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At the end of the movie—or the beginning; take your pick—Cooper ends up in a room that is a three-dimensional projection of a five-dimensional object behind his bookshelf. This five-dimensional room allows him to move freely about space-time within some time frame of his daughter's existence relating to that room, delivering to her critical information via morse code—like a ghost pushing books or manipulating dust patterns—that saves the human race from extinction.

Cooper mentioned that “we brought ourselves here” and there is a place in the movie showing a flashback from the beginning where Cooper is simultaneously in the future and past, touching Brand’s hand through the tesseract room while another Cooper sits next to her in the cabin in another time, unaware. Basically like a paradox as he exists in the future prior to leaving.

I’m completely lost as to who actually constructed this room?

  • Was it some extremely advanced extra-dimensional beings?
  • How could it be “us” humans when we would not have survived to “evolve” to higher dimensions if not for the gravity equation being solved based on this very mission being a success?
  • Is this hinting at the Many-Worlds Interpretation in which infinite universes exists and only one scenario was needed of humans surviving to mastering the universe to then help “lesser” humans in the far past in another universe (to avoid a paradox)?

This room was the entire movie in terms of its importance in saving the human race so who—exactly—made it?

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    Ha ha ha! They protected this so non-registers cannot answer and the only answer that made sense, even to canon, was a non-registered person named "Martin". Irony.
    – King Friday
    Commented Nov 12, 2014 at 17:21
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    When you have time travel like this, it usually ends up in a circular conclusion or a paradox. Humans went into space because there is a wormhole that could lead us to other galaxies. The wormhole is there because future humans made it. But there would not be future humans if humans did not go to space using the wormhole. Head spinning start now!
    – Huangism
    Commented Nov 13, 2014 at 15:38
  • @Huangism the wormhole would not have existed but that doesn't mean humans would not have sent their seed to other potential planets prior to the wormhole possibility. Given enough time for these seeds to work, the advanced beings would have mastered space-time to discover their origin of Earth, create the wormhole and thus the scenario we see in the movie to save the people of Earth. A paradox could exist from future beings altering the past but this allows for the idea that future humans would exist regardless to save the Earth of the past.
    – King Friday
    Commented Nov 13, 2014 at 15:43
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    but how are they going to send seed to another habitable planet? Without the wormhole, they can't get there. I think the movie mentioned NASA was reinstated because of the wormhole which means there would be no NASA if not for that wormhole. They don't even know where other habitable planets are.
    – Huangism
    Commented Nov 13, 2014 at 15:49
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    Agreed, I am just saying based on what the movie provides, it's a paradox. I think the movie is a very good movie but it's hard to get away without presenting a paradox in these type of films
    – Huangism
    Commented Nov 13, 2014 at 15:54

3 Answers 3

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"How could it be “us” humans when we would not have survived to “evolve” to higher dimensions if not for the gravity equation being solved based on this very mission being a success?"

Humanity survived through the plan B, that's why they mention it all the time. Then they build the worm hole to save the people of the planet.

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  • @Huangusm made some good points, see above comments although you probably won't see this again, "Martin".
    – King Friday
    Commented Nov 13, 2014 at 16:04
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    Martin. Your answer is better than entertainment weeklys. But. I think there were multiple timelines here. I think that humanity survived the first time around. In a bunker in the earth perhaps. Or in a long term
    – Neo42
    Commented Nov 17, 2014 at 19:41
  • ...or in a long term spaceship journey to seed a far off planet after a long and lucky journey through space. Then humanity evolved and created a wormhole for us back in the timeline of the movie in order to try to save humanity better the next timeline around. If they were enlightened enough beings they would see the benefit to changing the past even if it meant potentially erasing their own existence/timeline. And maybe they were transcendant enough to survive anyhow.
    – Neo42
    Commented Nov 17, 2014 at 19:47
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    There's really no way to explain the plot of Interstellar without self-consistent time loops: if you imagine some "original" timeline where humanity didn't have help from their own future descendants, then Plan A wouldn't have worked because they wouldn't have gotten the data from the black hole, but Plan B wouldn't have worked either, because the wormhole to habitable worlds wouldn't have existed either! In the tesseract Cooper says "We brought ourselves here", and Kip Thorne's The Science of Interstellar makes clear that "They" were the ones who constructed the wormhole.
    – Hypnosifl
    Commented Nov 27, 2014 at 16:02
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    (continued) Specifically, at the end of ch. 14 Kip Thorne writes of traversable wormholes, "I doubt very much that they can form naturally in the astrophysical universe. My only real hope for forming them is artificially, in the hands of an ultra-advanced civilization. But we are extremely ignorant of how such a civilization could do it ... In Interstellar, however, the wormhole is thought to have been made, held open, and placed near Saturn by a civilization that lives in the bulk, a civilization whose beings have four space dimensions, like the bulk."
    – Hypnosifl
    Commented Nov 27, 2014 at 16:05
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SPOILERS

The extradimensional beings who created the wormhole, the tessearact and any of the other timey wimey events which take place in Interstellar are super-advanced humans creating the events which will lead to humanity taking its place among the stars.

Entertainent Weekly explains it complete with spoilers, so if you don't want to know don't read any further.

Interstellar gilds its version of time travel with a lot of chatter about gravity and relativity, but on a pure plot level, this is time travel by way of Terminator. In the first Terminator, John Connor sends his father back in time, so that his father can meet his mother and thus give birth to John Connor. In Interstellar, Cooper sends messages to his past self so that his past self can become his own future self.

Furthermore:

While he’s inside of the Tesseract, Cooper also has an epiphany. The fifth dimensional beings are not aliens; the fifth dimensional beings are humans from the far, far, far future, who have evolved beyond the limits of the third dimension. These far future humans are now helping to create themselves by giving humanity the wormhole to a new galaxy.

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    I think the movie needed something like this because given how close this was to our time, and our current lack of anything like faster than light travel, it would have been equally complained about if we were to suddenly discover the ability to "create" wormholes to other parts of the galaxy. The recent fervor around the universe being empty of life may have lead them to take this tact for fear of creating alien life and removing the idea of humanity pulling itself up by its bootstraps. (It would help if we had boots, of course.)
    – Thaddeus Howze
    Commented Nov 10, 2014 at 7:57
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    Cooper tried to change the past at first, like sending the message "Stay". But Murph got the message before he left anyway, so nothing was changed. Obviously this is the "stable timeline" kind of time travel. The past can't be changed, whatever you do to change is is something that happened anyway.
    – George T
    Commented Nov 10, 2014 at 8:33
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    That's not the only circular reasoning. He also was the one who sent himself to the launch site by giving himself the co-ordinates.
    – PointlessSpike
    Commented Nov 10, 2014 at 11:07
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    Can't vote because can't verify the validity of the answer, can't verify because doesn't want to be spoiled
    – Braiam
    Commented Nov 10, 2014 at 12:45
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    Alternatively: The only reason you expect the cause to be before the effect is because you're not a time traveller. If time travel is involved, there's no reason that the cause can't come after the effect.
    – George T
    Commented Nov 10, 2014 at 13:15
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My understanding is that the future humanity enabled by their actions created the wormhole and tesseract. Effectively, they had mastered time and space based on the breakthrough regarding gravity that Cooper communicated. Yes, this represents a causality loop that creates some philosophical problems, but hey, no worse than Dr. Who.

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  • no worse than* ...
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Nov 12, 2014 at 1:19
  • @Micheael Liggan - the movie posits the saving of Humanity through communication from at least 5-Dimensional being(s). 4-Dimension causality loops are rather irrelevant to such a situation.
    – user23715
    Commented Dec 10, 2014 at 21:42

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