It has traction as far as I'm concerned:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_timelike_curve

A causal loop is possible according to general relativity. The whole universe could be in a CTC meaning we live the same lives over and over again.

The "over and over again" part seems improper, but now, I see or rather remember, the theme of "Slaughterhouse Five" had this framework of Billy's life being the same one, over and over, in that loop I take it?

Long time learning or seeing this, thanks.

New Question:
Why, with there being infinite change, within "one loop", wouldn't the "loop" extend out so that all separate considered "events" or "clumps of things" be themselves transforming into all other patterns and clumps, so that the infinite loops are everything doing everything, and thus not only do we become or return to this moment as the lumps we are, but over the whole long cycle of the loop, we loop through the existence of becoming and having been every other lump of something, so that over the whole massively full infinite largest set of loops, we loop into everything as everything has ever and will ever exist?

The bigger loop, of everything looping into the existence of every other part, infinitely, in otherwords?

That's what hit me when I was 18. Everything loops through becoming everything else, forever, as the infinite pattern, including of course the Nietschean same lifetime looping, which seems an infinite subset of the greater infinite looping set.

Whether there is infinite anything is another question, I am personally of the opinion that there is not, but that is a digression.

Occam's razor would suggest one loop of time. In 4D spacetime, the universe would be shaped like a torus, thin at one point where the Big Bang / Big Crunch are and thick at the opposing point where the universe is at its maximum expansion. Imagine a spotlight running around the loop - thats time, where the light falls is 'now'.

All this is not far fetched - the only place in the universe you can get enough matter/energy for the Big Bang is the Big Crunch.

Right, thanks, the question of infinity. I have so much reading to catch up, I fear life's too short almost.

Yes, big crunch, in 1970 it was Archibald Wheeler's "oscillating universe" which the "big crunch" a mere point in the infinite oscillating patterns of banging and crunching.

With today's cosmology pretty solidly thinking galaxy expansion is increasing, then the whole massive framework of when will the crunching happen, is I take it not yet provable.

But to me, the pre-Socratics who like Anaximander had the idea of from Chaos comes everything and everything returns to Chaos (or to Lawrence Krause's book saying even complete entropy of the universe in the long future would have perturbations that cause potential new patterns of existence), to me, the "how" the infinite looping occurs needs a new framework.

But that the concept, of looping of everything, isn't new under the sun, the pre-Socratics' debates would have been interesting to listen in on.

thanks man!

With today's cosmology pretty solidly thinking galaxy expansion is increasing, then the whole massive framework of when will the crunching happen, is I take it not yet provable. — Chuck Beatty

- There are conflicting measurements of the expansion rate. I do not have complete faith that the astronomers have it right
- The rate of expansion has changed in the past. For example it slowed at the end of the inflation period. So it could slow and reverse in future.

Thanks that's hopeful news then.

As the oscillating big bang/crunch pattern seemed like a good one, if that can still be shown to be most likely.

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Even if the oscillating big bang/crunch pattern wasn't or isn't provable, my "faith" would still return to the atheistic pre-Socratics who couldn't fathom the pattern correctly in detail, but they could fathom the Chaos to existence and existence to Chaos, and then back again, forever, pattern.

My "faith" is that there is such a pattern, just undiscovered as yet. And likely that "pattern" is really something infinitely variable in nature.