Discussion Forums > Anime Discussions

Steins;Gate [Series] [Visual Novel translated]

<< < (52/159) > >>

Antheon:
My bad, I skimmed through the episodes and it did not happen. Was so sure though ... :|

True that a change is still a change but a small change like sending "hello" to the past is not going to alter the world's divergence much. You could say that the domino effect is used there whereas big changes also cause the snowball effect. I fear I can't say more without writing an essay about timelines and the Everett-Wheeler model of quantum physics or outright spoiler you.

Havoc10K:
I think a small message like Hello can change quite a bit,
say you are about to do something, but you receive an email saying Hello from yourself, you usually get distracted enough by mails to at least read them, and something like that would really surprise me, it's a message from me, but I don't remember sending it, so I start thinking about it ending up not doing what I was supposed to do, or doing it much later when I decide not to bother myself about the mail itself, in my case that wouldn't happen, I would definitely stop doing what I was supposed to do and start thinking what is the meaning of this, that would change the fact I was meant to do something into I didn't do it, and that change could very well destroy the world, depending on what I was supposed to do and that event could lead to infinite numbers of events.

Possibilities of interfering in history are infinite and consequences of simple messages can be harmful in so many ways you might not even think of.

Antheon:
You talk about the butterfly effect but use the domino effect in your example. And you forget about other people. As long as the world divergence does not hit a critical point, there won't be much of a change. You send a message to your former self, saying hello. That change compared to the original timeline in its entirety is laughable small. Yes, there will be a change but it will be so small, too small for the world to turn upside-down. You would be distracted, look at the mail with confusion but then your partner calls for your help and you decide to think about that strange mail later. This is just one of infinite possibilities how your example could end - and I only added one person to your world. Now imagine what it would look like with billions of people.

It's a completely different story when you cause/prevent someone's death, as this person is bound to many others who themselves are connected to another dozen of people. That multiplies with the importance of that person. Killing Hitler when he was still a kid screams for a huge timequake. World's history might take a total different course. And the difference of the world's divergence is not in the 10-30% anymore, granting the change.

And just as a sidenote: Our planet has survived for quite some time now - despite the unimaginable threat of the so-called butterfly effect. :D

Havoc10K:
How can you know that a small change like this is harmless ?
What if you are wrong ?

Also, (click to show/hide)Ika Musume would be the only one who can save the world from utter destruction, simply by being there :D

Antheon:
In theory a change will cause another change of equal proportions, a cycle which repeats itself numberous times. Not all of them are additive and might interfere with the outcome of only one person's change. I don't know how the universe works. No-one does. So there will always be a chance that your message will kill us all. But I believe in the universe's structure. Like ripples in a pond that will disappear, I believe that the universe would even out most of the small ripples. It could have not existed that long if it were that fragile. But that is the very essence of the butterfly effect: We can not predict anything, there will always be uncertainty. So, let's just hope that the universe knows what it is doing and will never give us the power to destroy the entire creation, lol.

Talking about the butterfly effect: If the flapping of a butterfly could cause/prevent a hurricane somewhere else, how would you know for sure which butterfly caused a hurricane in Brazil? The German? The Spanish? Also, how many chains of changes could you follow until you loose track of which event caused genocide after 600 years of constant changes? After all, any change could have caused it ...

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page