Positive Paradox

A positive feedback loop in the form of a paradox. These nearly always either stabilize or become a negative paradox.

An event changed in the past increases the magnitude of the change.

For instance, there is a time traveler that brings modern technology back 1000 years and not only gives it to past civilizations, but teaches them about it. 1000 years later, modern technology is much better than before. The time traveler then brings the better modern technology back to the past to teach to past civilizations, which then makes modern technology even more advanced.

That loop would probably turn into a negative paradox. The technology could be used for war and could destroy the world or set back technological progress, meaning there's no time machine to deliver the world-harming technology with. The loop could also stabilize, where the civilization reaches the upper limit of technological advancement and is physically incapable of being able to take in all of the inner workings of the modern technology within the 1000 years, due to there being just so much information it would take longer to figure out.

Another example of a positive paradox that would be less prone to stabilizing would be to send your past self a note:

Your past self receives this note, and they write a new note, with the same instructions as the last one, but with a 2 instead of a 1. They send the note back to their past self, and they write a 3 on a new note.

After several instances: you'll end up with a note like this:



In fact, that number will increase until you can't write it anymore on a note, and you need to get a sheet of paper. The sheet of paper will get filled, and you could type the note out on a .txt file and put it on a flash drive. When the flash drive fills up, you could send back a hard drive. If your past self is patient, determined, and all-powerful, they could use the entirety of the universe for number-storing and still will reach a point where the resources they have can't store the number anymore.

So, in that example, the note would inevitably not be written back, whether because your past self refusing to sink hours into writing a dumb note or from being physically incapable of sending the note back, resulting in no note being received. When you don't receive a note, you get an idea to send your past self a note, and you start over with 1. Another negative paradox.

You have a cube. Let's call it Cube 1. After 5 minutes, you send it back to your past self, renaming it Cube 2. When your past self becomes your present self 5 minutes later, they send the original cube, Cube 1, and the one you sent them, Cube 2, back into the past, making Cube 1 become Cube 2 and Cube 2 become Cube 3. Then your past self takes Cubes 1, 2, and 3 and sends them back in time, making them Cubes 2, 3, and 4. Repeat this enough, and you'll have a shmillion cubes. The number of each cube corresponds to how many times the cube has experienced the same 5 minutes. So Cube 873 has experienced the 5 minutes 873 times, and is 873 * 5 = 4365 minutes older than Cube 1 was at the beginning of the 5 minutes. Cube 8186817 is ~78 years older than Cube 1. After all that time, erosion from you handling it, erosion from the air, light, and environment, and radioactive decay will eat away at the cube until it completely disappears. So, after sending back a shmillion cubes, the oldest one will disappear, making the number of cubes remain the same from then on since the original cube being added is cancelled out by the oldest cube disappearing. That loop will stabilize.