiment on S but then the same thing would happen. Therefore we cannot know if the past could have been different.

If we cannot change the past itself then why do we concern ourselves with the ‘what ifs’? Perhaps we may want to conceive that the grass would have been greener in the present if the past had been different as we are all human and want to live in a world where we gain as much pleasure from as possible.

Perhaps these questions can make us reflect upon today and what we can do differently, using the old cliche ‘we can’t change the past but we can change the future’. Humanity has had thousands of years to show this, yet I still do not see one example where this is true. The Spanish used concentration camps in 1898 in the Carribean, the British used them during the Boer War 1899-1902 and the Nazis used them from 1933-1945. We think that this was the last instance of concentration camps in this world. Yet in 1991 they were used in North Bosnia and in 2018 the BBC reported that concentration camps were being used in North East China. From 1945 humanity could prevent the use of concentration camps in the future, however the future became the past and the past is unchangeable as I have demonstrated. While there may still be hope that one day the future will improve, I believe I have successfully shown that the past, for many reasons, could not have been different.

Author: Yaaseen Baksh, Student at King Edward VI Aston