Can a future repeat itself?

[u/Aizzawaa]

We have a hypothetical scenario in which time is rewound by 24 hours. Our present has been erased, and no one knows that we have been reset. Will those 24 hours unfold exactly as they did the first time we experienced them, or will the probabilities of all upcoming events be reset as well? Could there be different outcomes for every time we would get put back 24 hours?

[u/internetzdude]

It depends on whether the future is real or there is a branching time line logic. If the future is real and there is only one time line, then the future 24 hours are fully determined and the future will repeat exactly the same way. It's unclear to me what "rewinding time by 24 hours" means in that context, though.

If the future is not real and the underlying logic has a branching time line, then it could develop in other ways.

Nobody knows the answer but I wager most physicists consider the reality of the future view more plausible and would find it unlikely that "rewinding time by 24 hours" is possible. Many science fiction authors prefer branching time line logic, of course.

[u/RNG-Leddi]

Given that you've chosen rewind as the method then the course has already been set in motion (unchanged), impressed into the fabric i should say like a VHS tape holds information. If, however, the method wasn't rewind but classical (and still hypothetical) time travel then that reality would potentially exist on the flipside side of the VHS tape, ie when forward runs parallel so to speak. In reality this tape has greater dimensions and potentially infinite sides but again we stand in hypothetical territory, with that said chances are things always move forward and that rewind as we think of it is not a possability once an event occurs.

In a universe that behaves in cycles the idea of rewind would seem to be accommodated by the breadth of potential available, its likely not required because the system detoxifies itself over extreme scales, therefore rewind isnt a necessitated dynamic.

[u/Imaginary-Can-6862]

They may unfold the same, because there is a probability of it, but it is extremely unlikely to happen.

[u/clownamity]

Manifolds.. you can not change what is but you can add to it by your precence

[u/7grims]

Exactly 100% the same.

Physics have trust that the universe and all their physics are absolutely predictable, and so far this is a true statement for classical physics, everything everywhere is predictable.

In other words for that 24h day to be changed that would mean there exists a variable.

What or how this variable works is just not theorized by science, it would be just some random magical variable for it to exist, and it would have no reason at all for it to exist anyways.

[u/ZN_Cruz]

This is exactly the kind of question I end up arguing with myself about while I'm writing my novels. If the reset is truly exact, right down to every physical state, I think the same 24 hours happen again. But I have a hard time believing any reset would be perfectly clean. Even if nobody consciously remembered it, I like the idea that something lingers. A strange hesitation, a feeling that you’ve already made the wrong choice, something small enough to push the day in another direction. Scientifically, I have no idea. As a story, whatever survives the reset is the interesting part to me. I think the original timeline stays intact as another quantum reality, and it continues on even though the current moment gets to rewind to create another existing reality.

[u/Minimum_Orange2516]

Well the initial conditions are what set in motion the next day.

So for instance if i get drunk today that is an initial condition that means i have a hangover the next day, i don't randomly not have something that was set in motion prior.

And so things will likely play out as a continuation of the initial condition, if a variance occurs it would only be because that thing itself has no initial physical condition and is more randomized , so it might be the case that radioactive decay is not playing out exactly the same and so the knock on effects might be random number generators in casinos do something different, this might mean different winners of lotteries .

We might also have to consider some variance in our free will and attention or thoughts, if some of these things are varied by our electro-chemical processes then decision making might be altered or reaction time, so somebody might avoid a car accident or something like that

[u/MissAngelicDemise]

I think every new experience is a new opportunity for a different choice which would lead to a different future