Time travel theories and temporal anomalies

You're more than welcome to read it, but don't reply to it. Is that cool with you?

Yes, but to answer that question I have to reply in another thread. To resolve that, I have created a new thread. Somehow that reminds me of replacement theory.

So I guess my exact coordinates would be EF timeline, AB3. Something like that?

I think the original you would be in EF1 and CD2 time line as shown below.

E1 (because Kyle interfered with the CD1 timeline)...C2...F1...D2

*****

Therefore Abe-1-Copy was never created, because it had to be created from Abe 1, who now never existed. It could have been preserved had Abe 2 made the trip that Abe 1 originally made and had himself copied, but then Abe 3 would also have to have made the trip to confirm Abe 2's trip into an N-jump termination.

So Abe-1-Copy have to ensure that Abe 2 also makes the same kind of copy to make time stabilize.
A1-----B1
C1/A2--B2--D1 (Both anomalies targets the same time/space)
E1/C2--D2--F1 (If first anomaly does not cause second anomaly then the second anomaly should be the first anomaly)
If second anomaly depends on first anomaly then time would probably stabilize if first anomaly is duplicated by sending the copy from F1 to E1. So if second anomaly would depend on the first anomaly, making the copy send a copy prematurely would not stabilize time.

the you that has no knowledge that there ever was another time traveler in the past must do whatever is necessary to prevent that time traveler from coming to the past without altering the fact that you will come to the past and do that.

The time traveler might probably do that if the time traveler does not know there was other time traveler in the first place and just coincidentally choose that time or place.
A1--B1
C1/A2--D1--B2 (Here the second anomaly target the same time/space coincidentally)
E1/C2--F1--D2 (EF1 would probably vanish if CD2 does not caused by EF1)
If CD2 is not caused by EF1,
C2-----D2 (Time stabilizes)
If CD2 is caused by EF1,
C1/A2--D1--B2 (Time loops back to this time line)

It's really complicated, and I think that I should say at this point that if you don't understand it

I think I understand.

I tend to think that real lateral time means "sideways time" and thus parallel dimension theory. In Multiverser terms, parallel dimensions are related universes, and if you travel between them it is not inherently time travel.

Yes, that is right. There is an interesting feat that have to be noted if a person travel back to previous "sideways time". It would probably change the future of other "sideways time" so if the traveler is not careful the traveler could be caught in "sideways time" loop.

First example,
First depth:
A1-----B1---A2 (Time is how is looks after the next target is the unchanged future)
C1-----D1-B2--
Second depth:
A1-----B1---C2
C1-----D1-D2-A3 (If D2 could get to C2, then time would stabilize. A3 is where the traveler would produce a sideways time copy but the actual self is at C2. A3 would not meet another self because that self have departed)

Second example,
First depth:
A1--A2--B1--- (Time is how it looks after the next target is the unchanged past)
C1-----D1--B2
Second depth:
C1--C2--D1---
E1--A3--F1--D2 (If D2 could get to C2, then time would stabilize, if not a loop will happen which will begin at point B2. This would happen if C2 would prevent D1 or A3 prevents D2. A3 is the anomaly produced C2 which will produce sideways time copy.)

If the traveler want to avoid this, the traveler could travel:
First depth:
--A1-----B1---
--C1-----D1--A2
B2-E1-----F1--- (Time is how it looks after the next target is the unchanged past but sideways time future)
Second depth:
--A1-----B1---
--C1-----D1--A2 (Travel to lateral point of the future but is the unchanged past)
B2-E1-----F1--A3 (If the traveler prevents changes by EF1, time would still continue forward. A3 is where EF1 self to go to future lateral time if not prevented.)

This isn't quite what I had in mind Max.

Two

Max, if you're going to ask it in a different thread, you might as well take it back to the other. The intention was to make it easier for MJ. Now there's 2 threads on the same topic. That's definitely not making it easier for MJ. I think I was more asking you to not ask time travel questions. I most certainly see the hypocrisy in that notion, so just forget I said anything.

(Doing Therapy)

Max--I'm quite aware that it is possible to create anomalies that link parallel dimensions and so create temporal problems. It's one of the flaws in multiple dimension theory--if Abe 1 travels from dimension 1 to dimension 2 and prevents Abe 2 from traveling from dimension 2 to dimension 3, then Abe 3 will travel from 3 to 4, and Abe 4 will be prevented from traveling to dimension 5, and so on. But then if Abe 1 now in dimension 2 travels to dimension 3, he enters a world which was not changed by his arrival, and the appearance that he ever was in the same universe breaks down.

But indeed if someone travels between dimensions in a way that causes him to interfere with himself, he can create just as bad a problem as if he traveled to the past. If Abe 1 travels to dimension 2 and causes Abe 2 to travel to (the past of) dimension 1 where Abe 2 prevents Abe 1 from traveling to dimension 2, we've got a disaster.

--M. J. Young

I wonder what would happen if the time traveler changes the time travel event of his past self so that the past self would depart sooner than point D.
A1-----B1 (original time)
C1/A2--B2--D1 (AB1 self makes self depart sooner than point D1 by suggesting a specific time)
C2--D2--- (AB2 self makes the same suggestion to CD2 self thus confirming the time)
Here I think time would continue onwards at point D1.

Let me take the copy example and try to make it work.
A1-----B1 (Abe original time which at B1 send a copy back to C1)
C1/A2--B2--D1 (Abe 1-copy transfers knowledge using fusion then makes Abe 2 copy himself sooner than point D1 by suggesting a specific time)
C2--D2--- (Abe 2-copy transfers the same knowledge using fusion then makes the same suggestion to Abe 3 self thus confirming the time)
Here I think time would continue onwards at point D1 but I wonder what would happen if Abe 1-copy transfers knowledge from original time to Abe 2 via fusion.
Would time still continue at point D1 onwards even if Abe now have knowledge of non-existent or original time?

*****

I would like to revisit other time travel theories but first let me conclude the nature of time of replacement theory.
1) What happens now will affect all the future instantly so travel to future would always go to rewritten version. This universe would live in determinism until an outside force alters it. This outside force includes time travel but I am not sure if an indig could time travel if the universe does not determine that the indig would do so unless some outside forces intervenes.
2) The final time line is the only one that is "real" and the original time line have been undone or only exist metaphysically. This would imply that the nature of time to be static unless there are changes from outside forces which is why outside forces could manipulate the time for better or for worse.
3) Time travel to past could only be "real" if time stabilizes because if it is not stable it would not become the final time line which is why the future for non-stabilize time would not exist.
4) The sawtooth snap happens if the time traveler changes something that affects his past self but still let the time travel event happen.
5) Infinity loop happens when the time traveler prevent their own travel to the past. There might be a way to prevent it if the time machine sends an observer outside the universe which is not constrained by that universe time and then chooses time to go to the past after the observer have been sent. The time machine would contact this observer before initiating time travel to make sure that this is not a loop before initiating travel but I wonder if this act is feasible in that universe in the first place.

Now, lets try to examine fluid time theory (or river of time). I am not sure if this is the same theory or only similar to the one that is suggested by Sergiy Koshkin but anyways this is what I concluded from it.
1) The nature of time is dynamic like the flow of river. This can be perceived as a static time line if there is no time travel or outside forces. After a time travel event or outside forces intervention, the time line would appear dynamic.
2) "Now" could be represented by a dye in the flow of the river which means that it goes forward according to the speed of the river.
3) The change to the future will propagate forward according to the speed of river.
4) Any changes made to the past would be rewritten by much further past. That would mean that the time traveler would only change a single point of history at a time. If the source of the river are halted from changing the history that the time traveler had changed, the time traveler could rewrite more than a point. This however would require the time traveler to use more energy to manipulate the flow and move forward to future.
5) This would mean that the "now" perceived by the person send by the time traveler would not change if the time traveler does not block the flow of the source which will stop the flow of time in the future where the time traveler came from. This could be resolved by blocking before point of arrival of time traveler and after point of departure of time traveler. After the time traveler arrive at the point of departure, the block at the point of departure would be lifted to let the time traveler continue forward.
6) Universe that uses this theory uses the history that is perceived by "now" because each "now" might have different history according the the point that "now" have pass. The future might be different according to the flow of the river. If a time traveler choose to vanish then reappear according to the speed of the flow then the time traveler would arrive in the changed future but if the time traveler choose to reappear faster than the speed of the flow then the time traveler would arrive in the unchanged future but this takes more energy than going to the changed future.

*****

I am really nervous about what Max is doing in his thread, because it looks to me like he is going to use the explosion botch that he created to direct it into the past which will destroy everything that leads to the botch and so undo the botch and the explosion, and catch himself in an infinity loop less than a second long, and then when his time dilation skill expires it will be almost impossible for anyone to rescue him from the trap he built for himself.

I did think about getting caught in an infinity loop that lasts a nanosecond or less (which I think would be a good prison for a verser) as one of result of the skill botch. However, I did not intent for the skill to destroy anything in the past but only use the explosion energy as a fuel to go to the past. If the explosion have the power to destroy everything then infinity loop does not sound too bad.

I wonder what would happen if the time traveler changes the time travel event of his past self so that the past self would depart sooner than point D.
A1-----B1 (original time)
C1/A2--B2--D1 (AB1 self makes self depart sooner than point D1 by suggesting a specific time)
C2--D2--- (AB2 self makes the same suggestion to CD2 self thus confirming the time)
Here I think time would continue onwards at point D1.

A1-->B1 (Original timeline)
C1=A2-->B2, (AB1 self causes CD1 self to depart prematurely; CD1 self is a different person)

This becomes very complicated. Assuming the traveler from B2 arrives at the exact same instant as the traveler from B1, they should both arrive; one should displace the other spatially, so they should arrive next to each other. The B1 departure has not yet been erased, so the C1 arrival is not yet erased either. However, if the AB1 traveler does not send the AB2 traveler back from B2 on schedule, the second anomaly goes bad. The AB2 traveler would have to cause the CD2 traveler to make that same trip to resolve it.

All of which then means that if it resolves at D2, the CD2 traveler, who has already been the CD1 traveler resolving his anomaly, must now make the trip from D1 to C1 or the AB1 traveler vanishes and history must replay without him. However, if the AB2 traveler took over the job of causing the CD2 traveler to make the trip and that decision is not dependent on the presence of the AB1 traveler, then we don't revert to point A1 because the history of the second anomaly intervenes. Thus we have an EF1 timeline in which no traveler arrives from D1 but a traveler does arrive from D2, and if that traveler stabilizes history then we get past D2 with the same traveler leaving and E1 without a traveler leaving. One of the anomalies has been completely erased from reality leaving as a trace only the other anomaly, which can't be traced back to it because it fully supports itself.

I think.

Let me take the copy example and try to make it work.

Your copies don't really get you any advantage, they only complicate the problem.

If you make the copy of Abe 1 and send the copy instead of Abe 1, then the copy becomes the time traveler. If just before D1 you copy Abe 2 and send him back instead of Abe-1-Copy, then at D1 Abe 2 and Abe-1-Copy both exist into the future and Abe-2-Copy travels to the past in place of Abe-1-Copy.

If you send Abe 1 and then copy him upon his arrival, keeping the copy in complete stasis and sending it back from D1 to be revived upon its arrival completely unaware that it is a copy, while at the same instant making a copy of the copy, then at D1 Abe 2 and Abe 1 both exist, but Abe 2 is different from Abe 1 (never having been copied), and since Abe 1's existence is based on his life in history AB he ceases to exist. He would be replaced by Abe-1-Copy, but that Abe-1-Copy now was never created from Abe 1, who never existed, so he, too, must cease to exist. I think you've created a sawtooth snap in which each copy must cease to exist because he no longer has ever had an original from which to be copied. For the copy to exist, the original must have existed, and your system always destroys the original.

You get nothing more from making a copy than you would from having a twin, and you lose too much with it; the copy is not the original, but it is dependent upon the original, so for the copy to exist the original must exist. Your copy only works if it is a copy of the existing original once everything settles, which means either you must copy Abe 2 before point D1 and send his copy to the past (Abe 2 and Abe-2-Copy then replacing Abe 1 and Abe-1-Copy respectively), or you must send Abe 2 from point D1 and have him copied in the past, but you still must send Abe 3, not Abe-2-Copy, to the past from point E1.

1) What happens now will affect all the future instantly so travel to future would always go to rewritten version. This universe would live in determinism until an outside force alters it. This outside force includes time travel but I am not sure if an indig could time travel if the universe does not determine that the indig would do so unless some outside forces intervenes.

I don't like the word "determinism" in this context, but my best answer is yes, by the definition that matters those in the CD history are living in a deterministic world, exactly as those in the AB history were. This gets into my personal views of free will and determinism, which are a bit complex but are necessary to the understanding of the theory.

A decade or so back I was in a different office, and it happened that there was a space between my computer desk and a cabinet in which I kept files which was just wide enough for one shoe. When I took my shoes off at night I dropped them into this space. The next day I would don the top shoe first, and then the bottom one, almost every time.

I was perfectly free, of course, to choose to don the bottom shoe first; but I would need a reason to do so. That's the critical point: something has to cause me to do something differently, or I will do it the same.

That applies when time rewinds. If we suppose that I the top shoe first in the AB history, and we rewind far enough that my shoes are back where I placed them, In the CD history I will don the top shoe first unless something is different enough to cause me to don the bottom shoe first. That means something that the time traveler did would have to impact me in some way.

• He might have come into my room and moved my shoes. That's rather a direct approach, and very hazardous, because his counterpart won't know that he did it. If he did it because there was a reason for me to don my shoes in the other order, then he has probably undone that reason so that his counterpart won't know to do it, and we'll have an infinity loop. If he did it because he wanted to mess with me and reverse the order in which I donned my shoes that morning, then his counterpart probably will do it again if he doesn't do something else to change that, and we'll have an N-jump.
• He might have communicated to me something that made me feel self-conscious about the matter, or otherwise think about it and decide to reverse the order myself. That, though, again means he had to do something that would interfere.
• He might have interfered accidentally. He rerouted a heavy truck past my house which caused the shoes to shift in such a way that when I picked up the top shoe it slipped from my fingers and, being the basically lazy person that I am, I picked up the other shoe which was still within reach and put it on first, and then chased after the errant one. It is still his fault, the consequence of something he did, although it was not intentional and assuming he does not otherwise derail his own anomaly when he leaves from point D he will cause the same truck to create the same vibrations which lead once more to my same clumsiness.

Note that not even the winds nor the flaps of butterflies wings will change unless something in the chain of causes leading to them changes.

Whatever I do and whatever I choose to do and whatever I do accidentally in the CD history will be exactly the same as I did in the AB history, not because my acts in the CD history are in some peculiar way determined but because they are determined in exactly the same way that they were in the AB history. I think about my options or I don't. If I do, my thoughts follow patterns based on causes and effects within my mind, knowledge and ignorance, logic and error, reason and emotion, that are all part of who I am. Based on who I am, whatever I choose to do is ultimately the only thing I could have chosen--not because some outside force is controlling what I do, but because what I do is controlled by who I am. Outside forces will influence my thoughts, choices, and actions, but if we replay history and those outside forces are not in any way altered, my thoughts, choices, and actions will not be altered either.

Temporal anomalies assume that you will do the same things the-same-way-you-did-the-first-time every-time-it-is-the-first-time. If the forces that cause you to choose as you do have not changed, what you do will not change either. You could make a different choice based on different information, but you cannot have different information if nothing has changed. You can make a different choice based on different feelings, but you cannot have different feelings if nothing has changed. For everyone not impacted by the acts of the time traveler, the second time through is the first time through, and they will do the same thing the second first-time-through that they did the first first-time-through, because it is, after all, the first time through.

2) The final time line is the only one that is "real" and the original time line have been undone or only exist metaphysically. This would imply that the nature of time to be static unless there are changes from outside forces which is why outside forces could manipulate the time for better or for worse.

I concur.

3) Time travel to past could only be "real" if time stabilizes because if it is not stable it would not become the final time line which is why the future for non-stabilize time would not exist.

I'm thinking that your definition of "real" in this context means something that I would not have meant.

Let's suppose that Marty McFly in his trip to 1955 failed to unite his parents. That would undo his existence and so undo his trip to 1955; that would undo his interference with his parents and cause them to unite without him. That would bring him back into existence and send him to the past where he would interfere with their meeting and fail to reunite them, and we would have an infinity loop. The trip from point C to point D in this story is undone by the failure to make the same trip from point D, but it is still a very real trip both at the end of the AB timeline when he departs and the beginning of the CD timeline when he arrives. He really does travel from one version of history to the other. His trip ceases ever to have existed when we hit point D and revert to point A, but it comes back into existence when we hit point B and revive point C.

So I think I don't know what you mean when you say the trip isn't "real". What prevents time from continuing from point B is that the AB history is erased by the creation of the CD history when the traveler departs from B to C; what prevents it from continuing from point D is that the CD history is erased when the time traveler fails to depart from point C and arrive in point D. Thus the moment past point B/D cannot exist because point B cannot exist if the traveler departs from it and point D cannot exist if the traveler does not depart from it, so the next moment in time cannot exist because the previous moment in time no longer does.

4) The sawtooth snap happens if the time traveler changes something that affects his past self but still let the time travel event happen.

Yes, or if his acts in history will cause changes that will in turn cause him to take different acts that cause different changes.

5) Infinity loop happens when the time traveler prevent their own travel to the past.

Yes, or if the time traveler makes the trip to accomplish the opposite of what he intended in the original history. If I travel to the past to prevent Bush from beating Gore and succeed, and then I make the exact same trip to prevent Gore from beating Bush, I'll have created an infinity loop in which the success of Bush means the success instead of Gore, and the success of Gore means the success instead of Bush.

There might be a way to prevent it if the time machine sends an observer outside the universe which is not constrained by that universe time and then chooses time to go to the past after the observer have been sent. The time machine would contact this observer before initiating time travel to make sure that this is not a loop before initiating travel but I wonder if this act is feasible in that universe in the first place.

Yeah, I wonder, too. It seems to me that if you first send someone to another universe and then contact that person by sending him a message, you make the two universes sequence-linked, and an anomaly in one could create an anomaly in the other. In this case, we assume that at point B the time machine sends a message to Outsider and sends Traveler to the past, and so Outsider gets the message; but Traveler undoes the time trip, and so the time machine is never activated, never sending Traveler to the past and incidentally never sending the message to Outsider. Outsider is now trapped in a temporal anomaly in which he both does and does not receive the message, and his infinity loop has a temporal length of zero in his world because the passage of time in the other world is not linked to his and no events have to occur in his time for the state to change.

Now, lets try to examine fluid time theory (or river of time). I am not sure if this is the same theory or only similar to the one that is suggested by Sergiy Koshkin but anyways this is what I concluded from it.
1) The nature of time is dynamic like the flow of river. This can be perceived as a static time line if there is no time travel or outside forces. After a time travel event or outside forces intervention, the time line would appear dynamic.
2) "Now" could be represented by a dye in the flow of the river which means that it goes forward according to the speed of the river.
3) The change to the future will propagate forward according to the speed of river.
4) Any changes made to the past would be rewritten by much further past. That would mean that the time traveler would only change a single point of history at a time. If the source of the river are halted from changing the history that the time traveler had changed, the time traveler could rewrite more than a point. This however would require the time traveler to use more energy to manipulate the flow and move forward to future.
5) This would mean that the "now" perceived by the person send by the time traveler would not change if the time traveler does not block the flow of the source which will stop the flow of time in the future where the time traveler came from. This could be resolved by blocking before point of arrival of time traveler and after point of departure of time traveler. After the time traveler arrive at the point of departure, the block at the point of departure would be lifted to let the time traveler continue forward.
6) Universe that uses this theory uses the history that is perceived by "now" because each "now" might have different history according the the point that "now" have pass. The future might be different according to the flow of the river. If a time traveler choose to vanish then reappear according to the speed of the flow then the time traveler would arrive in the changed future but if the time traveler choose to reappear faster than the speed of the flow then the time traveler would arrive in the unchanged future but this takes more energy than going to the changed future.

I've responded to Koshkin in a separate web page. As I note there, such a theory suggests that time travel to the new future is probably impossible. It also means that time travel from the old future to the old past is similarly impossible. Time becomes something of a house of cards: if someone of whom I am completely unaware traveled from 2005 to 2000 changed history such that Gore, not Bush, became President, and then in 2010 I traveled to 2004, I would find myself in the universe in which Gore was running for re-election even though I left from a future in which Bush had served two terms. That, though, means (as I discuss in Bender's Big Score part 9: the Gorey details) that it is entirely unlikely that Obama was elected in 2008, and that the past to which I traveled cannot be the history of the future from which I came, and all the causes of my own existence have already been undone, yet I still exist.

I find that absurd. You can be confident that if I am your referee, time will never work that way in your worlds.

I did think about getting caught in an infinity loop that lasts a nanosecond or less (which I think would be a good prison for a verser) as one of result of the skill botch. However, I did not intent for the skill to destroy anything in the past but only use the explosion energy as a fuel to go to the past. If the explosion have the power to destroy everything then infinity loop does not sound too bad.

As Scott has, I think, attempted to clarify, chemical energy is the potential behind a potentially explosive reaction and can only be released through that reaction. You have the peculiar complication that the reaction is happening in extreme slow motion relative to you (because you have been hyper-accelerated), but there isn't much you can do to rearrange that energy release because the chemistry is all in time.

As far as the extent of the explosion, Scott has very wisely decided not to reveal the rolls which control that. I can tell you that there is one chance in a thousand that it will be smaller than a cubic inch and one chance in a thousand that it will extend through the entire universe, that there is one chance in a thousand that it will be a harmless pop and one chance in a thousand that it will multiply obliterate all matter within its area of effect, and that those variables are entirely independent of each other so that there is one chance in a thousand thousand, that is, a million, of each of the four results of a small pop inside a one inch sphere, a completely obliterative blast inside a one each sphere, a small pop through the entire universe, and the complete obliteration of the entire universe.

I do not know whether you either have or can develop the tools to anticipate the answers to those questions before they occur. However, I tend to think that an infinity loop is even more destructive than a universal multiple obliterative blast--at least time, space, dust, and residual energy remain after the explosion. If you end the world in an infinity loop, there is no such thing as "after".

--M. J. Young

This is how you get cloning to work for you in a time-travel context.

There is a stasis/cloning machine, "StayClone," with two tubes, Tube A and Tube B. These tubes are modular in the sense that they can be removed from the machine and can maintain stasis perpetually once removed from the machine. Any contents in stasis in Tube A my be cloned (via pattern replication, an application of teleporter technology) into a vacent Tube B if both are hooked up to StayClone. The clone in Tube B will be in stasis upon creation, naturally, just like the original contents in Tube A.

Now you modify StayClone to double as a time machine (StayClone2). Meet Abe, a physicist with time-altering ambitions. Abe pre-programs StayClone2, and then enters Tube A. After a few moments, the program executes:

1) Abe is placed in stasis.
2) Abe is copied into Tube B, creating Clone.
3) Both Tube A and Tube B travel into the past (arriving at temporal point C).
4) Tube B opens, releasing Clone.

Clone, who knows he is not Abe only by virtue of the fact that he has emerged from Tube B, goes about his history-altering mission. Abe remains in Tube A, still in stasis.

Once his mission is complete, Clone gets control of a StayClone2' (complete with vacant Tubes C and D, identical to the previously-vacant Tubes A and B from the now-non-existant AB timeline). He then retrieves Tube A and proceeds to ensure the N-jump confirmation of his successfully-altered CD timeline:

1) He inserts Tube A (which still contains the unaltered Abe) into the Tube A slot of StayClone2' and inserts an empty Tube C into the Tube B slot.
2) He copies Abe into Tube C, creating Clone'.
3) He removes Tube C from the machine, replacing it with the empty Tube D.
4) He copies Abe into Tube D, creating Clone''.
5) He removes Tube A from the machine, replacing it with Tube C (containing Clone').
6) He programs the machine, and waits.
7) At temporal point D, StayClone2' sends both Tube C and Tube D into the past, arriving at temporal point C.
8) Tube D opens, releasing Clone''.

Notice that Clone'' knows he is not Abe, because he has been released from his tube (indistinguishable by any means from Tube B), but he does not know whether he is Clone or Clone''. Furthermore, it does not matter; prior to being released from their tubes, both Clone and Clone'' are identical in every respect to Abe from point B of the AB timeline.

One of the anomalies has been completely erased from reality leaving as a trace only the other anomaly, which can't be traced back to it because it fully supports itself.

I learn to do that by observing the sawtooth snap because it have similar properties.

This is how you get cloning to work for you in a time-travel context.

Thanks for the enlightenment.

Notice that Clone'' knows he is not Abe, because he has been released from his tube (indistinguishable by any means from Tube B), but he does not know whether he is Clone or Clone''. Furthermore, it does not matter; prior to being released from their tubes, both Clone and Clone'' are identical in every respect to Abe from point B of the AB timeline.

The first (and original) time line would have Abe 1 and Abe 1-copy 1.
The second time line would have Abe 1, Abe 1-copy 1 and Abe 2.
The third time line would have Abe 1-copy 2, Abe 1-copy 3 and Abe 3.
The fourth time line would have Abe 1-copy 4, Abe 1-copy 5 and Abe 4.
I guess that Abe 1 could not make another copy so that there where Abe 1-copy 1 and Abe 1-copy 2 and send them both to the past to do the same thing because this would make Abe 1 cease to exist if Abe 2 is changed in any way. By sending Abe 1 to the past with Abe 1-copy 1, this could be averted. So, in the future, there would exist three Abe(s) that the first would be indistinguishable from the original Abe, the second would have the knowledge of the time travel mission and the third who is changed by the time travel mission but does not time travel. This however would leave the original Abe to wonder whether he is the real one or just a clone but I think it would not matter much as the copy is indistinguishable from the original.
Does this system support premature departure if the time traveler have finished the mission earlier so that the clones could be send earlier than point D?
I think it would because the first anomaly is completely erased by the second one but I may be wrong.

*****

This gets into my personal views of free will and determinism, which are a bit complex but are necessary to the understanding of the theory.

Free will is free but limited to what is perceived. Determinism is what is perceived on the universe level but it could be higher such as perceived on the multiverse level. In multiverse level of determinism, all time of various multiverse would probably look like the final time under replacement theory if the universe time are ever stabilized that is. If it is determine that one particular world would not stabilize, then time would probably be seen to have more than one dimension in that world.

So I think I don't know what you mean when you say the trip isn't "real".

I meant the trip are "undone" each time when point D arrives which means that the trip will exist only metaphysically. This implies that the trip is not "real" but it may be "real" at one point.
How does an Outsider see this event?
If the changes from one time line to the other time line happen rapidly as for the case of infinity loop, would time from point A or C will look like it is layered on top of each other like "bird in a cage optical illusion" (which is used by thaumatrope) or something?

Outsider is now trapped in a temporal anomaly in which he both does and does not receive the message, and his infinity loop has a temporal length of zero in his world because the passage of time in the other world is not linked to his and no events have to occur in his time for the state to change.

I also wonder what happens to prayer that is done inside an infinity loop. That would mean that the prayer happens then is "undone" then "redone" again. If a being exists outside of time which mean that the being would not be affected by the sequence, then the being would probably be able to observe metaphysical time. This being could also help by sending a warning message before the trip is "redone" thus preventing the loop.

I wonder what would happen to a verser that verse inside AB or CD time line which loops. If the verser arrive at AB, the verser would probably have to replay it again from from the same time but this time from the CD time line without the memories of AB time line because the time is undone if the time travel is not stopped or the verser does not become a time traveler. If the verser arrive at CD time line first, the memories would be undone if the verser do not ensure that the time travel event happens. If the time travel event does not happen, the verser would probably be trapped forever in CD time line because the verser does not exist in AB time line in the first place. That makes me wonder what would happen if a verser arrive a second before the CD time line is undone.

Would the referee let the verser play both selves if a verser meets self in the past with the limitation that the past self only knows what that past self should know?

*****

I've responded to Koshkin in a separate web page.

I have read that but I have revised a few points to make it more workable as time travel theory.

As I note there, such a theory suggests that time travel to the new future is probably impossible.

It is possible if you just vanish then reappear at the same rate of the river of time.

It also means that time travel from the old future to the old past is similarly impossible.

It is possible if the point of time is not the point that is rewritten or remain rewritten because time traveler somehow manipulate the time after the time of arrival.

Time becomes something of a house of cards: if someone of whom I am completely unaware traveled from 2005 to 2000 changed history such that Gore, not Bush, became President, and then in 2010 I traveled to 2004, I would find myself in the universe in which Gore was running for re-election even though I left from a future in which Bush had served two terms.

If the previous time traveler does not manipulate the time after the time of arrival, you would arrive at the old history. However, if exactly 4 years have passed since the first time traveler changed the time and you from 2010 exactly targets the exact moment the time traveler is in, then you would perceive that the history have been changed.

the past to which I traveled cannot be the history of the future from which I came, and all the causes of my own existence have already been undone, yet I still exist.

You still exist because the causes of your existence have not been redone yet. This is because it is redone at the the same rate of your existence. If for example that the rate of redone is faster than your rate of existence then you will be redone.

I find that absurd. You can be confident that if I am your referee, time will never work that way in your worlds.

It is not that absurd if you think about it. One of reason that infinity loop happen is because the time traveler affect changes to past self but this changes does not happen (practically) immediately to time traveler self. This could also be said with the fluid time theory which the changes happens gradually so even if you try to create an infinity loop in this world, you would not be redone if your rate of existence is the same as the rate of redone thus you will continue onwards to future.
Rather than putting a group of verser to two or more indistinguishable world, you could put the verser into this world then bias out time travel. If you put the verser into different point of time, they would not meet each other. This could also be one of the explanation if the player ask why they do not meet each other even if the universe is the same.

*****

However, I tend to think that an infinity loop is even more destructive than a universal multiple obliterative blast--at least time, space, dust, and residual energy remain after the explosion. If you end the world in an infinity loop, there is no such thing as "after".

For infinity loop, the creature would survive in it even if there is no "after". This creature would not experience anything "new" but like someone who have been erased of their memories who keeps doing the same thing over and over again. A verser comes to this world and perceive that if the infinity loop is terminated, the universe would be obliterated. What would the verser do?
That somehow makes a good story.

The first (and original) time line would have Abe 1 and Abe 1-copy 1.
The second time line would have Abe 1, Abe 1-copy 1 and Abe 2.
The third time line would have Abe 1-copy 2, Abe 1-copy 3 and Abe 3.
The fourth time line would have Abe 1-copy 4, Abe 1-copy 5 and Abe 4.

Unless MJ corrects me with something I've overlooked, there is no third timeline. Once copy-2 and copy-3 arrive in the past, you stop calling them "copy-2" and "copy-3" and start calling them "Abe" and "copy-1", because at that point the labels are meaningless in light of the fact that both entities are exactly identical to the Abe who departed from point B and arrived at point C. Over the course of the CD timeline, one remains in stasis and the other takes the actions that Clone takes, including (eventually) making two copies of the one still in stasis and sending them back to point C.

The entire point of this approach is that it results in an N-jump if done properly.

And yes, in the future following point D, three versions of Abe would exist: the Abe who remained in stasis and remembers history that never was ("Abe 1"), the Abe who emerged from stasis after point C and who carried out the original mission ("Clone"), and the Abe who did not and does not travel through time ("Abe 2"). I imagine that after point D, they let Abe 1 out of the stasis tube. Maybe they form a novelty rock band?

Does this system support premature departure if the time traveler have finished the mission earlier so that the clones could be send earlier than point D?

If by "does the system support" you mean "would this result in an N-jump if," the answer is no (unless I'm mistaken). This would result in a sawtooth snap, although it has the potential to be a very simple sawtooth snap which eventually confirms itself, possibly as soon as the EF timeline.

_____

It is not that absurd if you think about it.

That almost sounds like you think MJ hasn't thought about it . . .

I did think that MJ have give it some thought. "Not that" that I mention just meant that it is not on the level of absurdity that MJ might imagine after the theory is reexamined. I also forget to put "probably" in that statement so I apologize if it sounds rude.

I just stuck my nose in briefly, but I thought I'd catch the flaw I see. It's really very good, Scott--the stasis factor prevents Traveler from aging or decaying in any way. The problem is, Stasis Tube A becomes infinitely old, because it must make the trip an infinite number of times. What becomes infinitely old crumbles to dust.

--M. J. Young

Stasis Tube A becomes infinitely old, because it must make the trip an infinite number of times.

I think it only made the trip once then it is replaced by Stasis Tube C. This will contain Abe 1-Copy 2.

Maxx has it right (although in my original labeling, that individual was called Clone', pronounced "Clone Prime"). I actually only caught that error while I was in the process of typing up the post. We still require that tubes C and D end up being exactly identical at point D to tubes A and B at point B, but with constructed objects that's not an insurmountable problem.

Also, this is the simple form of the method, with only minimal involvement of replicator technology - no pattern storage, for instance. There's room for the methodology to be tightened up a great deal, I think.

If there is a technology for pattern storage then probably it would be easier.
1) Abe 1 is put in stasis Tube 1.
2) Pattern of Abe 1 is copied to Pattern storage 1.
3) Abe 1 and Pattern storage 1 go back to the past and Abe is released from stasis.
4) Abe 1 finish the mission to change history.
5) Abe 1 puts Abe 2 in Tube 2.
6) Abe 1 uses Pattern storage 1 to copy the pattern back to Abe 2 via pattern manipulation which will make Abe 2 state be like Abe 1 before time travel begins.
7) Abe 1 copies Pattern storage 1 to Pattern storage 2.
8) Both Abe 2 and Pattern storage 2 is send back to the past to confirm the time line.

Pattern storage 1 could include the pattern of the tube and the pattern storage itself to ensure that the same state is copied if the tube and the pattern storage is not standardized in the first place.

There would be no need to involve Abe2. Once you have the pattern, the subject can be replicated at will by converting enough energy into matter. Abe would just need to generate another Abe inside a Tube 2 and make a faithful copy of the pattern to send back with him.

Yeah, I realized today when I was reading instead of skimming that you were discarding the old time machine parts entirely, and that you were double-cloning Abe, and I think that probably gets you where you want. Let me recheck.

1) Abe is placed in stasis.
2) Abe is copied into Tube B, creating Clone.
3) Both Tube A and Tube B travel into the past (arriving at temporal point C).
4) Tube B opens, releasing Clone.

Clone, who knows he is not Abe only by virtue of the fact that he has emerged from Tube B, goes about his history-altering mission. Abe remains in Tube A, still in stasis.

Once his mission is complete, Clone gets control of a StayClone2' (complete with vacant Tubes C and D, identical to the previously-vacant Tubes A and B from the now-non-existant AB timeline). He then retrieves Tube A and proceeds to ensure the N-jump confirmation of his successfully-altered CD timeline:

1) He inserts Tube A (which still contains the unaltered Abe) into the Tube A slot of StayClone2' and inserts an empty Tube C into the Tube B slot.
2) He copies Abe into Tube C, creating Clone'.
3) He removes Tube C from the machine, replacing it with the empty Tube D.
4) He copies Abe into Tube D, creating Clone''.
5) He removes Tube A from the machine, replacing it with Tube C (containing Clone').
6) He programs the machine, and waits.
7) At temporal point D, StayClone2' sends both Tube C and Tube D into the past, arriving at temporal point C.
8) Tube D opens, releasing Clone''.

So you are sending both Abe and a clone of Abe from B to C, keeping Abe in stasis while his clone takes action in the CD history, and as D approaches you are cloning Abe into a second and third clone, sending the third clone in place of the first and the second in place of Abe, so that at point D the two that arrive happen to be the second and third clones, both indistinguishable from each other and from the original Abe and first clone.

The thing that has me "stymied" here is what happens to the second Abe. He's never involved. That means the existence of all the clones is dependent on the existence of the first Abe, who ceased ever to have existed when we reached point D but whose clones avoided that event by traveling to the past. However, whenever we attempt to advance history beyond point D, all clones will cease ever to have existed because their source has ceased ever to have existed.

I think you have to have Abe 2 replace Abe 1 in doing whatever Abe 1 did, whether that means we have to clone him instead of Abe 1 or send him in stasis instead of Abe 1. If Abe 2 does not exactly replace Abe 1, Abe 1 ceases ever to have existed and all his acts (even the passive ones) are undone.

How does an Outsider see this event?

I think the first question is "Can an outsider view this event?" From inside the universe, time appears to end at point B/D. What an outside observer would see would depend very much on who that observer is and how he relates to time. Here are possibilities:

1. Since to observe time in another universe requires linking to that time, an outside observer would perceive the history of one timeline unfolding; it is not particularly necessary to identify which. When the world reaches point B or D, time ends, and the observer, whose time is still moving forward in a linked manner, would discover that that universe has ceased to exist.
2. Since to observe time in another universe requires linking to the events sequencing of that universe, upon reaching the point at which the causal chains of that universe fold back on themselves, the observer would see an abrupt shift in all things back to point A/C of the other/next history of the world, and might deduce that an anomaly occurred.
3. Since to connect to the time of another universe and observe it connects you within their causal chain, at the moment the anomaly in the observed universe reaches its endpoint and snaps back to its start point, the observer's universe is also carried back to that point. If the observer was not observing prior to that point he is not observing then, but since no actions in the other universe will affect this universe, he will at the anticipated moment connect to that universe and be caught in the anomaly to return to the beginning of the next timeline.
4. Since only stable histories can be observed, from the outside observer the history of the targeted universe will appear to end at point A/C, there being nothing to see thereafter.
5. Since the history of a temporal universe can only be observed by atemporal beings as a sequence of stills moving at high speed, at point A/C those images will become blurred as if double exposed, or as if flickering between two images at yet higher speed, and then at point B/D they will cease as that universe ceases to exist.
6. There is no known way to observe the history of another universe that does not involve entering that universe, and thus if you have no advance knowledge of point B/D and fail to exit the universe before that point, you will be carried to point A/C and might become irretrievable from your own universe.
7. It is not possible to observe the history of a universe from any point outside.

Any of those might be the answer; all of those are the answer for some potential outside observer somewhere. It's not really my job to figure out how it would work for anyone who is not relevant to the present universe/story, only to figure it out to the degree that it is necessary for play. If you're asking what The King will see if you put his universe into an infinity loop, I can't tell you that until it happens, and I probably don't have to tell you that then, because all that matters to you is what The King does about the damage you've done to His universe. If you're asking what you will see if you from the outside attempt to observe a universe you know to be in an infinity loop, I expect it will be years before you have the ability to identify such a universe with certainty and devise a skill that will permit you to observe it from the outside, and if you ever do whoever is running your game at that time will have the pleasure of trying to figure out what you see and what happens to you.

I also wonder what happens to prayer that is done inside an infinity loop. That would mean that the prayer happens then is "undone" then "redone" again.

If the exact same prayer is prayed by the exact same person at the exact same time on both sides of the loop, it replaces itself and is not perceived to have ceased to be and been recreated. If it is only prayed on one side of the loop, then it would depend much on the nature of the god. Gods with the power to know what might have been know what prayers were prayed in universes that never existed; that gives those universes a metaphysical reality. That includes such universes as "probable futures", all the might-have-beens, in addition to those that were and became unmade.

I wonder what would happen to a verser that verse inside AB or CD time line which loops.

Yes, I wonder that, too. In The Perpetual Barbecue the answer given is that the verser is stuck in the anomaly, but since he was not anywhere at point C when time hits point D and reverts to point A, the verser finds himself shifted to point A with his memories of the CD timeline and then lives through it something like Groundhog Day, and then when he hits point B he similarly wasn't anywhere at point C so he stays where he is while the universe reverts to point C and again has his memories of both previous timeline. This, though, means that by his memories he has turned it into a sawtooth snap (and it's actually point E and then point G, his cumulative memories making each timeline different). There is a hazard that if he falls into a routine he will fall into the infinity loop and gain no additional knowledge. The infinity loop in that scenario is caused intentionally by a scientist trying to destroy time before someone else does (it really does make sense within the story), by creating a grandfather paradox, preventing himself from making the trip which prevents himself from making the trip. It is suggested that if the verser can prevent the scientist from making the trip in the timeline in which he would do that, the loop is undone by the intervention of an outsider. I'm not completely certain I would stand by that solution at this point. Maybe that's what happens, but maybe not.

Would the referee let the verser play both selves if a verser meets self in the past with the limitation that the past self only knows what that past self should know?

Let me say that I can probably count on one hand the players whom I would trust to do such a thing. Normally I would play the former self as consistently with my knowledge of that former self as I can, something akin to how I play divergent selves, and I would watch very closely for any interference that is going to impact what the younger self will do. I advise not meeting yourself if you can avoid it, and if you do, follow Doc Brown's example and pretend you're no one of consequence.

It is not that absurd if you think about it.

Actually, it is because I thought about it, and thought about it a lot, that I think it is absurd. It is sort of the problem in Millennium (linked already tonight somewhere), that the future will be destroyed when time "catches up" with it.

I do understand that it would be possible to travel to pasts or futures on the right side of the change wave, as it were. I suppose I was not clear about that, but these posts already take too much time so I often shortcut what I'm saying on the assumption that you're smart enough to fill in the missing bits. If someone traveled from 2010 and changed the history in 2000 and then I in 2015 want to travel back to see what things were like in 2001, I can't reach the past that leads to my present because it doesn't exist; but then, how can my present exist if the causes that support it do not?

I have an image of pulling the bottom story out of a skyscraper and using the pieces to build a new skyscraper across the street, and for some completely inexplicable reason people on the top story of the new skyscraper are able to keep building new higher floors suspended above the pavement below. I can't help thinking that once you've pulled out the lower floor, the upper ones will crash to the ground. That's the image that makes this theory seem so absurd.

Let me thank you for the challenging questions. I know that your current game makes some of this pertinent, and that some of it is part of a larger effort to grasp the sense of the theory.

--M. J. Young

There would be no need to involve Abe2.

The reason I choose to involve Abe 2 is:

I think you have to have Abe 2 replace Abe 1 in doing whatever Abe 1 did, whether that means we have to clone him instead of Abe 1 or send him in stasis instead of Abe 1. If Abe 2 does not exactly replace Abe 1, Abe 1 ceases ever to have existed and all his acts (even the passive ones) are undone.

*****

Since only stable histories can be observed, from the outside observer the history of the targeted universe will appear to end at point A/C, there being nothing to see thereafter.

If this is the case, then the time travel itself is not "real" considering there is nothing to see after point A/C.

Since the history of a temporal universe can only be observed by atemporal beings as a sequence of stills moving at high speed, at point A/C those images will become blurred as if double exposed, or as if flickering between two images at yet higher speed, and then at point B/D they will cease as that universe ceases to exist.

If this is the case, then after point B/D could also be seen because unstable time could be seen. This is because it would be weird if you could see one unstable time but not the other.

Gods with the power to know what might have been know what prayers were prayed in universes that never existed; that gives those universes a metaphysical reality. That includes such universes as "probable futures", all the might-have-beens, in addition to those that were and became unmade.

How does Multiverser rule handle that kind of prayer?
If the prayer is to make sure that the time travel does not prevent the existence of future after the time traveler makes a change that would probably lead to an infinity loop, and somehow when dice is rolled it failed, does the prayer get to re-roll again when the prayer is prayed again in the next loop?

*****

This, though, means that by his memories he has turned it into a sawtooth snap (and it's actually point E and then point G, his cumulative memories making each timeline different).

This would imply that the verser would be automatically be turned into a time traveler if the verser came into an infinity loop world. If the verser does not turn into a time traveler then the verser would probably be trapped inside the loop after point D. This raises the question of the bias of that world.
If it happen automatically, does the machine somehow know to include the verser to be a time traveler too?
If not, does this automatic time traveling event induced by magical, psi or body act?
Does the world bias have to be modified to reflect that?

*****

Actually, it is because I thought about it, and thought about it a lot, that I think it is absurd.

Actually, the theory could also be used to model replacement theory by stopping the flow after point B then manipulating the time of arrival (point C) until point D. When the time traveler arrive at point D, the rewrite wave build up that happen because of the stopped flow will be released which will make an infinity loop or sawtooth snap if the released rewrite wave is different. I would not say that something that could simulate replacement theory as absurd.

I have an image of pulling the bottom story out of a skyscraper and using the pieces to build a new skyscraper across the street, and for some completely inexplicable reason people on the top story of the new skyscraper are able to keep building new higher floors suspended above the pavement below. I can't help thinking that once you've pulled out the lower floor, the upper ones will crash to the ground. That's the image that makes this theory seem so absurd.

Two skyscraper implies that there is two time line which implies parallel dimension. Time should probably be modeled as a single skyscraper which is renovated from the lower floor to the upper floor. Since the lower floor is only renovated, the top story could still be build on. This top story would only be renovated if the renovation process goes up fast enough.
If you still think that it is absurd, can you use the same analogy of two buildings to explain replacement theory and how the causality of the time traveler would be affected when trying to build the second building?

*****

Let me thank you for the challenging questions. I know that your current game makes some of this pertinent, and that some of it is part of a larger effort to grasp the sense of the theory.

You are welcome and I hope you find the topic interesting. I also hope that my questions are not annoying in any way and if they are then I would like to apologize.

Maxx quoting me:

Since only stable histories can be observed, from the outside observer the history of the targeted universe will appear to end at point A/C, there being nothing to see thereafter.

If this is the case, then the time travel itself is not "real" considering there is nothing to see after point A/C.

You're assuming that if the time travel is real it can be observed from an outsider's perspective, no matter what method of observation the time traveler is using. My point with the multiple answers is not that there are different realities, but that different methods of observation will give different results. In this case, the sense is that the observer can only view the fixed value of time, and beginning at point A time has no fixed value and so this observer can no longer see what happened after point A or point C, because it is not a fixed value.

That has no impact on whether the events within the anomaly are real to those within the anomaly.

Since the history of a temporal universe can only be observed by atemporal beings as a sequence of stills moving at high speed, at point A/C those images will become blurred as if double exposed, or as if flickering between two images at yet higher speed, and then at point B/D they will cease as that universe ceases to exist.

If this is the case, then after point B/D could also be seen because unstable time could be seen. This is because it would be weird if you could see one unstable time but not the other.

The difference is that the instability of the infinity loop is one of a causal chain looped back on itself, while the instability of subsequent history is the result of no causal chain creating that history because they are looped away from it.

That is, the history of the infinity loop looks blurred from this perspective because two different sets of events are happening at once, but the history beyond the infinity loop is blank because no events ever happen. The causal chain is diverted to the past, and the future is never caused.

Gods with the power to know what might have been know what prayers were prayed in universes that never existed; that gives those universes a metaphysical reality. That includes such universes as "probable futures", all the might-have-beens, in addition to those that were and became unmade.

How does Multiverser rule handle that kind of prayer?

If the player character prays, it is handled as happening in real time when he does so. If he duplicates his action at the same time and place in the next history (either because he brilliantly managed to do so or because he is trapped in the causal chain) it happens there too. If he doesn't, then it is treated as prayed when he prays it and not when he doesn't.

If the prayer is to make sure that the time travel does not prevent the existence of future after the time traveler makes a change that would probably lead to an infinity loop, and somehow when dice is rolled it failed, does the prayer get to re-roll again when the prayer is prayed again in the next loop?

No. A prayer is treated like a skill, and the assumption is that if you do everything exactly the same you will get the same result. Skills are not rerolled when they are simply repeated because the character is unwittingly repeating time.

If John Cross prays in the AB timeline that God would send someone to save him from any anomaly that undoes the future if that has happened, then if he gets caught in such an anomaly and his life is rewound to that moment and nothing changes for him, he will pray the same prayer at the same time in the CD history. The roll will be made once. Because the prayer doesn't matter in the AB history and I'll need to know the answer in the CD history, I'll just mark that it was prayed in the AB history and when it all repeats I'll roll for it then. I'll assume that whatever the roll is in the CD history is the same as it was in the AB history, which I didn't bother to record because it didn't matter. (It could matter, of course, if he botched, but somehow I think John is going to design the skill to be as botch-resistant as possible.)

This, though, means that by his memories he has turned it into a sawtooth snap (and it's actually point E and then point G, his cumulative memories making each timeline different).

This would imply that the verser would be automatically be turned into a time traveler if the verser came into an infinity loop world. If the verser does not turn into a time traveler then the verser would probably be trapped inside the loop after point D. This raises the question of the bias of that world.

No, you infer it; it is not implied. That's a nuance of distinction in meaning--there is nothing in the described scenario that implies time traveler status for the verser, but you infer it from your observations. Your inference is not entirely incorrect, but it has nothing to do with the verser's action, and therefore the nature of the skill involved is not relevant to the player.

To clarify, yes, the verser becomes a time traveler, just like Phil in Groundhog Day and Barry Thomas in 12:01. Someone or something else is causing them to travel through time; they are the victims.

Also, it is not the time machine that does it, per se, but rather what we might call a hiccough in time or a bug in the system. In The Perpetual Barbecue it happens because the verser was not anywhere in that universe at that time but is in that universe now and so has to be somewhere in the next minute, which is in the past; thus he doesn't get relocated to his starting point at point A for the CD timeline, because he had no such starting point, and instead starts wherever he was at point B; and he doesn't get bounced to his starting point at point C from D because at A he was not in that universe and we're reverting to a variant of AB. It's a weak notion, but it works for that game world.

Two skyscraper implies that there is two time line which implies parallel dimension. Time should probably be modeled as a single skyscraper which is renovated from the lower floor to the upper floor. Since the lower floor is only renovated, the top story could still be build on. This top story would only be renovated if the renovation process goes up fast enough.
If you still think that it is absurd, can you use the same analogy of two buildings to explain replacement theory and how the causality of the time traveler would be affected when trying to build the second building?

Sorry. It's a metaphor that doesn't work for replacement theory, really. Sure, I see the flaw in it as logic, but arguing from metaphors is always flawed.

I suppose the best answer really is that with replacement theory you're replacing the entire building at once and exploring it floor by floor.

I also hope that my questions are not annoying in any way and if they are then I would like to apologize.

What is annoying, really, is that I've been answering this post for probably most of an hour, and should have been out of here half an hour ago to pick up my wife, who is going to be very unhappy that I still have over an hour of posts to do for the games. There's really nothing you can do about that but post shorter posts--and I've already stated that your suggestions that I answer only part of your post is not an acceptable solution from my perspective. Either I answer all of every post addressed to me, or I ignore it all, and I only do the latter if I'm completely persuaded that it is a troll post and I can afford to insult this particular troll.

--M. J. Young

There's really nothing you can do about that but post shorter posts--and I've already stated that your suggestions that I answer only part of your post is not an acceptable solution from my perspective.

Here lies the problem. Your answer creates questions so the longer your answer, the more questions I have. If you think that you must answer all of the post but I can only read the post then ask only a part of it then what does that imply?
If the answer would breed more questions and the question would breed more answers, we probably get into an infinity loop. There are several solutions for that problem.
1) Give an answer which would satisfy parties involved.
2) Ignore the questions.
3) Ignore the answers.
The above is not the only solutions available of course. Solution 2 is not an acceptable solution so you ask me to do Solution 3. I would have prefer you would do Solution 1 rather than make me do Solution 3 but if you insist on it then I probably just have to wonder aloud after "*****". After "*****", if you still answer it then you have answered the things that you could have left unanswered because it is not addressed to you specifically.

*****

Here is an experiment to see if this method works.

That has no impact on whether the events within the anomaly are real to those within the anomaly.

I wonder if this has any impact on the replacement theory itself because for the replacement theory to work, it have to cause the future instantly thus if there is a conflicting time, the time after the time of arrival would not exist as well.

That is, the history of the infinity loop looks blurred from this perspective because two different sets of events are happening at once, but the history beyond the infinity loop is blank because no events ever happen. The causal chain is diverted to the past, and the future is never caused.

I wonder if the loop of this causal chain could continue on to the future independently from each other because the future happen instantly after the time traveler goes back to the past as long as the time traveler does not reach point B/D. This would probably create a probable future of both AB and CD time line in which at the AB time line the time traveler just ceased to exist and at CD time line the time traveler lives on.

Skills are not rerolled when they are simply repeated because the character is unwittingly repeating time.

The character might repeat the time but the one who actually makes the prayer comes true might not be constrained by time. If this is the case, I wonder if the prayer have to be re-rolled because the situation for the prayer have changed.

Also, it is not the time machine that does it, per se, but rather what we might call a hiccough in time or a bug in the system. In The Perpetual Barbecue it happens because the verser was not anywhere in that universe at that time but is in that universe now and so has to be somewhere in the next minute, which is in the past; thus he doesn't get relocated to his starting point at point A for the CD timeline, because he had no such starting point, and instead starts wherever he was at point B; and he doesn't get bounced to his starting point at point C from D because at A he was not in that universe and we're reverting to a variant of AB.

I also wonder if time could stabilize if the verser as a time traveler takes thing from other time line then show it to the original time traveler of AB time line variant. I wonder if this will cause an infinity loop even if the original time traveler of AB time line variant would stop the time travel event.

I suppose the best answer really is that with replacement theory you're replacing the entire building at once and exploring it floor by floor.

I wonder if replacing the entire building (or the entire upper floor) just by exploring it from lower floor would sound less absurd than renovating the building as the exploring goes from lower floor to upper floor. I am sure there would be an analogy which replacement theory would sound less absurd than fluid time theory but I wonder what that analogy is. If there is no such analogy then I would find it hard to believe that fluid time theory is absurd when replacement theory is not considered as absurd.

I wonder if anyone would reply if I wonder aloud about things and not addressed it to anyone specific.

Those are all interesting thoughts. I think, though, that the starting point for understanding replacement theory (as well as fixed time theory) is that it assumes that there is nothing and no one outside the spatial-temporal dimensions of a single universe, and therefore questions concerning how those outside observers would perceive anomalies are not addressed, there being no such relevant persons.

To caveat that, I certainly believe that there are such persons outside the spatial-temporal dimensions of this universe. What I do not believe is that we can of a certainty know that they will take action to prevent or undo a time-destructive anomaly. Put in a more colloquial form, maybe God would forbid such a disaster, but it is better to assume that He expects us to act responsibly enough to avoid it than to rely on Him to save us from our own mistakes. (And John, if you're reading this thread, you might take that into account in connection with your planned prayer. Be careful how you word it, and be extra careful how you handle the situation once you've prayed it.) We don't know whether the credit for ending the Cold War without a catastrophic nuclear one should go more to God or Ronald Wilson Reagan, but we can be pretty sure on the one hand that if someone had "pushed the button" there would have been a war, and that if God prevented the war He didn't do it by disabling the buttons but by working through the people. In something of the same way, it is my hope that any experiments in time travel will recognize the potential disasters predicted by replacement theory and proceed with due caution. God might prevent a disaster--He does seem to have plans for the world--but He does let us suffer the consequences of our actions frequently.

So as far as I am concerned, all questions about replacement theory are only relevant as long as they are limited to person, objects, and actions entirely contained within a single temporal dimension. So-called "outsiders" are either also trapped within the same temporal dimension and thus trapped in the same anomalies, or are divorced from that temporal dimension and consequently isolated from the anomalies and thus "wild cards" whose influence depends on factors completely outside the time travel theories (such as the relationships between multiple temporal dimensions, temporal and atemporal dimensions, and dimensions with different forms of temporality).

So I'm not going to worry too much about the involvement of outsiders. To become involved, they have to become insiders, and then I can wrestle with what happens to them and with them within the anomaly.

--M. J. Young

I think, though, that the starting point for understanding replacement theory (as well as fixed time theory) is that it assumes that there is nothing and no one outside the spatial-temporal dimensions of a single universe, and therefore questions concerning how those outside observers would perceive anomalies are not addressed, there being no such relevant persons.

In fixed time theory there is no infinity loop or sawtooth snaps which makes the future as what it is. A time travel event would actually mean that at the point of departure the time traveler will vanish and at the time of arrival the time traveler would appear. If the time traveler wannabe does not appear in the past in the first place then the time traveler wannabe would not be able to go back into the past.

In replacement theory, the original time line would just see the time traveler vanish after the time traveler attempt such a feat. In this original time line where the future happen instantly, the future continue onwards but without the presence of the time traveler. In the next time line, the time traveler arrive which would again change all of the future instantly but this time there are temporal duplicates within it. Let say that the time traveler wants to prevents past self from traveling to the past. Here the future happens instantly yet again so in the future at point D, the time traveler have succeeded in preventing past self from going back to the past and living together with past self after point D. Time should go back to the original state but the time traveler have not done anything yet to prevent past self from going back to the past. This raises the question whether the time traveler succeeds going to the past in the first place and would make the time traveler just vanish at the point of departure and would not reappear in the past. This is one of the solution that I think of that would solve the anomaly of infinity loop in replacement theory.
An infinity loop that is caused by trying to do the opposite things that have happen in the past would be harder to solve because the time travel event still happen although the reason have changed. The time line would probably look blurred and the time traveler will be seen doing two opposite things.

So as far as I am concerned, all questions about replacement theory are only relevant as long as they are limited to person, objects, and actions entirely contained within a single temporal dimension.

I wonder if this mean that it only works to verser if the verser arrive before or at point A/C but not will not work on the verser after the verser arrive after point A/C.
That reminds me of John because he arrives after point A1/C1 and A2/C2 so probably replacement theory would make some exceptions for him if he get caught in an infinity loop of those two anomalies. If he created a new anomaly which happen after his arrival to that world then probably he will get caught into infinity loop just like everyone else. I wonder if he will get caught into an infinity loop if John targets the time before his conception then prevents his own birth. This is because John arrive in that world in the middle of the anomaly which would probably give him an exception if something goes wrong.

In replacement theory, the original time line would just see the time traveler vanish after the time traveler attempt such a feat. In this original time line where the future happen instantly, the future continue onwards but without the presence of the time traveler.

You are describing multiple dimension theory. In fact, I would say that the defining factor of replacement theory is that once the time traveler departs he erases all history from the moment of his arrival, and there is no future beyond his point of departure.

If there is such a history, that means that the time traveler has created a new dimension, and by definition that's multiple dimension theory.

I am not saying that you couldn't have something work that way. I'm saying that in my opinion that is not time travel but dimension travel, and even apart from my opinion it is not "replacement theory" because it did not replace the history of the world from which the time traveler departed, which is the critical aspect of the theory.

So feel free to believe that time travel works the way you describe, but please do not call it replacement theory because it clearly is not (history was not replaced), and accept that I do not regard it as time travel (because the traveler did not arrive in the past of the world from which he departed).

--M. J. Young

I would say that the defining factor of replacement theory is that once the time traveler departs he erases all history from the moment of his arrival, and there is no future beyond his point of departure.

Indeed, but the future happen instantly even before the time traveler decide to travel back to the past. If this is the case, there must exist a metaphysical or a "probable" future. I am not saying that a "real" future beyond point D have existed but merely saying that there exist a metaphysical future after point D because you said that the future happen instantly.

please do not call it replacement theory because it clearly is not (history was not replaced), and accept that I do not regard it as time travel (because the traveler did not arrive in the past of the world from which he departed).

The history is replaced of course and this happen instantly if there exist an observer that could observe the time line in that universe. The traveler did arrive for an instant in the past but when he arrived in the past, the future instantly happen which in the end the time traveler manage to prevent self from traveling back to the past even if the time traveler self have not acted to prevent self yet.
If the whole building that will replace the old one will be replaced with the original instantly because of the existence of the time traveler on the lower floor, then in actuality the time traveler would not be able to explore it floor by floor just because this new replaced building will be replaced by the original one instantly even before the time traveler try to change anything. If that is not how it works then please enlighten me on how it works.

Indeed, but the future happen instantly even before the time traveler decide to travel back to the past. If this is the case, there must exist a metaphysical or a "probable" future. I am not saying that a "real" future beyond point D have existed but merely saying that there exist a metaphysical future after point D because you said that the future happen instantly.

There seem to be two concepts confused as one here.

1. There certainly is a "probable" future, of the sort that is essential in Minority Report, which a psionicist can "see" in the same way that a computer model can "create" it: extrapolate from all knowable events in the present to the possible future. Maud dib's Know Futures ability is this on steroids (er, that's an American idiom that means something made a lot bigger or stronger than natural): he can see all the possible futures that would arise based on his present choices, and so choose the future he wants. But none of those futures ever existed, and only one of them ever will exist--the psionicist is not seeing the future that will be, but the future that probably will be if nothing interferes with the progress of events leading to it. That incidentally means that if the time travel event is a predictable future event, the psionic precognitive would perceive that at a specific moment in the future someone is going to travel to the past, and that this will undo everything in the present history and begin a new history from that moment in the past; if for some reason the time travel event is not predictable (e.g., it is a quantum accident of a unique sort, not the consequence of causal chains from the present moment) then the precognitive would see a future that will never exist in any way at all except in the fictional story he predicts.
2. There is a real future that is created instantly at the moment of the time travel event. That real future is the result of all the changes in the causal chain occurring instantly. The Spreadsheet Illustration is supposed to show that, but people who are particularly savvy at computers (such as Mr. Koshkin) miss it because they think of it as a computer calculation and not a reality. The point was made in my response to him that what matters is the reality of the math, not the calculation. The illustration there says that we start with 5 apples, 8 bananas, and 3 cantalopes, which is 5+8+3=16 pieces of fruit. Then we eliminate two bananas, and we have 5+6+3=14 pieces of fruit, and we have that immediately, before we know that we have it, before we go through and take inventory. Doing the math tells us what the reality is; it doesn't create the reality. In the same way, living through events from the past to the future tells us what the reality is; it doesn't create the reality. That means that at the instant the time traveler arrives in the past, everything he will change has already been changed, including the fact that he will or will not depart from the future. Thus all of that real future history is created as far into the future as it can be supported, and in fact just as instantly it is all undone as the next bit of the equation undoes it. It is in one sense exactly like dividing by zero: you instantly have an infinity answer. You don't really say it goes once, and again, and again, and again, that's four, then five, then six, and it isn't really that the answer was at any point six; the answer was always infinity, because from the instant you divided that way the reality was infinity even though the calculation would lock up the processor until it hit overflow. It's a bit like a buzzer. I love buzzers. A buzzer is a spring switch which when closed activates an electromagnet that opens the switch, shutting off the electromagnet and allowing the spring to close the switch. The result is that the switch opens and closes as fast as it is physically able to do so, each state (open and closed) causing the other. If you were accurately to predict the future of the switch, you would perceive that it was going to change to the opposite state. If you were able accurately to predict the future inside an infinity loop or sawtooth snap, you would perceive that history was going to revert to a point in the past.

If the whole building that will replace the old one will be replaced with the original instantly because of the existence of the time traveler on the lower floor, then in actuality the time traveler would not be able to explore it floor by floor just because this new replaced building will be replaced by the original one instantly even before the time traveler try to change anything. If that is not how it works then please enlighten me on how it works.

We'll go back to the spreadsheet illustration for this, I think. The building metaphor doesn't work here.

If you have a string of connected cells, that is, each has an equation dependent on the last, and the first is value A1 and the last is value Z20, then the instant you change the value of A1, the value of Z20 changes.

• It may take time for the computer to make all the calculations to reach the value at Z20, but in the mathematical reality of it, that value changed instantly.
• Even though the value at Z20 changes instantly, it does so at the end of a chain of changes of all intervening values.

If we could think as fast as the computer, we should be able to observe the changes step-by-step through all the intervening equations. The computer perceives it that way. This is a compromise in the metaphor, though. In the reality, all of those values changed instantly, and yet they changed in sequence.

In the reality of time, all of the events in the future causal chain changed instantly, and yet they also changed in sequence.

If we were able to skip around in time without further changing it, we could go to any moment and see what the events at that moment were/are/will be, because they have changed instantly. In one sense they exist in static form, because as long as we are on that timeline all points on that timeline exist up until the end of time. (An anomaly creates the end of time for at least one history of the universe.) The way we normally visit all of these points in the future is by traveling along them at the rate of time. That is, we move along the temporal dimension at a fixed rate, as if moving through an amusement park ride in a boat or cart that travels at a fixed rate past fixed exhibits. We visit each change and observe it individually and move to the next.

I hope this helps.

--M. J. Young

Warning: Long post, proceed at your own risk...
The questions are in "I wonder" form so answering it would be optional.

then the precognitive would see a future that will never exist in any way at all except in the fictional story he predicts.

If for example a precognitive before point A/C looks into the future, I wonder if the precognitive will be able to see two different future after point A/C.
If CD time line stabilizes, I wonder if the precognitive would still be able to see AB time line even if it will become "undone" and will cease to exist in the future or will the precognitive be able to see AB time line first before able to see CD time line and the future after CD time line.
If the above is the case, I wonder if time line actually be structured from AB then CD which there exist a time bridge that bridge point A to C and time AB becomes a river or something which could not be crossed again.

*****

but people who are particularly savvy at computers (such as Mr. Koshkin) miss it because they think of it as a computer calculation and not a reality.

Which is probably why I miss it too.

The illustration there says that we start with 5 apples, 8 bananas, and 3 cantalopes, which is 5+8+3=16 pieces of fruit. Then we eliminate two bananas, and we have 5+6+3=14 pieces of fruit, and we have that immediately, before we know that we have it, before we go through and take inventory. Doing the math tells us what the reality is; it doesn't create the reality.

I have read that too but I wonder how to simulate infinity loop using this.

It is in one sense exactly like dividing by zero: you instantly have an infinity answer. You don't really say it goes once, and again, and again, and again, that's four, then five, then six, and it isn't really that the answer was at any point six; the answer was always infinity, because from the instant you divided that way the reality was infinity even though the calculation would lock up the processor until it hit overflow.

1/0=infinity
-1/0=-infinity
0/0=NaN (this is what I think you meant when you mention it having different values)
If the programmer programs exception then the processor would not lock up but I know what you meant.

If you were accurately to predict the future of the switch, you would perceive that it was going to change to the opposite state.

Yes, but the changes does not happen instantly. That is what is simulated by fluid time theory. If the future happen instantly the buzzer would not work.

If you were able accurately to predict the future inside an infinity loop or sawtooth snap, you would perceive that history was going to revert to a point in the past.

If the precognitive have 100% accuracy, the precognitive probably would not be able to change anything that have been predicted.
I wonder if all time travel event makes the loop to the past or does this only apply to non-stabilized time travel.
I wonder if the precognitive know that time would continue onwards after a stabilized time if the precognitive can see after point D.
If this is the case, I wonder if someone who have the power to look to the past see the "undone" history as well.

If the precognitive have the ability to know probable future depending on what action that the precognitive takes such as the "Know Futures" ability of Muad'Dib (which is an Arabic word for "educator") or Paul Atreides, the precognitive would be able to choose which future that the precognitive wants.

*****

If we could think as fast as the computer, we should be able to observe the changes step-by-step through all the intervening equations. The computer perceives it that way. This is a compromise in the metaphor, though. In the reality, all of those values changed instantly, and yet they changed in sequence.

They changed in sequence is what is simulated by fluid time theory.
I am still confused on the notion of changing instantly but still in sequence. If the change happen instantly, it would not be in sequence and if it happen in sequence it would not change instantly. A quantum supercomputer (or a more advanced computer) could probably process what happens at Z20 instantly without going through the intermediate value. This result are calculated simultaneously with the other values which would mean that this process is not calculated in sequence. This would mean that all the values change simultaneously but the computer have not re-evaluate the function that changes A1 from Z20 yet. Here you could see that Z21 could have a value too because the function that changes A1 from Z20 have not been re-evaluated yet. The next sequence would be to re-evaluate the changes in A1 and this will change the value simultaneously again. As you can see, there is nothing preventing Z21 or over to have values depending on Z20 because it is evaluated instantly. Even if it happen in sequence, Z21 still could have a value if it depends on unstable Z20. This would only mean that Z21 itself have an unstable value not that it will not exist. So I think this also could not simulate replacement theory well.

I think the thing that could simulate replacement theory would be the use of programming language but I could be wrong. To simulate replacement theory so that a future could continue from a stable past, the evaluation would have to done at point B/D to check whether the time line which exist a time traveler (when the time travel event is initiated) is the same as the current time line. If it is not the same then time would be re-evaluated from point A/C. This however would need the value of previous or next time line for comparison. I think the point that would be needed to be compared is the point of arrival. If the next value at point of arrival is the same as the value of current point of arrival then time can continue forward. The evaluation process would simulate "now" for the time traveler so if the time traveler tries to go to the future, the intermediate values would not show the existence of the time traveler but will add the time traveler when the time traveler reappears. If infinity loop happens then after point D would not be evaluated because the program will re-evaluate the value of the past thus there exist no future after point D.

If we were able to skip around in time without further changing it, we could go to any moment and see what the events at that moment were/are/will be, because they have changed instantly.

I think in replacement theory, the time traveler could not skip the time faster than the rate of change of the time traveler which is why if the time traveler skips to the future, the rate of change will follow the time traveler. This is because the intermediate values are re-evaluated sequentially towards the future which is why the time traveler could only reappear when the time of arrival is re-evaluated.

If the re-evaluation of the intermediate value is skipped, then probably the time traveler would arrive in the old past (or barren universe) but replacement theory probably forbids such a function because the time traveler cannot outrun causality although fluid time theory did accommodate such function. I think this is what you find absurd about fluid time theory although to me the causality of the time traveler is preserved because time traveler could go back into the past in the first place which means that the time traveler already outrun the causality that causes self to be in the past so it is only natural that the time traveler can outrun the causality when going to the future.

That is, we move along the temporal dimension at a fixed rate, as if moving through an amusement park ride in a boat or cart that travels at a fixed rate past fixed exhibits. We visit each change and observe it individually and move to the next.

This is described in fluid time theory. This also describe that the time of others still move forward even if the time traveler visits different exhibit. That is unless there are only one boat that must shared with others in the amusement park which would make it a private amusement park which makes only "now" that is viewed by the time traveler to exist. That also raises the question of how the action of the time traveler would change all the future exhibit instantly but I think this could be resolved if the future exhibit is changed bit by bit before the time traveler arrive at that exhibit. That would give the illusion that the future changed instantly although it actually change bit by bit.

I hope this helps.

Thank you, I hope my post also help you to understand more about fluid time theory.

If for example a precognitive before point A/C looks into the future, I wonder if the precognitive will be able to see two different future after point A/C.

This one took me a minute, but the answer is no, a psionic precognitive would not see time that way looking forward. He would see it more the way it would be created.

The reasoning for that is that from one minute before point A/C, the arrival of the time traveler at C cannot be predicted based on the form of the world one minute before it; therefore, the most probable future (remember, psionic precognition deals with probable futures, not information time traveling from the future) would be the one that is derived solely from events in existence before that instant, which will lead to point A. He will thus see the AB future.

The further into the future a precognitive looks, the less reliable his conclusions will be--a greater margin of error for the temporal distance. However, if he foresees the departure of the time traveler, he might then be able to foresee that the history he foresaw would be undone and replaced by the new history. I think, too, that the time travel event itself would create a major penalty against accurate prediction, as it is such a complete disruption in the ordinary causal chain.

If you're thinking in terms of magical prophecy, that's entirely different, but tends to be spotty in what it reveals of the future so you can't construct future timelines from it.

I have read that too but I wonder how to simulate infinity loop using this.

Illustrations illustrate what they illustrate, not everything else in the world. The point of this illustration is that the values change instantly, even though the knowledge of the values is gained over time.

0/0=NaN (this is what I think you meant when you mention it having different values)
If the programmer programs exception then the processor would not lock up but I know what you meant.

Now you're confusing math with computer processing. 0/0 equals infinity even if the programmers tell the program to ignore that result. After all, if you take 0 from 0, you can take 0 from 0 again, and you can do so an infinite number of times before you can't take 0 from 0.

If you were accurately to predict the future of the switch, you would perceive that it was going to change to the opposite state.

Yes, but the changes does not happen instantly. That is what is simulated by fluid time theory. If the future happen instantly the buzzer would not work.

Again you are confusing what an illustration demonstrates with the reality. The buzzer only shows that each state causes the other and so its position is never stable.

If the precognitive have 100% accuracy, the precognitive probably would not be able to change anything that have been predicted.

Psionic precognition by definition foretells the probable future, not the actual future. That makes it possible to change the future by changing acts in the present. The only thing the psionicist can learn is what is most likely to happen in the future given the state in the present before he learns this; once he knows it, that is a new factor that can change the future such that the most likely future has been altered. Call it an application of Heisenberg to time: perceiving the state of the future alters it.

I wonder if someone who have the power to look to the past see the "undone" history as well.

I think that someone with retrocognition could not look into the other history. He could see that a traveler arrived at a particular point in the past, but not where that traveler originated. Retrocognition is different in kind from precognition: it perceives information stored in places, people, and objects of what happened in the past. The arrival of someone in the future would be something which happened in the past, but that person's departure from the future would not exist in any present object save the person himself, so you would have to read him to find his past, and would be limited to the past related to him.

If the precognitive have the ability to know probable future depending on what action that the precognitive takes such as the "Know Futures" ability of Muad'Dib (which is an Arabic word for "educator") or Paul Atreides, the precognitive would be able to choose which future that the precognitive wants.

That is what Paul "Maud'Dib" Atriedes does, so that's pretty evident.

They changed in sequence is what is simulated by fluid time theory.
I am still confused on the notion of changing instantly but still in sequence. If the change happen instantly, it would not be in sequence and if it happen in sequence it would not change instantly.

Yeah, it's a little like trying to explain aspects of the trinity. How can the Son proceed from the Father and yet be co-eternal? C. S. Lewis illustrated that nicely by describing the act of placing two books on a desk, one atop the other, but putting them there together. The position of the top book is caused by the position of the bottom book, but the bottom book was not there first.

Here we are already talking about a concept that disrupts all ordinary conceptions of time. We are allowing that an action in the future can have an effect in the past, entirely contrary to the normal order of things.

Ever use Google Maps or Yahoo!Maps to get a route to some place? When you do, it gives you a map with a colored line marking the route. You can click the line at any point and drag it to a different road on the map, and as quickly as the computer can process it, the entire route will reform to incorporate that shift, the distance and estimated route time will be recalculated, and the step-by-step directions will be rewritten. Now, probably the computer does the step-by-step directions and the time and distance measurements by "following" the newly displayed route; but the route itself probably forms around the point of change, and so all the connections are worked from the middle out. The sequence in which they are determined is not so essential as the observation that they are not determined in the sequence in which they will be traveled. We can in a sense imagine that they are all put into place "immediately", in zero time. Every mile of the journey might have been redone--for example, if I wanted a route that would take me from Carneys Point, New Jersey to the New Jersey State Aquarium in Camden, it would probably give me a route that began by getting on the New Jersey Turnpike, hopping off on the Black Horse Pike, and cutting across downtown Camden to the waterfront area. If I grab that line and pull it across the Delaware River, it will probably reroute me onto U.S. 130N to US322 across the Commodore Barry Bridge onto 95N into Philadelphia, across the Walt Whitman Bridge to the Camden Waterfront, with not much more than my own driveway and the Aquarium parking lot in common. Every mile of the map changes "instantly". But the computer then has to "drive" the route point by point to get the total distance and estimated time.

Changing time is like dragging the line to the new route. The line moves instantly, but has to be recalculated sequentially.

None of these metaphors are perfect, because time is unlike everything to which we compare it. Yet you can change ever mile, or every minute, of the road in an instant, and still have each mile, or minute, dependent on the one before it. That dependency is the causal chain.

A quantum supercomputer (or a more advanced computer) could probably process what happens at Z20 instantly without going through the intermediate value. This result are calculated simultaneously with the other values which would mean that this process is not calculated in sequence.

One of us doesn't understand the problem. Let's try it again.

A1=0
A2=A1+1
A3=A2+1
A4=A3+1
B1=A4+1

We know that B1=4. B1=4 because A4=3, and that's true because A3=2, A2=1, based on the fact that A1=0. But if we change A1 so that A1=4, then immediately, instantly, as in "before we calculate it", B1=8. It equals 8 because A4=7, which is true because A3=6, because A2=5.

Thus the value of B1 is dependent on the value of A4, which is dependent on the value of A3, which is dependent on the value--O.K., you've got that part. It also means that the value of B1 is dependent on the value of A1, and that the value of B1 changes instantly (timelessly) with the value of A1. We're not talking about how the computer calculates it; we're talking about the mathematical reality (which is the point of the fruit illustration), that the value of B1 changes when the value of A1 changes, however long it takes the computer to calculate it. But even though the value of B1 changes because the value of A1 changes, quite literally and essentially the value of B1 changes because the value of A4 changes, and the value of B1 cannot be known even by the supercomputer until the value of A4 is known. Even removing that aspect of it being "known" and involving time, the fact is that the value of B1 is dependent directly on the value of A4, and it cannot exist without that value existing. Thus in absolutely zero time, the values of A2, A3, A4, and B1 have changed in sequence. Speaking sequentially, the value of B1 cannot change until after the value of A4 has changed, because it is dependent on A4. Speaking temporally, all of them change instantly. The chain of causality is the reverse concept of the change of dependency; everything on which an event is dependent must be altered for the event to be altered. The complication you're having is in imagining that something can be dependent in a way that puts it after something else in sequence without coming later in time. I don't have that problem conceptually. I can fully understand how B can be dependent upon A without A preceding B in a temporal sense. If you can grasp that, it will resolve your difficulty here.

I think the thing that could simulate replacement theory would be the use of programming language but I could be wrong.

What you describe in this paragraph sounds pretty close.

Don't push the amusement park ride metaphor. The only thing it shows is the notion that the events of time exist before we reach them.

--M. J. Young

If you're thinking in terms of magical prophecy, that's entirely different, but tends to be spotty in what it reveals of the future so you can't construct future timelines from it.

I wonder what the caster see from the prophecy after point A/C.

0/0 equals infinity even if the programmers tell the program to ignore that result. After all, if you take 0 from 0, you can take 0 from 0 again, and you can do so an infinite number of times before you can't take 0 from 0.

0/0 could also equal to any real number that you like. This is because any real number multiplied by 0 is 0.

Call it an application of Heisenberg to time: perceiving the state of the future alters it.

Which is why a 100% accuracy prediction cannot alter anything in the future because the precognitive already predict that the prediction happen and the future will be look into so this will also predict the action that the precognitive will take even after knowing the future.

"Know Futures" ability would be different because the precognitive could choose a stable future from the action that the precognitive would take.

The position of the top book is caused by the position of the bottom book, but the bottom book was not there first.

This would work for fixed time theory but would not work so well with replacement theory. This analogy is similar to building analogy with some differences. In book stacking analogy, the lower book have the story that will be continued by the upper book. Let say that the time traveler prevents the travel back to the past, the story from the upper most book does not match the story from the lower book. This will make this stack invalid in the first place and it should not replace the original one.
This would also make any infinity loop or sawtooth snap book to be invalid and could not replace the original time line.

We are allowing that an action in the future can have an effect in the past, entirely contrary to the normal order of things.

Yes, but any action that can cause infinity loop or sawtooth snap would make the replacing time line to be invalid according to the book stacking analogy although it could work with the programming language analogy.

Changing time is like dragging the line to the new route. The line moves instantly, but has to be recalculated sequentially.

That is a good analogy for N-jump termination. For sawtooth snap or infinity loop, the destination back to point of origin might have to be added but this will show that the other routes have to be taken and these routes would not replace the original route but will only add to existing routes.

I can fully understand how B can be dependent upon A without A preceding B in a temporal sense. If you can grasp that, it will resolve your difficulty here.

I probably understand how feedback loop mechanism works (such as thermostat) but this mechanism does not work instantly. If the system works instantly then the system could not change anything that would affect the input or the output. This would mean that if the future happen instantly, infinity loop or sawtooth snap could not happen.

I wonder what the caster see from the prophecy after point A/C.

I'd say the reason you're wondering is because in magical prophecy, the prophet does not see histories in a controlled fashion of the future. He gets cryptic phrases, metaphoric images--he sees a beast with ten horns, and believes that the beast is a nation or an organization of some sort, and the horns are men who will lead it, either together or individually. He sees a statue made of different materials, and understands that the statue is all the empires in history, the materials displaying how they change. He receives the word that someone is going to die in the next three days, but not who, nor where, nor how; or that only one will leave alive, but again not which one.

And whatever he sees or hears must happen in such a way that the words are true, even if they are true in some way that he never anticipated.

A magical prophecy does not see history unfold as a movie; it sees critical moments in metaphor and imagery. Magic is, after all, closely associated with imagination.

Thus the question in connection with magical prophecy is irrelevant.

0/0 could also equal to any real number that you like. This is because any real number multiplied by 0 is 0.

Which means only that we have pushed the metaphor beyond its utility, as you so often do with metaphors.

Which is why a 100% accuracy prediction cannot alter anything in the future because the precognitive already predict that the prediction happen and the future will be look into so this will also predict the action that the precognitive will take even after knowing the future.

In that case, I would say that what you are calling a 100% accuracy prediction in psionics is not possible.

If it were possible, in play it would require the highest level of referee fiat. You would roll the dice to see what was going to happen, and the referee would decide what was going to happen and tell you, and then he would tell you that it has now all happened exactly as he said, what do you want to do next? Because really, if what the referee says is going to happen is completely unalterable and your character absolutely will do exactly what he says he will do, you don't really get a say in what happens but simply wind up at the other end. I don't think it's a skill you would use more than once or twice, and if I were the referee you would probably regret having used it at all.

Of the Google Maps rerouting trick, you wrote

That is a good analogy for N-jump termination. For sawtooth snap or infinity loop, the destination back to point of origin might have to be added but this will show that the other routes have to be taken and these routes would not replace the original route but will only add to existing routes.

Again you are pushing the metaphor beyond what it is intended to show. It is only intended to show that the change can occur instantly and still be sequential in its nature. It has nothing to do with the infinity loop or sawtooth snap, and in fact nothing to do with the N-jump, other than that it illustrates the concept of instant change with sequential connections.

I probably understand how feedback loop mechanism works (such as thermostat) but this mechanism does not work instantly.

That's because everything you can imagine for an example works within time, and here we are manipulating time itself. For your notion to work, time must function within time, but that means it functions within itself. You need to lose the concept that time is necessary for sequence to be valid. If you are working with time, then if A happens before B, then time must elapse between A and B; but if you are looking at a road and you say that the left curve is before the speed bump, that does not mean that the left curve exists first and the speed bump exists later; it means that both are there in a timeless sense, but that a traveler along the road in a specific direction comes to one first and then the other.

I had a technician and bass guitarist in my band in high school, Andrew Hagin Nilssen (and if anyone knows where he is, point him my direction, please). He use to say that it was easy to find his house because it was the first white house on the street. It was a joke: nearly all the houses on the street were white, and his was in the middle of them. What he knew that you could not observe was that at one time none of the houses were white except his, and so if you could view the history of that street you would see that his house was the first to be white.

What you need to see is that in an atemporal context cause and effect can occur absent time between cause and effect. That's what the book analogy shows: that the cause need not occur before the effect. The math analogy shows it as well: the number of pieces of fruit changes the instant the number of bananas changes; it's only the tabulation that takes time.

If causal sequence does not require temporal sequence, then everything can change simultaneously and be experienced temporally.

--M. J. Young

I think I understand replacement theory if N-jump termination happens but I am still confused about infinity loop and sawtooth snap. This is because the causal sequence that is changed simultaneously contains invalid change which would make that change to be undone or redone differently. A lot of the metaphor used makes sense if it is used for N-jump termination but probably would not work too well with infinity loop or sawtooth snap. What I really need is something that could simulate simultaneous change of infinity loop or sawtooth snap to complete the puzzle.

I'm not really clear why what works for the N-jump doesn't work for the other anomalies; it seems to me to be the same notion.

O.K., let's try it.

With the N-jump, the sequence is something like this:

• Point A passes unnoticed because nothing unusual happens there.
• Point B marks the departure of the time traveler, bound for point A but actually arriving at point C.
• Because the time traveler left from point B and his departure changes the world, the history from A to B no longer exists. It has been replaced by the history from C to D. Therefore, one minute after B does not exist because it can't be based on the history that has been undone.
• The traveler arriving at point C makes changes to the universe which are played out in time, but somehow does not impact his duplicate self in any way, nor in any way change anything related to his trip to the past. Thus at point D the exact same person (the duplicate) leaves for point C, and since he is exactly the same person he replaces his duplicate self at point C, doing exactly what the previous version of him did and confirming the CD history.
• Time continues because one minute after D can be based on the CD history of the world.

Now let's try a sawtooth snap with an N-jump termination:

• Point A passes unnoticed because nothing unusual happens there.
• Point B marks the departure of the time traveler, bound for point A but actually arriving at point C.
• Because the time traveler left from point B and his departure changes the world, the history from A to B no longer exists. It has been replaced by the history from C to D. Therefore, one minute after B does not exist because it can't be based on the history that has been undone.
• The traveler arriving at point C makes changes to the universe which are played out in time, but this time he does impact himself in some way so that the version of him that leaves from point D is slightly different. This version of himself, then, arrives at point E, initiating the EF timeline. As it was with one minute after B, there now cannot be a one minute after D.
• This time, the time traveler who arrives at E does something similar enough to what the time traveler who arrived at C did that the time traveler departing from F is the same as the D time traveler--different from the B time traveler in exactly the same ways. Thus the F time traveler confirms the D time traveler's actions, and the EF history is confirmed. One minute after F is possible.

Ah, but let's make it a sawtooth snap that does not end but continues as a sawtooth snap:

• Point A passes unnoticed because nothing unusual happens there.
• Point B marks the departure of the time traveler, bound for point A but actually arriving at point C.
• Because the time traveler left from point B and his departure changes the world, the history from A to B no longer exists. It has been replaced by the history from C to D. Therefore, one minute after B does not exist because it can't be based on the history that has been undone.
• The traveler arriving at point C makes changes to the universe which are played out in time, but this time he does impact himself in some way so that the version of him that leaves from point D is slightly different. This version of himself, then, arrives at point E, initiating the EF timeline. As it was with one minute after B, there now cannot be a one minute after D.
• This time, the time traveler who arrives at E does something different enough to what the time traveler who arrived at C did that the time traveler departing from F is the again different from both the D time traveler and the B time traveler. Thus the F time traveler creates G, and one minute after F is not possible.
• As long as the arriving time traveler has a slightly different impact on the departing time traveler, this bounce will continue, and the next minute will never come.

Now let's turn it back on itself in a cycling causality, a sawtooth snap with an infinity loop termination:

• Point A passes unnoticed because nothing unusual happens there.
• Point B marks the departure of the time traveler, bound for point A but actually arriving at point C.
• Because the time traveler left from point B and his departure changes the world, the history from A to B no longer exists. It has been replaced by the history from C to D. Therefore, one minute after B does not exist because it can't be based on the history that has been undone.
• The traveler arriving at point C makes changes to the universe which are played out in time, but this time he does impact himself in some way so that the version of him that leaves from point D is slightly different. This version of himself, then, arrives at point E, initiating the EF timeline. As it was with one minute after B, there now cannot be a one minute after D.
• This time, the time traveler who arrives at E does something different enough to what the time traveler who arrived at C did that the time traveler departing from F is the again different from both the D time traveler and the B time traveler. Thus the F time traveler creates G, and one minute after F is not possible.
• Somehow the F time traveler prevents the departure of the H time traveler. This means that the GH history is also undone, and one minute after H is not possible. However, the non-appearance of the time traveler at I makes I identical to A, and so restores the AB history, the world in which no one arrived from the future.
• The AB history leads to point B, at which the time traveler leaves for C, and restarts the entire sequence of alterations. One minute later is not possible in any of the timelines.

And then we shorten it to the infinity loop:

• Point A passes unnoticed because nothing unusual happens there.
• Point B marks the departure of the time traveler, bound for point A but actually arriving at point C.
• Because the time traveler left from point B and his departure changes the world, the history from A to B no longer exists. It has been replaced by the history from C to D. Therefore, one minute after B does not exist because it can't be based on the history that has been undone.
• The traveler arriving at point C prevents the time traveler from departing from D, and thus there is no time traveler arriving at point C, which reverts to point A, the AB history, the world in which no one arrived from the future.
• The AB history leads to point B, at which the time traveler leaves for C, recreating the CD timeline which ends without the departure of the time traveler. One minute later is not possible in either of the timelines.

I'm thinking that murky mess should actually clear up some of the confusion, or at least enable you to explain to me why the other anomalies do not work if the N-jump does.

--M. J. Young

The traveler arriving at point C makes changes to the universe which are played out in time, but this time he does impact himself in some way so that the version of him that leaves from point D is slightly different. This version of himself, then, arrives at point E, initiating the EF timeline. As it was with one minute after B, there now cannot be a one minute after D.

Abe 1 that impacts Abe 2 would cease to exist at point D because Abe 2 goes back to the past slightly different. If Abe 1 cease to exist then the change that happen to Abe 2 could not happen either. I wonder if that is right or did I misunderstand something again.

at least enable you to explain to me why the other anomalies do not work

The above is what I think happens to a sawtooth snap even before N-jump termination so that is why I think the N-jump cannot occur after a sawtooth snap if the existence that cause the change to become non-existent.

Abe 1 that impacts Abe 2 would cease to exist at point D because Abe 2 goes back to the past slightly different. If Abe 1 cease to exist then the change that happen to Abe 2 could not happen either. I wonder if that is right or did I misunderstand something again.

That's correct; but Abe 2 changes Abe 3 and then Abe 2 ceases to exist; but if Abe 3 is identical to Abe 2, then when Abe 3 goes back he is indistinguishable from Abe 2 and we have an N-jump. However, if Abe 3 is different from Abe 2, then he'll create the new history, and the question will be whether Abe 4 is different from Abe 3. As soon as two consecutive Abes are the same, time will stabilize into an N-jump (barring some other difference in history); if two non-consecutive Abes are the same, we loop back into a cycling causality/infinity loop.

--M. J. Young

However, if Abe 3 is different from Abe 2, then he'll create the new history, and the question will be whether Abe 4 is different from Abe 3.

If Abe 3 is different from Abe 2 and Abe 2 cease to exist, where does the cause of change from Abe 2 to Abe 3 come from?
Does Abe 3 cause self to happen without the existence of Abe 2 or does Abe 2 exist somewhere that can cause Abe 3 to happen?

Let us compare this situation with the self causing clone example.
If Abe 3 can cause self to happen when Abe 2 cease to exist then why Abe 1-copy cannot exist after Abe 1 cease to exist?

If Abe 3 can cause self to happen when Abe 2 cease to exist then why Abe 1-copy cannot exist after Abe 1 cease to exist?

Abe 2 causes Abe 3 to be different from Abe 2. He does not really cause Abe 3 to exist, except in the sense that he causes the entire world to be altered by his arrival in the past. Abe 3 exists because time is repeating himself. Abe 3 exists as different from Abe 2 because something Abe 2 did impacted Abe 3's existence.

Let's suppose that Abe 2 had chili just before departing, and it gave him indigestion. He writes a note to Abe 3 that says, "Don't eat the chili." Abe 3 isn't quite certain what it means, but he stops for lunch on his way to the time travel lab and there is chili on the menu. He chooses not to eat the chili, and instead has barbecued pork. Then he travels to the past. He feels a bit of an upset that he blames on the time travel itself, and thinks, "I'm glad I didn't eat the chili;" but he remembers that the reason that he didn't eat the chili was that note he got in his own handwriting. He realizes that he must have sent the note to himself, so he decides to send himself the same note. He finds a piece of paper that happens to be the same piece of paper Abe 2 found, and writes "Don't eat the chili," arranging for that note to be delivered to himself in this timeline. His alternate self gets it.

At this point, Abe 3 is different from Abe 2 because he did not eat the chili; but since Abe 2's impact on Abe 3 was limited to that note warning him not to eat the chili, Abe 3 has done everything that Abe 2 did that matters, and his counterpart, whom we might call Abe 4, is going to see chili on the menu, remember the note as he did, choose the pork barbecue instead, and travel to the past and send the same note in his turn. Thus Abe 4 is identical to Abe 3, and Abe 3's actions replace those of Abe 2. In one sense, the Abe of each timeline is a new version who still has to make the same trip to the past and still has to send himself the note that he receives warning him not to eat the chili; but this history is stable, in which everything essential that Abe 2 (or Abe 1) ever did is now done by Abe 3 to the younger version of himself, and so there is only one history of the world and the future can continue.

Abe-1-copy is caused by copying Abe 1, and thus his existence is based on the original existence of Abe 1. Abe 1 has ceased to exist; that's the cause of the existence of Abe-1-copy. The only way for a copy of Abe to exist is for that copy to be a copy of Abe 2; but your scenario says that Abe 2 is never copied. The existence of all the copies in your scenario is dependent on the existence of Abe 1, and no other original Abe has stepped into Abe 1's position to be the origin of the copies. Therefore the copies have an origin that is outside the universe and never replaced.

If you don't have a cause in the history that is, you don't have a cause at all, and therefore you don't have an effect. If a copy of Abe exists, then it must be a copy of an original that exists. If the original has never existed, the copy was never made.

--M. J. Young

If the original has never existed, the copy was never made.

Abe 1 will cause the existence of Abe 1-copy 1.
Abe 1-copy 1 will cause the existence of in Abe 1-copy 2 which is the same as Abe 1 before point of departure. Abe 1-copy from the point of copy is caused by Abe 1 although it is not only Abe 1 that can caused it. Abe 1-copy could also be caused by manipulating the material of that universe so that it will have the same pattern as Abe 1 before point of departure by previous Abe 1-copy version. So in the end, the manipulation of material in that universe is the cause of Abe 1-copy existence.

Similarly, Abe 3 that receive the note from Abe 2 would make Abe 2 to cease to exist because Abe 3 would be different from Abe 2. Here Abe 3 attempts to replicate the information of "Don't eat the chili" which did not exist in the original time line so that Abe 4 will not eat them too.

The chili question:
Did Abe 1 have an upset too because of eating chili and if he did, why did he fail to warn Abe 2 from eating it?
If he did not have the upset from eating chili, what have Abe 1 done to make Abe 2 think of eating chili?
If the cause of Abe 2 eating chili is changed by Abe 1 and Abe 1 would cease to exist, then Abe 2 should not be eating chili in the first place because Abe 2 does not have a reason to eat it thus would not send the note in the first place.

What is the different between the note and Abe 1-copy?
Could Abe 1-copy be an advanced note that automatically sends a copy of itself back in time without the intervention of the Abe from that time line?

The chili question: I should have used Abe 1 and Abe 2, not Abe 2 and Abe 3. I would assume in this circumstance that Abe 1 did not have the chili, but something Abe 1 did caused Abe 2 to have chili, which caused Abe 2 to send the note to Abe 3. It's a lot weaker that way; I should have assumed that Abe 1 had the chili and sent the note to Abe 2.

Here's the thing with the note, as sent from Abe 1 to Abe 2: in the CD history, Abe 1 arrives with indigestion and jots off a note to Abe 2 warning him against the chili. That note was created by Abe 1 in the CD history; at point D it ceases ever to have existed, but when Abe 2 travels to the past he has avoided eating the chili and so arrives at point E, different from point C because he does not have the indigestion Abe 1 had. However, his body is unsettled, and he recognizes that not eating the chili was the right choice, so he sends a note to Abe 3 to that effect. The note is identical, but it is a new note, written by Abe 2 and sent to Abe 3. Abe 3 thus gets the same note that Abe 2 got (for all practical purposes), and avoids the chili, and makes the time trip. Abe 3 is in every way identical to Abe 2, so this is a repeat of the EF timeline in which Abe arrives, is grateful that he did not eat the chili, and sends a note to himself. The note which Abe 3 receives is thus the note which Abe 3 sends; it is a new note, but it is identical. Its origin is entirely within this timeline, created by Abe 3 because he received it and recognized its importance. This is a predestination paradox, something which becomes its own cause, but it is one that works because what passes from future to past is information, conveyed by the time traveler to himself in exactly the same way each time.

The problem with the Abe-1-copy is that it is not information; it is matter, and matter dependent upon a history that no longer exists.

What would work would be if Abe 1 copies himself and sends the copy to the past, with the result that Abe 2 in turn copies himself and sends the copy to the past. The copies have to be replaced by copies that derive from the present history, not dependent upon a previous erased history. If Abe 1 copies himself and sends the copy, Abe-1-copy, to the past, and then Abe-1-copy uses himself to create Abe-1-copy-2, when Abe-1-copy ceases ever to have existed Abe-1-copy-2 ceases ever to have been created, and so must also cease ever to have existed.

--M. J. Young

. That note was created by Abe 1 in the CD history; at point D it ceases ever to have existed, but when Abe 2 travels to the past he has avoided eating the chili and so arrives at point E, different from point C because he does not have the indigestion Abe 1 had. However, his body is unsettled, and he recognizes that not eating the chili was the right choice, so he sends a note to Abe 3 to that effect. The note is identical, but it is a new note, written by Abe 2 and sent to Abe 3.

Consider that the note contains information of Abe 1 pattern before the point of departure. This note is given to Abe 2 which in turn uses that note to send similar note to Abe 3.

The problem with the Abe-1-copy is that it is not information; it is matter, and matter dependent upon a history that no longer exists.

The cloning technology actually just uses Abe 1-copy information to create a copy of Abe 1-copy before the point of departure so in actuality the matter came from the cloning machine but the information came from Abe 1-copy.

If Abe 1 copies himself and sends the copy, Abe-1-copy, to the past, and then Abe-1-copy uses himself to create Abe-1-copy-2, when Abe-1-copy ceases ever to have existed Abe-1-copy-2 ceases ever to have been created, and so must also cease ever to have existed.

If Abe 1 sends a note to his wife in the past (for example Eba) stating what to do, Eba 2 that follows that note will make a copy of that note and then will send back that note to herself. As you can see, by copying the information of the mass which is a piece of paper, Eba have made a self-causing note.

Consider that the note contains information of Abe 1 pattern before the point of departure. This note is given to Abe 2 which in turn uses that note to send similar note to Abe 3.

As I explain in the article Temporal Theory 101: What happens if I become my own grandfather, the grandfather paradox works if what is traveling is information. That's because as long as the traveler departing from the end of the anomaly would know the information and have reason to pass it to the recipient in the past, and in so doing he does not prevent himself from knowing the information, he replaces himself.

The classic example is the transparent aluminum in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Someone invented transparent aluminum in the original history; it does not matter who. Mr. Scott, an engineer, learned the formula for transparent aluminum in school. Traveling to a point in time before it is created, he teaches Dr. Nichols how to do it. Whoever originally invented it might now be cut out of the loop, but it will still be invented, and Mr. Scott will still learn the formula in school and so will still be able to deliver it to Dr. Nichols in the past. The formula now has no actual original discovery, because that original discovery has been erased; but the loop is self-supporting and so time can continue based on that, all causes and effects being contained in the one history.

The difference between "copying" the note and "copying" the clone is that we're not really copying the note. We're drawing information from memory which we would have in memory because it happened to us. The clone is not like the note; if it were, then what would happen is the time traveler would memorize the clone and reproduce the clone from memory using materials in the new history.

--M. J. Young

As I explain in the article Temporal Theory 101: What happens if I become my own grandfather, the grandfather paradox works if what is traveling is information. That's because as long as the traveler departing from the end of the anomaly would know the information and have reason to pass it to the recipient in the past, and in so doing he does not prevent himself from knowing the information, he replaces himself.

The difference between "copying" the note and "copying" the clone is that we're not really copying the note. We're drawing information from memory which we would have in memory because it happened to us. The clone is not like the note; if it were, then what would happen is the time traveler would memorize the clone and reproduce the clone from memory using materials in the new history.

Is this not essentially what is happening in my Stayclone scenario as originally proposed? All of the matter has its source in the CD timeline when all is said and done. The only thing with no origin is the information - the exact patterning of matter and energy to use when creating the travelers.

I'm not certain I'm right about this, which is why I've been staying quiet, but now that I have something succinct to quote, I'm going ahead and asking the question.

Father's DNA is 50% Stranger and 50% Grandmother. He marries Mother, siring to Lyle, 50% Mother, 50% Father--which is 25% Stranger, 25% Grandmother. Lyle then disrupts the meeting between Grandmother and Stranger, fathering Father. Father's DNA is now 62.5% Grandmother, 25% Mother, and 12.5% Stranger. Lyle's becomes 62.5% Mother, 31.25% Grandmother, and only 6.25% Stranger. But Stranger is the only contributer of a Y chromosome here, so as his percentage falls to 3.125% of Father and 1.5625% of Lyle, and then <1% of Father and <0.5% of Lyle, eventually one of them will become a woman, and the chain will break.

Male Stranger (50%) + Grandmother (50%) = Father
Father (25% MS + 25% GM) + Mother (50%) = Lyle
If Lyle = Male Stranger,
Grandmother must have at least 25% genetics of Lyle. If not, then time would not stabilize. This would not be a problem if Lyle actually meets with his own grandmother in the past.
Lyle contribute to his own Y chromosome when time stabilizes while Mother contribute to his X chromosome. In this case, the Y chromosome is included in the 25% genetics which is self causing. The original male stranger also have to have this 25% genetics to cause the existence of Lyle in the original history.

The clone is not like the note; if it were, then what would happen is the time traveler would memorize the clone and reproduce the clone from memory using materials in the new history.

I also think that is the same as what Scott originally proposed.
What is the difference between the note and the clone if both pattern is memorized (or stored) by the time traveler?