On time and paradoxes *large spoilers*

[amills1]

I was thinking about how there are a couple of possible game overs possible from creating temporal paradoxes. Like disabling the black hole before sending a probe through after it appears from the white hole. Spacetime collapses because you created a paradox. But isn't the entire Ash Twin project going to create a paradox if it had worked as intended?

If the system was initiated by making the Sun go supernova and sending the information about the results of the probe back in time until the eye is found, then you'd surely be creating a paradox when you stopped the Sun from going Nova as you'd be preventing the event that triggered the probe launches.

[Bobywan]

I agree.
Even though only information is sent.
Maybe they wanted to reach the eye in under 22 min as well.

[Perseus]

Originally posted by amills1:

then you'd surely be creating a paradox when you stopped the Sun from going Nova as you'd be preventing the event that triggered the probe launches.

In-game, "paradox" things that cause the destruction of spacetime are due to an object being sent through a black hole but not actually being sent through during the next "loop".
What actually happens between loops can change, so long as every object that went through a black hole actually goes through the black hole.

The sun not exploding and you doing something different because of the memories you received are "just" different events, not an object being duplicated.

(Maybe i'm misinterpreting what you mean, though?)

[amills1]

Originally posted by Perseus:

Originally posted by amills1:

then you'd surely be creating a paradox when you stopped the Sun from going Nova as you'd be preventing the event that triggered the probe launches.

In-game, "paradox" things that cause the destruction of spacetime are due to an object being sent through a black hole but not actually being sent through during the next "loop".
What actually happens between loops can change, so long as every object that went through a black hole actually goes through the black hole.

The sun not exploding and you doing something different because of the memories you received are "just" different events, not an object being duplicated.

(Maybe i'm misinterpreting what you mean, though?)

My view of the paradoxes is in terms of cause and effect where the effect still exists but the cause ceases to be. For the white/black holes this is because a probe came out the white hole without one going into the black hole. For the ATP it is that data (the results of previous loops and the location of the eye) exists which was caused by the sun going nova but continues to exist even if the sun was no longer going to explode.

[Perseus]

Originally posted by amills1:

My view of the paradoxes is in terms of cause and effect where the effect still exists but the cause ceases to be. For the white/black holes this is because a probe came out the white hole without one going into the black hole. For the ATP it is that data (the results of previous loops and the location of the eye) exists which was caused by the sun going nova but continues to exist even if the sun was no longer going to explode.

I see, i had misinterpreted what you were saying. You did finish the game though, right?
When you remove the warp core from the Ash Twin Project, you prevent the sending of information that normally occurs at the end of the loop.
If the ATP had succeed when the Nomai tried it, they would've disabled it by not exploding the sun, which also would've prevented the sending of information that normally occurs at the end of the loop.
Just to make sure i understand, are you saying that those are different, or that they are the same?

In any case, i would say that the logic behind spacetime getting destroyed or not seems arbitrary, since it doesn't break when "insignificant" things seemingly get duplicated, like whatever type or wireless signals the Nomai used. Maybe the previous person to have gone to the Eye liked stuff being arbitrary or something?

[Ishy]

I like to interpret it such that information gets a free pass when sent back in time. The issue of why matter inconsistency does break spacetime but information inconsistency doesn't is not touched upon in the game, but one can come up with head-canon theories as to why this is. My personal pet theory is that the time loop cares about the total energy of the universe being continuous at the start/end point of the loop, and matter creates a discontinuity in the energy whereas information doesn't (provided we think of information only as an equal-energy reconfiguration of an already existing state).

Another way to think about the loop is that if you succeed, time and space lose their meaning once you reach the Eye. This can be proven in-game: if you jump into the black hole in ATP or fire your scout through it, you have to continue doing that each loop in order not to break spacetime. But once you reach the Eye, the spacetime won't break anymore even though you aren't there to jump into the black hole (or fire the scout through it). So one could imagine that sending information back in time would have indeed caused a spacetime-breaking paradox, but in a successful playthrough, you entering the Eye counters that paradox so it never happens.

Interestingly, you also have a demonstrably free will inside the OW universe while in the loop. If you didn't, the spacetime would break immediately when you _decide_ to make a loop-affecting decision, e.g. to remove the core in the high energy lab before the probe goes into the black hole. But naturally the OW universe can't predict your decision before it is actually made, meaning you're, in a way, truly free. Funnily enough demonstrating that freedom destroys the fabric of spacetime. I wonder if the same is true for our own universe.

[amills1]

Originally posted by Perseus:

Originally posted by amills1:

My view of the paradoxes is in terms of cause and effect where the effect still exists but the cause ceases to be. For the white/black holes this is because a probe came out the white hole without one going into the black hole. For the ATP it is that data (the results of previous loops and the location of the eye) exists which was caused by the sun going nova but continues to exist even if the sun was no longer going to explode.

I see, i had misinterpreted what you were saying. You did finish the game though, right?
When you remove the warp core from the Ash Twin Project, you prevent the sending of information that normally occurs at the end of the loop.
If the ATP had succeed when the Nomai tried it, they would've disabled it by not exploding the sun, which also would've prevented the sending of information that normally occurs at the end of the loop.
Just to make sure i understand, are you saying that those are different, or that they are the same?

In any case, i would say that the logic behind spacetime getting destroyed or not seems arbitrary, since it doesn't break when "insignificant" things seemingly get duplicated, like whatever type or wireless signals the Nomai used. Maybe the previous person to have gone to the Eye liked stuff being arbitrary or something?

I have finished the game yes. I do consider sending information back in time to still count as you are effecting what exists in the universe. Even stopping the ATP wouldn't undo the fact that they now know where the eye and is anything else they might learn by enacting loops.

[Mandragore]

One very important thing to understand in order to grasp the nature of the loop is that it isn't a time loop.

The main character and player experience it as a time loop because of their individual subjectivity, and Nomai sometimes refer to it as a time loop as a shorthand. It's also referred to as a time loop within the community, or when trying very hard to get your friends to play the game discussing the game, but again, that's for simplicity's sake.

Technically, there is no actual time travel, and no alternate realities are ever created either. It's more that a single 22-minute memory is being relived over and over again.

This is why space and time break with some endings: the universe instantly crumbles whenever actual temporal manipulation happens. In this regard, your run-of-the-mill 22 minute loop is at worst exploiting a loophole in the rules of reality.

[HansGustavPeter]

Most things have already been mentioned, but I have something to add on the idea that infromation gets a free pass.
Creating a 2nd scout on Ember Twin or a second self on Ash Twin, breaks the law of conservation of energy. Thus the fabric of spacetime is destroyed.
At the same time we have observed the fact, that information can break our laws of physics.
The faster we move the slower time passes, at the speed of light time is at a complete standstill or doesn't exist at all and moving faster than the speed of light would cause time to run backwarts.
Moving faster than the speed of light, should be completly impossible for physical things. Infromation on the other hand, can travel faster than light.
The phenomenon of quantum entanglement has shown, that two entangled particals can exchange infromation in an instant across the universe.

I guess that's where the idea that information could travel back in time comes from. If infromation can break the laws of physics by traveling faster than light, maybe it can also break the laws of physics by traveling back in time, atleast ingame.

[CINARRA]

Originally posted by Mandragore:

Technically, there is no actual time travel, and no alternate realities are ever created either. It's more that a single 22-minute memory is being relived over and over again.

I understand your point, but then, what do you exactly mean by "reliving a memory"? Aren't the only two ways of "re-living" something either going back (time travel) or creating a copy (alternate universe) ?

[Bobywan]

Originally posted by CINARRA:

Originally posted by Mandragore:

Technically, there is no actual time travel, and no alternate realities are ever created either. It's more that a single 22-minute memory is being relived over and over again.

I understand your point, but then, what do you exactly mean by "reliving a memory"? Aren't the only two ways of "re-living" something either going back (time travel) or creating a copy (alternate universe) ?

The protagonist is actually receiving a memory from the future when the game starts (that memory being you actually playing)

[Masquerade]

It's not a paradox cause it's only memories getting sent back in time

[TasteDasRainbow]

keep in mind it's all just speculation about something that has no physical basis to exist, at least thus far. In that arbitrary definition then, sending energy impulses does not affect space time like sending matter does.

Because the premise is already imaginary, it stands to reason that the features of that concept can do whatever they please.

[SapphireBandit]

My guess is that how it works is that paradoxes are only created when matter created through time travel is not compensated for, such as how the scout's matter was not provided from the black hole, or how the player character didn't compensate for the matter used to create the copy of him. Maybe Ash Twin is fine because it's all electrical signals?

[Tribersman_FR]

My take is that indeed we have to handwave it.

The whole Ash-twin plan is impossible if information cannot be created without being forced to then send the probe for that data or reality is destroyed.

All we can do to plug the hole is pretend that as long as it is only information, the damage are insignificant.

Like... imagine
Paradox = a destructive reaction proportional to the mass of duplicated object
...therefore
If it's only a photon worse of matter/antimatter, the mass is negligible, so is the reaction.