Bill Murray's Groundhog Day- What keeps us grounded in reality?

[DudeistBelieve]

So whats genius about this film, Murray is stuck in a time loop. For an indefinite amount of time (but presumed to be pretty much a life time) he experiences the same day over and over in some hick town on Groundhogs Day.

Anyway, whats smart about it is, they don't even bother to explain why it's happening to him. In a way, thats a real honest way of showing scifi phenomena isn't it? Some weird shit happens and no one knows why, thats real life.

However it got me thinking, and this is your question escapist: How would we objectively try to understand such phenomena since the lot of us are grounded in our own version of whats possible in reality?

I mean suppose I was making a post here on the forums claiming that I'm experiencing such phenomena as a time loop. Would any of you possibly believe me? Would you believe your own friends? Family? If they came to you saying they're trapped in such a hell? The only thing they'd have to prove it is a memorization of everything that was about to happen.

And, logically, why couldn't it really happen? Theres really only so little we understand about our existence, let alone the universe. Suppose something something went wrong with it and it effected time/reality? Our existence alone being a happy accident, doesn't that alone theoretically mean anything is technically possible?

 

[tippy2k2]

There is a lot of stuff we don't understand; that's what makes life kind of neat.

For all I know, this is a computer simulation. For all I know, I have literally lived this same day and have typed this same exact message over and over and over and over again but I don't ever remember it. For all I know, Jesus Christ is our one true Lord but the only way to get into heaven is if you are proficient at juggling.

There's a whole lotta shit we don't know or understand

Personally, I don't even bother to try to understand it. I'll let people who want to go insane to think that stuff over.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

There is a lot of stuff we don't understand; that's what makes life kind of neat.

For all I know, this is a computer simulation. For all I know, I have literally lived this same day and have typed this same exact message over and over and over and over again but I don't ever remember it. For all I know, Jesus Christ is our one true Lord but the only way to get into heaven is if you are proficient at juggling.

There's a whole lotta shit we don't know or understand

Personally, I don't even bother to try to understand it. I'll let people who want to go insane to think that stuff over.

Not your point, I know, but I believe I read somewhere one would need a computer as big as the sun to be able to correctly simulate our world as it is presently.

 

[MetroidNut]

Establishing certainty is impossible. We establish probability. If you claim to be trapped in a Groundhog Day loop, this contradicts - or at the very least, clearly doesn't fit with - everything we know about the universe from thousands of years of scientific study. We can't prove you aren't, but we can conclude it's much more likely you're just lying.

Even if you started presenting evidence - say, correctly predicting events - you would need to present enough to convincingly rule out all other explanations (you're making lucky guesses, or you're discreetly causing the events to happen in order to support your claim). Obviously, the body of evidence required to preclude all other, more likely possibilities would be enormous.

Technically, just about any outlandish thing is possible, since we don't have direct proof that it is not the case. But most of these outlandish things are so unlikely that saying they're impossible is basically just a rounding error.

 

[HardkorSB]

I mean suppose I was making a post here on the forums claiming that I'm experiencing such phenomena as a time loop. Would any of you possibly believe me? Would you believe your own friends? Family? If they came to you saying they're trapped in such a hell? The only thing they'd have to prove it is a memorization of everything that was about to happen.

Lottery numbers. Give me the winning lottery numbers in several countries. That would do it.

And, logically, why couldn't it really happen? Theres really only so little we understand about our existence, let alone the universe. Suppose something something went wrong with it and it effected time/reality? Our existence alone being a happy accident, doesn't that alone theoretically mean anything is technically possible?

The past would have to be recorded somewhere in order for you to get back to it.
The only way that could be possible, as far as I'm aware, is if this universe was a computer simulation/video game (like, if there was a save point that a game character would constantly get back to, while retaining his memories of what he did after the game was saved, up until the save state was loaded).

 

[GonzoGamer]

I love Groundhog Day, it's like a really good, long episode of The Twilight Zone.
My guess is that he would be somehow traveling through time each night and in doing so traversing different quantum realities that only have minor differences he wouldn't notice... Like Trunks in DBZ. But that's not what happens because he doesn't age at all.
Or he has some sort of brain disorder that would require more than a day to examine which I believe was an issue in the movie.
Would I have a problem dealing with it if someone came to me saying they had this issue? No, I might not believe them at first and yes, it seems that they covered any simple way of proving it in the movie: predicting the future or exhibiting new talents.
But I think what would convince me is the sudden (seeming) change in the persons attitude; if he or she has experienced 100 years of the same day, I'd expect some sort of noticeable difference in personality, which (for me) would've occurred suddenly. Which they also touch on in the movie. It really is a great film; it really exhausts the device without exhausting the audience...perhaps by not explaining what causes the phenomenon.