[ExI] far future

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2014-01-08 19:27, Stephen Van Sickle wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 4:59 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se 
> <mailto:anders at aleph.se>> wrote:
>
>     If they can bring the narrator to the future, can't they check
>     their own future, adjusting things until it looks good?
>
>
> The Pangloss Theory of Time Travel:  Time travelers iteratively 
> intervene in the past, until they reach some sort of maximum or 
> equilibrium where no further improvements are possible.  Therefore, 
> the world we experience now is literally the best of all possible worlds.
>
> Isn't that a depressing thought?

Whether it is depressing depends on the kind of time travel. The classic 
"vehicle" kind where you can go anywhen would produce an equilibrium 
with either no time travel discovered/allowed to be discovered ( 
Obcartoon: https://www.explosm.net/comics/3420/ - check out the archives 
too!) or optimization. Which might of course be for an optimum you do 
not like!

If the time travel is a closed timelike loop then it can only affect 
stuff in the future lightcone of the earliest point on the loop. That 
means that even is utopia ensues, if you are earlier than the point you 
will have a normal existence.

If you have time travel, you have vast computing power to get things 
right. Even classical computation with a CTC is equivalent to quantum: 
http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/ctc.pdf

-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University

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