the reason we don’t have time travelers is that the past is no more concrete than the future. [Current science disagrees with the idea that] just like there are infinite potential futures, there are an infinity of potential pasts that could have evolved into the present [instead insisting that the entire past is fully embedded in the present]. [It’s not supported by any current theories that] the probability of reaching a particular past is essentially zero.
Nobody is creating snapshots, the past is lost, but in a sense it is still entirely, umm, present (forgive the pun). It is apparently not true that there is more than one past that could have evolved into the present. This has bothered me a lot and I don’t entirely understand in this moment why that is, but I’ve looked into it several times and every time eventually assured myself that it was so. Though I haven’t accounted for the idea that spaces that were once causally bound to each other can possibly become causally unbound… oh well, down the rabbit hole again.
Haven’t read it. The man can’t end a story to save his life and his prose is pretty basic, but damn does he have some good lines. He’s got this genuine enthusiasm for everything he’s saying, especially when he wants to bring in a new concept, and that gets me hooked every time. You can tell he loves his characters.
the reason we don’t have time travelers is that the past is no more concrete than the future. [Current science disagrees with the idea that] just like there are infinite potential futures, there are an infinity of potential pasts that could have evolved into the present [instead insisting that the entire past is fully embedded in the present]. [It’s not supported by any current theories that] the probability of reaching a particular past is essentially zero.
Time is a physical entity that can be warped, but nobody is creating snaphsots of reality to travel back to and future is entirely a human concept.
Or, analogy to a river (although flawed): you can’t create a loop and expect it to still flow. But circumstances can make it flow slower or faster.
Nobody is creating snapshots, the past is lost, but in a sense it is still entirely, umm, present (forgive the pun). It is apparently not true that there is more than one past that could have evolved into the present. This has bothered me a lot and I don’t entirely understand in this moment why that is, but I’ve looked into it several times and every time eventually assured myself that it was so. Though I haven’t accounted for the idea that spaces that were once causally bound to each other can possibly become causally unbound… oh well, down the rabbit hole again.
Looks like somebody has read Anathem.
cool, no, what’s the concept
https://anathem.fandom.com/wiki/Rhetor
I love that book.
Every word Neal Stephenson ever wrote is fucking classic
Except The Big U , that was tripe
Haven’t read it. The man can’t end a story to save his life and his prose is pretty basic, but damn does he have some good lines. He’s got this genuine enthusiasm for everything he’s saying, especially when he wants to bring in a new concept, and that gets me hooked every time. You can tell he loves his characters.
Snow Crash is a genre-defining classic.
And yet I will never forgive him for “Hiro Protagonist”
I vehemently disagree with many worlds theory. I think its a total mindfuck. However I do think that the future influences the present and the past.
I’m agnostic
Its for the best