ProfessorFaustus
Chrono Cadet
So I am thinking about the unsuccessful Time Travellers Convention that happened last year.
Why did no time travellers ever show up and reveal themselves?
Perhaps, publicity is not the way a time traveller would operate sanshoaxers e.g. Titour.
But then again, a public announcement that time travel is possible at a time when we are technologically and socially immature to handle the reality of time travel is not something to be handled lightly.
So why would not a time traveller reveal themselves to a single individual?
Inspired by this web site http://www.artcomic.com/timetravel/document_form.html
I thought why not attempt to attract a time traveller.
Every day last week, I slipped a single sheet of paper in random (and not so random) books in every libray on my university campus.
The note, basically following the outline and suggestion from the web site I cited, invites a time traveller to come and visit me. On some notes, I was more direct and asked for temporal asylum and rescue from this time period.
Here is something I posted on the public classified message board Craigislist.
I did not receive any genuine replies.
But nonetheless, I attempted to repeat the experiment. Hence all last week, I was busy planting messages to future time travellers and inviting them to come to me.
Well, that was last week. No time traveller visited me.
Possible reasons are
either
1. none of my messages survived to a time when time travellers were free to time travel
or
2. I did not leave a compelling enough reason for a time traveller to visit (/rescue) me
or
3. time travel is never achieved.
To test this theory, I ask everyone (here on this message board) to repeat the very same experiment that I had I done.
It may well be possible that some event destroyed my university and all traces of the messages-to-the-future I had slipped into the various books in every library.
But can the same hold for every message that everyone (here on this message board) leaves?
Imagine if everyone one of us left a message inviting a time traveller to visit them, and perhaps others, by slipping a note into random (or not so random) books in every library they have access to, then at least some one's message must survive to when time travellers are free to time travel.
It is hard to imagine that every library in the world (assumeing we here on the message board are a healthy global distribution sample) is destroyed, unless there is some global distaster, in which case, there may not be an earth and no human survivors to time travel in the first place.
Equally unimaginable is that no one is worth being visited by a time traveller. Now come on, some one here on this message board must be interesting enough to be visited by a time traveller.
Otherwise, the unbareable thought must be acknowledged: Humans never achieve time travel.
Final consideration:
In the event that a time traveller does want to visit or do indeed visits but does not wish their visit to be disclosed, then let us all make a promise not to disclose the details of our visit by the time traveller but just agree to acknowledge that they do exist and nothing more.
For verification of any one of us who proclaims acknowledgement of a time traveller visitation need only supply a single random trivial information about the near future e.g. the weather report for New York city on St. Patrick's Day 2006 or the Los Angeles Time headline for the the Sunday after St. Patrick's Day 2006
Go ahead and drop me an email of what you did:
the message you wrote
the places you left it
the time and location you asked to be met
Cheers.
Why did no time travellers ever show up and reveal themselves?
Perhaps, publicity is not the way a time traveller would operate sanshoaxers e.g. Titour.
But then again, a public announcement that time travel is possible at a time when we are technologically and socially immature to handle the reality of time travel is not something to be handled lightly.
So why would not a time traveller reveal themselves to a single individual?
Inspired by this web site http://www.artcomic.com/timetravel/document_form.html
I thought why not attempt to attract a time traveller.
Every day last week, I slipped a single sheet of paper in random (and not so random) books in every libray on my university campus.
The note, basically following the outline and suggestion from the web site I cited, invites a time traveller to come and visit me. On some notes, I was more direct and asked for temporal asylum and rescue from this time period.
Here is something I posted on the public classified message board Craigislist.
I did not receive any genuine replies.
But nonetheless, I attempted to repeat the experiment. Hence all last week, I was busy planting messages to future time travellers and inviting them to come to me.
Well, that was last week. No time traveller visited me.
Possible reasons are
either
1. none of my messages survived to a time when time travellers were free to time travel
or
2. I did not leave a compelling enough reason for a time traveller to visit (/rescue) me
or
3. time travel is never achieved.
To test this theory, I ask everyone (here on this message board) to repeat the very same experiment that I had I done.
It may well be possible that some event destroyed my university and all traces of the messages-to-the-future I had slipped into the various books in every library.
But can the same hold for every message that everyone (here on this message board) leaves?
Imagine if everyone one of us left a message inviting a time traveller to visit them, and perhaps others, by slipping a note into random (or not so random) books in every library they have access to, then at least some one's message must survive to when time travellers are free to time travel.
It is hard to imagine that every library in the world (assumeing we here on the message board are a healthy global distribution sample) is destroyed, unless there is some global distaster, in which case, there may not be an earth and no human survivors to time travel in the first place.
Equally unimaginable is that no one is worth being visited by a time traveller. Now come on, some one here on this message board must be interesting enough to be visited by a time traveller.
Otherwise, the unbareable thought must be acknowledged: Humans never achieve time travel.
Final consideration:
In the event that a time traveller does want to visit or do indeed visits but does not wish their visit to be disclosed, then let us all make a promise not to disclose the details of our visit by the time traveller but just agree to acknowledge that they do exist and nothing more.
For verification of any one of us who proclaims acknowledgement of a time traveller visitation need only supply a single random trivial information about the near future e.g. the weather report for New York city on St. Patrick's Day 2006 or the Los Angeles Time headline for the the Sunday after St. Patrick's Day 2006
Go ahead and drop me an email of what you did:
the message you wrote
the places you left it
the time and location you asked to be met
Cheers.
