The Growth Of An Idea V

Continuing from the end of the previous post, I suggest that, if there is a single timeline, then any arriving "time traveler" is either a genuine traveler from an earlier or later time in this single timeline or a quantum event but not both whereas, if there are successive timelines, then an arriving "time traveler" may be a genuine traveler from an earlier or later time in the current timeline or a genuine traveler from a later time in the previous timeline, also that this last kind of traveler might be regarded as a quantum event in the current timeline.

Occam's razor bids us to accept the single timeline if possible but, when Everard says:

"'It could turn out that you and I never had this talk today, that we and our whole world never were, not even a dream in somebody's sleep. It's harder to imagine and harder to take than the idea of personal annihilation when we die.'" (p. 31)

- then I think that there is something wrong with his single timeline point of view. I would reply to Everard:

"I am alive now and expect to be annihilated when I die. Also, another time traveler might come to perceive me as never having existed. However, neither annihilation after death nor never having existed from some other time traveler's point of view changes the fact that I am alive now."