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153

If time travel were to exist, which theory would you subscribe to? (lemm.ee)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/asklemmy

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Some ideas are:

You branch off into another timeline and your actions make no difference to the previous timeline
You’ve already taken said actions but just didn’t know about it so nothing changes
Actions taken can have an effect (so you could suddenly erase yourself if you killed your parents)
Only “nexus” or fixed events really matter, the timeline will sort itself out for minor changes
something else entirely

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[–] dual_sport_dork 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

From a narrative sense the "nexus" theory is certainly the most amusing, which is probably why Terry Pratchett posited it works exactly that way on numerous occasions. It turns out that history really is kings and battles and speeches and dates, and in order for history to have actually happened someone has to observe those critical events. The things in between really don't matter. History as a whole further finds a way of happening whether people are involved in it or not, and regardless of -- or possibly despite -- anyone attempting to hinder, help, or change it. The key events will always happen eventually. All anyone can do is slightly influence how long it takes for them to do so, which is why there are so many boring spans in history where it seemed like nothing really happened; That's because it didn't. Possibly until some history monk noticed, and came along to pull out whatever spanner was holding up the works.