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> This has probably been considered before in fiction "Thrice Upon a Time" by James P. Hogon, 1980. [1] It plays with interesting implications. In the book, se

> This has probably been considered before in fiction "Thrice Upon a Time" by James P. Hogon, 1980. [1] It plays with interesting implications. In the book, sending a message to the past changed that version of the past. My under standing is temporal communication in our universe is likely to be different. You couldn't change your past, so somehow things would line up no matter what you did. But perhaps you could impact events you had not yet measured, since that impact, and your after-sending sampling of them, would leave a lot room for impact without contradicting any information you had at the time you sent. For instance, you send a message back to your collegue to buy a stock yesterday, and you haven't seen him since last Tuesday. So nothing weird would have to happen to achieve consistency. Presumably your friend bought the stock, knew not to tell you until tomorrow to give you time to have sent that back to him. If the colleague tried to tell you earlier, something would stop him - because obviously he wasn't able to before you sent the message. A good way for the colleague to risk their life since a serious accident would be the best way for time to prevent a determined colleague from changing the universe! That means things in the time loop (from received time to sent time) could get very weird to achieve consistency. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrice_Upon_a_Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrice_Upon_a_Time

tshaddox 5y ago
> For instance, you send a message back to your collegue to buy a stock yesterday, and you haven't seen him since last Tuesday. So nothing weird would have to happen to achieve consistency. Presumably your friend bought the stock, knew not to tell you until tomorrow to give you time to have sent that back to him. If the colleague tried to tell you earlier, something would stop him - because obviously he wasn't able to before you sent the message. I just don’t see how this works in the extremely simple case where you send the message to your past self. Using the colleague just tries to sidestep this. What physically happens if you attempt to send a message to yourself that you don’t remember receiving in your past? Does the system just consistently malfunction? Does it turn out that you had an accident between receiving and sending that caused memory loss?
- MrYellowP 5y ago
  Why can't you just suddenly remember it? It's not like you always, at any moment, remember every single moment of your life. You send it back, and then you remember it. You couldn't have remembered it before you've sent it back, but as soon as you did, you remember reading it. Makes perfect sense to me. I see no reason why the memory wouldn't spontaneously form.
- krageon 5y ago
  There are many people that feel many ways about these things, the most obvious way to get answers is to wait for a time machine and do some tests :)
  - akimball 5y ago
    Waiting for a time machine seems like a remarkably inefficient use of the machine

tshaddox 5y ago

> For instance, you send a message back to your collegue to buy a stock yesterday, and you haven't seen him since last Tuesday. So nothing weird would have to happen to achieve consistency. Presumably your friend bought the stock, knew not to tell you until tomorrow to give you time to have sent that back to him. If the colleague tried to tell you earlier, something would stop him - because obviously he wasn't able to before you sent the message. I just don’t see how this works in the extremely simple case where you send the message to your past self. Using the colleague just tries to sidestep this. What physically happens if you attempt to send a message to yourself that you don’t remember receiving in your past? Does the system just consistently malfunction? Does it turn out that you had an accident between receiving and sending that caused memory loss?

MrYellowP 5y ago
Why can't you just suddenly remember it? It's not like you always, at any moment, remember every single moment of your life. You send it back, and then you remember it. You couldn't have remembered it before you've sent it back, but as soon as you did, you remember reading it. Makes perfect sense to me. I see no reason why the memory wouldn't spontaneously form.
krageon 5y ago
There are many people that feel many ways about these things, the most obvious way to get answers is to wait for a time machine and do some tests :)
- akimball 5y ago
  Waiting for a time machine seems like a remarkably inefficient use of the machine