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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 29th, 2023

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  • The only difference between the first option and the response is that the response posits that all possible timelines exist in advance and rather than generating a new timeline with your decisions, you simply navigate to the one that represents them. It’s a distinction without meaning, especially because the first option doesn’t strictly specify whether the timelines existed in advance or not. It simply says “you branch off into another timeline” with no requirement that it be one generated as a result of your actions.

    The second option is called “closed loop” or Novikov self-consistency and specifically requires that the outcomes of your choices align with the past already as defined, simply in ways you did not know. It’s what they use in 12 Monkeys and the 3rd Harry Potter book, and it limits free choice, unlike the first option and what the above poster’s response stated.

    I think what you’re doing is combining closed-loop and multiverse theories to say that the multiverse theory IS closed-loop simply because the multiverses existed in advance, whereas closed-loop is intrinsically single universe/timeline.