this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
204 points (91.1% liked)

Memes

45876 readers
815 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well that's some cursed knowledge right there.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I figured this out while thinking about Red Dwarf. Canonically, Lister is his own father. How can his DNA remain stable across all the time loops if he's saturated his own ancestry with himself? This is the answer. It was a 1 in 2^42 chance the first time, but after that, the time loop preserves the coincidence and Lister ends up his own clone every time. He gets all his own DNA from himself every time, and then he just has to get the same DNA from his mum every time. The science is sound. It's tremendously unlikely, but in the infinity of the universe it had to happen eventually, assuming an infinite supply of time travellers banging their own mums.

You can also apply this logic to Futurama, Star Trek, and any other science fiction show with a grandfather paradox.