Reminds me of Steins;Gate, where every major difference between timelines are their own separate “worldline”. In the show, all reachable worldlines cling to the “divergence barrier”. Basically, by even discovering time travel, you’ll already alert someone else who has a time machine in the future whose sole goal is to kill you. Therefore all worldlines within your reach lead to someone dying. However, if you go back in time and cover your tracks that lead to you being found out in the first place, you can happily remain alive and escape the divergence of worldlines.
this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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HUMAN IS DEAD. MISMATCH.
Mr. Braun was an inside job
I think in terms of reality as can be seen, measured, observed, and inferred from that.
"Timelines" and "parallel dimensions" are not a part of any of that, so no, I don't think of reality as different timelines. Those are (often very entertaining, I'll admit) fictions.
i mean who knows what science will discover and how we could be able to use it.
When (if) science discovers it, then I'll think of multiple timelines. Until then it's an entertaining fiction at best.
I think it's a fun thought. Like, particularly when I'm thinking about past regrets and shit, there's definitely a few key moments where things could've gone differently and my life would be drastically different right now. And I seem to be in the timeline where I made all the worst possible choices at these key moments lol.
But I don't particularly believe in different timelines or dwell on it. For all that I can do in this timeline that I'm in, the only direction that I can go is forwards, not backwards or sideways.
There are multiple timelines of potential futures. They all end up collapsing into a singular "now". Many of the futures have very low probability.
There are a few theories attempting to make sense of time and timelines. I'm a medic, so this is all outside my area of expertise, but something I've been intrigued by nonetheless. The one that's made the most sense to my laymen's level of understanding is the Point Line Plane postulate which basically treats time as a literal spacial dimension.
These videos are more academic than entertaining, so it's a bit dry, but it starts with the familiar first four dimensions (length, width, depth, duration), and builds off of those to postulate all the up to the 10th dimension. After the 4th is when things start getting interesting - different time lines, dimensional folding, etc.
Sounds like it might be your cup of tea:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/JkxieS-6WuA
Part 2: https://youtu.be/ySBaYMESb8o
it starts with the familiar first four dimensions (length, width, depth, duration)
Duration?
It starts with that?
Then it starts with a complete and absolute failure to comprehend even the basics of relativity.
Correct - it's not about relativity. I don't understand the complaint...?
"Duration" isn't one of the "familiar first four dimensions". That's the point.
Disagree - it's one of the dimensions we can actually observe. 5th and higher are less intuitive, but length, width, depth, and duration account for the entirety of our experience.
I suppose I think of it in similar terms as "is this a simulation" - which is to say, yeah, could be, but it's a simulation where I have to feed my kids so i'll think about it on the train.
No, I really don't, specifically for the reasons you illustrate. You eventually get hung up on the idea that there is another you living his best life while you are stuck in here. Way to be jealous and resentful of a fictitious yourself.
For all intents and purposes there is only one timeline and there is only one reality. I don't like it here either at the moment but there is literally no point in entertaining these thoughts except to make yourself unhappy. Like browsing social media for other people's success, except it's even less real and completely made up.
How do you suppress FOMO though? Like logically what you said makes sense but it's just hard to get your heart to agree
Missing out on what exactly? The entirely made up scenarios in my head of me living in a parallel reality where I am the beloved elected ruler of an utopian paradise that happens to be just how I imagined it?
That seems a little absurd to be concerned with, but if that is a serious issue for you I would definitely try to stop going there in my head, and/or seek counseling about it. That seems like a constant source of misery that has no reason to exist.
I do it as a convenient abstraction to handle the uncertainty of the future outcome of events. However I don't do it for reality itself - I simply don't know enough of reality to know if the proposition "there are multiple timelines" is a true, false, or meaningless statement.
No, but I do think of time as a multidimensional manifold that can be traversed in a metalinear fashion.
I'm a dimensional hopper, and the question I keep on getting asked is: "Do they have flying cars in 2025?"
I reluctantly have to tell people that, despite what we believe, the most important timeline is one where humanity remains alive, because in 80% of them, we're all dead.
So yes, I do think in timelines.
But I also know that Schrodinger's Cat is alive, and meowing.
P.S: Fun pandemic we all had and simply forgot about, huh?
Physicists say timelines break causality and would thus go against reality.
Isn't it time travel that breaks causality? How can even physical existence of parallel timelines break it?
Via the concept of Laplace's Demon, according to those physicists.
Laplace's Demon is just a thought experiment, and has nothing to do with alternate timelines.
Anyway, multiple timelines are definitely not incompatible with our understanding of physics and causality. Look into the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. (in my opinion, the most reasonable explanation of quantum physics)
I mean referring to the parallel universe concept. Unless everyone here believes in free will, the thinking goes universes that start out the same are going to play out the same, requiring any differences to be caused by external interference.