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> In other words, a time traveler could make changes, but the original outcome would still find a way to happen — maybe not the same way it happened in the firs

> In other words, a time traveler could make changes, but the original outcome would still find a way to happen — maybe not the same way it happened in the first timeline but close enough so that the time traveler would still exist and would still be motivated to go back in time. > "No matter what you did, the salient events would just recalibrate around you," Tobar said. I'd love to see how this works when you go back in time and kill your toddler self. > "The universe is deterministic and attempts to alter Past Event X are destined to be the forces which bring Past Event X into being," But WHICH events? If things change around you when you change the past, then by definition some events will have happened, and others not (otherwise NOTHING would change, including your arrival in the past, and therefore time travel cannot occur). After all, a single breath you took at a specific point in time is an event. Waking up 2 seconds later is an event. Using your left foot first as you walked out of the house that day instead of the right is an event. So who decides which events are "important" enough that "forces bring Past Event X into being"? You'd need some kind of omniscient, omnipotent intelligence in order to accomplish that. The very logic behind this idea is a contradiction.

darkcha0s 6y ago
>I'd love to see how this works when you go back in time and kill your toddler self. Logically, this would be consistent, as you are no longer present in the future, because you have travelled to the past. What if killing the toddler means you can't travel back to your understood future? Your 'gotcha' doesn't really disprove anything, beyond raising another question which we can't conceivably answer.
- kstenerud 6y ago
  > What if killing the toddler means you can't travel back to your understood future? How would killing a toddler prevent me from time travelling back? Killing someone will not affect the functionality of my time machine.
mjsir911 6y ago
Nothing changes in the past, including your arrival, because your arrival would have always happened. The past stays consistent because it was already determined to have happened. How this would work going back in time to kill your toddler self is that, well, you don't. Gun jams, you have an aneurysm before you can, or maybe you killed the wrong toddler and there was just always a toddler killed in the past. The fact that you are alive to go back in time means you were not killed in toddler form.

darkcha0s 6y ago

>I'd love to see how this works when you go back in time and kill your toddler self. Logically, this would be consistent, as you are no longer present in the future, because you have travelled to the past. What if killing the toddler means you can't travel back to your understood future? Your 'gotcha' doesn't really disprove anything, beyond raising another question which we can't conceivably answer.

kstenerud 6y ago
> What if killing the toddler means you can't travel back to your understood future? How would killing a toddler prevent me from time travelling back? Killing someone will not affect the functionality of my time machine.

mjsir911 6y ago

Nothing changes in the past, including your arrival, because your arrival would have always happened. The past stays consistent because it was already determined to have happened. How this would work going back in time to kill your toddler self is that, well, you don't. Gun jams, you have an aneurysm before you can, or maybe you killed the wrong toddler and there was just always a toddler killed in the past. The fact that you are alive to go back in time means you were not killed in toddler form.