If you had a machine that created a window through which you could see the future, and in the future you wrote down the winning lottery numbers and relayed that information to your present self before that lottery number was drawn.

However, in your present selfs excitement, you turn off the machine before your future self wrote the winning lottery numbers into it for your past self.

What would happen?

  • BrinkBreaker@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    I think the disconnect here is between objective and subjective meaning. In an infinite multiverse, ‘reality’ isn’t a singular objective truth—it’s a collection of subjective experiences. But that doesn’t erase meaning; it just means meaning is something we assign, not something inherent.

    You’re right that if every possible outcome exists, no single timeline is ‘objectively’ special. But in fiction (and arguably in reality), what matters is the perspective we focus on. A story isn’t weakened by the existence of other timelines—it’s strengthened by the fact that, out of infinite possibilities, this particular one is being told. The act of choosing a narrative is what gives it weight.

    It’s the difference between nihilism (‘nothing matters, so why care?’) and absurdism (‘nothing matters* inherently, so we get to decide what does’). A multiverse doesn’t have to make things meaningless—it can highlight how rare and significant certain choices are, precisely because most versions of a person might not make them (e.g., Invincible).

    I get the sense you’re resistant to this because it feels like it undermines objective meaning. But what if meaning was never objective to begin with?