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chrisfarms comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 20, chapter 90 - Less Wrong Discussion
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This chapter showed that, if it appears that a Time Turner wasn't used, they don't try to use it. Presumably, the reverse is also true. If it appears that it is used, they use it.
I've always figured that the rules deciding which stable time loop were something along the lines of the more likely it is for an event to cause itself, the more likely it is that one happens. If you want a specific time loop to happen, such as giving yourself a paper that factors a given semiprime, you'd make it so that happening causes itself, by copying down the factors if they are correct, and make it so it not happening causes a paradox, by writing something else down. This way, a high portion of time loops are the ones you like.
That can't happen here. They try to cause whatever happened. This means that any stable time loop that isn't too difficult to carry out is equally likely to work. It's implied that there's some sort of force at work here. While it's conceivable that most of the stable time loops with Harry factoring a semiprime were in the same reference class as "DON'T MESS WITH TIME TRAVEL", Dumbledore later managed to use the effect to gain actual information: the time travel he was about to attempt shouldn't be attempted. What's interesting here, though, is that it seems to imply that this force isn't just something that manifests when they do something wrong. It always chooses the time loop. Or more accurately, the rules that I had assumed worked whenever someone wasn't messing with time travel never work. The theory was completely wrong, instead of being something that breaks down under odd circumstances.
And I still wonder: why did the force let Harry do everything he ever wanted to do with time travel before, but then stop him now.
That force just made a very dangerous move. Perhaps it's not trying to do anything like paradox avoidance, as the "DON'T MESS WITH TIME TRAVEL" suggested. Perhaps it's trying to avoid all future paradoxes, by making Harry end the world. I've read about one story where attempting to abuse time travel resulted in the sun going nova. This is might be the same idea, but on a larger scale.
I thought it was more that we are just following the story in one of the very lucky universes that has no paradoxes.
Say there are LOTS (not infinite, but unimaginably large number) of universes. One for every configuration, every difference, every spontaneously created particle.
If a paradox is created, the universe ends. (or never was; depending on how you think about it).
We are following a story in one of the universes that did not end due to paradox.
In another one of these universes, harry continued with his experiment. This universe was never meant to be, and in fact it never was. Nobody was around in this universe to write a story about it.
In another one of these universes a toaster materialized out of nowhere next to harry. It stopped his time-travel experiment, and also confused him for the rest of his life. This story was confusing.
In another one of these universes our solar system was never formed. This story was dull.
In one of these universes something clicked in Harrys mind and made him impulsively send back a note saying "DON'T MESS WITH TIME TRAVEL" . This deterred further advances down this road, triggered a desire to send the note back and averted a paradox. This universe continued existing, and made for a good story.
That's like saying that we live in one of the very lucky universes that follow the laws of physics.
It's not entirely inaccurate. When you talk about stuff in math, it's common to do something along the lines of taking a universe of sets, and narrowing them down to the one you want. We take all possible universes, then ignore the ones that don't start with the big bang, then ignore all the ones where any moment contains a violation of the laws of physics, and we end up with our universe.
Those are two very different things. One results in entire universes existing before being destroyed. The other only involves one universe.