• affiliate@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    if you believe in the notion that the universe is cyclic then you can mimic time traveling backwards by traveling forwards, past the end of the universe, and stopping at just the right time in the new universe.

    e.g., to get to 1700 you’d go (present time) -> (death of the universe) -> (1700 in next universe)

    • EtherWhack@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      But what if the absence of the atoms of your body affects how the universe collapses and in turn expands?

      • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        If the universe is cyclic, then the version of you from the previous one is also jumping to a time before when you left. It works if the board gets reset to the exact same position and true randomness doesn’t exist. We’re talking down to the electron scatter of radioactive decay.

        • EtherWhack@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          If the universe is cyclic, then that would define it as a closed loop without any energy being removed or added. The very first instance of yourself traveling through time would break the loop by removing themselves from their iteration of the universe and reinsert into a future iteration. During those two points, the universe would now function with a deficit. This deficit could affect how it cycles to subsequent iterations.

          What if that discrepancy in energy affects when the universe starts to contract or it’s speed to the big crunch/bang and subsequently the time to, and speed of expansion. Maybe it could even prevent the big crunch from reaching critical mass, where it would normally trigger a big bang, and stop the cycle altogether.

    • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      I mean, personally, I actually don’t believe that the Big Bang created everything out of thin air vacuum, because much like travelling backwards in time, that would break causality.

      It makes much more sense for everything to just have always existed and the Big Bang is merely a very visible event + expansion afterwards.
      I’m open to the notion that expansion and contraction happen in some sort of cycle, because well, many things do.

      But for it to be cyclical to the point where it repeats precisely the same? Why?
      Can’t we just let the universe flobber on its merry way without assigning some higher meaning to everything it does?