I'm confused...

I know exactly why you are confused. You are overthinking things and bringing up questions that even the author has given barely any thought on.

The reason you can't answer why certain things don't make sense is because they were never meant to make sense.. it's an anime, it's not that deep. 99% of people aren't going to understand that crap nor want to. Everyone however, understands not to mess with time and the consequences that is has when it does. Beyond that, no one cares.

I agree the show is complex at times and quite accurate however, you don't need to be a scientist to understand this show. You can frankly fail science in school and still understand everything.. the show wasn't made to be dissected in the way that you are trying to dissect and analyse it. So don't, you're simply wasting your time posing questions and problems to answers that never existed.. because it's an anime, not one of Einsteins thesis.

A question for you before I try to answer, did you read the rest of the Science Adventure series besides Steins;Gate? Your usage and definition of the terminologies are surprisingly consistent with the nature of this world which is revealed through the rest of the franchise

I know exactly why you are confused. You are overthinking things and bringing up questions that even the author has given barely any thought on.

The reason you can't answer why certain things don't make sense is because they were never meant to make sense.. it's an anime, it's not that deep. 99% of people aren't going to understand that crap nor want to. Everyone however, understands not to mess with time and the consequences that is has when it does. Beyond that, no one cares.

I agree the show is complex at times and quite accurate however, you don't need to be a scientist to understand this show. You can frankly fail science in school and still understand everything.. the show wasn't made to be dissected in the way that you are trying to dissect and analyse it. So don't, you're simply wasting your time posing questions and problems to answers that never existed.. because it's an anime, not one of Einsteins thesis.

I know exactly why you are confused. You are overthinking things and bringing up questions that even the author has given barely any thought on.

The reason you can't answer why certain things don't make sense is because they were never meant to make sense.. it's an anime, it's not that deep. 99% of people aren't going to understand that crap nor want to. Everyone however, understands not to mess with time and the consequences that is has when it does. Beyond that, no one cares.

I agree the show is complex at times and quite accurate however, you don't need to be a scientist to understand this show. You can frankly fail science in school and still understand everything.. the show wasn't made to be dissected in the way that you are trying to dissect and analyse it. So don't, you're simply wasting your time posing questions and problems to answers that never existed.. because it's an anime, not one of Einsteins thesis.

@SciADV_Maniac For now, I've only read Chaos;Head Noah besides Steins;Gate, but I'm planning to check out Chaos;Child and Anonymous;Code too.

I'm also confused, why does someone try to make sense of something so irrelevant that isn't even real?

I'll try to tackle question 1 here, because there's a lot going on. The present in Steins;Gate can most easily be defined as "the current perception of the one with Reading Steiner". There isn't really an objective present, hell, Okabe even causes changes to his own past that is perceived as the present with the video D-mail. World lines reconstruct themselves, so every instance of time travel will have always been true once it has occurred, the present only matters to Okabe, who doesn't get reconstructed.

@Zarutaku

So any Anime plot, ever, isn't worth thinking about, just because it's "not real"
Interesting.

You know, when you have nothing to say to a specific topic, it's sometimes just fine to not say anything.
(Do not try the "You too!" angle, please. Spare yourself that fourth grade defence and regain some dignity)

@Timeline_man Your idea is very similar to mine, that only one instantaneous moment of the active WL does present "The present". Reading Steiner works like God Eyes that observe the world. There's no guarantee and confirmation, but I guess it's safe to assume Reading Steiner will be shifted to another WL's Okabe when the current Okabe meets his demise. And when "The present" moves to the point where Okabe's live status probability reaches zero, the ability will be bestowed upon another person.

@kizumi91 That's an interesting idea, but I don't think Reading Steiner is exclusive to Okabe, per se. In some scenes of the VN, it seemed like Reading Steiner might not be as simple as having it or not, but that there are people with certain degrees of ability to sense worldline changes. It's been a while, but iirc, Faris seems to have some, if a much lesser, ability to know that the worldline has shifted. But ultimately. the "present" is a matter of perception, future and past are just concept to refer to a difference of time from the time you are currently perceiving. Okabe has the strongest form of Reading Steiner for the time being. Of course, we have no idea where it came from or how it manifested, so who would have the ability that strong after Kyoma's death would be anyone's guess.