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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time for an episode from the Vault. This one originally

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Speaker 1: aired December, and it's called Time Traveler zero Part two,

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Speaker 1: the follow up to last Saturday's episode. So we're picking

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Speaker 1: up again with our exploration of the origins of the

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Speaker 1: idea of time travel and time travelers. Let's jump right in.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 1: we are picking up with our our second episode about

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Speaker 1: time travel as a concept, time travel as it appears,

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Speaker 1: especially in Fick Shan and The Human Imagination. The first

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Speaker 1: episode was Time Traveler zero Part one. Uh, then we

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Speaker 1: had a little break and did another episode, and now

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Speaker 1: we're back with Time Traveler zero Part two. Now I

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Speaker 1: thought this was going to be in one, but I

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Speaker 1: guess we wait. Now we're already in twenty one. I

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Speaker 1: get all confused about years. I thought it was going

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Speaker 1: to be next year, but uh yeah, yeah, but then

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Speaker 1: we ended up shuffling some stuff around so here we

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Speaker 1: are earlier than we thought. Yeah, yeah, so we were

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Speaker 1: just traveling back and forth between past and future, uh

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Speaker 1: though within the the artificial confines of of our publication schedule. Now,

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Speaker 1: in the last episode, we talked about some of the

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Speaker 1: earliest possible appearances of forms of time travel in mythology

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Speaker 1: and literature, such as in the Mahabarata and in some

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Speaker 1: say Japanese folk tales, where the way you could probably

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Speaker 1: describe the time travel mechanism is something like time dial action.

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Speaker 1: So uh so, for example, the the story of King

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Speaker 1: Rivada and his daughter Ravatti in the in the Sanskrit

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Speaker 1: epics that would you know, they travel up to the

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Speaker 1: Brahma realm and they stay there for a few minutes.

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Speaker 1: But then they find because time moves differently in the

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Speaker 1: Brahma realm than it does down on Earth, millions of

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Speaker 1: years have passed and whoops, like that, their entire civilization

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Speaker 1: is gone and it's on to a different age. But

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Speaker 1: I think today we're going to look at a similar

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Speaker 1: but slightly different mechanism that appears in the history of

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Speaker 1: time travel mythology and literature, which is sleeping into the future. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this is this is one of the concepts that's

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Speaker 1: discussed in Paul J. Nahan's book Time Machines Time Travel

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Speaker 1: in Physics, Metaphysics and Science Fiction, which is a book

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Speaker 1: that I I cited in the first episode and we'll

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Speaker 1: continue to decide from this if you if you're looking

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Speaker 1: for a good time travel book that deals with like

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Speaker 1: the concept of time travel but also gets into some

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Speaker 1: of the heavier scientific contemplations of the topic, it's a

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Speaker 1: great book to pick up. So Nan discusses the time

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Speaker 1: travel by dreaming was once a common literary device, and yeah,

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Speaker 1: that it's closely related to this idea of sleeping into

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Speaker 1: the future. The and and and this is something I

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Speaker 1: love because this is something that we can all relate

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Speaker 1: to because we all do it every night, right, Well,

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Speaker 1: we lay our head down on the pillow, and you know,

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Speaker 1: there might be a little bit of struggle getting the

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Speaker 1: time machine activated. But once the once sleep mode is

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Speaker 1: in place, um, you were able to skip forward in time.

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Speaker 1: Now depending on how you sleep in the nature of

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Speaker 1: your dreams. Uh, you know, not every journey is going

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Speaker 1: to be the same. Some of these journeys are a

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Speaker 1: little round about, um, you know, where suddenly we have

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Speaker 1: to you know, stop and um how to to to

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Speaker 1: steal a joke from Mitch Hedberg, we have to let

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Speaker 1: um uh build a toy playing with our boss or

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Speaker 1: something before getting to our destination. Uh with my landlord

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Speaker 1: was go kart with the land that Um, yeah, it

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Speaker 1: say so. There might be some distractions on the way,

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Speaker 1: but when you wake up, it will be tomorrow, it

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Speaker 1: will be the next day, it will be the next morning. Though.

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Speaker 1: One thing that's interesting about that is, uh that I

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Speaker 1: think if you ever have the experience of going under

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Speaker 1: general anesthesia and being able to compare that experience to

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Speaker 1: the normal experience of sleep, at least for me, and

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Speaker 1: I think this is pretty common for others as well,

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Speaker 1: the comparison to anesthesia makes you aware that you are

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Speaker 1: sort of semi conscious of the passage of time during

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Speaker 1: sleep in a way that you're not really for the

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Speaker 1: like the pure deep unconsciousness of anesthesia, where I mean

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Speaker 1: under the drugs, it's just sort of like, you know,

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Speaker 1: you snap your fingers and then you're awake hours later,

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Speaker 1: or at least that that's sort of what I recall.

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Speaker 1: But with with sleeping, you know, you're not really conscious

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Speaker 1: of the passage of time, but you're you're sort of

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Speaker 1: maybe liminally conscious that something is going on. Time is

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Speaker 1: somehow passing, it's not quite as much of a pause

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Speaker 1: and then play as as anesthesia is. Oh, I agree, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: That's been my experience. Um. I guess when you sleep

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Speaker 1: and when you dream, time gets weird. Uh. And it

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Speaker 1: may it may feel like it passes very quickly, but

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Speaker 1: when you go under anesthesia, UM, time just disappears completely.

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Speaker 1: It is, like you said, just the like the snap

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Speaker 1: of a finger. Um. So, so yeah, that's something important

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Speaker 1: to keep in mind. But but but obviously, you know,

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Speaker 1: people for you know, thousands and thousands of years would

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Speaker 1: have been privy to this, this weird situation. And maybe

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Speaker 1: it's not even that weird because it does happen every night.

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Speaker 1: Though I would argue that the world of dreams always

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Speaker 1: offers a little weirdness. Uh. People would be familiar with this, um,

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Speaker 1: this phenomenon. And so we see a play out in

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Speaker 1: various stories. Uh. Probably the most famous of these, um

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Speaker 1: still to this day is it is going to be

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Speaker 1: Washington Irving's eighteen nineteen story Rip van Winkle, in which

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Speaker 1: a man sleeps his way twenty years into the future. Now,

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Speaker 1: of course this this would become a pretty standard trope

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Speaker 1: of of of science fiction, especially when you get into

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Speaker 1: the realm of suspended animation. Uh. This, of course was

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Speaker 1: parodied in the long running sci fi animated series Futurama,

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Speaker 1: where Fry essentially sleeps into the future via cryogenics. But

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Speaker 1: you all also find it in various other works. One

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Speaker 1: that Naan mentions is um it was is H. G.

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Speaker 1: Wells When the Sleeper Awakes from eight which is is

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Speaker 1: not what I've read, not when I was familiar with.

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Speaker 1: But this one involves a sleep jaunt from the year

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Speaker 1: eighteen seven to the year so you wake up and

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Speaker 1: there are some giant flying machines that look kind of

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Speaker 1: like skeletal butterflies or something. Oh yeah, there's some wonderful

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Speaker 1: illustrations from this that I was able to look up

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Speaker 1: that I believe we're part of the original published story.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, they're black and white, and yeah, there's like

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Speaker 1: they're like enormous structures. They're these flying machines that look

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Speaker 1: like the they look kind of like the ornithopter is

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Speaker 1: that the Wookies are using in the Star Wars movies. Uh,

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Speaker 1: really cool looking stuff. There was also a seventeen seventy

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Speaker 1: one tale by L. S. Mercy Or about an eighteenth

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Speaker 1: century sleeper who awakes in the twenty five century. And

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Speaker 1: I just have to say, I love how so many

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Speaker 1: of these time travel yarns they're just really jumping out there.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're going, uh, you know, hundreds of years

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Speaker 1: into the future. I wonder again, I think I contemplated

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Speaker 1: this a little bit in our last episode, like, what

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Speaker 1: does it say about a given time period, how far

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Speaker 1: into the future time their fictional time travelers are going. Now,

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Speaker 1: one of the things that Nan points out is that

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Speaker 1: sleeping into the future is quite an old trope, and uh,

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Speaker 1: it might well be the oldest time travel concept in

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Speaker 1: human storytelling. I don't think any of the examples we're

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Speaker 1: looking at would go back farther than the Maha Barta,

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Speaker 1: which did not involve sleeping and was more of the

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Speaker 1: time dilation version. But but certainly it us go way back.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to cite an example of sleeping into the

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Speaker 1: future from the ancient world in just a minute here. Well,

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Speaker 1: the one that the name shares is from around six

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Speaker 1: hundred ce Gregory of Tours told a story titled The

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Speaker 1: Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, who traveled three hundred and seventy

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Speaker 1: two years via sleep whoa sometimes known as the Seven Sleepers.

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Speaker 1: This is a medieval tale told about a group of

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Speaker 1: Christian youths who hide in a cave outside of of

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Speaker 1: the city around to fifty c in order to escape

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Speaker 1: Roman persecution, and they emerge. I think that the exact

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Speaker 1: number of years they sleep varies. I've seen three hundred,

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Speaker 1: I've seen three seventy two. But they they wake up

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Speaker 1: and they find that the that everything has changed. The

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Speaker 1: city is now a city of believers and um in

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Speaker 1: a in A version of this tale is also found

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Speaker 1: in the Qoran. Now that's interesting because it shows one

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Speaker 1: of the things that time travel is sometimes used to

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Speaker 1: do in literature and in folk tales, which is to

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Speaker 1: uh to sort of vindicate a person's reputation or point

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Speaker 1: of view, to to show sort of like, yep, the

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Speaker 1: future acknowledged they were right. So these people go and

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Speaker 1: fall asleep in a cave as a persecuted minority and

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Speaker 1: then come out and their side is finally vindicated and

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Speaker 1: has taken over. Yeah, and and I guess on on

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Speaker 1: a simpler level, it's it's about using the time travel

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Speaker 1: story to compare the past and the future or the

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Speaker 1: past in the present, whichever compare two points of time

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Speaker 1: and have some a character or characters involved as the

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Speaker 1: bridge between the two that can provide a point of view. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's right. So the stories allow a level of perspective

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Speaker 1: that doesn't occur in reality. That you know that you

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Speaker 1: can see two things that a person in reality can

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Speaker 1: can never see both of two different ages. Uh. But

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Speaker 1: I found an example I thought was really interesting because

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Speaker 1: it turns out sleeping into the future actually goes back

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Speaker 1: even farther than the the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. I

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Speaker 1: wanted to talk about a really interesting example I came

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Speaker 1: across in the stories of the first century b CE

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Speaker 1: Jewish scholar and a legend miracle worker named Honey the

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Speaker 1: Circle Maker. Now, I think his best historians can tell

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Speaker 1: Honey was a real person. This is not like a

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Speaker 1: purely legendary figure, though I think some of the accounts

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Speaker 1: of his life are obviously probably legendary. But but it

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Speaker 1: seems like this was a real guy. He was a

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Speaker 1: real scholar who lived in the first century b C.

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Speaker 1: He's not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible or the Tanock.

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Speaker 1: He he lived after the books of the Tannock were composed,

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Speaker 1: but stories about him are preserved in the Talmud, the

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Speaker 1: collection of of Jewish law and uh commentary known as

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Speaker 1: the Talmud. And he gets his epithet the circle Maker

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Speaker 1: or sometimes the circle drawer from the most famous story

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Speaker 1: about his life, which which I will tell now. And

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Speaker 1: I'm summarizing the version that appears in the Babylonian Talmud,

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Speaker 1: which I found in full text English translation with a

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Speaker 1: nice searchable online version called the William Davidson Digital Edition

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Speaker 1: of the Talmud. It's got both English and modern Hebrew

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Speaker 1: side by side, so it looks like a very usable addition.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, the story of the most famous miracle goes

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Speaker 1: like this. So there's this Jewish scholar named Hony Uh

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Speaker 1: and he is living in a time of drought, and

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Speaker 1: the people come to him and ask Hony to pray

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Speaker 1: to God that rain might fall. And Hony seems very

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Speaker 1: confident that he's going to get results, because he tells

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Speaker 1: the people that they need to go and bring their

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Speaker 1: clay ovens inside because there's about to be so much

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Speaker 1: rain that the clay will dissolve. In the downpour. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you don't want that happen. So Hony prays, but no

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Speaker 1: rain comes, and in response, Hony steps it up. So

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Speaker 1: he draws a circle in the dust on the ground,

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Speaker 1: and he stands inside the circle, and then he says, quote,

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Speaker 1: Master of the Universe, your children have turned to their

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Speaker 1: faces towards me, as I am a member of your household.

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Speaker 1: Therefore I take an oath by your great name that

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Speaker 1: I will not move from here until you have mercy

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Speaker 1: upon your children and answer their prayers for rain. And

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Speaker 1: apparently it works, because a little sprinkling of rain then begins,

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Speaker 1: but it's a weak rain. So Hony is not satisfied,

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Speaker 1: and he prays to God again, saying quote, I did

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Speaker 1: not ask for this, but for rain to fill the cisterns,

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Speaker 1: ditches and caves with enough water to last the entire year.

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Speaker 1: So then the rain picks up and it starts to

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Speaker 1: pour violently, mightily rushing rain. Uh. And Hony isn't quite

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Speaker 1: happy with this either, so he says, quote, I did

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Speaker 1: not ask for this damaging rain either, but for rain

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Speaker 1: of benevolence, blessing, and generosity. I kind of like that.

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Speaker 1: He's uh, He's kind of standing up to the Hebraic

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Speaker 1: God in a way that you know, you don't see

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Speaker 1: in in various other stories, certainly you don't see and say,

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Speaker 1: like the Book of job right, there's a very different attitude. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: with Tony here and and his sort of almost rudeness

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Speaker 1: with God. Is is something that does come up in

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Speaker 1: a controversy in the epilogue to the story. But just

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Speaker 1: to quickly finish the story, uh, the narrative says quote Subsequently,

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Speaker 1: the rains fell in their standard manner, but continued unabated,

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Speaker 1: filling the city with water until all of the Jews

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Speaker 1: exited the residential areas of Jerusalem and went to the

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Speaker 1: Tipple Mount due to the rain. So he calls for

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Speaker 1: rain and God provides it. But then there's sort of

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Speaker 1: an epilogue where there's like controversy about several things. First

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Speaker 1: of all, the people ask is it raining too much?

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Speaker 1: Should should Hony pray to God to make it stop now?

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Speaker 1: And they have a back and forth about that. But

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Speaker 1: then also it's the question is raised, you know, was

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Speaker 1: there kind of something wrong with the way Hony was

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Speaker 1: was nagging God for rain? Like the text actually the

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Speaker 1: English translation, I was looking at uses the word nag,

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Speaker 1: but ultimately the scholars conclude that, you know, Hony is

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Speaker 1: okay because God responded to his please without repre manned,

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Speaker 1: And so it seems like Tony's relationship with God is good. Well,

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Speaker 1: he was like a member of his households. Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: they go way back. So that's Hony the circle maker.

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Speaker 1: But how it becomes relevant to time travel is there

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Speaker 1: is actually a story of Hony sleeping into the future. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And this story is also from the Babylonian Talmud. It

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Speaker 1: is attributed to a Rabbi Johannon, and I just want

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Speaker 1: to read it here and then we can talk about

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Speaker 1: it a bit. Quote all the days of the life

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Speaker 1: of that righteous man Hony, he was distressed over the

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Speaker 1: meaning of this verse A song of a sense. When

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Speaker 1: the Lord brought back those who returned to Zion, we

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Speaker 1: were like those who dream Psalms one one. He said

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Speaker 1: to himself, is there really a person who can sleep

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Speaker 1: and dream for seventy years? How is it possible to

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Speaker 1: compare the seventy year exile in Babylonia to a dream?

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Speaker 1: One day he was walking along the road when he

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Speaker 1: saw a certain man planting a care u tree. Honey

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Speaker 1: said to him, this tree, after how many years will

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Speaker 1: it bear fruit? The man said to him, it will

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Speaker 1: not produce fruit until seventy years have passed. Honey said

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Speaker 1: to him, is it obvious to you that you will

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Speaker 1: live seventy years that you expect to benefit from this tree?

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Speaker 1: He said to him, that man himself found a world

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Speaker 1: full of carab trees, just as my ancestors planted for me,

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Speaker 1: I too, am planting for my descendants. Okay, so you

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Speaker 1: know it takes this tree seventy years to grow. He's

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Speaker 1: but he's not planting it hoping to reap the fruits himself.

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Speaker 1: I guess these would be legum pods that grow off

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Speaker 1: of the carob tree. Um. You know, he's planting for

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Speaker 1: for future generations, his his descendants. But the story goes on.

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Speaker 1: So it says Honey sat and ate bread. Sleep overcame him,

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Speaker 1: and he slept. A cliff formed around him, and he

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Speaker 1: disappeared from sight and slept for seventy years. When he awoke,

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Speaker 1: he saw a certain man gathering caribs from that tree.

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Speaker 1: Honey said to him, are you the one who planted

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Speaker 1: this tree? The man said to him, I am his

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Speaker 1: son's son. Honey said to him, I can learn from

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Speaker 1: this that I have slept for seventy years, And indeed

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Speaker 1: he saw his donkey had sired several herds during those

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Speaker 1: many years. Hony went home and said to the members

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Speaker 1: of the household, is the son of Hony the circle

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Speaker 1: Maker alive? They said to him, his son is no

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Speaker 1: longer with us, but his son's son is alive. He

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Speaker 1: said to them, I am Hony the circle Maker. They

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Speaker 1: did not believe him. They went to the study hall,

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Speaker 1: where he heard the sages say about one scholar his halicott.

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Speaker 1: And I think this word means um like religious laws

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Speaker 1: or writings of or about religious laws. His halicott are

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Speaker 1: as enlightening and as clear as in the years of

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Speaker 1: Hony the Circle Maker. For when Hony would enter the

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Speaker 1: study hall, he would resolve for the sages any difficulty

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Speaker 1: they had. Hony said to them, I am he. But

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Speaker 1: they did not believe him and did not pay him

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Speaker 1: proper respect. Hony became very upset, prayed for mercy, and died.

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Speaker 1: And then it offers a bit of commentary. Rava said,

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Speaker 1: this explains the folk saying where when people say either

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Speaker 1: friendship or death as one who has no friends is

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Speaker 1: better off dead. Oh wow, I thought this was a

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Speaker 1: really interesting story. And so there are a bunch of

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Speaker 1: things about it. One is that it ties into a

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Speaker 1: common theme of sleeping into the future, which is the

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Speaker 1: passing away of everything that one cares about in the presence.

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Speaker 1: So Hony sleeps seventy years into the future, but he's

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Speaker 1: not confronted with You know, when we think of like

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Speaker 1: time travel and science fiction going into the future, a

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Speaker 1: lot of it is it is like people want to

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Speaker 1: see amazing new types of technology or some kind of

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Speaker 1: noticeable progress or or you know, or regress, you know,

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Speaker 1: something some kind of change in the world that is notable.

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Speaker 1: But but I don't think Honey really notices any um

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Speaker 1: change to the scenario of the world. There's nothing to

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Speaker 1: be amazed at. Instead, it's just that the unnoticed passage

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Speaker 1: of time is lost and life without your friends and

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Speaker 1: family is not worth living. Yeah, it's it's a nice

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Speaker 1: it's a nice message. Um. Yeah. But but it's interesting too,

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Speaker 1: Like you say that the world hasn't really changed. There's

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Speaker 1: no indication that technology has changed. Um, And I guess

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Speaker 1: for a lot of people throughout history that probably seemed

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Speaker 1: to be the case. I mean that the basic technology

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Speaker 1: you're using and your understanding of the world has not changed.

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Speaker 1: This is just the way things are. These are the

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Speaker 1: tools we have. The things that will change, and you

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Speaker 1: know that they'll change, will be um, you know, the

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Speaker 1: the lifespans of of a human activity. You know that

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Speaker 1: that people will will live and die and be born

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Speaker 1: and grow old. And then also you know that, uh,

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Speaker 1: there's a good chance that as as people live and die,

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Speaker 1: so will king's, so will rulers, and so there will

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Speaker 1: be the you know, the ob and flow of dynasties

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Speaker 1: as as well as wars and so forth. Right. Another

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Speaker 1: interesting thing I thought about this is that Hony gets

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Speaker 1: to see his own posthumous reputation as a scholar, which

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Speaker 1: apparently is going very strong. Like he goes and finds

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Speaker 1: in the study hall that people really appreciate the teachings

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Speaker 1: of him, of Hony the Circle Maker, but he can't

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Speaker 1: really enjoy that that positive reputation now because people don't

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Speaker 1: believe he's really that guy that they respect. In principle,

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Speaker 1: that raises an interesting question about what we value in reputation.

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Speaker 1: Like most people want to be I want to have

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Speaker 1: a good reputation want people to like them. But would

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Speaker 1: it be would you be happy to have a good

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Speaker 1: reputation if people didn't recognize you as yourself, if they

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Speaker 1: didn't connect you in your current body to the bearer

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Speaker 1: of that reputation. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty pretty interesting. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it makes you think about like legendary people and indeed,

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Speaker 1: what if you had time travel scenarios where they got

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Speaker 1: to travel into the future and they're like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm famous. But also that that image of me has

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Speaker 1: grown so and is and is so revered that you know,

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Speaker 1: me just standing here, they're not even gonna identify me

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Speaker 1: with that person. Well, so, anyway, I think this story

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Speaker 1: would not be as old as the time dilation story

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Speaker 1: in the Mahabarita, But otherwise I think this may be

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Speaker 1: the oldest time travel story that that I've been able

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Speaker 1: to come across, and it's definitely the oldest sleeping into

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Speaker 1: the future story that I've found. Now, this wouldn't know,

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Speaker 1: this wouldn't be older, but I did. I did run

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Speaker 1: across some some interesting additional time weirdness stories here. Um uh.

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Speaker 1: In between the publication of Part one in this series

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Speaker 1: and the recording of part two. UH listener by the

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Speaker 1: name of Ahmed wrote in, Ahmed has written in before

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Speaker 1: with some interesting content, but this time Ahmed wrote into

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Speaker 1: share a couple of time travel tales related to Islamic tradition.

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Speaker 1: One of them and he ends up mentioning the Seven Sleepers. Again.

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Speaker 1: We had not actually recorded this episode yet, so he

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Speaker 1: did not know that seven seven Sleepers were coming. But

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Speaker 1: he also shared the following us. So I'm going to

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Speaker 1: read from Ahmed's email quote. According to Muslim tradition, Mohammed

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Speaker 1: ascends to Heaven from Mecca on the back of a

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Speaker 1: winged mount with the angel Gabriel as his guide. There,

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Speaker 1: he individually meets with the prophets who came before him,

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Speaker 1: ending with Moses and Abraham. Finally, he has an audience

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Speaker 1: with God, who tells him to instruct Muslims to pray

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Speaker 1: fifty times per day. After some back and forth at

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Speaker 1: the urging of Moses, who says that fifty is far

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Speaker 1: too onerous, Muhammed leaves with the current five day prayers

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Speaker 1: for Muslims. Notably, many Muslims sources say that when Mohammed

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Speaker 1: turns from this journey, his door is still swinging back

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Speaker 1: and forth, suggesting either a complete stoppage of time or

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Speaker 1: at least a considerable dilation. That is very interesting. And

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Speaker 1: the plays once again on the idea that that time

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Speaker 1: passes differently in the heavens or in the realm of

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Speaker 1: God or the gods than it does here on earth,

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Speaker 1: that maybe you know that you know, I guess it's

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Speaker 1: similar to the idea that a day is as a

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Speaker 1: thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So there's something about the story that was like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: this this sounds familiar. I think I've I've read this before,

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Speaker 1: or I've I've heard something like this before. So I

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Speaker 1: looked into it a little bit and then I realized, oh, yes,

400
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Speaker 1: there is a there's a wonderful creature involved in some

401
00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:49,160
Speaker 1: of these tellings. Um and and again um um. Ahm

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Speaker 1: Ed mentioned that there's a winged mount uh that that

403
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Speaker 1: the prophet rides on, and this creature is sometimes described

404
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Speaker 1: as Alba rock um, which means the shining or resplendent

405
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Speaker 1: one um. Those were those translations were were provided by

406
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Speaker 1: Jorge Luis Borges and his book Imaginary Beings and Carol

407
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:15,080
Speaker 1: Rose the Folklore's also provides the translation the lightning. So

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a winged centaur in many artist depictions.

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Speaker 1: You can look up images of of this. It's you know,

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Speaker 1: sometimes spelled bu r a q or b o r

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Speaker 1: a k in English, and rose ads that it is.

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Speaker 1: It's generally described as being pure white. Uh. Sometimes it's

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Speaker 1: covered with jewels and precious stones that might be of

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Speaker 1: varying colors. Its breath is perfume, and it can understand

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Speaker 1: human speech, but sources on are split on whether the

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Speaker 1: creature can actually talk itself or if it can just

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Speaker 1: understand um. But I wanted to read just a bit

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Speaker 1: from boges book here. Uh. He shares a bit about

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Speaker 1: about al Baraq. Quote. One Islamic Haadith tells us that

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Speaker 1: is Baraque flew upward from the earth. It kicked over

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Speaker 1: a jar filled with water. The prophet was taken up

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Speaker 1: to the seventh Heaven, where he spoke with each of

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Speaker 1: the patriarchs and angels that reside there, crossed the oneness,

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Speaker 1: and felt a chill that froze his heart when the

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Speaker 1: hand of God patted him on the shoulder the time

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Speaker 1: of men is not the time of God. When he

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Speaker 1: returned to earth, the prophet caught the jar before a

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Speaker 1: single drop of water had spilled out of it. Wow.

429
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:29,400
Speaker 1: That Yeah, that's time dilation again. That's amazing. Yeah. Yea,

430
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:31,600
Speaker 1: the door is still swinging back and forth. The jar

431
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 1: of water that was dropped has not yet hit the ground.

432
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: Uh so so yeah, I love this account and I

433
00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:41,520
Speaker 1: love that we have ah, this wonderful uh fantastic beast here. Um.

434
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:43,560
Speaker 1: By the way, if you pick up a copy of

435
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:47,239
Speaker 1: the Book of Imaginary Beings, the version that's imprint right

436
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: now with illustrations by Peter Siss, al Baraq is on

437
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 1: the cover, or a depiction of Albaroq is on the cover.

438
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:55,000
Speaker 1: But but also look up some of the various art

439
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 1: art artistic ways that this creature has been brought to

440
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 1: life in different is Lament cultures. Because it's pretty fabulous. Yeah,

441
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:05,359
Speaker 1: this illustration is great because it is it's almost like

442
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: a mix between a pegasus and a megalithic sculpture. Yeah. Now,

443
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:14,400
Speaker 1: another possible example of time travel and old texts UM

444
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: can be found in the sixteenth century Ming Dynasty text

445
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 1: from China Journey into the West UM. And I actually

446
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 1: had not thought to look here until you mentioned it.

447
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:29,040
Speaker 1: To Joe, and so I ended up uh checking it

448
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 1: out see what exactly the Monkey King was up to.

449
00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: Uh that relates to time travel? Oh okay, So I

450
00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:37,719
Speaker 1: think I came across a mention of time travel in

451
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 1: the supplement to the Journey to the West. But there,

452
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 1: but there's time travel in the original as well. Um. Yes,

453
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:47,320
Speaker 1: both to a certain extent. So, um, so if if

454
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 1: you're wondering, yeah, Journey into into the West Chinese classic. Uh.

455
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,160
Speaker 1: This is a classic work and has been adapted many

456
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 1: times in many different forms. Uh. And and it generally

457
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: concerns the exploits of the Monkey King or Sun will Kong,

458
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: the Great Sage equal to Heaven. Um, so there's uh

459
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:08,880
Speaker 1: uh and that's so that's the main work. But yes,

460
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:12,159
Speaker 1: there's also this supplemental work supplement to the Journey to

461
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 1: the West and uh. In both cases, the episodes concerned

462
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 1: the time warping experience of dream so in the In

463
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:23,679
Speaker 1: the original, there's basically just a section where um years

464
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 1: of training for monkey are compressed by a time trance.

465
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 1: But yeah, when you get into the supplement, that's where

466
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 1: things get really interesting. This second work is also known

467
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: as the Tower of Myriad Mirrors and its which I

468
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 1: think Borges would would would surely have loved that title.

469
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:45,479
Speaker 1: Uh And it takes this fantastic travelog style of the

470
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 1: original and gives us even more time weirdness. I was

471
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 1: reading about this in an article by Dr II ching

472
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: Wang of the University of Liverpool titled Tower of Myriad Mirrors,

473
00:26:57,119 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 1: and so I want to read just a quote from

474
00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:03,200
Speaker 1: this quote in the narrative. Upon leaving the Flaming Mountain,

475
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 1: the monkey uh i e. Monkey King or Sugu and

476
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 1: Kong is trapped in a hallucinatory world of mirrors evoked

477
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 1: by ching Fish, a monster epitomizing desire and a negative

478
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 1: force proportionate to the monkeys innate morality, though a tower

479
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:25,479
Speaker 1: of myriad of mirrors is in disparate identities. The monkey

480
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:28,640
Speaker 1: embarks on an array of adventures to various time points,

481
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,920
Speaker 1: ranging from the immemorial Chin to Twe through two oh

482
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: six BC dynasty to the Song through twelve seventy nine

483
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,679
Speaker 1: dynasty that is preceded by the story setting i e.

484
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:46,400
Speaker 1: The Tang dynasty six eighteen through n d. Upon returning

485
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: to his own era, the monkey discovers that his master,

486
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: the priest, defies the abstinence from sex and becomes a general,

487
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:57,359
Speaker 1: and the monkey is entangled in a gargantuan war, during

488
00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 1: which he encounters his own offspring. In the end, the

489
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:03,680
Speaker 1: monkey is awakened by the original time traveler and kills

490
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:07,200
Speaker 1: the ching fish as the embodiment of desire that entraps

491
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 1: his altruism, thereby eliminating the negative traits from his psyche

492
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 1: or self. Okay, so if this counts as a type

493
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,439
Speaker 1: of time travel, you might say that it is time

494
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 1: travel as a weapon, like a weapon of distraction against

495
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 1: the hero of the of the story. Yeah, yeah, And

496
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:28,879
Speaker 1: I guess in this, I mean, in this it reminds

497
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:31,840
Speaker 1: me a lot of of the time travel that we

498
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 1: see in a Christmas Carol, right, because it's all within

499
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 1: a dream essentially, it's all within the nighttime headspace of

500
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:42,080
Speaker 1: a character. Uh. Though in the case of the Christmas

501
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:45,719
Speaker 1: Carol it is um it is being pulled off by

502
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: a ghost in order to try and save that individual

503
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 1: from damnation and and uh. And in this case it

504
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 1: is being orchestrated by a demon in an attempt to

505
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: u to distract and corrupt our our hero. But so,

506
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 1: because this novel, the supplement to the Journey to the

507
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: West is written in the future about a previous era.

508
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: It can have its protagonist at least in this hallucinatory

509
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 1: distraction thing going through the air, looking through these mirrors,

510
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 1: are going through these mirrors and journeying two times into

511
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: the past and future from where he began. Yeah, it

512
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 1: sounds pretty pretty interesting. Um again, I have I haven't

513
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 1: I haven't read I have not read this work, but

514
00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: I was running across some other papers that we're talking about. UM.

515
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 1: Time travel potentially being used in some of the Monkey

516
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 1: King films that have come out, and there have been many. Again,

517
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: there have been many Monkey King films and TV shows, uh,

518
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:42,719
Speaker 1: and the adaptations of Journey into the West. So if

519
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 1: anyone out there is has seen a bunch of them,

520
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: I think I've seen one or two. I don't remember

521
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 1: there being any time travel narratives, but it stands to

522
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 1: reason that time travel pops up in some of those adaptations.

523
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 1: So if you've seen one, that's pretty cool, let us know.

524
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 1: I'd love to know about it. Well, I'd at least

525
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: say that this is also notable for being um even

526
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 1: though you could say that there's some big caveats on

527
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: it because it's like a hallucinatory kind of thing. But

528
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 1: to the extent that you would consider this time travel.

529
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 1: It is one of the earliest examples I can think

530
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 1: of we've looked at that involves traveling backward, because all

531
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 1: of the others we've looked at so far, the time

532
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 1: dilation or the sleeping into the future, tend to just

533
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 1: involve traveling forward relative to the normal uh rate at

534
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: which time would pass or at which you would age. Yeah,

535
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: and it's um, it's interesting to sort of try and

536
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: and and figure out like why that is the case,

537
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 1: and I the best I can come up with is

538
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: it is probably what the author is um is touching

539
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 1: on here, the dynastic progression. Uh, the idea that like

540
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: that that history is important enough that you would want

541
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: to comment on it through through time travel. Um. Um.

542
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know that. I'm sure there's more

543
00:30:56,560 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: to the story there, but but at any rate, Uh,

544
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: here's the here's the Monkey King popping up as a

545
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 1: as one of our our many older time travelers. Maybe

546
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 1: not time traveler zero, but if it's still notable. You know,

547
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: while we're on the subject of um Chinese conceptualization of time,

548
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 1: this reminds me of an interesting email that we got,

549
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: so maybe we can we'll do a couple of listener

550
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 1: mails within this episode itself, which is actually, I think

551
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 1: very cool that the time gap in between part one

552
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 1: and two has allowed us to incorporate some listener feedback

553
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: into part two itself here. But um, so, so this

554
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: is a message we got from Born. So this is

555
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 1: responding to the part of part one of this series

556
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 1: where we talked about visualizing time as a type of space,

557
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: which appears to be extremely common, maybe even universal, or

558
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: if not, it's nearly universal across languages on Earth. Uh.

559
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: That that we talk about time as if it were

560
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 1: a type of space, or a dimension of space, or

561
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 1: a sort of range within space, and uh. And then Rob,

562
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 1: you and I ended up talking about how how common

563
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: it is to discuss the future as if it is

564
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: physically in the space in front of us, in the

565
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 1: past as if it's physically in the space behind us. Uh.

566
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: This also appears to be pretty common cross culturally, but

567
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: apparently this is not universal. And this is really interesting.

568
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: So Bjorn was passing along some comment from his girlfriend

569
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: who is from Hong Kong, and she apparently says quote

570
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:29,040
Speaker 1: When you think of the future, you see it as

571
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 1: something in front of you, something you are moving towards.

572
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: The past, on the other hand, is something you have

573
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 1: left behind in Cantonese. In the Cantonese language, the concepts

574
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:41,959
Speaker 1: are reversed. The past is in front of you because

575
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 1: these are things which happened and you can now see clearly.

576
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 1: The future, on the other hand, is behind your back.

577
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 1: You can sense it but not perceive it with any clarity.

578
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 1: So I thought that was really interesting. I don't know

579
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 1: if I don't know how common or if that's near

580
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 1: universal for Cantonese speakers, but I would be interested to

581
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: hear more about that. Uh. And that that makes its

582
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 1: own logical sense in a way, so you would still

583
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:11,479
Speaker 1: be conceptualizing time as a type of space, but just

584
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: flipping the polls with respect to your body. But but certainly,

585
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 1: I mean, we were talking about metaphors in the first episode.

586
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,640
Speaker 1: You know, it's like the way we talk about time, uh,

587
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: and in the way we think about time, like these

588
00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:25,840
Speaker 1: these are the things that end up affecting the way

589
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 1: we construct our time travel narratives. Well, it makes me

590
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: wonder like if this is it, if this is actually

591
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 1: more common or there are. There are at least some

592
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 1: languages in which it's more common to uh to build

593
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: metaphors where the space behind you is the future, in

594
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 1: the space in front of you is the past. With

595
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: that effect, how people who speak those languages design uh

596
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 1: time machines and science fictions? Are they less likely to

597
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: be sort of forward facing vehicles like you you often

598
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 1: see in you know, the DeLorean and stuff like that. Yeah,

599
00:33:56,800 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: that's interesting now, you know, thinking back to us, specially

600
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 1: talking I was talking about this, but also talking about

601
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 1: not dreaming and sleeping. Um. For the most part, we're

602
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 1: talking about baseline human experience here kind of extrapolated into

603
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:13,400
Speaker 1: into the fantastic um. But obviously, if you've add various

604
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: other conditions and substances into the mix, uh, time can

605
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 1: seem even weirder. I know there's at least one time

606
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:24,799
Speaker 1: travel story that Nayan mentions, uh, some early work of

607
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:27,360
Speaker 1: literature in which somebody's hit on the hill. Oh, no,

608
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:28,839
Speaker 1: I know what it is. It was, of course, Mark

609
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,799
Speaker 1: Twain's Confederate Yankee and King Arthur's Court. I believe the

610
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: time travel what did I say, Confederate Yankee Confederate Yankee? Well, yes, um,

611
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 1: Connecticut Yankee. Rather uh in In uh In in King

612
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 1: or this court uh that book which I think I

613
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 1: read a long time ago. I've forgotten all of it,

614
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: but but I believe time travel is achieved by that

615
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:52,240
Speaker 1: character being hit on the back of the head with something.

616
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 1: I think he is the foreman in a factory and

617
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 1: one of his workers wax him on the head with

618
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 1: a wrench. I think that's right, m and then travels

619
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: back in time. So but it is a reminder that, yes,

620
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:11,319
Speaker 1: when you start talking about altered um, altered experiences of

621
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 1: the brain, that adds a different dimension to your contemplations

622
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:16,799
Speaker 1: of time travel. Um. And you know this is the

623
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 1: case too when you start throwing in various substances. Uh.

624
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 1: You know, we did a whole series on psychedelics a

625
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:25,240
Speaker 1: couple of years back, and one of the commonly sided

626
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:29,320
Speaker 1: effects there is the altered perception of time. And you

627
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 1: know we see this in literature as well as far

628
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:35,719
Speaker 1: back as like Thomas de Quincy's Confessions of an English opiameter.

629
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:39,399
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Now, Nan doesn't spend a lot of time

630
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 1: with this. He points out the quote smoking marijuana or

631
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:45,840
Speaker 1: taking amphetamines and or LSD to achieve a nonlinear hallucinogenic

632
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 1: experience of time travel. Uh. He says that sometimes used

633
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:51,880
Speaker 1: by writers as a way of exploring the concept of

634
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 1: time travel, but it's not something that he set out

635
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 1: to explore extensively in the book. So I was thinking, well,

636
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:02,800
Speaker 1: who who might have talked talked about psychedelics and time travel?

637
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, I wonder what Terence McKenna had

638
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: to say about this. So I started looking around for

639
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: Terence McKenna talking about time travel. And the weird thing

640
00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:13,600
Speaker 1: was is I ran across an interview with McKenna from

641
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:17,920
Speaker 1: nine in which he mentions that he is currently reading

642
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,879
Speaker 1: Nayan's book on time travel. Oh that's weird, I thought.

643
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 1: For some reason, I thought that that Naan book came

644
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:26,239
Speaker 1: out in like two thousand one. Well, there have been

645
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 1: different editions of it. Oh okay, yeah, let me see okay,

646
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 1: first published ninety three, Okay, okay, okay, okay, So it

647
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: is possible. Good, maybe the interview is from eighty nine, right, right, yes,

648
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 1: and the book would have first come out. Sorry for

649
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:47,120
Speaker 1: all the unnecessary time traveling, uh listeners, but any rate,

650
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 1: Uh they the short too late for the short version

651
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:53,080
Speaker 1: on this. But basically I found it amusing that that

652
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 1: McKenna was talking about the very book that I had

653
00:36:56,080 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 1: been reading for this episode. Um and, I don't know,

654
00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: thinking it didn't have a lot ex extra to add,

655
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 1: but he did talk a little bit about time travel

656
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 1: and some of his talks mentioning that he liked the

657
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 1: idea that you can only travel back as far as

658
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,399
Speaker 1: the time machine exists, So you can only go back

659
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:16,280
Speaker 1: as far as like day one of the time machine

660
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 1: existing as a time machine. Um and and you know

661
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:21,880
Speaker 1: then to explore it as kind of a fantasy scenario,

662
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 1: but he also lays out a scenario in which time

663
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 1: travel is more hyper spatial rather than linear. And uh

664
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:30,320
Speaker 1: and N asked, like, what have you pushed the button

665
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 1: on your time machine and it's simply simply made all

666
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 1: future events seem to occur at once. Uh So the

667
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,239
Speaker 1: time machine would be more like a doorway to eternity

668
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 1: rather than a gateway into the future. Oh so, rather

669
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:46,400
Speaker 1: than actually transporting you, it just like breaks the person

670
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: inside perception of time. Yeah, in a way. You know

671
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 1: this this reminds me of the movie, uh Jack Frost

672
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 1: that we just recently talked about for Weird howth Cinema

673
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:01,200
Speaker 1: um in in that there's you know that wonderful scene

674
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:05,759
Speaker 1: where she uh, where Nastinka begs ruby ruby finger don

675
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:09,440
Speaker 1: to reverse itself, like gets the sun to to go

676
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 1: back down over the horizon so that she has a

677
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 1: little more time to finish her chore by dawn. And

678
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 1: uh and there's a lot there's a lot of fun

679
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:19,440
Speaker 1: to be made on mysteray science theater riffing on that

680
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:20,839
Speaker 1: about oh, well, you know this is going to bring

681
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:24,439
Speaker 1: about tidal waves and global destruction to have the sun

682
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: suddenly stop uh and reverse itself or the planet you know,

683
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 1: reverse itself whichever, uh, you know, just to totally screw

684
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:34,279
Speaker 1: up the celestial mechanics of everything. Um in a way

685
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 1: you could you could say, well, maybe it would be

686
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:38,480
Speaker 1: the same thing with the time machine. Say you did

687
00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 1: somehow create a machine that allowed you to travel in time,

688
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 1: that allows you to uh to move around like this. Well,

689
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 1: what if it just wrecked everything? What if it just

690
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: or if it didn't wreck everything, you just like permanently

691
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 1: screwed up your human perception of time. Well, this is

692
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 1: the idea that uh, that we talked about with Daniel

693
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:00,840
Speaker 1: Whiteson where he was saying, you know, if you were

694
00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 1: really trying to think about a machine that would allow

695
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 1: you to travel into the past and try to make

696
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 1: it work. He says, it would make more sense the

697
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 1: machine reverses the flow of time for the entire universe

698
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: around you than that it does anything for you. So

699
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 1: time continues to pass normally for you, but somehow it

700
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 1: it makes time go backwards for the for the entire

701
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:28,319
Speaker 1: rest of the world. Now. In the book, Nan goes

702
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:31,280
Speaker 1: into greater detail with lots of examples that are definitely

703
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:33,879
Speaker 1: worth looking up for for fans of old school time

704
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:36,799
Speaker 1: traveler yarns. But I think it's safe to say that

705
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:38,839
Speaker 1: you know they're there are older ideas and perhaps even

706
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:43,720
Speaker 1: ancient ideas, you know, understanding that time passes in weird ways,

707
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 1: and if there's something particularly human about reflecting on the past,

708
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:50,799
Speaker 1: worrying about the future, and engaging in patterns of thought

709
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:53,760
Speaker 1: and systems of behavior that can connect us to different

710
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 1: times and even deliver us to different times, certainly in

711
00:39:56,800 --> 00:40:00,919
Speaker 1: the and when we when we sleep into the future now,

712
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:05,000
Speaker 1: um Naan writes a little bit about time machines, of course,

713
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:07,879
Speaker 1: and uh says the machines entered the scenario because they

714
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 1: represent reason and of course science, and they indicate the

715
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:13,799
Speaker 1: belief that there may be some sort of way to

716
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 1: make possible what it is to varying degrees thought possible,

717
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:21,359
Speaker 1: at least under certain circumstances. Um, particularly if you're talking

718
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 1: about time travel into the future. Yeah, this is interesting,

719
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 1: and this brings me back to um some thoughts that

720
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:30,560
Speaker 1: that I was reading and listen to an a lecture

721
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:33,359
Speaker 1: by a scholar that I mentioned in the previous part

722
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 1: who is a professor of science fiction studies at Georgia

723
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: Tech named Lisa Yazik, And you know, she draws some

724
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:48,920
Speaker 1: connections between specific developments in technology and not just technology,

725
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:54,320
Speaker 1: technology and transportation infrastructure in the late nineteenth century that

726
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,360
Speaker 1: sort of push forward the idea that you could create

727
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 1: a time machine. Now, of course we know that H. G.

728
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:05,319
Speaker 1: Wells The Time Machine published in eight This was a

729
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 1: hugely influential work of science fiction that I think would

730
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:11,840
Speaker 1: inspire a lot of the time travel stories that came afterward.

731
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:14,359
Speaker 1: But it was by no means the first story about

732
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:17,919
Speaker 1: time travel. But one thing you can say is that

733
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:23,120
Speaker 1: almost all of the time travel stories before Wells, we're

734
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 1: not really science fiction, and that the time travel mechanic

735
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:32,040
Speaker 1: was almost always a sort of inexplicable, uh, fantasy thing,

736
00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:34,320
Speaker 1: and it was like the action of a god or

737
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 1: an angel or some kind of supernatural imposition, or it's

738
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 1: some type of time dilation by going to different planes

739
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: of existence or something. But but with Wells you get

740
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:49,319
Speaker 1: a time machine, a vehicle that is created by science.

741
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 1: Now I think it's not even the very first example

742
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:54,840
Speaker 1: of that that I want to mention another example I

743
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:57,320
Speaker 1: came across that that I think is very funny and

744
00:41:57,320 --> 00:41:59,720
Speaker 1: it will be fun to read a little bit from.

745
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:02,359
Speaker 1: But I was just watching a lecture by Yazik where

746
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:04,719
Speaker 1: she she mentions a couple of things. One is that

747
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:08,280
Speaker 1: before you get to the time machine, um, a number

748
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:11,279
Speaker 1: of the time travel stories from the nineteenth century that

749
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: involved traveling through time based on some kind of device

750
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 1: used not vehicles but clocks. And a classic example here

751
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: is a story called the Clock that Went Backward by

752
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 1: Edward Page Mitchell that was published in eighteen eighty one.

753
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:29,120
Speaker 1: And this is about this is also kind of a

754
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:31,319
Speaker 1: fantasy story. I mean, it's not like a clock that

755
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: was designed to do this by and a scientist, inventor

756
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: or something who wanted to travel through time. It's just

757
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:38,799
Speaker 1: like there's a weird clock and when you wind it up,

758
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:43,279
Speaker 1: people nearby can get sent back in time. But the

759
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:46,000
Speaker 1: thing that I thought was interesting was that Yazick mentioned,

760
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: you know, these stories about technological time travel arising in

761
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 1: an age of standardization of time measures, uh for for

762
00:42:56,080 --> 00:43:00,440
Speaker 1: industry and politics. So in this era of industrial zation,

763
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 1: coordination of rapid transport through train stations and shipping ports

764
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 1: in in the late nineteenth century, Um, something happens in

765
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: people's consciousness that makes them think about time differently, and

766
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:18,120
Speaker 1: this maybe helps give rise to the proliferation of time

767
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 1: travel stories that would follow than now. I was also

768
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 1: reading a short introduction that that Laci Azik wrote to

769
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:36,720
Speaker 1: a recent new edition of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells.

770
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 1: It was the dred and twenty fifth anniversary edition, So yeah,

771
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:42,320
Speaker 1: I guess that would have been last year, right, and

772
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 1: published in eight came out in Karence McKenna read it

773
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:50,920
Speaker 1: in Yeah exactly, Okay, you come more of an inside

774
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 1: joke for us, okay, uh But so she writes about

775
00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 1: how so the Time Machine the novel was published in

776
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 1: eight U and that was sort of the work that

777
00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:04,680
Speaker 1: launched H. G. Wells literary career. He was born in

778
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six, so I guess he was only like

779
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:10,440
Speaker 1: twenty nine at the time that it came out. Though

780
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:13,319
Speaker 1: The Time Machine the novel was actually based on a

781
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: short story that Wells had written seven years before, called

782
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:21,480
Speaker 1: and I Love this the chronic Argonauts. Have you read

783
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: this one? Rob? I have not. I have not either,

784
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:26,400
Speaker 1: So it's it's sort of, I think, a shorter, earlier

785
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:29,880
Speaker 1: version of the Time Machine where the hero is not

786
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 1: so much a hero. He's more of a mad scientist

787
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,840
Speaker 1: who gets into trouble by creating a time machine and

788
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:38,760
Speaker 1: unleash his havoc that goes on for thousands of years.

789
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:42,960
Speaker 1: But interesting fact I learned from from Yazig's intro here.

790
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: Apparently Wells published this story in his college lipmag. So

791
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 1: let this be an inspiration to your college lipmag editors

792
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah. Yeah, it could be the place where you, um,

793
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: you published the garbage version of your future it. Um.

794
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: But yeah. So in subs went years, Wells revised and

795
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:04,720
Speaker 1: expanded the short story until it developed into the novel

796
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:08,240
Speaker 1: that we know today. Um and so. Wells apparently wrote

797
00:45:08,239 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: in later years that he believed there was a rule

798
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 1: for writing good science fiction. I'm not sure if I

799
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:15,880
Speaker 1: agree with this, but but it's interesting. So he says,

800
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 1: to have good sci fi, you need to give the

801
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:23,320
Speaker 1: story only one fantastical element and then make everything else

802
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:27,719
Speaker 1: as grounded, realistic and human as you possibly can. So

803
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 1: how would that apply to the time Machine? Well An

804
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:33,880
Speaker 1: example is that in the original short story The Chronic Argonauts,

805
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:37,640
Speaker 1: Wells had the protagonists living in a gothic mansion in

806
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 1: the countryside, and so I think the implication here is

807
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:44,480
Speaker 1: that it would invite readers to think of other tropes

808
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:48,719
Speaker 1: of Gothic literature, the mysterious, the uncanny. I think the

809
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: association I would have would be with like Charlotte Bronte

810
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:54,920
Speaker 1: and Jane Eyre. But in the Time Machine and the

811
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:58,720
Speaker 1: novel version, he he rewrote it to uh to locate

812
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: the protagonist in bourgeois neighborhood of London, basically as mundane

813
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:05,759
Speaker 1: and uninteresting as setting as he could think of. But

814
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:09,320
Speaker 1: you go into this mundane uh, you know, bourgeois household,

815
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:13,360
Speaker 1: and here's a time machine. It's interesting how you don't

816
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:15,400
Speaker 1: think about the setting of the time machine being mundane

817
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 1: today because it is. It is now an historical work.

818
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:22,799
Speaker 1: So the idea that it's it's set uh in um

819
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:25,799
Speaker 1: in this neighborhood in London, like that's part of it's

820
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 1: such as charm, it's appeal. Like essentially you have you

821
00:46:29,239 --> 00:46:31,880
Speaker 1: have two different elements that are that are foreign to

822
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: the to the reader, or more than two. But the

823
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 1: time Machine becomes a novelist full of a strange and

824
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:40,759
Speaker 1: wonderful places that are not our own reality. Right. I

825
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:43,799
Speaker 1: guess the idea today would be like, uh, what if

826
00:46:43,840 --> 00:46:46,400
Speaker 1: you went into a house like a McMansion in the

827
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:49,319
Speaker 1: suburbs and in the subdivision here and here it is,

828
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:52,799
Speaker 1: here's a time machine. Now we've already mentioned that the

829
00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:55,279
Speaker 1: time Machine is by no means the first story to

830
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:59,279
Speaker 1: depict time travel. Obviously, if you include time dilation and

831
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 1: sleeping into the future, time travel stories can be found

832
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:05,279
Speaker 1: here and there, well into the ancient past, and even

833
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:09,080
Speaker 1: some stories of more direct time travels, such as being

834
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:12,279
Speaker 1: delivered documents from the future. I think that's something that

835
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 1: happens in a story called Memoirs of the twentieth Century,

836
00:47:16,120 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 1: written by Samuel Madden and published in the eighteenth century.

837
00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:22,080
Speaker 1: I think this was like seventeen thirty three and basically

838
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:24,920
Speaker 1: the story is an angel appears from the future and

839
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:28,799
Speaker 1: deliver some letters from future people to people living at

840
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:31,839
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, from the years nineteen seven and nine.

841
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:36,320
Speaker 1: And then of course you get these nineteenth century examples

842
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:38,480
Speaker 1: we've been talking about, like the clock that went backwards

843
00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 1: and stuff that there are still and UH and Christmas

844
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 1: Carol and connect a Yankee and King Arthur's Court that

845
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: are still basically fantasies. But yas it makes the distinction

846
00:47:48,239 --> 00:47:51,280
Speaker 1: that the Wells is really the first to popularize time

847
00:47:51,320 --> 00:47:55,800
Speaker 1: travel as a convention of of realistically grounded science fiction,

848
00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:59,239
Speaker 1: and to popularize the idea of the time machine as

849
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:04,480
Speaker 1: a piece of technology, specifically a vehicle that is deliberately

850
00:48:04,520 --> 00:48:07,359
Speaker 1: designed to allow people to navigate time in the same

851
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:11,279
Speaker 1: way that people use regular vehicles to navigate space. And

852
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:13,799
Speaker 1: I think she says, you know, the obvious comparison if

853
00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:16,319
Speaker 1: you look at this uh, at its historical setting. This

854
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:18,680
Speaker 1: is in the eighteen nineties. This would have been when

855
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 1: we're seeing bicycles and early automobiles, So so there's a

856
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:28,320
Speaker 1: lot of vehicular consciousness at the time. But I was wondering, Okay,

857
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 1: are there earlier examples of actual time machines like science

858
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 1: fiction time machines. Well, it depends on what you count,

859
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:37,160
Speaker 1: Like do you count the clock that went backward? It's

860
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:39,359
Speaker 1: probably not really, that's just kind of a weird little

861
00:48:39,440 --> 00:48:42,960
Speaker 1: fantasy object. Um. But I did find at least one

862
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:47,160
Speaker 1: thing that looks pretty much like a conventional time machine

863
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:51,080
Speaker 1: that does just barely pre date Wells. And this would

864
00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 1: be the nineteenth century Spanish author Enrique gas Bars novel

865
00:48:56,360 --> 00:49:01,520
Speaker 1: l Anacronopete, which was apparently published one year before Wells

866
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 1: story The Chronic Argonauts, so this would have been in

867
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:09,520
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties seven. And this novel describes a an inventor

868
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 1: who creates this device that I think is basically a

869
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 1: giant sealed metal box that is equipped with huge pneumatic

870
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 1: apparatus is that allow you to travel through time, including

871
00:49:23,640 --> 00:49:27,240
Speaker 1: traveling backwards through time. And I haven't read this novel

872
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: in full, but I was scanning through an English translation

873
00:49:30,120 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: and I came across a part that I thought was

874
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 1: so good that I wanted to share it here because

875
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:38,759
Speaker 1: it's it's where the inventor is explaining his theory of

876
00:49:38,840 --> 00:49:44,200
Speaker 1: time via the example of sardines and canned peppers. Robert

877
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:47,440
Speaker 1: Are you ready for this, Okay, So the inventor says,

878
00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:51,759
Speaker 1: it's common knowledge that to preserve sardines from nantes or

879
00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: peppers from calahora, we must remove the air from their

880
00:49:55,680 --> 00:50:02,080
Speaker 1: tin cans. Wrong, we must remove the at atmosphere, and consequently,

881
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:06,560
Speaker 1: the time you see the air is no more than

882
00:50:06,600 --> 00:50:10,400
Speaker 1: a compound of nitrogen and oxygen, whereas the atmosphere, in

883
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 1: addition to consisting of eighty parts nitrogen to twenty parts oxygen,

884
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:17,840
Speaker 1: also contains an amount of water, vapor, and carbonic acid

885
00:50:18,200 --> 00:50:21,720
Speaker 1: elements that are never left behind when forming a vacuum.

886
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:24,760
Speaker 1: But never mind the science, let's speak to common sense.

887
00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:28,000
Speaker 1: Imagine the world is a tin of red peppers from

888
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:31,839
Speaker 1: which we have not extracted the atmosphere. What happens when

889
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:35,600
Speaker 1: the can is sealed without this precaution, Time begins to

890
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 1: exert its influence and carry out its work. First, a

891
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 1: few molecules adhere to the sides of the container, agglomerating

892
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:46,600
Speaker 1: and solidifying, only to petrify with the passage of years

893
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:49,360
Speaker 1: and yield those substances in which we would find the

894
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:52,920
Speaker 1: mineral beginnings of primitive rock. We then note that the

895
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:55,480
Speaker 1: substance is covered with a kind of scum that is

896
00:50:55,560 --> 00:51:00,840
Speaker 1: none other than rudimentary vegetation. And finally, microscopic organisms in

897
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:04,239
Speaker 1: the water vapor come to life, reproduce and develop like

898
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:07,400
Speaker 1: maggots in our tin of preserves, enriching it with the

899
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 1: unending variety of the animal kingdom. Can you still doubt

900
00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:15,759
Speaker 1: that the atmosphere is time? This is one of those

901
00:51:15,760 --> 00:51:21,200
Speaker 1: things that's like wrong but genius. Yeah, like this is

902
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:26,680
Speaker 1: it's he really thought long and hard. Uh and well

903
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 1: on this this this thoroughly uh incorrect mechanism for time. Well,

904
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:35,720
Speaker 1: I like that. It's it's sort of making the intuitive

905
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 1: connection again between time and entropy, which we talked about

906
00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:41,520
Speaker 1: in our interview with Daniel, because it's saying like, okay,

907
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:46,319
Speaker 1: so things in a can they don't rot. You, if

908
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:48,880
Speaker 1: you don't know any better, you might presume this because

909
00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:51,880
Speaker 1: the time has been removed from the can and it

910
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:54,879
Speaker 1: takes time for things to rot. Well, you know, it's

911
00:51:54,880 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 1: coming back to that that idea of of time as

912
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 1: a as a measure of change in the universe. And

913
00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:02,400
Speaker 1: if in the can things are not changing, what does

914
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:06,440
Speaker 1: that say about about time? Uh? In a way it

915
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:09,560
Speaker 1: kind of serves as a nice you know, it's it's ridiculous,

916
00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 1: and it takes a second to really think about what

917
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:14,480
Speaker 1: it's even trying to say with with this atmosphere as time.

918
00:52:14,520 --> 00:52:16,920
Speaker 1: But but in a way it kind of serves as

919
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:18,960
Speaker 1: an It kind of throws you off out of your

920
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:22,120
Speaker 1: your your back of the future line of thinking, where

921
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:25,359
Speaker 1: you think about time as this linear thing that you

922
00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 1: could conceivably move about in um. But but this is

923
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:32,480
Speaker 1: an entirely different model. So I had a hard time

924
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:35,960
Speaker 1: finding scrolling through the book trying to find details on

925
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:39,879
Speaker 1: exactly how how the time travel itself works, like when

926
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:42,440
Speaker 1: you're going backward. I couldn't find that part. But at

927
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:44,799
Speaker 1: least according to the wiki summary, what it says is

928
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:48,960
Speaker 1: that the machine flies backward through the atmosphere against the

929
00:52:49,080 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 1: rotation of the Earth, and this is what allows time

930
00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:54,480
Speaker 1: travel into the past. That would seem to fit with

931
00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:57,840
Speaker 1: the other part about the atmosphere, but I'm not positive

932
00:52:57,880 --> 00:52:59,799
Speaker 1: on this. So but maybe one day I will just

933
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:03,040
Speaker 1: read this book in full, because it looks like it

934
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:05,759
Speaker 1: might be kind of bad but pretty fun. Yeah, I

935
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:10,080
Speaker 1: mean that that concept is pretty uh, it's pretty crazy.

936
00:53:10,160 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 1: I like it. Also, just while I'm on the subject

937
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 1: of of l A An Acrono Pete. I gotta say

938
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:18,720
Speaker 1: that I skipped ahead to the end of the story

939
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:22,320
Speaker 1: to see what happens, and it apparently involves the inventor

940
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 1: going mad and accelerating the time machine all the way

941
00:53:25,600 --> 00:53:29,880
Speaker 1: back to the beginning of time. Oh wow, do you

942
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:31,799
Speaker 1: mind if I read this part too? Yeah? No, I

943
00:53:31,800 --> 00:53:33,080
Speaker 1: want to know what he does there? What do you?

944
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:36,040
Speaker 1: What do you do? Okay? So I guess he's arguing

945
00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 1: with the other passengers in the in the time machine,

946
00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:43,600
Speaker 1: and he says, it's useless, continued the lunatic, laughing convulsively.

947
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:47,280
Speaker 1: Don't you see that our speed is increased fivefold? Nothing

948
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:50,680
Speaker 1: can stop us. I have destroyed the controls and l

949
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 1: Anacrono Pete runs headlong into the primordial white hot essence.

950
00:53:55,960 --> 00:53:58,799
Speaker 1: And then people cry out horrors. Death awaits us in

951
00:53:58,840 --> 00:54:03,080
Speaker 1: the chaos. K us look, and then it says, and

952
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:06,360
Speaker 1: indeed through the porthole glowed a dim light that marked

953
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:09,279
Speaker 1: the beginning of the natural world and the end of

954
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:15,279
Speaker 1: formless emptiness. But continuing backward, chaos gradually but persistently increased,

955
00:54:15,360 --> 00:54:18,839
Speaker 1: and soon not even thick port glass would be enough

956
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:21,680
Speaker 1: to hold back the flood of water, earth and fire

957
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 1: all agitated in a suspension of air via periodic violent

958
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:30,320
Speaker 1: collisions that propelled the floating vehicle through that incandescent matter.

959
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:34,720
Speaker 1: The inalterability procedure that they had all undergone had lost

960
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:39,040
Speaker 1: its potency. Asphyxia was overtaking the travelers. The walls could

961
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:42,680
Speaker 1: no longer stop the heat, and finally the glass melted,

962
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:46,640
Speaker 1: letting forth a torrent of igneous substances with the boom

963
00:54:46,680 --> 00:54:50,640
Speaker 1: of a hundred volcanoes. And then there's like a like

964
00:54:50,680 --> 00:54:55,440
Speaker 1: an eight line ellipsus, and then and then, uh, the

965
00:54:55,480 --> 00:54:58,680
Speaker 1: inventor wakes up, having fallen asleep at a play and

966
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:01,560
Speaker 1: it was a dream. And I'm not sure if I'm

967
00:55:01,560 --> 00:55:04,400
Speaker 1: not sure if the entire novel was a dream, or

968
00:55:04,440 --> 00:55:06,279
Speaker 1: if only part of it leading up to that end

969
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:07,759
Speaker 1: point was a dream. I don't know. I'll have to

970
00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 1: go in and read the whole thing someday. I mean,

971
00:55:09,640 --> 00:55:11,720
Speaker 1: it's almost like there there used to be a law

972
00:55:12,040 --> 00:55:14,799
Speaker 1: that's said, look, you can explore the concept of time

973
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:18,600
Speaker 1: travel all you like, provided everything takes place within the

974
00:55:18,600 --> 00:55:20,840
Speaker 1: space of a dream or vision. Why are they always

975
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:22,880
Speaker 1: doing the dream? I mean, why does it need to

976
00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:25,000
Speaker 1: be a dream? Again? I guess it comes back to

977
00:55:25,120 --> 00:55:28,760
Speaker 1: just the basic understanding that the dream dreams or where

978
00:55:29,360 --> 00:55:32,440
Speaker 1: time is weird. Therefore that's where time travel is going

979
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:34,920
Speaker 1: to happen. I mean, does the author think, Wow, if

980
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:36,600
Speaker 1: people get to the end of this book and I

981
00:55:36,640 --> 00:55:38,799
Speaker 1: don't say it was all a dream, They're gonna think

982
00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:41,400
Speaker 1: I'm nuts. So I've got to just say, well, that

983
00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:44,600
Speaker 1: didn't actually happen. Or maybe they were thinking, look, they're

984
00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 1: gonna actually invent time travel in like ten fifteen years top.

985
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:53,279
Speaker 1: And I don't want my work to them the day.

986
00:55:53,800 --> 00:55:56,040
Speaker 1: But if it's all within the context of a dream,

987
00:55:56,160 --> 00:55:58,600
Speaker 1: you can't say I got it wrong. That's good, that's

988
00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:01,600
Speaker 1: very good. So let's see. We've looked at various concepts

989
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:05,000
Speaker 1: of time travel. Here, time travel by machine, time travel

990
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 1: involving um manipulation of the atmosphere, time travel by magical beast,

991
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:15,520
Speaker 1: time travel by a drug, by head wound um. Oh man,

992
00:56:16,200 --> 00:56:18,640
Speaker 1: there's so many ways to think about it. Time travel

993
00:56:18,680 --> 00:56:21,799
Speaker 1: by cave, time travel by sleep. The cave is an

994
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:24,439
Speaker 1: interesting one too, because, of course the cave also makes

995
00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:28,319
Speaker 1: one think of the tomb uh. Time travel via via

996
00:56:28,440 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 1: death and it um. Yeah, and I guess it also

997
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:34,319
Speaker 1: reminds me of like all these various other stories of

998
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:38,600
Speaker 1: like characters venturing into realms beyond life for realms, even

999
00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:42,120
Speaker 1: beyond death, venturing into the underworld or into you know,

1000
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:45,359
Speaker 1: or to purgatory or paradise. You know, they're all these

1001
00:56:45,640 --> 00:56:51,480
Speaker 1: fantastic stories about somebody traveling elsewhere, learning something and then

1002
00:56:51,480 --> 00:56:55,920
Speaker 1: eventually coming back or trying to come back anyway, and

1003
00:56:55,920 --> 00:57:00,480
Speaker 1: and ultimately, like time travel stories are of the same mode, right,

1004
00:57:00,800 --> 00:57:05,120
Speaker 1: It's about somebody traveling into the fantastic realm and then returning.

1005
00:57:05,280 --> 00:57:09,000
Speaker 1: And that fantastic realm it might be hell, it might

1006
00:57:09,080 --> 00:57:12,839
Speaker 1: be um, the nineteen fifties, you know, it might be uh,

1007
00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:15,319
Speaker 1: you know, seven years into the future. It might be

1008
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:19,240
Speaker 1: all a dream. But let's hope it's not. But regarding

1009
00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:22,040
Speaker 1: the l n Acrono Pete, I do want to say, well,

1010
00:57:22,120 --> 00:57:24,080
Speaker 1: it looks like a great story. And while it does

1011
00:57:24,200 --> 00:57:28,320
Speaker 1: appear to predate wells short story by one year, I

1012
00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:30,640
Speaker 1: think it's probably still fair to say that that Wells

1013
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:33,840
Speaker 1: is probably the major popularizer of of the idea of

1014
00:57:33,880 --> 00:57:38,240
Speaker 1: the time machine as technology and science fiction. Yeah, Wells

1015
00:57:38,280 --> 00:57:40,480
Speaker 1: as Wells time machine is hard to be. Like we

1016
00:57:40,520 --> 00:57:42,960
Speaker 1: said before on the show, like it's it's a great book.

1017
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:46,680
Speaker 1: It's still very readable, very enjoyable. All right, well, we're

1018
00:57:46,720 --> 00:57:49,000
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and close this episode out, but obviously

1019
00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:51,040
Speaker 1: we'd love to continue to hear from everyone out there

1020
00:57:51,440 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 1: insights you have about time travel stories and myths and legends, traditions,

1021
00:57:56,440 --> 00:57:58,840
Speaker 1: and of course books and movies. What are some of

1022
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:02,120
Speaker 1: your favorites right in? Let us know, uh, you know,

1023
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:05,760
Speaker 1: the smartest time travel or to time travel stories that

1024
00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:08,200
Speaker 1: are just a lot of fun, even if you you

1025
00:58:08,240 --> 00:58:10,919
Speaker 1: don't dare think about them too hard. Can you find

1026
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:15,560
Speaker 1: earlier examples of of of intentionally created vehicles for time travel?

1027
00:58:15,640 --> 00:58:19,480
Speaker 1: I want to know, does it go back earlier than yeah, yeah,

1028
00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:23,160
Speaker 1: or other time traveling magical creatures. Obviously I want to

1029
00:58:23,160 --> 00:58:25,760
Speaker 1: hear about that. In the meantime, if you want to

1030
00:58:25,800 --> 00:58:27,600
Speaker 1: check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind,

1031
00:58:27,640 --> 00:58:29,080
Speaker 1: you can find them in the Stuff to Blow your

1032
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:32,920
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed, available wherever you get your podcasts. We

1033
00:58:33,040 --> 00:58:36,920
Speaker 1: have Artifact episodes on Wednesday's, Core episodes of the show

1034
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:40,160
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday's we do listener mail,

1035
00:58:40,160 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 1: and on Friday we do Weird How Cinema. That's our

1036
00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:44,960
Speaker 1: time to set aside most serious matters and just focus

1037
00:58:45,040 --> 00:58:48,040
Speaker 1: in on a weird film. And we do occasionally cover

1038
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:51,280
Speaker 1: time travel films. There we did, uh, we did what

1039
00:58:51,520 --> 00:58:55,000
Speaker 1: troys and transfers to time after time? And was there

1040
00:58:55,040 --> 00:58:57,440
Speaker 1: another one? I don't know if you count Morosco with

1041
00:58:57,480 --> 00:59:00,800
Speaker 1: the Sun going backward, but well we'll take Well that's

1042
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:03,000
Speaker 1: that's three time travel movies and I'm sure there will

1043
00:59:03,040 --> 00:59:05,280
Speaker 1: be more in the future. Guess what's coming up next.

1044
00:59:05,520 --> 00:59:11,040
Speaker 1: Transfers nine uh, transfers nine uh. The atmosphere is time

1045
00:59:11,480 --> 00:59:14,200
Speaker 1: where they where they put Jack Death in a sardine can.

1046
00:59:15,640 --> 00:59:17,880
Speaker 1: I would do I would do. Transfers three, Trancers three

1047
00:59:17,920 --> 00:59:21,600
Speaker 1: is pretty fun anyway. Huge thanks as always to our

1048
00:59:21,680 --> 00:59:25,240
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like

1049
00:59:25,280 --> 00:59:27,160
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this

1050
00:59:27,200 --> 00:59:29,760
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

1051
00:59:29,840 --> 00:59:32,000
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at

1052
00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:42,720
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com Stuff

1053
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:45,320
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind's production of I Heart Radio. For

1054
00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:47,400
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my Heart Radio, this is the I

1055
00:59:47,440 --> 00:59:50,280
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to

1056
00:59:50,320 --> 01:00:04,560
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. Past prop