A thought experiment
One of the claims made by John Titor about his alleged time travel is right in line with the idea of multiverse. According to Titor, one may travel back in time and one may also return to the original time but, it will not be the same universe. This seems to make sense because one of the greatest paradoxes that is inherent in time travel is that of changing the time line. In the extreme classic example, I go back in time and prevent my parents (or any pair of ancestors) from ever procreating and, as a result, I wouldn't ever be born. So who did the preventing? But in the multiverse model the timeline splits and I return to my own time but a universe in which I was never born. I have my doubts about time travel but find the multiverse concept a very compelling one.Even if time travel is impossible, we could still enjoy it. Elon Musk has famously stated that the odds of our reality being a primary reality (not a simulation) are one in a billion. With virtual reality advancing at the pace of Moore's Law, it shouldn't be long until technology exists that can simulate an environment which is indistinguishable from reality. If you doubt this, think about a dream. Dreams may or may not be convincing simulations but, unless you experience lucid dreaming, are rarely questioned while we are experiencing them.
Just for fun, I've built my own "time machine" to resemble the one in H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" as much as possible. It isn't a time machine, really, but the most advanced 3D VR setup available in 2035. I've traveled to the future the old fashioned way, by not dying. It sits on my lanai in a mid-western US city and I'm ready to do some exploring. I slide the helmet on and don the gloves, boots and goggles and set the time for 250,000 B.C.E. in Hawaii. Immediately I'm surrounded by the sights, sounds and smells of a prehistoric Hawaii that existed about a hundred thousand years before humans, or any other mammals, arrived. When I am ready, I'll return, not only to the original time I left, but also to the same universe. Whether that universe is also a simulation is another matter altogether.
Written to fill the following reQuest: "The Softlink Game, reQuest style: click Random Node twice, and write something that incorporates both of them!" Original Random Nodes were Time travel and Lanai. As a bonus I've also incorporated two of the five intermediate links, namely, Paradox and Hawaii. And it was all accomplished while standing on my head! (just kidding about that last one, we'll save that for another E2 Quest).