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Because that happened in a different timeline. If A0 was not visited and later A1 and decides to travel back to A0 and visit, that splits the timeline. Eventual
by AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Because that happened in a different timeline. If A0 was not visited and later A1 and decides to travel back to A0 and visit, that splits the timeline. Eventually some actor in that timeline (or another created by time travel from that timeline) will alter events such that they prevent A1 from visiting A0, restoring the original timeline and acting as the final piece of the meta-stable structure.
- tshaddox 5y agoBut if traveling back in time forks that timeline you don't have to worry about the self-consistency or bootstrap paradox at all, right?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoWell, in this hypothetical cosmology I'm operating under the assumption that timelines can't just fork and continue on indefinitely as that requires energy (in the form of the time traveler) to come from an outside source with no connection to this timeline. From the perspective of the new timeline that event has no origin. By forming a meta-stable loop the two timelines are actually just different parts of the same meta-timeline. Of course, there's no real reason to believe this is a requirement, it's all just an intellectual exercise.