The Infosphere - New Episode!

[on:]

FYI there's a stub article for the new episode up on The Infosphere now - come one, edit all!

It's pretty much a blank slate at this point except for some trivia. Some meta-bits are still works in progress, so excuse the rough edges!

https://theinfosphere.org/The_Impossible_Stream

[Reply #1 on:]

Excellent work, zapp—much obliged! I just now finally remembered my Infosphere password (after an embarrassing number of login attempts), and will try to make actual contributions to the new episode pages in the coming weeks if/when I'm able.

[Reply #2 on:]

Glad to see activity on the Infosphere.  I am unlikely to help out with actual content, but I can assist technically.

[Reply #3 on:]

Excellent work, zapp—much obliged!

Thanks! It's pretty fun, honestly.

[Reply #4 on:]

If anybody is interested, new MSPaint diagrams for Cyclical Time in TLPJF are available, and could be added to the Infosphere by somebody less lazy than I. They're in the episode's review thread.

[Reply #5 on:]

I can add it. I think it could be improved by splitting it up into parts, though.

- TLPJF: long linear series: 6 total, 1st and 6th extending into past/future, 2nd through 5th giving the episode sequence
- RTEW, TWOF, BBS, ATPH: zoom into a single series, circle?

Possible further zoom-ins, too

[Reply #6 on:]

I can add it. I think it could be improved by splitting it up into parts, though.

- TLPJF: long linear series: 6 total, 1st and 6th extending into past/future, 2nd through 5th giving the episode sequence

Making it a linear series would make it incorrect. It's a single circle, with multiple flyovers, because that's how time must work in order for time travel as portrayed to be logically (internally) consistent within the Futuramaverse as a whole and the internal evidence for this is laid out on the graphic depicting the "timeline" as a circle.

There is only one universe, and each time it "plays", time is being spooled around the same loop.

A linear sequence would be a 100% deterministic universe, which we know the Futuramaverse is not. Look no further than the first-season episode "Mars University" for evidence of this via the quasi-deterministic nature of particle decay being linked to (or possibly dependent on) symmetry in string theory via a diagram entitled "Witten's Dog" as a parody of the classic idea of superposition as normally illustrated via "Schrodinger's Cat" (although TLOTF, TWOF, FWH, and BBS all also demonstrate via seperate mechanisms that the universe they take place in is quasi-deterministic at most*, and therefore much more akin to an opening and then closing probability tree with a set endpoint, a set beginning, and multiple routes from one to another based on so-called "quantum decisions" which in practice will resolve with minimal macro-scale variation during the cycle**).

Each time somebody takes a trip into the past, we see that changes are possible, but at the same time have either little effect or merely provide context for things we already saw happening (Bender's rampage through Old New York's skyline versus Nudar's selfcestuous tryst, for example).

This would result in branching timelines with both no additional context for past events and no observed changes to the established timeline by those not on the branch created, in a linear/deterministic model.

Therefore, there is no linear series of universes in TLPJF. There are multiple trips around the same circle. Hence the diagram. This is the cyclical time model that I have developed, and is internally consistent with the events of the show and the principles of cause and effect, the established rules in-universe for paradox resolution, the established rules of operation for the physical reality comprising the Futurama multiverse (including all of those parallel realities), and most importantly of all, the logical application of all of these at once.

If you subscribe to the linear deterministic model, you have to ignore a whole buttload of contradictory stuff throughout the series to make that work.

*We'll use TLOTF as the route to a quick-and-easy example here: the observer effect is referenced by the professor when he complains that the outcome of a result was changed by observing it in the first place . This is derived in part from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, a foundational component of Quantum Mechanics. This principle itself comes from the nature of our physical reality as being probabilistic and stochastic rather than deterministic and states that we cannot know a particular property of any particle without destroying the possibility of learning another, related, property from that same particle (though using the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, we do have a potential workaround). Any of the other examples will get a bit more complicated, but all amount to the same thing: the Futuramaverse is probabilistic (just like our own physical reality).

**Or: temporal inertia.

[Reply #7 on:]

Nah. Despite the wordcount, you're wrong about this and you always have been.

[Reply #8 on:]

I was waiting until I had time to properly respond, but I guess I'll just say, especially given the latest episode, I think any system for the entire series would necessarily be a post-hoc rationalization rather than any sort of internally consistent plan that was followed as the episodes were being written. A good-faith effort to find a system may be fruitful but it wouldn't represent any sort of plan that the writers of the show were following, I believe. Not to say it's not an interesting question.

To the immediate question, specifically: you say that time is represented as "an opening and then closing probability tree with a set endpoint, a set beginning, and multiple routes from one to another". That is compatible with a linear timeseries for TLPJF; the beginning = big bang, the endpoint = heat death, the middle = stuff, unless there's something else I'm unaware of.

Also, if I recall my commentary correctly, that blackboard in Mars University was nothing more than a sight gag. About poop.

[Reply #9 on:]

Exactly. It's impossible to create a definitive, consistent model of time-travel from episode to episode of Futurama because it's clear as day that the writers' intention has differed from episode to episode and they care less about continuity than we do.

Generally speaking, it's easy to wave it away as the result of different methods of time-travel behaving in different ways, but "Decision 3012" operates entirely different than "Bender's Big Score" despite re-using the universal time-code and it comes down to bad continuity because the writers favoured an easy gag ending over making things make sense.

It's incredibly apparent what the intent of "The Late Philip J. Fry" is an it's that the characters enter into a brand new universe and that, in the world of Futurama, things follow a vaguely deterministic model and will arrive at more or less the same place when given the same input. There are numerous hints that this is what they intend but the most blatant is when The Professor says "Apparently this new universe is about 10 feet lower than our old one".

The latest episode completely disproves TNUK's time-loop diagram in that it's now clear as hell that you can in fact go backwards past the point of the big bang. It stands to reason that we're seeing The Professor loop back to a previous universe, knowing full well that the version of him in each universe running parallel will do the same thing, meaning that it basically makes no difference (unless he goes back one universe earlier and ends up in a world with a bitter, old Leela who thought her Fry died in an accident at Hedonismbot's house).

[Reply #10 on:]

Also: calling it now, but I believe we'll be seeing branching timelines when we get to "Otherwise".

[Reply #11 on:]

It is quite interesting how often Futurama adheres to a deterministic outcome as opposed to a timeline-splitting one, actually. The method of time-travel seems to be key.

"Time Keeps on Slipping" doesn't feature time travel that can affect the past in any way so it's skippable.

"Roswell That Ends Well" essentially involves the characters hurling themselves through time only to have always been supposed to have gone back -- they don't change anything because the events of the episode were predetermined.

"Bender's Big Score" features a paradox-correcting time-code that will allow you to travel backwards in time only. The paradox-correcting element means that it follows a deterministic outcome presumably set by the God Entity and any deviations from it (such as time-travel duplicates) will be destroyed the more they're able to alter things and mess around with them. Their "doom field" increases until things are taken care of.

"The Late Philip J. Fry" only allows for time-travel into the future so, once again, there's no way in which it invalidates anything so far as no true time-travel paradoxes can be created by going forwards. However, it portrays the idea that each universe is deterministic in so far as if you give it the same input, it'll largely end up at the same outcome. Even more apparent with the total lack of butterfly effect from the killing of Eleanor Roosevelt.

"All the Presidents' Heads" features opal essence fuelled time-travel, revealed to be the methodology for keeping the heads in jars alive in the show as well. This method allows for changes to be made that have major ramifications for the future, though even then, you can argue that the universe is fairly deterministic. The British future the crew end up in is like a British coat of paint over their universe as opposed to an entirely different world. This episode does imply that branching timelines are very much possible within Futurama, though.

"Decision 3012" features the return of the paradox-correcting time-code. In what is basically just horrific continuity, they opt for the time travel creating a paradox that writes itself out of ever happening in a way that doesn't really make any sense until you use your headcanon to explain... "Well, the time-code was 'overloaded' this time and simply killing Travers wasn't going to fix things so it just reset the timeline but in a way whereby Bender won't now rise up kill all humans because that would cause this to happen all over again"... Not their best work.

"Meanwhile" features time-travel repeatedly but only 10 seconds into the past. There don't seem to be any ramifications from things like time-travel duplicates, etc, here. They then end up freezing time and travelling through that one moment forever. No major issues to the timeline.

"The Impossible Stream" reveals that breaking out of that frozen time caused the characters to inexplicably jump about 10 years forward in time but, other than that, the world seems pretty much unchanged.

"I Know What You Did Next Xmas" shows that backwards time travel is possible to past universes. We see no real paradoxes here... only potential continuity errors. The fact that The Professor determines he's the one who made Robot Santa evil does suggest, once again, that the show is deterministic and he was always supposed to have gone back in time and caused that to happen. See my post in the episode's thread for a deeper dive on this given the continuity issue about who would have made Santa evil in the show's original universe combined with the fact that Leela of universe 1 gave a different explanation for why Santa is evil in the first place.

[Reply #12 on:]

Nah. Despite the wordcount, you're wrong about this and you always have been.

A bold statement.

I was waiting until I had time to properly respond, but I guess I'll just say, especially given the latest episode, I think any system for the entire series would necessarily be a post-hoc rationalization rather than any sort of internally consistent plan that was followed as the episodes were being written.

Yes. There was clearly not a consistent plan that was followed, but as of the airing of TLPJF, and also taking into account all subsequent episodes up until the present, what has been displayed can only be unified within a cyclical temporal framework and the episode TLPJF is the episode that demonstrates this by showing time to be something you can go around from beginning to end and wind up in the same place.

And this has internal consistency within the series.

A good-faith effort to find a system may be fruitful but it wouldn't represent any sort of plan that the writers of the show were following, I believe.

Although it may not have been something they intentionally planned to portray, cyclical time is what they ended up portraying.

To the immediate question, specifically: you say that time is represented as "an opening and then closing probability tree with a set endpoint, a set beginning, and multiple routes from one to another". That is compatible with a linear timeseries for TLPJF; the beginning = big bang, the endpoint = heat death, the middle = stuff, unless there's something else I'm unaware of.

I mean, I've mentioned it at multiple points so I don't see how you're still unaware of the part that quantum probability vis-a-vis determinism plays in this. For the universe to follow the same path along that probability tree each time, it has to be a wholly deterministic universe - and the Futuramaverse (just like the real universe) has been shown to be a nondeterministic reality, where quasi-determinism (again, mirroring our own reality) is evident at the macro-scale and indeterminacy reigns at quantum scale.

Also, if I recall my commentary correctly, that blackboard in Mars University was nothing more than a sight gag. About poop.

Like most sight gags in the first season (in contrast to many episodes from the sixth season onwards), it can be more than one thing at once.  It's a math/physics joke, a reference to quantum indeterminism and the uncertainty principle, a refutation of the probability waveform as postulated by the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment (and thereby an affirmation of Schrodinger's intended takeaway from said thought experiment), as well as being a poop joke.

Exactly. It's impossible to create a definitive, consistent model of time-travel from episode to episode of Futurama because it's clear as day that the writers' intention has differed from episode to episode and they care less about continuity than we do.

That doesn't mean we can't take what we know and apply it to what we see.

Generally speaking, it's easy to wave it away as the result of different methods of time-travel behaving in different ways, but "Decision 3012" operates entirely different than "Bender's Big Score" despite re-using the universal time-code and it comes down to bad continuity because the writers favoured an easy gag ending over making things make sense.

Annoyingly, it actually makes perfect sense. I believe I covered that in the thread for the episode. It's hardly worth factoring into a conversation regarding the validity of the cyclical time model though, since it takes place within a single iteration of the universe.

It's incredibly apparent what the intent of "The Late Philip J. Fry" is an it's that the characters enter into a brand new universe and that, in the world of Futurama, things follow a vaguely deterministic model and will arrive at more or less the same place when given the same input.

It's very much apparent from my POV that there was no particular intent with regard to this and that the writers threw the characters forward past the heat death of the universe into the big bang without really caring how or why since it wasn't a functional component of the story.

You just really like the idea that you've battened onto like a barnacle, despite it being fundamentally incorrect. It's easy enough for you to assimilate and you're willing to overlook the inconsistencies (or even say that they're meant to be present). You like it, so you're championing it.

On the other hand, a cyclical timeline makes logical sense within the framework of the show, and has nothing poking giant holes in it. It's not something I need to like in order to see that it applies and fits well - better than the cyclical universe model.

As to determinism, we get hints within this episode (nevermind the other episodes dealing with its absence from the Futuramaverse) that it is not applicable. The time machine has a different keyfob in the iteration the crew land in (that's the only one I remember off the top of my head but I seem to remember that people originally commented on several such very small differences between iterations when the episode aired).

There is also no such thing as "vaguely deterministic". Quasi-determinism is not deterministic, it merely appears that way on the macro scale since there will be similar outcomes to probability trees with similar initial conditions over a large enough sample of particle interactions.

Things arrive at "more or less the same place" when looked at from the real-world perspective due to things like narrative causality and Fry's Golden Rule of TV. This is an artefact of Futurama being fiction. In universe, I have chosen to call the effect "temporal inertia", but the truth is that this is an artefact of quasi-determinism's macro-scale effect being that of the emergence of similar systems from similar starting points.

There are numerous hints that this is what they intend but the most blatant is when The Professor says "Apparently this new universe is about 10 feet lower than our old one".

It's a joke that resolves the "paradox" (not actually a paradox whether it's CU or CT in effect, but the duplicates would still be subject to the doom field that was revealed in BBS to govern the fate of time travel duplicates and resolve these issues).

It's also about ten feet "to the left", come to that. I'm calling this one as the application of the exclusion principle.

The latest episode completely disproves TNUK's time-loop diagram in that it's now clear as hell that you can in fact go backwards past the point of the big bang.

That shreds one statement I'd included in the cyclical timeline model, which I'm happy to retract as follows: it is clear that one can travel backwards past the big bang, provided that the mechanism for doing so has been added to your vehicle. Which during the events of TLPJF, it had not.

It stands to reason that we're seeing The Professor loop back to a previous universe,

How, exactly, does that "stand to reason"? It seems equally logical to assume that given the time vehicle's absorbance into the singularity before it is sharted out into the throes of universal heat death that the vehicle was and is part of a singular circular timeline wherein it has always existed as the same constituent set of atoms birthed from that particular singularity and that's how it managed to cross the discontinuity at all. There's nothing beyond the notion that it must necessarily be the same universe for the timeship to do so in favor of the CT version, but that's one more datapoint than supports the CU version. In which, the timeship would have been made of atoms from a seperate singularity and their mass would project spacetime as an independant emergent property, meaning they would not have been subject to the constriction of the imploding Big Bang, remaining "behind" as a discrete bubble in essentially an empty void at the beginning of time.

It is quite interesting how often Futurama adheres to a deterministic outcome as opposed to a timeline-splitting one, actually. The method of time-travel seems to be key.

A deterministic universe would be the same thing as one in which the timeline splits, by the way. This would render a timeclip like the one featured in TWOF or the multiples in BBS impossible.

Regardless of the method of time travel, the mechanics must remain consistent.

"Time Keeps on Slipping" doesn't feature time travel that can affect the past in any way so it's skippable.

TKOS doesn't feature time travel at all, in fact. Time progresses normally, it's just that the crew don't have any memory of what's happening in the gaps due to the chronitons that have been unleashed by destabilizing the nebula.

"Roswell That Ends Well" essentially involves the characters hurling themselves through time only to have always been supposed to have gone back -- they don't change anything because the events of the episode were predetermined.

Also not deterministic. It's a loop. In a deterministic universe, one "original" timeline would be branched from to create a new timeline in which a new set of actions is played out in defiance of the originally determined sequence. These timelines would be eternally divergent and the crew could never return to the timeline they left, which would continue on without them. They would only be able to travel forward within the path that they were now on. It would also not be a genuine grandfather paradox.

"Bender's Big Score" features a paradox-correcting time-code that will allow you to travel backwards in time only. The paradox-correcting element means that it follows a deterministic outcome

No. That's not what determinism is. That's not how it works. The paradox correction occurs by means of something called the doom field, discovered by one of the globetrotters as they analyze the mathematics behind the time travel allowed by the sphere generated from using the code.

This doom field should be regarded as a correction element applicable to all time-travel duplicates, since spacetime is one of those universal properties which may change in expression but does not have an underlying mathematical principle of which one may choose to ignore parts.

The doom field obviously has a temporally active multiplier which renders it more likely with each passing second that a particular duplicate will be killed somehow - this is against the core principle of the deterministic model and relies on quantum uncertainty as a stochastic mechanism for the ever-increasing doom field and for the small coincidences needed for most time-duplicates to end up meeting their demise as shown on screen.

"The Late Philip J. Fry" only allows for time-travel into the future so, once again, there's no way in which it invalidates anything so far as no true time-travel paradoxes can be created by going forwards. However, it portrays the idea that each universe is deterministic in so far as if you give it the same input, it'll largely end up at the same outcome.

No, that's not what determinism is. That's quasi-determinism as a macro effect of probability trees with the same starting point and similar available "choices"/

Even more apparent with the total lack of butterfly effect from the killing of Eleanor Roosevelt.

We don't see the lack of any ripple effect though. And we also don't see how quickly/easily things just sort of shake out the way they do despite Roosevelt's death (nor do we know that she died at any point before she'd done whatever she did that was of truly historical importance and would not have been done by anybody else. Farnsworth may have shot her on or near to her deathbed).

"All the Presidents' Heads" features opal essence fuelled time-travel, revealed to be the methodology for keeping the heads in jars alive in the show as well. This method allows for changes to be made that have major ramifications for the future, though even then, you can argue that the universe is fairly deterministic.

You keep using that word. I do not think you know what it means.

The British future the crew end up in is like a British coat of paint over their universe as opposed to an entirely different world. This episode does imply that branching timelines are very much possible within Futurama, though.

Since there is no "branch" (history is changed, the crew are returned to their starting temporal co-ordinates with changes applied to the timeline, and then history is restored with the crew again being restored to their starting temporal co-ordinates with said changes nullified, we get another loop as a result), there is no implication of anything other than that changes to the timeline will have a cosmetic effect at best downstream and that since the timeline would genuinely have branched in a deterministic model, there would have been no chance to restore the universe to the original state it was in and therefore the future that was recreated would in a CU model have been as cosmetically different as the alternative future with the British paintjob.

"Decision 3012" features the return of the paradox-correcting time-code. In what is basically just horrific continuity, they opt for the time travel creating a paradox that writes itself out of ever happening in a way that doesn't really make any sense until you use your headcanon to explain... "Well, the time-code was 'overloaded' this time and simply killing Travers wasn't going to fix things so it just reset the timeline but in a way whereby Bender won't now rise up kill all humans because that would cause this to happen all over again"... Not their best work.

It does make sense. I don't personally like it, but it's logically consistent from within the rules that it sets for itself. No, it's not their best work, but it's also not a continuity goof so much as a poor narrative decision.

"Meanwhile" features time-travel repeatedly but only 10 seconds into the past. There don't seem to be any ramifications from things like time-travel duplicates, etc, here. They then end up freezing time and travelling through that one moment forever. No major issues to the timeline.

There are no time-travel duplicates because they're not travelling ten seconds into the past, they're essentially resetting them. That last ten seconds didn't happen, but you remember how it could have turned out. Like the Omega 13 in Galaxy Quest.

"I Know What You Did Next Xmas" shows that backwards time travel is possible to past universes.

It shows the Professor's modified ship going back through the big bang into the heat death that (eventually) followed the big bang.

The fact that The Professor determines he's the one who made Robot Santa evil does suggest, once again, that the show is deterministic and he was always supposed to have gone back in time and caused that to happen.

That's not determinism. That's a causal loop or predestination paradox, just like RTEW.

See my post in the episode's thread for a deeper dive on this given the continuity issue about who would have made Santa evil in the show's original universe combined with the fact that Leela of universe 1 gave a different explanation for why Santa is evil in the first place.

The original explanation in Xmas Story (delivered by Farnsworth) was "Due to a programming error, Santa's standards were set too high". This episode would appear to suggest that Farnsworth is the responsible party, and that he always was the responsible party. It's a classic predestination paradox - Farnsworth wouldn't have messed with Santa if Santa wasn't evil, and Santa wouldn't be evil if he hadn't been messed with.

Also: calling it now, but I believe we'll be seeing branching timelines when we get to "Otherwise".

A parallel reality or alternate universe is not the same as a branching timeline, and I think that's ultimately what's in store: parallel realities where quantum choices were otherwise than in our core reality (not unlike TFP). It'll represent an exploration of possibilities rather than modifications to the timeline of the show. Showing us what could have been rather than what was.

[Reply #13 on:]

I have nothing to contribute to the time-travel discourse—you’re all right, or you’re all wrong, and I am none the wiser—but robust arguments like this make me wish WikiPEELia was still an ongoing concern because surely we’d need an entry for The Great Time Travel Debate of 2023…

[Reply #14 on:]

"Time Keeps on Slipping" doesn't feature time travel that can affect the past in any way so it's skippable.

TKOS doesn't feature time travel at all, in fact. Time progresses normally, it's just that the crew don't have any memory of what's happening in the gaps due to the chronitons that have been unleashed by destabilizing the nebula.

Time doesn't progress normally though, its randomly progressing much faster in certain pockets compared to the rest of the universe.

Evidenced by the the crew watching the teens complaining about old people getting handouts instantly turning into pensioners themselves demanding free money.

Even more apparent with the total lack of butterfly effect from the killing of Eleanor Roosevelt.

We don't see the lack of any ripple effect though. And we also don't see how quickly/easily things just sort of shake out the way they do despite Roosevelt's death (nor do we know that she died at any point before she'd done whatever she did that was of truly historical importance and would not have been done by anybody else. Farnsworth may have shot her on or near to her deathbed).

That's not how the butterfly effect works though, a change doesn't need to be of significant historical importance to make huge changes to the future. That's where the name comes from, something as subtle as the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil could trigger a tornado in Texas.

In reality if you made any change to the timeline 1000 years prior, even a tiny one then every single person that exists 1000 years later will be replaced by an entirely different set of people because the odds of any one particular person being born is so astronomically tiny given the exact same sperm would need to fertilize the exact same egg. After 30 generations there is no chance we would have ended up with the same set of people after any change was made to the timeline 1000 years earlier

So the fact that all the PE crew were still born is proof of a lack of a ripple effect.

Anyways the fact that Futurama just chooses to mostly ignore the butterfly effect doesn't really prove which time model is correct.

[Reply #15 on:]

"Time Keeps on Slipping" doesn't feature time travel that can affect the past in any way so it's skippable.

TKOS doesn't feature time travel at all, in fact. Time progresses normally, it's just that the crew don't have any memory of what's happening in the gaps due to the chronitons that have been unleashed by destabilizing the nebula.

Time doesn't progress normally though, its randomly progressing much faster in certain pockets compared to the rest of the universe.

Evidenced by the the crew watching the teens complaining about old people getting handouts instantly turning into pensioners themselves demanding free money.

Time is progressing normally, i.e.; forwards. Time is progressing normally, i.e.; in logical sequence. It's happening at different rates in different regions, and at least some (if not all) people appear to retain little to no memory of the portions that are being speedrun behind the scenes. But it's a normal, forward, sequential, cause-and-effect progression and nobody is "travelling through time" by skipping parts out (they just don't remember living through them) or popping backwards to fiddle with things.

Even more apparent with the total lack of butterfly effect from the killing of Eleanor Roosevelt.

We don't see the lack of any ripple effect though. And we also don't see how quickly/easily things just sort of shake out the way they do despite Roosevelt's death (nor do we know that she died at any point before she'd done whatever she did that was of truly historical importance and would not have been done by anybody else. Farnsworth may have shot her on or near to her deathbed).

That's not how the butterfly effect works though, a change doesn't need to be of significant historical importance to make huge changes to the future.

A change does not need to be of known importance to have a knock-on effect on other things, no. But a change does need to be of specific importance as part of a causal chain to cause a deviation from the general, quasi-deterministic, overall pattern.

That's where the name comes from, something as subtle as the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil could trigger a tornado in Texas.

This is a common misunderstanding of the name and the phenomenon it describes. The name was coined by a meteorologist in the 50s or 60s, and his description was to the effect that although a butterfly cannot generate a typhoon, the specific timing of the flapping of its wings may ultimately have some contribution to the eventual trajectory of such a developing storm.

This is often conflated with the idea that a small variable may have a large effect over time - the compounding of interest or the action of levers are good examples. And they result from the linear projection of an amplified force or action.

The point that the meteorologist was making in his paper was that in a chaotic system, a tiny variable may either be meaningless overall or may be of huge influence, and there is no way to tell until the system has run to its conclusion, since this is a chaotic effect that does not follow either a linear or a deterministic pathway.

His takeaway was that complex systems may be influenced by small actions or variables, or may not. Therefore the only way to mathematically model with any precision is to minimise small variations which may lead to unpredictable outcomes - which is unrealistic, therefore extremely complex systems such as weather may only be modeled to within a certain margin of error (which may be improved upon but can never be reduced to zero).

This realisation was one of the things that led to the development of a branch of mathematics called chaos theory, which attempts to describe complex behaviour which has unpredictable outcomes that may or may not depend upon minute variables when compared to the scale/scope of the overall system they occur within.

In reality if you made any change to the timeline 1000 years prior, even a tiny one then every single person that exists 1000 years later will be replaced by an entirely different set of people because the odds of any one particular person being born is so astronomically tiny given the exact same sperm would need to fertilize the exact same egg. After 30 generations there is no chance we would have ended up with the same set of people after any change was made to the timeline 1000 years earlier.

The whole point of the butterfly effect is in fact that you can't know that and that there may be zero or close to zero effect stemming from your overall change.

So the fact that all the PE crew were still born is proof of a lack of a ripple effect.

It really isn't. See above.

Anyways the fact that Futurama just chooses to mostly ignore the butterfly effect doesn't really prove which time model is correct.

The fact that like Schrodinger's cat and Einstein's equations, the Butterfly Effect is chronically misunderstood among the general population, contributing to a general Dunning-Kruger effect among laypersons when it comes to confidently describing complex scientific ideas incorrectly doesn't really mean that you can expect to use said terms when discussing them with scientists and not be told that you're wrong.

I have nothing to contribute to the time-travel discourse—you’re all right, or you’re all wrong, and I am none the wiser—but robust arguments like this make me wish WikiPEELia was still an ongoing concern because surely we’d need an entry for The Great Time Travel Debate of 2023…

Since documenting it would be difficult without violating the ancient agreement I have with [-mArc-], it's probably for the best that your wish remain unfulfilled. Besides, this discussion arose in the original review thread for TLPJF and appears to be mostly being continued by the same people. Myself included.

[Reply #16 on:]

It's impossible to create a definitive, consistent model of time-travel from episode to episode of Futurama because it's clear as day that the writers' intention has differed from episode to episode and they care less about continuity than we do.

That doesn't mean we can't take what we know and apply it to what we see.

I don't see why different methods of time-travel can't behave differently and have different outcomes. Why do you feel that they all need to be unified? Surely the time-code is allowed to behave completely differently to drinking opal essence or to the Professor's time machine? They even specify that it's a "paradox-correcting time-code" which implies that it behaves differently to other methods of time travel.

Generally speaking, it's easy to wave it away as the result of different methods of time-travel behaving in different ways, but "Decision 3012" operates entirely different than "Bender's Big Score" despite re-using the universal time-code and it comes down to bad continuity because the writers favoured an easy gag ending over making things make sense.

Annoyingly, it actually makes perfect sense. I believe I covered that in the thread for the episode. It's hardly worth factoring into a conversation regarding the validity of the cyclical time model though, since it takes place within a single iteration of the universe.

I'm going to look up your explanation now but surely it doesn't make sense purely on the grounds that it's entirely inconsistent with how the time-code has behaved in the past?

It's incredibly apparent what the intent of "The Late Philip J. Fry" is an it's that the characters enter into a brand new universe and that, in the world of Futurama, things follow a vaguely deterministic model and will arrive at more or less the same place when given the same input.

It's very much apparent from my POV that there was no particular intent with regard to this and that the writers threw the characters forward past the heat death of the universe into the big bang without really caring how or why since it wasn't a functional component of the story.

I'd love someone to ask David X. Cohen about this one day so we can get a definitive answer, but between The Professor's "We appear to be in a new identical universe" comment and the "Apparently this universe is about ten feet lower" comments alone, I think it's incredibly obvious what the intent was. There are other small hints here and there though. Fry saying "He's dead now" referring to his alternate self for instance.

You just really like the idea that you've battened onto like a barnacle, despite it being fundamentally incorrect. It's easy enough for you to assimilate and you're willing to overlook the inconsistencies (or even say that they're meant to be present). You like it, so you're championing it.

I could say the exact same thing about you.

On the other hand, a cyclical timeline makes logical sense within the framework of the show, and has nothing poking giant holes in it. It's not something I need to like in order to see that it applies and fits well - better than the cyclical universe model.

Other than the all the holes with it that we've been going back and forth over, sure.

There is also no such thing as "vaguely deterministic". Quasi-determinism is not deterministic, it merely appears that way on the macro scale since there will be similar outcomes to probability trees with similar initial conditions over a large enough sample of particle interactions.

Futurama doesn't take place in reality. It doesn't have to adhere to real-world science. It frequently doesn't.

There are numerous hints that this is what they intend but the most blatant is when The Professor says "Apparently this new universe is about 10 feet lower than our old one".

It's a joke that resolves the "paradox" (not actually a paradox whether it's CU or CT in effect, but the duplicates would still be subject to the doom field that was revealed in BBS to govern the fate of time travel duplicates and resolve these issues).

But like you say, there's no actual paradox here. There's no need for this to happen or go this way whatsoever. But The Professor clearly calls it "THIS universe" implying it's a different universe and he describes it as being different to their universe and what we see backs up what he says. The joke of it would have worked exactly as well if he'd said "Apparently we reentered the universe about 10 feet higher than we were before". He doesn't. That shows the writers' intent.

It is quite interesting how often Futurama adheres to a deterministic outcome as opposed to a timeline-splitting one, actually. The method of time-travel seems to be key.

A deterministic universe would be the same thing as one in which the timeline splits, by the way. This would render a timeclip like the one featured in TWOF or the multiples in BBS impossible.

Surely, the multiples in BBS would only be impossible from the perspective of the original timeline? And nothing says we're watching the original timeline.

Regardless of the method of time travel, the mechanics must remain consistent.

Why? If they manipulate the universe in different ways, surely the outcome can also be different.

"Time Keeps on Slipping" doesn't feature time travel that can affect the past in any way so it's skippable.

TKOS doesn't feature time travel at all, in fact. Time progresses normally, it's just that the crew don't have any memory of what's happening in the gaps due to the chronitons that have been unleashed by destabilizing the nebula.

Nope. It absolutely is time-travel. Remember: "Isolated spots are jumping by years at a time". In fact, there's an implication that every time-skip is somewhat specific to an area. This means that some areas (and the characters in them) are jumping forwards through time while others aren't, meaning that they've travelled through time relative to those other spots. "Stupid senior citizens" to "I deserve free money!" -- that character has travelled decades forwards relative to the Planet Express crew for example.

Even more apparent with the total lack of butterfly effect from the killing of Eleanor Roosevelt.

We don't see the lack of any ripple effect though. And we also don't see how quickly/easily things just sort of shake out the way they do despite Roosevelt's death (nor do we know that she died at any point before she'd done whatever she did that was of truly historical importance and would not have been done by anybody else. Farnsworth may have shot her on or near to her deathbed).

We absolutely do see a lack of any ripple effect in so far as the characters return to a world that is, as far as we can tell, identical to the previous one they left (apart from being 10 feet lower -- and to the left as you pointed out). I'm not saying it's impossible that a ripple effect happened. But I am saying that we see absolutely no evidence of it in the episode and no changes to the universe we know unless you want to start pulling up continuity errors as proof.

"All the Presidents' Heads" features opal essence fuelled time-travel, revealed to be the methodology for keeping the heads in jars alive in the show as well. This method allows for changes to be made that have major ramifications for the future, though even then, you can argue that the universe is fairly deterministic.

You keep using that word. I do not think you know what it means.

Yes, it's apparent that you're using a hard-science definition whereas I was using the more philosophical definition -- both of which are perfectly valid definitions for the record.

"Decision 3012" features the return of the paradox-correcting time-code. In what is basically just horrific continuity, they opt for the time travel creating a paradox that writes itself out of ever happening in a way that doesn't really make any sense until you use your headcanon to explain... "Well, the time-code was 'overloaded' this time and simply killing Travers wasn't going to fix things so it just reset the timeline but in a way whereby Bender won't now rise up kill all humans because that would cause this to happen all over again"... Not their best work.

It does make sense. I don't personally like it, but it's logically consistent from within the rules that it sets for itself. No, it's not their best work, but it's also not a continuity goof so much as a poor narrative decision.

It's inconsistent in so far as the time-code has never behaved like that before, though. In every previous instance of it paradox-correcting, it's manipulated "fate" to cause characters to die using objects in the vicinity. The doom field causes their doom. Whereas in "Decision 3012", it just literally erases them from space and time and changes things like an artist with a giant pencil and an eraser in a Daffy Duck cartoon. The doom here threatens to wipe you from existence. If it had operated as it did in previous instances, Travers would have died from the microphone on his podium exploding and then Nixon would have found some loophole to become president such as managing to get hired as Travers' Vice President before his death.

"Meanwhile" features time-travel repeatedly but only 10 seconds into the past. There don't seem to be any ramifications from things like time-travel duplicates, etc, here. They then end up freezing time and travelling through that one moment forever. No major issues to the timeline.

There are no time-travel duplicates because they're not travelling ten seconds into the past, they're essentially resetting them. That last ten seconds didn't happen, but you remember how it could have turned out. Like the Omega 13 in Galaxy Quest.

There are time-travel duplicates though. Fry and Bender use it to duplicate numerous diamonds in the jewellery store.

See my post in the episode's thread for a deeper dive on this given the continuity issue about who would have made Santa evil in the show's original universe combined with the fact that Leela of universe 1 gave a different explanation for why Santa is evil in the first place.

The original explanation in Xmas Story (delivered by Farnsworth) was "Due to a programming error, Santa's standards were set too high". This episode would appear to suggest that Farnsworth is the responsible party, and that he always was the responsible party. It's a classic predestination paradox - Farnsworth wouldn't have messed with Santa if Santa wasn't evil, and Santa wouldn't be evil if he hadn't been messed with.

Flipping the robot's good/evil switch to "evil" isn't a programming error and it isn't Robot Santa's standard being set too high so that he judges everyone to be naughty. That's the continuity issue here.

A parallel reality or alternate universe is not the same as a branching timeline, and I think that's ultimately what's in store: parallel realities where quantum choices were otherwise than in our core reality (not unlike TFP). It'll represent an exploration of possibilities rather than modifications to the timeline of the show. Showing us what could have been rather than what was.

Actually, I think you're probably right about this.

[Reply #17 on:]

"Time Keeps on Slipping" doesn't feature time travel that can affect the past in any way so it's skippable.

TKOS doesn't feature time travel at all, in fact. Time progresses normally, it's just that the crew don't have any memory of what's happening in the gaps due to the chronitons that have been unleashed by destabilizing the nebula.

Time doesn't progress normally though, its randomly progressing much faster in certain pockets compared to the rest of the universe.

Evidenced by the the crew watching the teens complaining about old people getting handouts instantly turning into pensioners themselves demanding free money.

Oops. I should have caught up with the posts below that one first.

[Reply #18 on:]

"Time Keeps on Slipping" doesn't feature time travel that can affect the past in any way so it's skippable.

TKOS doesn't feature time travel at all, in fact. Time progresses normally, it's just that the crew don't have any memory of what's happening in the gaps due to the chronitons that have been unleashed by destabilizing the nebula.

Time doesn't progress normally though, its randomly progressing much faster in certain pockets compared to the rest of the universe.

Evidenced by the the crew watching the teens complaining about old people getting handouts instantly turning into pensioners themselves demanding free money.

Time is progressing normally, i.e.; forwards. Time is progressing normally, i.e.; in logical sequence. It's happening at different rates in different regions, and at least some (if not all) people appear to retain little to no memory of the portions that are being speedrun behind the scenes. But it's a normal, forward, sequential, cause-and-effect progression and nobody is "travelling through time" by skipping parts out (they just don't remember living through them) or popping backwards to fiddle with things.

That's what time-travel is though. Something moving through the flow of time at a different rate to everything else.

Would you say that Interstellar, for instance, isn't a time-travel movie because it only shows characters travelling forwards in time relative to other characters? Relativism is absolutely a form of time-travel.

[Reply #19 on:]

OK I've just gone back through the "Decision 3012" thread and, rather than bump that decade-old thread, I'll just state here, you absolutely did not explain how the time code worked consistently with previous iterations in that thread.

You explained how the time-travel made sense. But the way in which it did its thing was completely different, from the methodology through to the point I make in that thread which is that the newborn baby Travers is the time-travel duplicate and therefore the one who should have been doomed by the doom field.

The active time-traveller is never the time-travel duplicate in Bender's Big Score. It's their passive self who exists once a time-traveller appears.

So, no... that episode is a big continuity goof.

[Reply #20 on:]

I suppose this thread was supposed to be about the Infosphere and new Futurama content.  Though, in fairness, it appears updates to the Infosphere are going strong.

But since Gorky brought it up, I can confirm WikiPEELia will return.  Eventually.  I still have all the data and files, I've just been focusing on PEEL.  And other matters of life.

[Reply #21 on:]

I will post my response in the episode discussion thread. Apologies, Duck.

[Reply #22 on:]

"Time Keeps on Slipping" doesn't feature time travel that can affect the past in any way so it's skippable.

TKOS doesn't feature time travel at all, in fact. Time progresses normally, it's just that the crew don't have any memory of what's happening in the gaps due to the chronitons that have been unleashed by destabilizing the nebula.

Time doesn't progress normally though, its randomly progressing much faster in certain pockets compared to the rest of the universe.

Evidenced by the the crew watching the teens complaining about old people getting handouts instantly turning into pensioners themselves demanding free money.

Time is progressing normally, i.e.; forwards. Time is progressing normally, i.e.; in logical sequence. It's happening at different rates in different regions, and at least some (if not all) people appear to retain little to no memory of the portions that are being speedrun behind the scenes. But it's a normal, forward, sequential, cause-and-effect progression and nobody is "travelling through time" by skipping parts out (they just don't remember living through them) or popping backwards to fiddle with things.

I'd agree it probably doesn't count as time travel but it does involve time manipulation so I wouldn't say time is progressing normally.

That's where the name comes from, something as subtle as the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil could trigger a tornado in Texas.

This is a common misunderstanding of the name and the phenomenon it describes. The name was coined by a meteorologist in the 50s or 60s, and his description was to the effect that although a butterfly cannot generate a typhoon, the specific timing of the flapping of its wings may ultimately have some contribution to the eventual trajectory of such a developing storm.

This is often conflated with the idea that a small variable may have a large effect over time - the compounding of interest or the action of levers are good examples. And they result from the linear projection of an amplified force or action.

The point that the meteorologist was making in his paper was that in a chaotic system, a tiny variable may either be meaningless overall or may be of huge influence, and there is no way to tell until the system has run to its conclusion, since this is a chaotic effect that does not follow either a linear or a deterministic pathway.

His takeaway was that complex systems may be influenced by small actions or variables, or may not. Therefore the only way to mathematically model with any precision is to minimise small variations which may lead to unpredictable outcomes - which is unrealistic, therefore extremely complex systems such as weather may only be modeled to within a certain margin of error (which may be improved upon but can never be reduced to zero).

This realisation was one of the things that led to the development of a branch of mathematics called chaos theory, which attempts to describe complex behaviour which has unpredictable outcomes that may or may not depend upon minute variables when compared to the scale/scope of the overall system they occur within.

I'm aware of the origin, the quote above was a question poised by the meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz. Not sure how that is a misunderstanding since its a direct quote from the guy.

I know he is not literally saying a butterfly flapping its wings will directly cause a tornado but that that its a methaphor for how small changes or actions can eventually cascade into significant ones.

In reality if you made any change to the timeline 1000 years prior, even a tiny one then every single person that exists 1000 years later will be replaced by an entirely different set of people because the odds of any one particular person being born is so astronomically tiny given the exact same sperm would need to fertilize the exact same egg. After 30 generations there is no chance we would have ended up with the same set of people after any change was made to the timeline 1000 years earlier.

The whole point of the butterfly effect is in fact that you can't know that and that there may be zero or close to zero effect stemming from your overall change.

I had meant to use the qualifier "could" in the above when talking about tiny changes, sorry English isn't my 1st language.

Regardless though, there absolutely would not be zero effect stemming from shooting Eleanor Roosevelt, that would with absolute certainty change history. Shooting anyone would, they don't have to be important.
 
Hell, even completely missing would most likely cause a ripple effect as trillions of air molecules would be displaced which cascade and eventually lead to a change in weather patterns and in turn cause a change to human behavour and in turn a change in mating behaviour which in turn will result in completely different people being born.

So the fact that all the PE crew were still born is proof of a lack of a ripple effect.

It really isn't. See above.

Not sure I follow you here. You are saying there could be a ripple yet the crew would all still have been born?
Eitherway I disagree, shooting Eleanor Roosevelt would easily be more than enough of a change to guarantee none of the PE crew are born, maybe Nixon and a few other heads from the 20th century would have survived but thats about it.

Anyways the fact that Futurama just chooses to mostly ignore the butterfly effect doesn't really prove which time model is correct.

The fact that like Schrodinger's cat and Einstein's equations, the Butterfly Effect is chronically misunderstood among the general population, contributing to a general Dunning-Kruger effect among laypersons when it comes to confidently describing complex scientific ideas incorrectly doesn't really mean that you can expect to use said terms when discussing them with scientists and not be told that you're wrong.

I may just be a simple layperson but if you think there is a chance shooting Eleanor Roosevelt would cause no ripple then I can confidently say its you who is wrong and maybe you don't understand the butterfly effect as well as you think.

[Reply #23 on:]

... in fairness, it appears updates to the Infosphere are going strong.

They are, there are a good few people doing regular updates there.

More is better though!

[Reply #24 on:]

As a butterfly scientist myself I have to agree shooting Eleanor would have caused a ripple.

Even if she survived the shot the idea that she would just go about her day and not act any different is pretty funny.

Theodore: By Gawd Eleanor, what's all the blood dripping out of you? What happened?
Eleanor: Some random old man appeared out of thin air in a flying carriage contraption and shot me but its fine.
Theodore: But there is blood everywhere, you sure you are ok?
Eleanor: Its just a flesh wound, hurts a bit alright but I'm not going to let it get me down and ruin my day so I will continue to do everything exactly as I would have as if I hadn't been shot, otherwise the commies win.

[Reply #25 on:]

Since Svip has already pointed out that this is not the appropriate thread, I've responded (again) in the appropriate episode review thread.