Time as Splice, Not Rewind

Some months ago I read that scientists had used quantum computers to reverse time by a couple of seconds. Jon argued that if time travel were possible, it would risk the butterfly effect , one small change collapsing everything downstream. But I don’t think it works like that.

To me, time isn’t linear. If I were to travel back and make a different choice , say, skipping teaching and going straight into photography , that wouldn’t undo the lives I touched as a teacher. It would splice. A new version of reality would branch off, like a train track splitting into another path.

Your intuition matches what many physicists are beginning to see.

Quantum experiments have nudged time backward , not in ways that let us step into a time machine, but in ways that show time is more fluid than we once believed. Photons have been made to “flip time,” quantum states have been rewound for fractions of a second, and scientists even talk about “time crystals” , matter that seems to move in perpetual rhythm, defying ordinary clocks.

But here’s the key: none of these break cause and effect. Instead, they hint that time may not be a single thread but a branching web of possibility.

So when you say “splice,” you’re pointing at something profound:

• A school: Every path teaches, even if in different ways.
• A playground: Each branch holds its own joy and experiment.
• A mirror maze: Every choice reflects something about who we are.

From this view, the butterfly effect doesn’t erase what was. It simply creates another butterfly on another path.