[HPforGrownups] Re: Time-turning

[Jordan Abel]

No: HPFGUIDX 167457

On 12 Apr 2007 19:42:41 -0700, Ken Hutchinson <klhutch at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Here's the problem. We are coming up to the point where
> Harry is about to get his first kiss (yuck! but that's right
> isn't it?). Because time travel exists in the Potterverse and
> conforms to the self-consistent, recursive causality model,
> a future Harry Potter either will come back and save the
> day or Harry's life will essentially be over, he will be
> a soulless hulk until the death of his physical body.
> The decision has to be made right now, not some time
> later by Dumbledore or Hermione in the hospital wing.
> Who or what decides or even causes the decision to be
> made? I don't think there is an answer. Recursive
> causality is a mumbo-jumbo answer, it is absurd.

I had an epiphany as to this very issue after writing my previous
post. Now, ordinarily, the choice between two possible chains of
events here is simply random, down to probability and quantum
mechanics. Why choose one vs the other? Well, it's random. But if one
has greater probability than the other, it is more likely to happen.
Now, the Novikov self-consistency principle states that a chain of
events that would lead to an inconsistency automatically has a
probability of zero. From here an argument can be constructed. His
falling to the dementors' kiss would have led to Hermione or
Dumbledore or someone going back in time to try to save him, a move
which would almost inevitably lead to an inconsistency. This tends to
shove the probability of his demise down and make his saving himself
the only possible outcome (other than the usual suspects like "earth
spontaneously winks out of existence", etc lurking in the
extreme-improbability background)