New efforts!

[Ohioknight]

Time travel philosophy can really bake one's noodle if taken to extremes. I know people who fall into both of those categories of thought. I also know someone that doesn't believe that time travel will ever be possible because the universe would implode the instant someone tried to travel in time. But, the universe has safeguards in place to keep implosions from that source from happening. So, the time traveling just would fail to happen.

Richard Feynman got his Nobel for proposing a solution to the "multiple worlds" issue in Quantum Mechanics.  Instead of saying the universe splits into two when there are two possible results, Feynman came up with "sum over histories" -- every particle/wave follows every possible history -- reality is what happens when you add all those waves' histories together.  Just as waves in the same tank will constructively and destructively amplify each other, all "worlds" except for the "real" one cancel each other out.  We're what's left when they all "collapse".

So in the case of time travel, the ENTIRE time loop trajectory of the particles involved  would "collapse" (like always) in order to become real -- but anything that contradicted a consistent result, such as a paradox -- ie killing your grandfather -- would become not "real" by being canceled out -- it would be an "excluded collapse state"

[Ohioknight]

If we think of alternate futures as alternate timelines that split from this one, it begs the question of whether there is any meaning to the idea that multiple past realities could merge into a single one.  If we have two different future versions of ourself that are both equally "us" is it possible there were two different versions of us that merged into a single one, in a sense "destroying" one of them.

Yeah, if there were multiple different possible events that could have happened to you when you were 4 years old that would result in exactly the same brain configuration that you have now, then it is meaningless for you to ask which of those is true.  They all are. [assuming those events had no OTHER impact on the world]

[darkgob]

I don't recall - Did Q ever take the power bestowed on Riker back?  I think so, at the end of the episode...

It was a TV show in 1987, so rest assured the status quo was definitively restored by the end of the episode.  :)

[Felderburg]

How about marriage? Would it become as Robert Heinlein pictured it - a contract between adults for procreation or enjoyment limited to a few decades? Then what happens to morality?

Umm... I don't know, what does happen to morality? Is all morality based on what marriages are?

non-lethal speed

Hey now, I never suggested regulating speed...

To quote William T. Riker: "Speak for yourself, sir. I plan to live forever."

...this from the guy that turned down having Q's powers...

[Felderburg]

Had to link to the summary of the Outer Limits episode based on it rather than the original short story, because while you can find a PDF of the short story, I'm pretty sure it's still in anthologies being sold and I don't want to encourage copyright infringement.

Hmmm.... I just had a thought. How is going to a library and finding one of said anthologies for this story materially different from finding it free online?

[Twisted Toon]

Hmmm.... I just had a thought. How is going to a library and finding one of said anthologies for this story materially different from finding it free online?

You get less exercise when you look it up online?

Oh wait. You didn't mean that kind of different...

[Aggelakis]

Removed an entire conversation that doesn't belong on these forums anyway.

[Arcana]

Hmmm.... I just had a thought. How is going to a library and finding one of said anthologies for this story materially different from finding it free online?

The library paid for the original, and can only lend it to one person at a time.  If more people want it than the library has copies to lend, the library would have to buy more copies.

[Arcana]

Richard Feynman got his Nobel for proposing a solution to the "multiple worlds" issue in Quantum Mechanics.  Instead of saying the universe splits into two when there are two possible results, Feynman came up with "sum over histories" -- every particle/wave follows every possible history -- reality is what happens when you add all those waves' histories together.  Just as waves in the same tank will constructively and destructively amplify each other, all "worlds" except for the "real" one cancel each other out.  We're what's left when they all "collapse".

So in the case of time travel, the ENTIRE time loop trajectory of the particles involved  would "collapse" (like always) in order to become real -- but anything that contradicted a consistent result, such as a paradox -- ie killing your grandfather -- would become not "real" by being canceled out -- it would be an "excluded collapse state"

This is actually the principle behind my opinion on the nature of time travel.  To wit, all time travel is in effect a predestination paradox.  Which is to say, time travelers always cause the events that lead up to their time travel because the time-travel modified Feynman diagrams of all particles in the universe must be self-consistent.  Paradoxes are eliminated by destructive interference.  If a specific set of circumstances apparently leads to an inevitable contradiction, that set of circumstances is logically impossible.  The universe never gets there: some quantum event occurs that steers the universe away from those dead ends.  If we set the probability of paradoxes to zero, quantum mechanics allows all sorts of other highly unlikely events to happen to avoid them.  The time traveler that tries to generate a paradox in the worst case scenario could simply quantum disintegrate (although there are lots of other less dramatic and more probable events that can do the same thing).

[Sinistar]

Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine: would he be a mind/electric dominator in the game or a corruptor?

[Ankhammon]

Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine: would he be a mind/electric dominator in the game or a corruptor?

I'd say he'd have to be, but some part of me wants to say Elec/Pain corrupter.

[Arcana]

Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine: would he be a mind/electric dominator in the game or a corruptor?

As a player analog, I think Mind/Electric dominator is a reasonably close match.  As an NPC, he wouldn't be any particular player archetype.  I'd probably make him with some kind of Katana-based melee attacks for light saber, electric blast attacks for range, super reflexes-based defense, and a few extra utility powers (power push for force pushes, and probably a confuse for the Jedi mind trick and just the fact he's a manipulative bastard).

[Remaugen]

I'd say he'd have to be, but some part of me wants to say Elec/Pain corrupter.

I can see that. . .

[Arcana]

I can see that. . .

The more I think about it, the less I do.  The set name "Pain Domination" is evocative, but it doesn't really describe what the set actually does.  The original concept of the set was more pain manipulative, but there were issues with the implementation of the concept (which was to buff allies by damaging them).  Its really more of an empathy + foe debuff set, which isn't very Palpatine to me.

[darkgob]

The more I think about it, the less I do.  The set name "Pain Domination" is evocative, but it doesn't really describe what the set actually does.  The original concept of the set was more pain manipulative, but there were issues with the implementation of the concept (which was to buff allies by damaging them).  Its really more of an empathy + foe debuff set, which isn't very Palpatine to me.

I always interpreted the buffs as not being able to feel pain.

[Arcana]

I always interpreted the buffs as not being able to feel pain.

I tend to picture Palpatine as more of a pain dealer rather than a pain mitigator.

Also, there's no City of Heroes powerset called "Trade Manipulation."

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Also, there's no City of Heroes powerset called "Trade Manipulation."

Hmm...

[Ohioknight]

This is actually the principle behind my opinion on the nature of time travel.  To wit, all time travel is in effect a predestination paradox.  Which is to say, time travelers always cause the events that lead up to their time travel because the time-travel modified Feynman diagrams of all particles in the universe must be self-consistent.  Paradoxes are eliminated by destructive interference.  If a specific set of circumstances apparently leads to an inevitable contradiction, that set of circumstances is logically impossible.  The universe never gets there: some quantum event occurs that steers the universe away from those dead ends.  If we set the probability of paradoxes to zero, quantum mechanics allows all sorts of other highly unlikely events to happen to avoid them.  The time traveler that tries to generate a paradox in the worst case scenario could simply quantum disintegrate (although there are lots of other less dramatic and more probable events that can do the same thing).

I also like to consider the impact of Mathematically Chaotic processes.  We know weather is chaotic in the famous "butterfly effect" example -- so go back in time 100 years, take a single breath, and all the weather patterns from a year later onwards are different than they would have been if you hadn't gone back in time. 

But also chaotic and less thought about is the incredibly chaotic nature of human reproduction.  Every child is the result of competition among millions of sperm that is determined largely by chaotic fluid dynamics.  Change any initial conditions, such as the weather, and different sperm with different genetic information will succeed.

So if you've gone 100 years back in time and taken a single breath, no person you have ever known will be conceived, including you.

[Rejolt]

Hmm...

That's inherent to all players. Some just use it better than others...

[Arcana]

I also like to consider the impact of Mathematically Chaotic processes.  We know weather is chaotic in the famous "butterfly effect" example -- so go back in time 100 years, take a single breath, and all the weather patterns from a year later onwards are different than they would have been if you hadn't gone back in time. 

But also chaotic and less thought about is the incredibly chaotic nature of human reproduction.  Every child is the result of competition among millions of sperm that is determined largely by chaotic fluid dynamics.  Change any initial conditions, such as the weather, and different sperm with different genetic information will succeed.

So if you've gone 100 years back in time and taken a single breath, no person you have ever known will be conceived, including you.

The problem with "butterfly effect" arguments is that they ignore what we know about chaotic systems: chaotic systems aren't random, they only appear to be, and moreover many such systems have what are known as "attractors" or pseudo-stable behaviors that are resistant to perturbation.  We don't know if quantum histories are chaotic or whether they contain legitimate attractors, but its likely if it is chaotic they do.

In fact, the predestination paradox effect might act to create them by ensuring that changes made in the past cannot radically alter the future in unlimited ways, specifically because they would create the paradox of negating the time travel event.  The time travel event becomes an attractor "pinned" to the universe that the past must eventually lead to, which makes the butterfly effects not as pseudo-random as one might expect.  They might become "dampened" by the quantum mechanical probabilistic need to preserve a consistent history.

In other words, its possible there exists an "anti-butterfly effect" built into the universe that acts to dampen changes, so small changes stay small and only large changes create large changes.  While it sounds like there's little reason for the universe to obey such a law, an analogous law exists which appears to act to dampen the macroscopic effects of quantum superposition.  In other words, there's no explicit rule that says quantum effects are not observable on macro scales, but for subtle reasons not fully understood small scale stuff stays small and large scale stuff stays large in nearly all cases, even though there's no apparent barrier to small scale quantum effects "rippling" upward to affect large scale objects.  The butterfly effect appears to be road blocked when it comes to quantum superposition.  For analogous reasons it could also be blocked when it comes to closed time-like loops (time travel).

Wild speculation, but there it is.