Time travel probability ponderings

I got to thinking. This is always a bad idea. Nevermind that. I got to my mind wandering as it does and it wandered into the question of time travel. Not the standard questions and paradoxes though. Just a question under a certain set of conditions.

What if time travel into the past did exist.

What if it was in fact possible for you to change that past timeline

What if time was structures so that there is only one future timeline (not a infinite number of branches and not possible world theory either)

My question was:

What is the Probability that influencing 1 person to make a different choice, no matter how small, would lead to time machines never being invented? …

Aside from the consequences of that, What is the Probability of that? At first I was like, oh, must be infedecimally small.

Then I was like, no, must actually be much more likely. As 1 person making a different choice leads to more different choices which influences other people to make different choices and those people make more different choices and influences others to make different choices… in a massive change wave that spreads across the earth. I mean if you think of three degrees of separation… can’t take much for choice waves to spread worldwide by changing just one choice. Even if some choices wouldn’t be altered some of their future ones would be just by being contact with someone who did make a different choice.

So then what is the probability that all those changes in choices would alter the future in such a way that the Particular set of circumstances that created time travel just never happened. Or Never happened Then, when those people who went back would rather need it to exist. But we could say if it never existed they would disappear the moment they altered that person’s choice back to their timeline, and whatever ‘new’ life they lead with no idea what ‘happened’ in the timeline they changed. The First time travelers would be the last. If the probability was High that the tech would cease to exist.

I Googled it thinking Google knows everything.

Nope. Google failed me.

I know someone has likely randomly pondered this before but Google didn’t help me find those people.

But then I realized does it matter how we phrase this? Not really. It is extremely similar to Hey, what if I went back in time and killed my grandfather? What then? Eh? Eh?

Same difference. If we assume We Can change the past, as we did so assume. Then a) you would immediately cease to exist- and we have a paradox because if you don’t exist you couldn’t have made a machine to travel back in time and kill your grandfather. b) Or you kill your grandfather, cease to exist as of that moment in time, and the universe corrects the future timeline without you in it (your like a wart on the timeline existing for that moment now and only that moment because you erased all moments). Obviously, the paradox makes more logical sense. It seems pretty impossible to kill your grandfather when you have erased your existence by doing so.

Likewise, if you changed anything in the past that caused the future for time machines not to exist, then how could you have traveled back in time to have made that change in the first place?

So either a) we cannot change the past b) time travel in the past is impossible c) time is not one linear line but branches of with every choice. Or is infinite possible universes for every single choice. d) You can change the past and the universe instantaneously corrects the timeline whether it causes your existence to change in any way (not the job you do in the future, for example, or you didn’t invent time travel, your neighbour Bob did instead) or to cease to exist doesn’t matter, you instantaneously change with it back to your future exact location of when you left… now as a Janitor at the local High School maybe. e) you can change the past and it makes a loop. As in, if you went back and changed Anything it was necessary that you did so for your future to happen. So whatever change you made actually Led to the you in the future inventing the time machine! Presto! loop in the timeline made.

Either way, in my original question of 1 small change of 1 choice leading to the future possibility of time travel not being invented as it was… is what I actually want to know. Not the paradoxes that result from it. The probability that one choice could lead to that. Like a butterfly farts here and causes a earthquake in China. That sort of deal. One small change leads to massive consequences. Meaning time travel would never be invented the exact same way it was and that would be a real problem for our time traveler.

I suppose if my brain didn’t have this infernal vertigo it would be quite a bit entertaining to think this through. As it is, just random brain fluff as I was daydreaming. One’s brain wanders when watching boring TV.

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