r/IsaacArthur • u/Tiny_Scholar_6135 • 7d ago

Subverse Time Machine vs Subverse Galaxy

Both are made out of a Jupiter Brain or a Matryoshka Brain. The Subverse Time Machine simulates time travel with multiple branching, but only a limited number of multiple branches can be simulated at a time, so if you simulate an alternate outcome, you can continue simulating that alternate history from that outcome so long as you choose to devote resources to it. Simulating an entire galaxy means simulating all the star systems in that galaxy that you want, there is just one simulated reality here, the Galaxy is based on real world physics with some FTL loopholes added for convenience. If you don't know how to make a wormhole in the real universe, you just simulate one in the subverse that allows it to be transverse able.

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u/wycreater1l11 7d ago edited 7d ago

What version of time travel would/could it be? It would specifically be a branching type of time travel as you say and it could basically never be closed time like curves, right?

I guess more specifically the simulation could save check points in time throughout the time the simulation transpires and then time travelers could go back to a checkpoint/saved timestamp in the simulation and start of a parallel simulation from there with them inside. Either that or one would have to run the simulation backwards somehow to the right time perhaps, and then restart it from there (while another version continues to run forward).

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u/Tiny_Scholar_6135 7d ago

The simulation starts with a single timeline, and at anything a time traveler enters branches off into a parallel timeline. The main timeline is never simulated, it consists of recorded history plus some guesses to fill in the gaps. The recorded history goes back all the way to the formation of the Earth, it is focused on the Earth. Any point a time traveler enters is a branching off timeline, the main timeline is never altered, it is simply a reference point from which the branching timeline begins. There are finite resources for branching timelines. You can say that each subverse begins at the branching off point where the first time traveler enters it. There is a budgeted allotment for timelines, so lets say it's allowed to create 100 billion subverses, the same number as the number of stars in the galaxy, when the 100 billionth subverse is created, the time travel stops at the traveler is instead ported to the nearest subverse on the timeline, each subverse runs continually from their points of creation, they all share the main timeline at some point in history before branching off. Some of the branches are insignificant, if you visit the dinosaurs, there is not much in terms of historical events you can alter, the dinosaurs continue on as permitted, colonies of humans and other modern life firms sprout up amongst them. You can interact with historical settings or not, each is a paralle Earth, some with historical characters playing out their parallel timelines, others just have beasts, visiting humans and colonists. This contains a lot of habitable spaces, and is in some way superior to a realistic simulation of our galaxy, which contains mostly hostile environments to humans. You can have terraforming if course, and the simulated FTL takes the place of the time travel mechanic in the simulated past subverses.

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u/wycreater1l11 7d ago

>The simulation starts with a single timeline, and at anything a time traveler enters branches off into a parallel timeline. The main timeline is never simulated, it consists of recorded history plus some guesses to fill in the gaps. The recorded history goes back all the way to the formation of the Earth, it is focused on the Earth. Any point a time traveler enters is a branching off timeline, the main timeline is never altered, it is simply a reference point from which the branching timeline begins. There are finite resources for branching timelines.

Okay, I think I understand. The main time line is not let to evolve on its own but is constructed to be as close to actual reality as possible. (Maybe a method of constructing it is to have parts of it evolve by itself as well as construction by other means, but main goal is to get it to be as close as possible to actual reality).

So I am assuming that people from actual reality enter the simulation like in the matrix to simulate time travel? Before I assumed that there were actually simulated beings that created branches further back from where they are on their branch. That they went back to a former instance in their simulated timeline and branched from there.

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u/Tiny_Scholar_6135 7d ago

There is no point in doing anything other than branching timelines in a simulation, because otherwise it is just a puppet show. With 100 billion timelines, chronologically, that is 20 timelines per year of recorded history and 20 per year of prehistory as well.

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u/wycreater1l11 7d ago

I suppose you could simulate universes that are different to ours in a more remarkable sense than it being considered a branching timeline. You could simulate universes with different physics or something. What would be a puppet show?

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u/Tiny_Scholar_6135 7d ago

If you preserved the timeline it would be simple recorded history with no freedom of action.

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u/wycreater1l11 7d ago

Sure, if we are talking about using simulations for for strictly simulating the timeline we have had. There are other endeavours one can use simulations for.

If we talk about simulating the past. On first glance it seems like it would be pretty remarkable to have an entire record of our history like that. On second glance, I guess one could argue that if we had the capability to simulate our past in that sense, we wouldn’t need it since we already have all the knowledge we need and don’t need the simulation then. But I guess on third glance, maybe using simulations is a way to truthfully get knowledge about gaps in our knowledge about the past, with a pretty high confidence, via some inference with the aid of the simulations or something. So maybe it would still be useful.

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u/Tiny_Scholar_6135 6d ago

No new knowledge is gained by simulating the past, we wouldn't do this for historical research as all the information we know would go into that simulation. So it wouldn't be history students going back there to do research, the parallel timelines would be inaccurate at any rate since they would be diverging.

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u/wycreater1l11 6d ago

Again, this was the last part of my comment that is relevant:

But I guess on third glance, maybe using simulations is a way to truthfully get knowledge about gaps in our knowledge about the past, with a pretty high confidence, via some inference with the aid of the simulations or something. So maybe it would still be useful.