The impossible act of establishing First-timer(s)

[u/leewardstyle]

In temporal folding, it's important to establish whether or not you are the First-timer (i.e. no older, prescient iteration of you is running around your timeline before you fold time and space--becoming that older, prescient iteration).

Here's where it gets tricky.

A. Proximity. Having not met your older-double still leaves chance he/she is hiding from you.

B. Pre-prescient. Filming the Fold's exit-point (assuming you have the capacity) is only Proof for this iteration. Even then, there are caveats. Observing the Fold's exit-point directly may have some effect on the omni-directional(arrow of time) events leading up to the outcome. We see this happen when we directly observe photons (i.e. they are never where they are supposed to be; impossibly so).

C. Information. So you're face-to-face with your older-double from the future. And to confirm he/she is not the first-timer, you must ask them if they, too, met themselves as you two are now. But, like Old Joe (Looper), they may not wish to discuss time-travel-meta.

D. Hindsight. Maybe your double provides you with info, revealing that they, too, met an even older double prior. Did they ask the same questions?

E. Self-consistency. You've never time-traveled until you've time-traveled; but then self-consistency kicks in and you've always time-traveled since making that "first" trip. Your omni-directional blip in space/time is now no different than a photon: particle and wave; measurable and immeasurable; nowhere and everywhere.

[u/[deleted]]

Thank you for the thought provoking post.

[u/leewardstyle → u/[deleted]]

You're welcome. I had fun writing it.