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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2014-01-08 19:27, Stephen Van Sickle
wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:CADYziYCj4vJP2sJoqeBKwr-TyH4G+ebUP+Gp77p9qgDrgi2=5Q@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
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<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 4:59 AM,
Anders Sandberg <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:anders@aleph.se"
target="_blank">anders@aleph.se</a>></span> wrote:</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
If they can bring the narrator to the future, can't they
check their own future, adjusting things until it looks
good?</blockquote>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>Isn't that a depressing thought?</div>
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<br>
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: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.explosm.net/comics/3420/">https://www.explosm.net/comics/3420/</a> - check
out the archives too!) or optimization. Which might of course be for
an optimum you do not like!<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
If you have time travel, you have vast computing power to get things
right. Even classical computation with a CTC is equivalent to
quantum: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/ctc.pdf">http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/ctc.pdf</a><br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University
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