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This article is part of the series The history of history engineering (HE-X)

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The previous discussions between our protagonists began converging on a problem with an entirely deterministic world. Namely, it seems to be impossible to reconcile the pasta model with our two worldbuilding constraints.

Lore

Just a reminder: the current constraints for the multiverse are:

Time travel must be possible.
There must be at least some degree of free will.

What about a probabilistic multiverse?

It was starting to become clearer and clearer that there could be something wrong, or deeply unsettling, with the (unavoidably deterministic) pasta model. We'll discuss some alternatives in an effort to avoid paradoxes.

Message

Brain

Didn't you just mention that there could be other options to make time travel work?

What about this -- you go back to the past with the lottery results, exercise free will to win the lottery, and the universe creates a new timeline just for you where you winning the lottery was factored in.

That way you're not your own timeline. But even if you are it's still not pre-determined.

Assuming your choice was not scripted that's totally ok with me. However... if it wasn't scripted then it would imply an entire new instance of time was spun up specifically for you and unless we live in a simulation, you may have to start time from scratch (a.k.a. a white hole or big bang) -- that means nowhere to spend your money. Assuming you survive.✓✓

This also makes alternative timelines highly unlikely to exist or very difficult to get to unless...✓✓

Why would there be one timeline? The computing price for the universal simulation getting too expensive to parallelize? :D

I bet you didn't see "the universe may be simulation" coming?

Can the idea of a simulation solve the paradoxes?

The problem with a non-deterministic perspective is that the multiverse cannot anticipate your actions. Remember that, according to the pasta model, you can't change time -- only move through it -- but your presence alone must be affecting the timeline.

If you can't change the timeline, there is no predestined timeline to accept you because your free will can't be anticipated, and time travel must be possible, then this is a paradox. The most obvious solution to it is 1) you get erased or 2) that the multiverse will simply create a new timeline for you and, unless it was a simulation, this timeline would have to begin from 0 and, possibly, a Big Bang. The latter will also erase you.

So unless the multiverse was a simulation there's no way to satisfy the first constraint -- having practically possible time travel. We already established that the deterministic multiverse doesn't have this problem but this would violate the second constraint -- having free will.

So, a simulation maybe?

Actually yes. It seems awfully inefficient to have multiple timelines like the ones you're hoping to hop into unless there was a purpose to them. Like a simulation.✓✓

How did you come from jumping to a new timeline, to starting time from scratch, to the world is a simulation?!

Well if the world is non-deterministic like we agreed then the timeline you jump to by winning the lottery 1) must not have existed before you made your decision and 2) should start from 0.✓✓

A probabilistic universe could've figured out that I'm likely to do that so it pre-made a feasible universe for me.

Yeah but what about the second conclusion? The universe must've made a pocket timeline just for you AND developed it to modern time, like a script. That SCREAMS simulation.✓✓

I'm ok with having alternative timelines. In fact, we MUST have alternative timelines according to the pasta model since this will be the only mechanism permitting time travel (remember, we can't change time -- only jump to another timeline).

But to have them not starting from scratch nor creating white holes with t=0 it'd have to be a simulation. And if it is a simulation it must have a reason to keep all those extra timelines. Keeping track of so many people and continuities would be a pointlessly difficult exercise otherwise.

✓✓

There's more than one way to have a simulation, to entertain your argument. It could be that it has no purpose and it doesn't need a reason. I'm just not buying the whole simulation thing.

No purpose? Then why does it have laws?✓✓

They could've been randomly established, then kept. No choice involved.

Yes but what caused them to be kept or collapse to the current ones we have?✓✓

Random chance, idk?

Even if that's true, the fact that they don't contradict one another is interesting, isn't it? They are uniformly active even if not always dominant in the same ways. Contradictions have been selected against. Does that mean this was a purpose?✓✓

There's plenty of explanations of why the laws don't contradict each other. Like for example, what if they do and we just don't know it? Or what if they're just a spontaneous property of the multiverse?

I don't know but it sounds awfully lot like there's a method here. I'm not implying design. It could be a spontaneously defined. That's not important. What's important is that it has all the characteristics of an optimization algorithm.✓✓

Suppose that I see your point about it being a simulation. Just because you do optimization doesn't mean this has to be an optimization!

To the hammer everything is a nail.

It would seem that the only solution to the paradoxes of time travel is that the multiverse is a simulation? And it's not just any kind of simulation, but an optimization?

What is this dude smoking?

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