I agree time travel is nothing which applies to #1,#2 or #3. However Im curious:
Are time travel stories not taking points #1 and #2 in order to create a szenario to explore #3? Meaning I create a situation and in order to make it explorable and detatch it from people’s expectations I use the literary device of time travel.
Try steelmanning Benquo’s idea and not picking apart his bad example of it. That we have now established well.
What sort of explanation could his description encompass? I had to think of Eliezer’s Free Will posts. Which built knowledge from the ground up starting at the roots, going through all the interferential steps up to his final solution to the question.
The Style of explanation used by him empowers me: I can read it jump out when I realize that my reasoing hasn’t come to the end result yet, think for myself and try to get it myself. Furthermore it gives me the tools and hooks to disassemble his whole reasoning. If I, in that fully represented journey of reason, find an error, I could hypothetically take it down.
This would be my best interpretation of what Benquo might have had in mind, when he asked to explore this vague feeling/ idea about a concept.
Said, you seem resourcefull, can you help identify what ‘Zeletic’ might mean? Apart from that: I’m sure someone has already identified the concept and named it. Maybe we can find that?