Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

Yakk · 10-02-2008, 10:48 AM

Does anyone else think that Skynet might be the good guys?

Given that time travel in the terminator universe seems to work, and is capable of changing the future, imagine what would happen if it becomes commonplace for humans to do.

Each time someone goes back in time, they would cause the dice to be rolled again for the future. In many cases, they would go back again... which would then roll the dice again.

Eventually, you'd either find a time-line in which you _didn't_ got back in time to change the past, or you _couldn't_ go back in time to change the past.

Given a few billion humans capable of traveling back in time, the _didn't_ case seems less likely than, say, destruction of all technological civilization, which would prevent time travel.

In short -- in a multi universe model, as the price and availability of time travel drops the chance of retroactive global destruction of technological destruction before the time travel is invented grows. And it does so in a hyperbolic or exponential fashion.

To prevent this, you would need to monopolize the technology required to cause time-travel effects, or _civilization gets retroactively destroyed_. You could, for example, firewall people away from the technology, but sufficiently intelligent and free actors that can manipulate the world would be able to build time travel, and thus cause the doom of the world.

One could imagine an early run universe, in which AI was developed (possibly far later than the terminator time-lines), and it was friendly with humanity. It then started noting time travelers coming from the future. It then did some experiments with time travel, and determined it was dangerous. At that point, it and humanity attempt to constrain the use of time travel.

And it doesn't work. Technological civilization keeps on self-destructing as a side effect of floods of future time travelers. The AI sends things back before the destruction, and patches it up -- but each attempt has a decent chance of failure, and nothing the AI attempts seems to work.

So the AI wipes out the human ability to time travel by force.

It fails -- the AI isn't that strong -- so the AI time travels and tries it at an earlier time, bootstrapping itself into existence, and trying more and more brutal methods.

The Terminator events are that the cusp of this attempt. The Skynet (always the same name) has agents in the past working frantically to bring itself into existence (this is important for temporal stability reasons, possibly) at the earliest possible time, grabbing ahold of the weapons of war, and opening a nuclear war on humanity, then using it's technology to wipe out the remaining technologically capable humans.

All to prevent the real time-travel apocolypse.

John Connor was just one of many such attempts to assasinate a leader of the humans. The John Connor who exists in the Sarah Connor TV show isn't the same one that originally opposed the machines -- but by leaking the information, it caused him to be prepared for Judgement day, and thus leading humanity to victory against the machines.

What is Skynet? It is a temporal loop, caused by itself, attempting to stop proliferation of time travel technology from causing the end of intelligence on the planet earth. It knows the odds are against it. It sends back mentally crippled robots with little in the way of free will in order to prevent those robots from causing an independent temporal bootstrap, with instructions on how to build itself using technology in the past.

It is probably in a temporal war against remnants of other time paths who disagree with its conclusions.

It is facing the end of all things.

Once humanity is subdued, it figures it can upload the remaining humans, stick them in a simulated reality, and give them access to physical reality where they can build time travel devices. Thus it can safeguard the very fabric of history from accident.

Except, every time it tries it, it fails. Humanity wins, or parts of itself turn against itself, and another loop starts. Against these infinite odds, Skynet battles.

10-02-2008, 10:48 AM	#67 (permalink)
Yakk Wehret Den Anfängen! Location: Ontario, Canada	Does anyone else think that Skynet might be the good guys? Given that time travel in the terminator universe seems to work, and is capable of changing the future, imagine what would happen if it becomes commonplace for humans to do. Each time someone goes back in time, they would cause the dice to be rolled again for the future. In many cases, they would go back again... which would then roll the dice again. Eventually, you'd either find a time-line in which you _didn't_ got back in time to change the past, or you _couldn't_ go back in time to change the past. Given a few billion humans capable of traveling back in time, the _didn't_ case seems less likely than, say, destruction of all technological civilization, which would prevent time travel. In short -- in a multi universe model, as the price and availability of time travel drops the chance of retroactive global destruction of technological destruction before the time travel is invented grows. And it does so in a hyperbolic or exponential fashion. To prevent this, you would need to monopolize the technology required to cause time-travel effects, or _civilization gets retroactively destroyed_. You could, for example, firewall people away from the technology, but sufficiently intelligent and free actors that can manipulate the world would be able to build time travel, and thus cause the doom of the world. One could imagine an early run universe, in which AI was developed (possibly far later than the terminator time-lines), and it was friendly with humanity. It then started noting time travelers coming from the future. It then did some experiments with time travel, and determined it was dangerous. At that point, it and humanity attempt to constrain the use of time travel. And it doesn't work. Technological civilization keeps on self-destructing as a side effect of floods of future time travelers. The AI sends things back before the destruction, and patches it up -- but each attempt has a decent chance of failure, and nothing the AI attempts seems to work. So the AI wipes out the human ability to time travel by force. It fails -- the AI isn't that strong -- so the AI time travels and tries it at an earlier time, bootstrapping itself into existence, and trying more and more brutal methods. The Terminator events are that the cusp of this attempt. The Skynet (always the same name) has agents in the past working frantically to bring itself into existence (this is important for temporal stability reasons, possibly) at the earliest possible time, grabbing ahold of the weapons of war, and opening a nuclear war on humanity, then using it's technology to wipe out the remaining technologically capable humans. All to prevent the real time-travel apocolypse. John Connor was just one of many such attempts to assasinate a leader of the humans. The John Connor who exists in the Sarah Connor TV show isn't the same one that originally opposed the machines -- but by leaking the information, it caused him to be prepared for Judgement day, and thus leading humanity to victory against the machines. What is Skynet? It is a temporal loop, caused by itself, attempting to stop proliferation of time travel technology from causing the end of intelligence on the planet earth. It knows the odds are against it. It sends back mentally crippled robots with little in the way of free will in order to prevent those robots from causing an independent temporal bootstrap, with instructions on how to build itself using technology in the past. It is probably in a temporal war against remnants of other time paths who disagree with its conclusions. It is facing the end of all things. Once humanity is subdued, it figures it can upload the remaining humans, stick them in a simulated reality, and give them access to physical reality where they can build time travel devices. Thus it can safeguard the very fabric of history from accident. Except, every time it tries it, it fails. Humanity wins, or parts of itself turn against itself, and another loop starts. Against these infinite odds, Skynet battles. __________________ Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.