Wizard Sesame wrote:That's...literally the point of a causality loop. There IS no "first time". There is no time where Harry did not go back in time, because Harry was always back in time.
That's exactly the problem. Those theories establish that loops only exist when someone time-travels. Those theories are the ones who stipulate time-travel as the direct cause for the loop existing. Without time-travel there would be no loop. Without the cause (time-travel), there would be no effect (the loop).
Therefore, if we think logically, there must be a time-travel occurring in the unaltered, original timeline, which then changes the timeline and causes the loop. If there wasn't, there would be no loop, because, as those theories establish themselves, loops only exist when time-travel is involved. No cause, no effect.
However, almost always, those theories have no discernible or possible way for something like that to have happened in the unaltered timeline, which is the case with Harry Potter. There could never have been a time-travel with Harry in the unaltered timeline because without the intervention, Harry would have just died.
Simply answering these questions with "well, he just was always there, it's how it is" doesn't cut it, honestly. These are theories based on causality and yet they forget that without a cause (time-travel), there would be no effect (loop). They just insert a perfect time-travel circle in the middle of a timeline and state, "it exists here because it has always existed here and always will" without providing a cause for that, for why it exists there and not somewhere else, and yet proclaim to follow causality.
Cetra wrote:
I don't forget anything. I, along with that other user, have already explained, multiple, multiple times that there is no beginning and no end. It is a closed cycle, or basically, as that is what it is, just a cycle.
Those theories establish themselves that time-travel is the direct cause for the loop, and that without time-travel, there would be no loop. The loop, the cycle, had a cause for its existence, which was time-travel. Furthermore, time existed before the loop and continues forward from the loop.
Despite this, these theories that proclaim causality simply insert a perfect time-travel circle in the middle of a timeline and state "it exists here because it has always existed here and always will". Why does it exist there and not anywhere else? Surely it must exist there and not anywhere else because there was a time-travel there in the unaltered timeline, right? No answer to that besides "it has always been so"?
Specifically, in a case like Harry Potter, why exactly is there a Harry saving himself using time-travel with a perfect loop and not a Harry doing anything else or anyone else doing anything else? If it doesn't depend on the unaltered timeline and what might have happened there to make sense, then why is it limited to just Harry just doing that? And if it depends on the unaltered timeline and what might have happened there, then exactly how could the loop come to be if it's the intervention and the loop that saves Harry's live? There is a failure to explain this properly. They just establish that it originates from time-travel but never bother with more than that and answers like "it has always been so" don't answer it. They are the equivalent of saying "it works, because it works".
Stating that it has no beginning and no end, without referring why it's there and not anywhere else, without a cause for the perfect circle to exist, just highlights the inherent paradox of those theories.
