But I'm not the person in question, a fictional character is. Why should I care about this Harry Potter, when there are billions of other Harry Potters?

 

The same reason why we read fanfiction, write fanfiction & search for good fanfiction: the stakes within the universe the story is taking place & the style with which the story is written, because really if you're fine with some other universe's Harry being happy then no need to look further than canon.

 

There is no multiverse in canon, nor in most fanfiction. For each given fanfic, the Harry you're reading is the only Harry out there, so of course you care about him. But if a fanfic tells you that in that fanfic's universe, there are billions of Harrys, then you have no real reason to care.

 

No, that universe has only one Harry. So the way to make us care is not about whether there is multiverse or not, but how, from that point,conflicts are presented in that same universe & how Harry tackles them. At least that's how I decide whether I like that story or not. I get that you personally don't like the idea of multiverse, but that doesn't mean that there can't ever be compelling conflicts & their resolutions in a story having multiverse at the start. I'm sure many here would agree. I've read people saying that most of the time they skim over the massive prologue that details how time travel or AU travel was achieved. They decide whether a story is good based on what comes after.

 

Because you don't care for the struggle itself; you care for the person who is going through it. A great plot with bland characters is never going to be interesting, because readers don't get invested in the plot. They get invested in the characters who drive it.

If Harry were to dimension hop from a universe where Voldemort won and the world ended, we'd still care about his attempts to save the different universe because we're invested in his story, not that of the universe.

 

Hold on though - identical means identical. Just because your identical twin looks the same as you, has the same interests, and clothing choices and so forth does mean that your identical twin is you. Again, saving your identical twin from a messy death isn't the same thing as saving you - you'll feel the difference there.

Remember, those copies are embedded in different universes, are making different choices, etc. Consequently, they are not at all the same people. They are matter-for-matter duplicates of our original friends, families, villains, etc.

Presumably, you're distinguishing a reset from an alternate timeline/universe scenario, the reset must take place within the same timeline. However, it is impossible for a reset within a single timeline to actually involve truly "rewinding the past" - that is because you will get a contradiction. And presumably, there are good philosophical and literary reasons to avoid a notion of time travel that involves contradiction.

The closest thing you can get to a "reset" scenario is just one in which the future ends up very, very, very closely resembling some past state, in which future states evolve differently. So, a presumably "reset" scenario would look like this:

A, B, C, D, E, B, F, G
..................^
..................|
................reset

Arguably, in a true "reset" scenario, you wouldn't even have knowledge of the reset, since that involves knowing that events C, D, and E happened. So the way that typical "reset" scenarios actually look like are this instead:

A, B, C, D, E, B', F, G
..................^
..................|
................reset

B' is a state of the universe very, very closely related to B except that it at least includes as a component that an individual knows events pertaining to C, D, and E. And that's presumably what plays into why F and G - rather than C, D, and E - succeed B'.

But anyway, this is the only way I can see a single-timeline "reset" working, because the alternative is contradiction. Or alternate timelines, but we've already looked at that.

The question of personal identity is trickier in the "reset" scenario. Whereas in the alternate timeline scenario we can appeal to spatiotemporal properties to distinguish between two individuals in different timelines - they are literally in different dimensions/universes/timelines that co-exist - it's not as easy here.

My sense of it is that the individuals encountered post-reset are not the same individuals pre-reset. This relies somewhat controversially on a psychological continuity view of identity. Whereas we can assign the protagonist identity throughout the reset because their mental states enjoy appropriate causal connection - per the second sort of reset - there isn't anything really like that for other characters. (The matter is still not cut-and-dry here admittedly - fully making sense of the character's identity here might involve invoking some kind of substance dualism or where mental states have a physical substrate outside the affected universe)

In a very real sense, all of those characters have been annihilated and replaced with matter-for-matter duplicates post-reset. I think the idea behind the intuition here is similar to the intuition that entering the Star Trek teletransporter ends up with you dying and replaced by a matter-for-matter duplicate. The original ends up getting erased out of the universe both in the teletransporter and in the reset scenario.

So, in sum, I don't think any of the typical ways of time travel, at least not ones invoke contradiction, can make sense of changing things around or fixing the past or anything like that. Confusing people or events in an alternate timeline or post-reset with the people or events in the original timeline or pre-reset as being the same people is the same mistake as thinking that Fred and George are the same people because they look alike.

Again, by that logic, if I want to save Fred from a fiery death, I just need to save George.

Globally yes, there is that sort of phenomenon. However, arguably, there is something similar even within our world - there is a sense in which our choices are irrelevant to the world's ultimate outcome. It's either all ending up in the highest good anyway ala theism or the universe gets wiped out by heat death or something like that. You don't need a multiverse to lose ultimate value, so pointing out that the multiverse eliminates ultimate value doesn't seem to say much.

But, naturally, when we're reading stories and when we're living out our lives, I doubt few people actually care about ultimate value. The fictional universe we witness is not a coincidence because the author makes a deliberate choice about which universe and events and, more importantly, which characters we experience. The choices the characters make certainly matter to those characters, regardless of the environment they find themselves in be it alternate universes or not, and consequently matter to the reader. The grief or joy a character experiences is not lessened in any way by them experiencing it in an alternate universe or anything like that given that it is indeed the very same character witnessing it. And because that character is the reader's grip on the story, the characters feelings on the matter will end up being important to the reader.

Ultimately, it comes down to execution. There are multiverse fics that are well-done and there are many more that are not. I do sense that if continuous branching and exposure to duplicates persists too long, the audience will tend towards desensitization to the events occurring. So I suppose that at the extreme of these types of fics, you do get devaluing of the events.

Because it's the one you're reading about, I would imagine.

 

I agree with Taure here. Multiverses in fiction that are continuously branching devalue characters, their agency, and audience emotional investment. I don't like fics that have branching timelines too much.

 

It might be that english isn't my primary language; But where did you get the contradiction? Contradiction in what? There seems to be a logical step missing for me.

Even with examples, I simply don't understand you. What I mean by reset: If you initiated the reset (originally) 10 years from now, tomorrow, you'll wake up with additional 10 years of memories of future that would happen if you had photographic memory and did everything the same way.

But since you probably won't (because you possibly reset the timeline to change shit), you simply live with 10 years of additional knowledge.

 

As far as time-travel goes I'm of three minds.

A: The vine-like timeline theory. The timeline progresses in a curvilinear fashion diverting at 'major/important decision points. It is quite close to the current scientific definition of time which is a straight arrow. (Not really) Me deciding what to have for breakfast doesn't split the timeline, its the inherent chaotic mess of reality. Me choosing my route to work might have more of a chance of splitting the time line. Me choosing to shoot someone splits the timeline. The more mundane and subject to random/chaotic whimsy a choice is the less chance it has of splitting the line. Traveling back in time only allows me to go back to decision points. The less random the choice was the easier it is to travel to that point. Kinda creates a 'fixed points in the timeline' situation.

B: Matter can't time travel. Pulling some actual theory into this, you can only send information back in time. If that is pulses of light as Morse code or your mind/soul is up to creative license. Physical matter can't go back. This opens interesting thematic elements of dealing with multi personalities ('Soul' transfer) or memories overlapping ('Mind' transfer.) Unfortunately these tend to tick 'Indy Harry' boxes if done poorly.

C: The parallel lines theory. What a lot of you are probably thinking of when you say 'multiverse,' which is altogether something different, the parallel lines theory is me traveling 'back' in time and 'sideways' in time to a new parallel timeline. The original continues without me and the new one is identical to the old one in every conceivable way up until the point that I traveled to. This method of time travel gives rise to a limited multiverse which is why there is confusion between the two.

N.B. A true multiverse is an extension of the vine theory into a time-tree theory. Every 'major' decision creates a number of new timelines where each option is taken. Example: (I use death because I see it as a 'decision' that is minimally affected by random entropy) I have 6 people at a table playing Russian Roulette with a 6-shot revolver that has one bullet. Each person plays one round, 6 pulls of the trigger. This event spawns 7 timelines, 6 timelines where one person each dies and a 7th where none of them die. This accounts for the 7 different major outcomes. If the 'event' is interrupted only 2 timelines spawn. One where the interruption occurs and one where it doesn't. Etcetera, etcetera.

 

Not exactly.

If our interpretation of quantum theory as being completely non-deterministic is correct, then if you just turned the clock back x years and let things start evolve again, even if you didn't interfere with a single thing, like, just sat in a cloaked spaceship in Earth's orbit watching things develop, things would still go differently, because wave functions would begin collapsing differently from how they did the first time. Though the first couple of days or so, things may look pretty much the same, but it shouldn't take long before these effects compound enough for you to see significant differences.

The National Lottery is thus an unreliable source of revenue. The stock market, on the other hand, may be useful for a time, but it shouldn't take long before the very fact that your playing the stock market will produce a feedback loops removes what predictability the future information gave you.

Bottom line: the simple act of going back in time is in itself a change. All coin flips, dice tosses, lottery numbers, etc. are immediately affected/changed.

Of course, this doesn't agree with the Potterverse Time Turners, but then again the time travel we're talking about isn't caused by a time turner.

 

I don't disagree with that; Actually "rehashing canon because timeline musn't be changed" is one of my pet peeves; It doesn't change the fact that the knowledge you've accumulated would be reason enough to do the timeline reset, especially if things really get fucked up.

And if you've prepared sufficiently, knowing locations of things for a few days would be enough to do (some things better).

--

Xandrel: Ah, I now see the part where I said that bit about photographic memory and recreating your original timeline. I have no idea about quantum theory, so you are probably right there, if your understanding is correct. It doesn't change the fact that "time reset" would be viable option, if just for the added knowledge.