Comment on Scifi question about time travel:

• ada@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Except for the fact it makes every decision, every moment of tension and every event that occurs irrelevant, because an infinite number of universe exist in which the events occurred and in which they didn't occur.

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  • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I don’t see that as a problem. Every possibility co-exists, and every reality is equally real. Every moment and decision forks the universe in infinite ways, but you get to choose the one where you go.

    You can save a drowning person, or let them die, but in the big picture, it won’t matter. That person will drown infinitely many ways anyway, but there are also infinitely many universes where they get saved. Don’t worry about the big picture. What matters, is how you act and how the world acts on you in this universe.

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    • ada@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Apologies, I copied and pasted the answer below from another reply I made elsewhere in this thread

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      I'm not talking about about the possibility of real infinite dimensions. I'm talking about sci fi, and stories, which is the context of the OPs question.

      In a "real" scenario, the experience that matters is the one I'm having, not the one other versions of me might be having.

      But in a story, there is no "true" timeline, or a more "real" timeline. They're all being retold to us indirectly, and the choice of the version of the person retelling those experiences is arbitrary by the author. It doesn't matter what perspective the author chooses, because every other outcome also happened, the author just didn't tell us those stories.

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      • BrinkBreaker@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        I think the disconnect here is between objective and subjective meaning. In an infinite multiverse, ‘reality’ isn’t a singular objective truth—it’s a collection of subjective experiences. But that doesn’t erase meaning; it just means meaning is something we assign, not something inherent.

        You’re right that if every possible outcome exists, no single timeline is ‘objectively’ special. But in fiction (and arguably in reality), what matters is the perspective we focus on. A story isn’t weakened by the existence of other timelines—it’s strengthened by the fact that, out of infinite possibilities, this particular one is being told. The act of choosing a narrative is what gives it weight.

        It’s the difference between nihilism (‘nothing matters, so why care?’) and absurdism (‘nothing matters* inherently, so we get to decide what does’). A multiverse doesn’t have to make things meaningless—it can highlight how rare and significant certain choices are, precisely because most versions of a person might not make them (e.g., Invincible).

        I get the sense you’re resistant to this because it feels like it undermines objective meaning. But what if meaning was never objective to begin with? What if it’s something we create, not something we discover?

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  • davidgro@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Even knowing that everything happens every way in some other branch of the wave function (other universes) doesn’t really affect our own little section of it. There’s no communications or travel, so other universes if they exist have the same meaning to us as if they don’t. Except in time travel stories like this.

    Besides, the same “irrelevance” of decisions and events comes free with even one single universe given that it’s deterministic - as physics seems to be. (Yeah there’s quantum randomness, but random doesn’t help either)

    That said I still believe in free will and the importance of decisions. I just think it has to be defined so weakly that it still works in a deterministic universe. (So I have free will, but so do dice and pocket calculators.)

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    • ada@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I'm not talking about about the possibility of real infinite dimensions. I'm talking about sci fi, and stories, which is the context of the OPs question.

      In a "real" scenario, the experience that matters is the one I'm having, not the one other versions of me might be having.

      But in a story, there is no "true" timeline, or a more "real" timeline. They're all being retold to us indirectly, and the choice of the version of the person retelling those experiences is arbitrary by the author. It doesn't matter what perspective the author chooses, because every other outcome also happened, the author just didn't tell us those stories.

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      • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        But in a story, there is no “true” timeline, or a more “real” timeline.

        That would be the most boring story ever.

        It becomes interesting at that point where one (or some) of the possibilities get a special meaning “above” all the others.

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      • davidgro@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        I’d say that the one that’s written is the ‘true’ timeline in the story the same way that the reality we experience is the only one that matters.

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