Toggleverse Theory

snydermind

Theory for a multistate universe resulting from time travel, that cancels the Grandfather Paradox.

By Anthony Snyder <-> tony@snydermind.com

September 1, 2010

Also see: Virtual Causality Theory

 

Introduction

In time travel theories the Grandfather Paradox is often cited as a catch-22 against straight forward causality, thereby requiring a more extreme explanation like a quantum multiverse, or not being able to change things in the past, or the universe exploding, etc.

However, I see no reason to exclude the possibility of ordinary causality doing its thing. In fact, I do not see a paradox with time travel into the past at all.

Let's think this through. First you go back in time to meet your grandfather before he met your grandmother, you kill him, then you cease to have ever been born. Ok, now what?

The next thing that happens is that you no longer went back in time to interefere with the past (because you no longer exist), and therefore spontaneously re exist because your grandfather is alive again. Then what?

You kill your grandfather again, causing you to cease to exist again. And so on. This is not a paradox. This is a toggle.

Though the window of time in the loop may consist of a number of years, the grandfather interception event in the past instantaneously affects the act of time traveling in the present. And this is immediately relevant to the past because of your alternating use of the time machine to go back and change the past. It is a loop that causes the universe to toggle between two states infinitely fast. A zero time toggle.

A zero time toggle is very interesting. It means the entire universe simultaneously becomes two universes, as it toggles between the two states. And this may sound a lot like a quantum multiverse, and yet the properties differ. With a Toggleverse, it is possible for a second time traveler to come along and end the toggle, reverting the universe over to a single state again, though it may not be the original state. And you could get multiple toggles resulting in any number of states running simultaneously. And you could get progressions rather than toggles, depending on the nature of the changes that occur.

It is much like a computer operating system multitasking between multiple programs. The programs appear to run simultaneously, even though the CPU is actually servicing the instructions from each program one at a time (or a group of instructions at a time), then repeating. However, it is not exactly like this due to the fact that a Toggleverse toggle happens in zero time. You could not say that resources are being taken away, nor that there is a time slice occuring. A zero time toggle results in "simultaneous" multiple states for the same universe. However, in this case, the word "simultaneous" is not exactly correct, because if you were to freeze time, only one state would exist. And the total mass of the universe is not affected. There are no contradictions. (Of course all this is assuming time travel is possible in the first place, which is something I'm still thinking about.)

 

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